Hector Barbossa (1665-1751) was an English pirate and the Pirate Lord of the Caspian Sea during the Golden Age of Piracy. Barbossa was the infamous captain of the legendary Black Pearl from 1718 to 1728; while he was killed by Jack Sparrow at the Battle of Isla de Muerta that year, pirate legends claim that Barbossa was resurrected by a voodoo priestess and went on to become a privateer and the commander of a pirate fleet as late as the 1750s, by which time he would have been in his eighties.
Biography[]
Hector Barbossa was born in the West Country of England in 1665, the son of a Portuguese sailor and his Irish wife. He was raised on a farm near Bristol before running away to sea at the age of 13, eventually becoming a pirate. He captained the schooner Cobra during the 1700s, and, in 1705, the Cobra was sunk by the Pirate Lord Boris Palachnik's ship Koldunya off Bermuda shortly after plundering a French barque carrying ivory. After the Brethren Court found Palachnik guilty of violating the pirate code, Palachnik gifted the Koldunya to Barbossa in recompense, and, in 1710, he joined the crew of Jack Sparrow's ship, the Black Pearl.
Barbossa's body
In 1718, Barbossa led the crew in a mutiny while searching for the Aztec gold hoard of Hernan Cortes, establishing the Isla de Muerta - the home of the hoard - as his base. Pirate legend claims that Barbossa and his crew were cursed with immortality, turning into skeletons when exposed to the moonlight, and they lost the ability to taste, digest, or feel anything. In any case, Barbossa captained the Black Pearl for the next ten years and terrorized the Caribbean, even attacking Port Royal in 1728 and sacking the port town. He was tracked down by the Royal Navy and Jack Sparrow, and he was shot in the chest by Sparrow as they battled over the hoard of Aztec gold. According to legend, Barbossa died of his wound, only to be resurrected by the voodoo mystic Tia Dalma, upon which he was entrusted with summoning the Brethren Court to fight back against the British East India Company and Davy Jones, and to travel off the world's end to Davy Jones' Locker and rescue Sparrow. What is known is that Barbossa and Elizabeth Swann - whom he had once kidnapped - traveled to Singapore to obtain a ship and crew from Sao Feng, receiving the junk Hai Peng. The legend purported that Barbossa, Swan, and the crew of the Hai Peng rescued Sparrow from the World's End, only for Sao Feng and Tai Huang to seize back control of the Hai Peng in a mutiny; Barbossa returned to captaining the Black Pearl. He convened the Brethren Court on Shipwreck Island in the Caribbean, where Elizabeth Swann was elected Pirate King with the help of Sparrow. He joined Swann and Sparrow in defeating the East India Company and Davy Jones at the Battle of Calypso's Maelstrom, after which he mutinied against Sparrow and resumed captaining the Black Pearl.
Barbossa in 1729
As, by 1729, Barbossa would have already been 64 years old, it is likely that he died soon after. However, pirate legends claim that Barbossa received a royal pardon from King George II, served as a privateer in the service of Great Britain, became a trusted advisor of King George's court, captained the HMS Providence, and killed a revived Blackbeard at the Fountain of Youth in 1750. The legends also claimed that, after slaying Blackbeard, Barbossa returned to piracy at the head of a fleet which terrorized the Caribbean for the next year, before the "undead" captain Armando Salazar challenged his control of the sea. He supposedly sacrificed himself while killing Salazar, stabbing Salazar and falling into the depths of the ocean with his last victim.
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