Researchers believe that one of the skeletons recovered from the wreck of the pirate ship Whydah may belong to the legendary captain Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy. The discovery of six sets of skeletal remains at the site of the 18th-century shipwreck off the coast of Cape Cod has reignited hope that modern science can finally identify the pirate whose body was never recovered.
The announcement came from the Whydah Pirate Museum in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts. The museum, named after the doomed vessel, now has the bones on display. They were found locked inside a “concretion”—a dense mass of stone, sand, and corroded artifacts that has formed over three centuries on the seafloor.
Bellamy and his crew met their end in April 1717 when the Whydah Galley sank during a violent storm off Wellfleet. Of the 146 pirates aboard, only two survived. The bodies of 101 washed ashore; the remaining 43, including Bellamy himself, were never accounted for and are presumed to have gone down with the ship.
Underwater explorer Barry Clifford, who discovered the wreck in 1984, expressed cautious optimism. “We hope that modern, cutting-edge technology will help us identify these pirates and reunite them with any descendants who could be out there,” he said.
Investigators already hold one crucial piece of the puzzle: DNA. In 2018, lead investigator Casey Sherman located a descendant of Bellamy in Devonshire, England. The relative readily provided a DNA sample for comparison. “These newly found skeletal remains may finally lead us to Bellamy,” Sherman confirmed. Scientists are hopeful that the oxygen-poor environment of the Atlantic seafloor has preserved usable genetic material in the 300-year-old bones.
Adding weight to the possibility that one skeleton belongs to the captain is the discovery of a pistol found nearby—an artifact believed to have belonged to Bellamy himself.
Before it became a pirate ship, the Whydah operated as a slave vessel. Bellamy and his men captured it during its maiden voyage after it had delivered a consignment of enslaved people in Jamaica and was returning to England with the proceeds. By the time the ship sank, it carried not only gold from the slave trade but also plunder taken from some 50 vessels raided by the pirates. More than 15,000 coins have already been recovered. To this day, the Whydah remains the only fully authenticated pirate shipwreck in the world.
Artifacts recovered from the site include shackles once used to bind enslaved Africans—objects the museum describes as “living links” or “touchstones” to a tragic chapter in human history. Clifford has emphasized the wreck’s broader significance: “This shipwreck is very sacred ground. We know a third of the crew was of African origin and the fact they had robbed the ‘Whydah,’ which was a slave ship, presents them in a whole new light.”
Historians note that, despite their criminal enterprise, many pirate crews practiced a rough form of egalitarianism and racial democracy. Bellamy himself was known for treating his men equally regardless of origin and for allowing them to vote on major decisions. His career as a pirate, however, lasted only about a year before the storm that claimed him and most of his crew.
Work continues. Researchers are still carefully dissecting concretions, and further artifacts remain buried in the Atlantic. Whether DNA testing will confirm that one of the skeletons is Black Sam Bellamy remains to be seen. What is already clear is that the Whydah continues to yield not only treasure, but also rare glimpses into the complex, often contradictory world of early 18th-century piracy.