Peter Johnson

Peter Johnson (died 1672, real name possibly Pieter Janszoon By 1671 Governor Thomas Lynch offered a pardon to pirates who turned themselves in; hearing of the offer, Johnson along with a few men left port in Jamaica and joined with an English pirate captain named Thurston to capture a Spanish frigate, “killing the captain and 12 or 14 more.” Returning to Cuban waters “they took a great ship laden with wines from the Canaries, killing a Governor, two captains, and eighteen men.” In September 1672 Johnson was tried and freely admitted to many piracies - he “confessed enough to hang 100 honester persons” and he found that Jamaican residents resented his heavy-handed approach: among locals, Johnson's death was “as much regretted as if he had been as pious and innocent as one of the primitive martyrs.”