Black Sam Bellamy became the wealthiest pirate in history not because of greed but because of anger – anger at the English system that exploited poor country boys and sailors like him. 
 
 After his early death in 1717 he left a legacy of folklore on Cape Cod and a ship loaded with treasure off its coast. In 1984, treasure hunters found his ship and in 2018 archaeologists believed they found his remains. 
 
 Black Sam Bellamy ran his pirate operation democratically. His men were slaves and Indians and sailors pressed into service. Bellamy treated them equally and let them vote on important decisions. 
 
 In a famous speech attributed to Bellamy, he scorned the wealthy merchants he plundered: “They rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage.” 
 
 Pirate historians have traced Bellamy's career, summarized by Colin Woodard as 'Fight smart, harm few, score big.' 
 
 Robin Hood of the Sea 
 
 Bellamy and his crew captured 53 ships before he died in a shipwreck at 28. They called him Black Sam Bellamy because he eschewed the fashion for powdered wigs and wore his black hair tied with a black satin bow. He had good manners, dressed neatly in fancy clothes, and he always wore four ornate dueling pistols in his sash. 
 
 Black Sam Bellamy called himself ‘Robin Hood of the Sea,’ and his men called themselves ‘Robin Hood’s men.’ There is no record of him ever killing a captive, and he often returned captured ships and cargo if they didn’t suit his purpose. 
 
 We know little of Black Sam Bellamy’s early life, though he is presumed to have been born in Devon in the west of England. The woman who was probably his mother died in childbirth and was buried Feb. 23, 1689. His parents were likely tenant farmers, hovering on the edge of starvation like half of England. 
 
 Bellamy left home at a young age for a port – London, Bristol or Plymouth. He became a ship’s boy at 13 at the outset of the War of Spanish Succession. By the end of the war in 1712 he was a skilled sailor. 
 
 Turn to Piracy 
 
 No one knows how Black Sam Bellamy ended up on board a British ship. He may have been grabbed by a press gang. In the early 18th century, Britain didn’t have anywhere near enough sailors. The press gangs tricked country boys into signing up or simply kidnapped and forced on board ships. 
 
 Once in service, ship captains routinely cheated sailors of their wages. They gave the sailors vague IOUs instead of wages, or paid them for their last voyage just before they left port for the next. Sometimes they simply didn't pay them at all. 
 
 Black Sam Bellamy sailed to Cape Cod in 1714 or early 1715 to seek his fortune, arriving in Eastham where he may have had relatives. There he had an affair with the beautiful Maria Hallett, all of 15. After impregnating Maria he sailed to Florida to recover Spanish treasure with his friend from Rhode Island, Paulsgrave Williams. Others got to the treasure first. 
 
 The two men turned to piracy under Benjamin Hornigold, but the crew mutinied and elected Bellamy as their captain. 
 
 Hen-hearted Numbskulls 
 
 In 1717 Bellamy and his crew captured the Whydah Gally, a slave ship he refitted as a flagship with 28 guns. The Whydah had an advanced weapons system capable of attacking any man-of-war in the Americas. In a year, Black Sam Bellamy and his crew raided 54 ships along the U.S. East Coast and the Caribbean. All in all they captured treasure worth $120 million today, according to Forbes magazine. That made him the top-earning pirate. 
 
 The Whydah Gally also captured a sloop under the command of a Capt. Beers. Black Sam Bellamy wanted to let him keep his ship, but his crew had voted to burn it. Bellamy asked the captain to join the pirates, and Beers declined. That inspired Bellamy’s famous speech: 
 
 I am sorry they won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a mischief, when it is not to my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by knavery; but damn ye altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment? 
 
 Black Sam Bellamy Lost and Found 
 
 The Whydah and the Mary Anne, commanded by Williams, headed north to New England. Williams and the Mary Anne broke off to Rhode Island, where he wanted to visit his family. Bellamy continued on, perhaps to Eastham to see Maria, but the Whydah was shipwrecked off the coast of Wellfleet in a terrific Nor’easter on April 26, 1717. Black Sam Bellamy and all but two of the 142 men on board drowned. 
 
