{{Short description|American pirate}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} thumb|Joseph Bradish, Depositing His Jewels, from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes MET DP835037 '''Joseph Bradish''' (1672–1700) was a pirate best known for a single incident involving a mutiny.
==History== Joseph Bradish was born in Sudbury, Massachusetts, on 28 November 1672. His parents, Joseph Bradish and Mary Frost Bradish, were children of English settlers who had arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630s.
Bradish signed on as a mate with the Borneo-bound 300-ton pink ''Adventure'' out of London in March 1698.<ref name="Marley-Pirates of the Americas">{{cite book|last1=Marley|first1=David|title=Pirates of the Americas|date=2010|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=Santa Barbara CA|isbn=9781598842012|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bU6ML_VnXTwC|accessdate=12 September 2017|language=en}}</ref> ''Adventure''{{'}}s captain, Thomas Gullock, was much disliked and Bradish organized a mutiny against him.<ref name="Grey - Eastern Seas">{{cite book|last1=Grey|first1=Charles|title=Pirates of the eastern seas (1618–1723): a lurid page of history|date=1933|publisher=S. Low, Marston & co., ltd|location=London |url=http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/library/documents/1D30004CA384A81381DD3C8F45CAE3B216713B01.html|accessdate=26 June 2017}}</ref> When Gullock and some officers went ashore in the Spice Islands, Bradish's men cut the anchor cables, put anyone who would not follow them off in a small boat, and stole the ship. Bradish was elected captain and shared the ship's treasure with his men. They sailed to Mauritius and Ascension to resupply and then headed to America.<ref name="Marley-Pirates of the Americas" />
They arrived off Nassau Island in March 1699. There they hired local sloops to offload their cargo, after which they scuttled ''Adventure''.<ref name="Marley-Pirates of the Americas" /> Most of the crew dispersed on horseback.<ref name="Gosse - Who’s Who">{{cite book|last1=Gosse|first1=Philip|title=The Pirates' Who's Who by Philip Gosse|date=1924|publisher=Burt Franklin|location=New York|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19564/19564-h/19564-h.htm|accessdate=23 June 2017}}</ref> Bradish and a few others convinced a local officer, Colonel Pierson, to stash several bags of jewels and coins before heading to Boston. They had hoped to obtain a pardon under the 1698 Act of Grace, which offered a pardon to pirates who willingly surrendered.<ref name="Grey - Eastern Seas" />
Massachusetts authorities were ready for them, arresting Bradish and his men. He was kept in the same jail which had held William Kidd<ref>Bradish is often erroneously associated with William Kidd. They were kept in the same jail and sent to trial on the same ship; as pirates Bradish captained ''Adventure'', while Kidd captained the similarly-named ''Adventure Galley'' and ''Adventure Prize''. The two were not otherwise associated.</ref> until recently. In June Bradish escaped with the help of the jailer, a relative of his.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hanna|first1=Mark G.|title=Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740|date=2015|publisher=UNC Press Books|isbn=9781469617954|page=271|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RSMUCAAAQBAJ|accessdate=12 September 2017|language=en}}</ref> He was recaptured in October north of Saco, Maine after New York's Governor Bellomont offered a reward for his capture.<ref name="Snow">{{cite book|last1=Snow|first1=Edward Rowe|title=Pirates and buccaneers of the Atlantic coast|date=1944|publisher=Boston, Yankee Pub. Co|location=Boston MA|pages=[https://archive.org/details/piratesbuccaneer00snow/page/150 150]–151|url=https://archive.org/details/piratesbuccaneer00snow|accessdate=12 September 2017|language=en}}</ref> Meanwhile Bellomont arranged for the recovery of Bradish's treasure, which Bradish and his men had secreted across New England with Pierson and others.<ref name="seitz" />
Bellomont complained that he had no authority to put pirates to death,<ref name="Jameson - Privateering and Piracy">{{cite book|last1=Jameson|first1=John Franklin|title=Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period by J. Franklin Jameson|date=1923|publisher=Macmillan|location=New York|page=217|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24882/24882-h/24882-h.htm|accessdate=26 June 2017}}</ref> so Bradish was sent to England in March 1700 aboard {{HMS|Advice|1660|6}}, along with fellow prisoners Kidd and James Gilliam and many of Kidd's former crew.<ref name="Snow" /> Bradish was tried, convicted, and hanged, gibbeted along with Kidd as a warning to other pirates.<ref name="Gosse - Who’s Who" />
As late as 1720, his name was known to pirates. Sailors captured by Bartholomew Roberts reported that Roberts' men refused to believe offers of amnesty, saying, "they would have no dealings with Acts of Grace, by which to be sent to hang a-sundrying at Hope Point as were the companies of Kidd and Bradish, trepanned under lying promises."<ref name="Grey - Eastern Seas" />
==See also== * Thomas Tew – Bellomont wrote that he suspected some of Bradish's crew had sailed with Tew and other pirates commissioned by his corrupt predecessor, deposed Governor Benjamin Fletcher.<ref name="seitz">{{cite book|last1=Seitz|first1=Don Carlos|title=Under the Black Flag: Exploits of the Most Notorious Pirates|date=2002|publisher=Courier Corporation|location=New York|isbn=9780486421315|page=81|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i7NLrJnuzHQC|accessdate=12 September 2017|language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * "[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A63652.0001.001?view=toc A true relation of a most horrid conspiracy and running away with the ship Adventure having on board forty thousand pieces of eight.]" – Firsthand accounts of ''Adventure''{{'}}s capture, and the terrible ordeals encountered by the crew who were marooned by Bradish.
{{pirates}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradish, Joseph}} Category:17th-century pirates Category:English pirates Category:People executed for piracy Category:Piracy in the Indian Ocean Category:1672 births Category:1700 deaths Category:People from colonial Massachusetts Category:Pirates from the Thirteen Colonies