10 Most Violent Pirates In History

10. Charles Gibbs

Charles Gibbs was a pirate out of Newport, Rhode Island who was active in the early-1800s. According to the testimony at his trial, the Newport native was responsible for the deaths of over four hundred people.

Killing hundreds of individuals is terrible in of itself. However, some of the methods he used to execute his victims were particularly cruel.

After capturing a merchant ship and setting it on fire, Gibbs decided that the vessel's crew should suffer the same fate and had all of them burned alive. One of his most famous acts of torture involved having a rival captain's limbs hacked off, while he was still alive.

Gibbs would eventually be captured and, perhaps fittingly, suffer a violent end. At just thirty-two years of age, he was hanged at Ellis Island (New York) back in 1831.

The pirate captain's skull was later put on display at a museum in New York ⁠—the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, oddly enough.

Charles Gibbs is remembered for his harsh treatment of prisoners and as one of the last men to be executed for piracy in the United States.