 Eventually, 102 of the bodies from the Whydah Gally were buried in a mass grave. The Mary Anne was shipwrecked a few days later, leaving seven survivors. 
 
 In 1984, underwater explorer Barry Clifford rediscovered the Whydah in 14 feet of water and five of sand. The Whydah’s artifacts can be seen at Expedition Whydah Sea-Lab & Learning Center in Provincetown, Mass. 
 
 Since Clifford found the wreck of the Whydah, archaeologists continued to search the site. In 2018 they announced they may have found the remains of Black Sam Bellamy himself. 
 
 Legacies 
 
 The U.K. Telegraph reported scientists found a femur encased in a mass of iron, stone, silver, gold, tools and weapons. They found pieces of a crushed helmet, indicating a violent death. And they discovered an ornate pistol wrapped in a ribbon that probably belonged to Black Sam Bellamy. 
 
 In 2016, an Englishman from Devon came to the Whydah Pirate Museum with documents that showed he was descended from Black Sam Bellamy. Scientists from the University of New Haven planned to test the bones for a DNA match with the descendant. 
 
 Black Sam Bellamy left another legacy. Maria Hallett gave birth to Bellamy’s baby, who died. She spent a short time in jail. According to local lore, she lost her mind or became a recluse and moved to a shack in Wellfleet. She became known as ‘Goody Hallett’ or ‘The Witch of Wellfleet.’ Today a meadow in Wellfleet is known as Goody Hallett Meadow. 
 
 With thanks to The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard. This story about Black Sam Bellamy was updated in 2018. ||||| Conservationists at the Whydah Pirate Museum said they found skeletal remains from the pirate ship Whydah Gally inside a mass of hardened sand and stone pulled from the wreck site near Wellfleet. 
 
 Forget about pirate gold and silver. Researchers announced Wednesday they found real treasure: clues pulled from an 18th century shipwreck near Wellfleet that could reveal the fate of a legendary pirate captain. 
 
 At the Whydah Pirate Museum in West Yarmouth, conservationists in November found part of the skeletal remains of a crew member of the Whydah Gally, a pirate ship that sank during a fierce nor’easter in 1717, said Chris Macort, an archeologist and director of the museum’s ship exhibit. 
 
 “He walked among pirates and fought in the Caribbean,” Macort said. “It’s like walking through a history book.” 
 
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 And there’s a chance these remains could be of pirate captain Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy, an English sailor who had lived in Wellfleet, Macort said. 
 
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 Now Casey Sherman, who is creating a movie about finding the wreck, said he is helping the museum coordinate with forensic experts at the University of New Haven to compare DNA found in the remains with that of a known descendant of Bellamy living in England. 
 
 “The Whydah site is the maritime equivalent of King Tut’s Tomb,” Sherman said in a statement released Wednesday. “Clifford and his divers continue to find Bellamy’s astounding treasure and now there’s a strong chance that we’ve located the remains of the Pirate Prince himself.” 
 
 In a short, but successful, career, the Whydah Gally raided 54 ships along the eastern coast and in the Caribbean in 1716 and 1717, all under the command of Bellamy. 
 
 In 2008, Forbes reported Bellamy had collected the equivalent of $120 million in wealth during his time as a pirate. 
 
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 The bones will be displayed during a Feb. 19 press conference at the museum, Sherman said. 
 
 Expedition Whydah Sea-Lab & Learning Center, Provincetown A drawing of the Whydah Gally 
 
 The ship was originally built to carry slaves, and was armed with at least 60 cannons when it sank. Many of those weapons were found still fully loaded, he said. 
 
 “Along with treasure and everything else, these guys were stealing cannons as well,” said Macort. “These guys were like the first Boy Scouts -- they were always prepared. They were always ready for battle.” 
 
 When the ship went down, it took with it about four tons of pilfered silver and gold, and all but two of the 142-member crew, including Bellamy. It’s the only pirate ship found anywhere with its stolen treasure, said Macort. 
 
 Experts have been trying to recover artifacts from the wreck since it was discovered by Barry Clifford and his diving team in 1984, said Macort. The museum opened its own doors in 2016 and allows visitors to watch conservationists at work, said Macort. 
 
