History’s First Global Manhunt: The Search for 18th Century Pirate Henry Every

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2020

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Most confrontations, viewed from the wide angle of history, are minor disputes, sparks that quickly die out. But every now and then, someone strikes a match that lights up the whole planet.

That idea applies to Henry Every, the seventeenth century’s most notorious pirate. The press published wildly popular—and wildly inaccurate—reports of his nefarious adventures. The British government offered enormous bounties for his capture, alive or (preferably) dead. But today’s guest Steven Johnson argues that Every’s most lasting legacy was his inadvertent triggering of a major shift in the global economy. He's the author of the new book "Enemy of All Mankind," which focuses on one key event—the attack on an Indian treasure ship by Every and his crew—and its surprising repercussions across time and space. It’s the tale one of the most lucrative crimes in history, the first international manhunt, and the trial of the seventeenth century.

Johnson uses the story of Henry Every and his crimes to explore the emergence of the East India Company, the British Empire, and the modern global marketplace: a densely interconnected planet ruled by nations and corporations. How did this unlikely pirate and his notorious crime end up playing a key role in the birth of multinational capitalism?

Transcript

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0:00.0	History is just a bunch of names and dates and facts.
0:15.6	It's the collection of all the stories throughout human history that explained how and why
0:19.4	we got here.
0:21.0	Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast, where we look at the forgotten, neglected, strange,
0:26.1	and even counterfactual stories that made our world what it is.
0:29.9	I'm your host, Scott Rank.
0:40.8	The first global manhunt was for a British pirate in the 17th century.
0:45.2	The pirate in question was Henry Everie, the most notorious pirate of the age.
0:49.6	The British press put out wildly popular and wildly inaccurate reports of his adventures.
0:55.0	The government offered enormous bounties for his capture, whether alive or dead.
0:59.6	But his true legacy wasn't the global manhunt.
1:02.0	It could have been that he inadvertently triggered a major shift in the global economy.
1:06.0	Today's guest is Steven Johnson, author of the book Enemy of All-Man Kind, a true story
1:10.7	of piracy power in history's first global manhunt.
1:13.8	The reason that Everie was the target of this manhunt was because of the attack of an
1:17.2	Indian treasure ship worth millions of dollars by him and his crew and the enormous
1:22.0	precautions that it had.
1:23.5	It threatened trade between India's Mughal Empire and Britain itself and led to the rise
1:28.1	of the East India Company.
1:30.2	This international corporation is one of the Ford runners that led to today's densely
1:34.1	interconnected planet ruled by nations and corporations.
1:37.3	So how did a pirate and a simple raid on a ship lead to the birth of multinational capitalism?
	...

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