{{Short description|Pirate trader}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox pirate | honorific_prefix = | name = Tempest Rogers | honorific_suffix = | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1672 | birth_place = | baptised = | disappeared_date = | disappeared_place = | disappeared_status = | death_date = {{death year and age|1704|1672}} | death_place = | death_cause = | body_discovered = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | monuments = | residence = | nationality = | other_names = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | occupation = Pirate trader | years_active = | era = | employer = | organization = | agent = | known_for = Association with William Kidd | notable_works = | style = | home_town = | salary = | net_worth = | height = | weight = | television = | title = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | movement = | opponents = | boards = | criminal_charge = | criminal_penalty = | criminal_status = | spouse = Johanna Little | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | callsign = | awards = | website = | nickname = | alias = | type = | allegiance = | serviceyears = | base of operations = Caribbean and off Madagascar | rank = | commands = | battles = | wealth = | laterwork = | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | footnotes = }}
'''Tempest Rogers''' (1672 or 1675–1704) was a pirate trader active in the Caribbean and off Madagascar. He is best known for his association with William Kidd.
==History==
Tempest Rogers was born in 1672 or 1675, and by 1693 had married Johanna Little in London.<ref>{{cite web|title=Tempest Rogers - Historical records and family trees - MyHeritage|url=https://www.myheritage.com/names/Tempest_Rogers|website=www.myheritage.com|accessdate=16 August 2017}}</ref> Three years later he was master of the ''Fidelia'', sailing to the American colonies. He was suspected of sailing from Rhode Island to St. Mary's on Madagascar, which had long been a known pirate trading post. He may have sailed alongside another Rhode Island pirate, Thomas Wake, who was also bound for Madagascar and the Indian Ocean to eventually sail with Henry Every.<ref name="CSP" />
Rogers was dispatched from London in 1697 to the East Indies to set up a factory on behalf of the ship's owners; on the way back in July 1698 he stopped at St. Mary's again.<ref name="Harris">{{cite book|last1=Harris|first1=Graham|title=Treasure and Intrigue: The Legacy of Captain Kidd|date=2002|publisher=Dundurn|location=Toronto|isbn=9781554880331|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O3w46iqYw1YC|accessdate=16 August 2017|language=en}}</ref> While there William Kidd called on the port to switch his leaky ''Adventure Galley'' for his newly captured ''Quedagh Merchant'', renamed to ''Adventure Prize''.<ref name="Zacks" /> Rogers met with Kidd privately then offloaded troublesome crewman Edward Davis (or Davies), telling him he'd send a boat but putting to sea and abandoning Davis there instead.<ref name="Zacks">{{cite book|last1=Zacks|first1=Richard|title=The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd|date=2003|publisher=Hachette Books|location=New York|isbn=9781401398187|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TbqZAAAAQBAJ|accessdate=16 August 2017|language=en}}</ref> Davis sailed with Kidd rather than remain on Madagascar; once they returned to New York, he was arrested with the rest of Kidd's crew and sent to London for trial. Acquitted, Davis returned to piracy by 1702.<ref name="Harris" />
When Kidd sailed to the Caribbean on his way back to New York before his capture, he stopped to offload a great deal of his captured loot. Rogers apparently met with Kidd and bought or took possession of his plunder, possibly by prior arrangement.<ref name="Geni" /> Rogers then traded the ''Fidelia'' to William Symes (or Syms) for Symes’ own sloop; after sailing north, Governor Bellomont of New York in 1699 seized the ''Fidelia'' on suspicion of carrying stolen goods.<ref name="CSP">{{cite book|last1=Headlam|first1=Cecil|title=Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series ...|date=1908|publisher=Great Britain Public Record Office|location=London|pages=486–487|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LBQFAAAAYAAJ|accessdate=16 August 2017|language=en}}</ref> Bellomont thought Symes, a known criminal, may have murdered Rogers and stolen the ''Fidelia''.<ref name="CSP" /> Rogers himself had been seized by Governor Read Elding of the Bahamas, and revealed that he'd sent his London backers over £27,000. Bellomont observed, “Tempest Rogers, it’s to be feared, was not sent from London on an honest design.”<ref name="CSP" />
By the early 1700s Rogers was living in South Carolina, likely in Charleston.<ref>Coincidentally, this had also been the one-time home of Richard Want, another pirate who’d sailed to Madagascar with Thomas Wake to fight alongside Henry Every.</ref> Rogers died sometime on or before 1704, when his widow Johanna married Richard Oglethorpe,<ref name="Geni" /> a “broken rascally fellow … a person of a very scandalous life.”<ref>{{cite web|title=RootsWeb: OGLETHORPE-L [OGLETHORPE-L] Re: OGLETHORPE-D Digest V99 #29|url=http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/OGLETHORPE/1999-10/0938956052|website=archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com|accessdate=16 August 2017}}</ref> Oglethorpe wrote a letter to Secretary of State Charles Hedges (“An account of persons trading with pirates”) in which he repeated the accusations that Rogers had dealt with Kidd, naming others who he claimed had bought Kidd's goods from Rogers, and claiming Rogers had bought Dutch citizenship in order to trade with the French and Spanish as a neutral party,<ref name="AWI">{{cite book|last1=Headlam|first1=Cecil|title=America and West Indies: January 1706, 16-31 {{!}} British History Online|date=1916|publisher=His Majesty's Stationery Office|location=London|pages=13–29|edition=Item 53|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/vol23/pp13-29|accessdate=16 August 2017|language=en}}</ref> and that he had "since dyed amongst ye French."<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=259|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24882/24882-h/24882-h.htm|accessdate=26 June 2017}}</ref> A few months later, Oglethorpe was granted administration of Rogers’ estate in South Carolina.<ref name="Geni">{{cite web|title=Richard Oglethorpe|url=https://www.geni.com/people/Richard-Oglethorpe/6000000000988094019|website=geni_family_tree|accessdate=16 August 2017}}</ref>
==See also== *Ralph Stout and Robert Culliford – Two other pirates associated with Kidd's time at Madagascar.
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{pirates}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rogers, Tempest}} Category:18th-century pirates Category:English pirates Category:17th-century pirates Category:Caribbean pirates Category:Piracy in the Indian Ocean Category:1670s births Category:1704 deaths Category:Merchants from colonial South Carolina Category:Pirates from the Thirteen Colonies