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 Clifford has recovered millions of dollars worth of treasure from the wreck site, according to Sherman’s statement. 
 
 The human remains, plus what appear to be a pistol, cuff links, a belt, and other personal items, were encased in a 3,500-pound concretion -- essentially a mass of hardened sand and stone -- pulled from the wreck site several years ago. 
 
 The concretion protected everything inside it over the centuries, until conservations recently began removing the material and discovered the bones, said Macort. 
 
 Sherman said even if the remains are not those of Bellamy, he expects they will be interred. 
 
 “This pirate has been at sea for 300 years. This is an opportunity to bring him home,” said Sherman in an interview. 
 
 This is the second time researchers found human remains; in the early 1990s, a bone was found in the wreck they believed belonged to a young boy said to have sailed with Bellamy’s pirates, said Macort. 
 
 “That was an incredible story no one knew about until we recovered his remains,” said Macort. 
 
 The wreck site itself isn’t far from Cape Cod, but what’s left of the ship is under 20 feet of water, and another 20 feet of sand, he said, plus the spot is frequented by great white sharks. Archeologists visit every summer to recover more relics from the ship, and Macort expects they have years’ worth of work ahead of them. 
 
 “The treasure for us is really uncovering the story of the Whydah,” said Macort. “It’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle, and in 30-odd years of working on the site, we have barely scratched the surface.” 
 
 John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Researchers hope to discover identity of mystery bone through DNA testing 
 
 WEST YARMOUTH — A human bone recently discovered in a mass of hardened sediment that was pulled from the wreck of the Whydah pirate ship has sent researchers on a quest to learn more about the man to whom the bone belonged. 
 
 The bone is beginning to protrude from a 3,500-pound rock-like concretion that now hangs suspended in an archaeological lab at the Whydah Pirate Museum where spectators can watch scientists work. 
 
 Marie Kesten Zahn, archaeologist and conservator at the museum, has been slowly chipping away at the matter around the bone for about three weeks. 
 
 "I’m very excited to be finding something that could potentially tell us a lot of information," she said. 
 
 An orthopedic surgeon who analyzed photos of the bone said it appears to be a broken femur that had begun to heal, indicating that the bone broke while the person was still alive, Kesten Zahn said. 
 
 Photo Gallery: Archeologists at the Whydah Pirate Museum work to excavate bone 
 
 Of the Whydah’s 146-man crew, two survived and 102 washed ashore, leaving 42 men unaccounted for, including the captain of the ship, Black Sam Bellamy, said Christopher Macort, an underwater field archaeologist with the museum. This bone must belong to one of those men, he said. 
 
 With the help of forensic scientists, the researchers hope to find out exactly who he was, author Casey Sherman said. 
 
 Sherman, a Cape native who co-authored "The Finest Hours," a book and later a Disney movie about a 1952 Coast Guard rescue off the coast of Chatham, is partnering with undersea explorer Barry Clifford, who discovered the Whydah wreck, to investigate the bone and work on a feature film and possibly a reality TV show about Clifford’s search to uncover the Whydah’s mysteries. 
 
 Sherman, who co-founded a production company called Whydah Productions, which was named for the sunken pirate ship long before Sherman’s partnership with Clifford, said Clifford’s story and the ever-unfolding mystery of the Whydah is prime material for entertainment. 
 
 "There’s history, there’s danger, there’s excitement, there’s adventure," he said. "For me, it’s all about inspiration. How can somebody like (Clifford) inspire my readers? How can somebody like that inspire moviegoers or television viewers?" 
 
 Writers are working on a script for the movie, and Sherman said he is in touch with television production companies about a possible series, which likely would be a reality show based on the work of Clifford and his team. 
 
 The discovery of the bone brings the storytelling potential to a new level, he said. 
 
 "It brings history alive," he said. "If we can identify that this is any of the pirates, if we can identify that it’s Black Sam Bellamy, it’s akin to the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. It’s a huge piece of world history that should be developed and explained." 
 
 For Sherman, who delved into forensic science and DNA analysis for his book "A Rose for Mary," in which he investigated the Boston Strangler murders, the ultimate goal in studying the pirate bone is to match the DNA to a living descendant of one of the 42 lost pirates. 
 
 The femur, which isn’t the first bone that archaeologists with the Whydah museum have found, brings the pirates to life for museum visitors as well, Macort said. 
 
 The other bone discovered among the Whydah wreckage was the fibula of John King, an 8- to 11-year-old boy who ran away from home to join the pirates, he said. Archaeologists found the bone in 1989 inside a silk sock and next to a leather shoe, he said. 
 
 The bone, sock and shoe are on display at the museum. 
 
 "Seeing these remains of the pirates actually brings that right back to life for us," he said. "It’s sort of a grim reminder that these were real people. They died in a violent, terrible way." 
 
 The state has regulations for reporting human remains found in Massachusetts waters. Remains must be reported to the chief medical examiner, who will determine the age of the remains, according to a policy from the state Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources. 
 
 If the remains are less than 100 years old, a criminal investigation can be opened, according to the policy. If the remains are over 100 years old, the medical examiner must notify the state archaeologist who is tasked with determining the age, cultural affiliation and identity of the remains. If the remains are determined to be Native American, the Commission on Indian Affairs must be notified, according to the policy. 
 
 The Whydah sank in 1717, so the bone is at least 300 years old. 
 
 Macort said he reported the bone to Victor Mastone, director of the state Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources, with whom the Whydah archaeologists often work closely. Mastone is working in the field and can’t be reached until next week, according to a recorded message on his voicemail. 
 
 Archaeologists could spend a year working to fully extract the bone and the dozens of other artifacts contained within the 3,500-pound mass, Macort said. 
 
 But as researchers slowly chip away at the sediment around the pirate femur, Clifford said he will be chasing the answer to one question. 
 
 "Who was this man?" he said. 
 
 — Follow Madeleine List on Twitter: @madeleine_list. ||||| YARMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Researchers are examining whether human bones found in a Cape Cod shipwreck are those of the infamous pirate Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy. 
 
 The Whydah Pirate Museum in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, says Wednesday that archeologists uncovered the remains in the wreck last year, near what they believe to be Bellamy's pistol. 
 
 They've enlisted forensic scientists from the University of New Haven in Connecticut to compare DNA from the bones to a DNA sample given by one of Bellamy's living descendants in the United Kingdom. 
 
 The Whydah Gally (WIH'-duh GAH'-lee) went down in stormy seas off Wellfleet in 1717, killing nearly all its 150-person crew, including Bellamy, and leaving its ill-gotten riches at the bottom of the ocean. 
 
 It was discovered in 1984 by Barry Clifford, an explorer who owns the pirate museum.
– When the Whydah Gally went down in a 1717 storm 144 lives were lost—none so noteworthy as that of Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy. The New England Historical Society describes the pirate as infamous, but not infamously cruel: As historian Colin Woodard puts it, he followed a credo of "Fight smart, harm few, score big," and big he did score—plundering 54 ships before his watery death at age 28. The wreck of the Whydah Gally was found off Wellfleet, Mass., in 1984 by Barry Clifford, whose Whydah Pirate Museum now features coins, weapons, and other items pulled from the wreckage, with the Boston Globe reporting the ship also had four tons of silver and gold aboard. It notes a 2008 report from Forbes that weighed in on just how successful Bellamy was on the financial front: It estimated he had pilfered the equivalent of $120 million as a pirate. The museum earlier this month announced that archaeologists in 2017 located remains in a huge concretion (that is, a hardened mass of sand and stone) pulled from the wreck near what they suspect is Bellamy's pistol, reports the AP. University of New Haven scientists now plan to compare whatever DNA they can recover from the femur with that of one of Bellamy's modern-day relatives, with results due in roughly 6 weeks, reports the Cape Cod Times. If the bones are indeed Bellamy's, they'll be buried in his native England. As for his nickname, "Black Sam" came from the fact that declined to wear the powdered wigs popular in the day, instead simply securing his black hair with a black satin ribbon. (A surprising find was recently made in Blackbeard's cannon.)