Chapter 1: Who was Henry Every and why is he considered infamous?
In the 17th century, one man declared himself pirate and newfound captain aboard a privateering vessel. This singular act would end with him at the forefront of the first ever manhunt. But all those searches would come up empty as he disappeared, taking with him the largest treasure hoard in pirate history. Today, we're learning about one of the most infamous pirates of all time, Henry Every.
This is Red Web. Welcome back, Task Force, to another episode of Red Web, the podcast all about unsolved mysteries, true crime, and the unknown. I'm your resident mystery enthusiast, feeling like I've been hanging on a thousand sneezes, Trevor Collins, and joining me, also with the sinuses to rival mine, Alfredo Diaz. That's
just you know that time of the year time it's just that time of the year man um this is interesting you love me some pirates also this works out for me because i've been itching to re-watch the whole pirate caribbean series okay from disney it's been a long time and i was like oh yeah that movie had some really cool mcu style cliffhangers That was like, oh, it's going to be sick to rewatch it.
That being said, first ever Manhunt? Wild. It's wild. That's cool. That's a cool title to claim. Like, just first ever Manhunt. And then also, I've never heard of this infamous pirate.
Yeah, dude, it's so weird because, you know, we hear all these tales about Blackbeard and whatever, and there's always stories around buried treasure. But despite all of this, for centuries, there's been no evidence to show that any treasure has ever been buried or ever recovered in a buried fashion. However, Henry Every is super fascinating because he actually existed.
He actually survived, is one of the few, if not only pirates to survive, attacking a fleet, grabbing a bunch of loot. I'm talking gold, silver, gems, living to tell the tale and then disappearing. We don't know exactly what happened to him. Obviously we have some theories. One of them is very recent, but this is a mind boggling tale that I'm with you.
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Chapter 2: What led to Henry Every's declaration as a pirate?
Up until like kind of finding research topics and new unsolved mysteries, we were also unaware of this infamous pirate. Has anybody's treasure been buried and found? Right. Right. No. Oh, really? Never. Never. I don't think they're actually burying these treasures.
That's true. I mean, like, who's to say that I'll still be there when you get back? Right. When you're going and you're burying treasure, you got a crew with you. That crew might not be with you forever. Who's to say John Smith up on the mast, they could come early. Captain put it on that island. I'm going to go back and I'm going to dig the hell out of that place. Exactly. Yes. I don't know.
And it's like, why wouldn't you just want it? I wanted to have it on you in case you need it for anything. That makes sense. But it's such a big, huge part of the lore. You think pirate, you think buried treasure.
like just straight up one and one and yeah i don't know it's so weird to think that like has there even been the act of burying the treasure probably not all evidence points to know this is blowing my mind i've been lying to my entire life
But pirates also get so deeply romanticized. You have things like Treasure Island and they become fantastic children's stories that take on a life of their own. Hence Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, a fantastic film that drops off greatly after the first couple. Doesn't stop me from watching Dead Men Tell No Tales. Do your fair. I do now. Very fun movies, though.
And yeah, I think there's just I'm sure we could deeply explore that and find why that's the case and how these rumors start. But that's kind of what this show does.
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Chapter 3: How did Henry Every orchestrate his first major heist?
We take an unsolved mystery. We pull it apart. We figure out why these are pieces of DNA and a lot of different mysteries. But. Yeah, we're going to talk about who Henry Every was, his many different names, his quick origin, why he became a pirate, and then what his short stint as a pirate looked like.
Because in just a few short years, he went from a first mate to like, I'm going to do this for the Royal Navy to screw this. I'm a pirate. And then a year or two later, ghost, ghost on the wind.
I mean, kind of love to see it though, right? We talk about all the time, what if, and obviously nefarious people doing bad things that deserve to be caught. But you think about like serial killers or bank robbers, what if they just stopped at the first one? What are the chances that we would actually find them if they just stopped? Right. Just stop the one before.
Even after, there's some serial killers that are like, I've... We've killed 25 people. What would have happened if they stopped at 15? Right. Or even 24. Yeah.
Does it change? Yeah, that's true. It could be right up to that number. Truly. And this guy gets in, gets out. He knows when enough is enough. And so we're going to talk about how much money this man walked away with. And we talk about inflation. We'll get to these numbers. But I just need to put this out there because it's mind-boggling. Oh, man.
It's crazy how like how big it was for that day and how it actually in today's dollars doesn't seem like all that wild. But of course, we're talking about pirates. So there's going to be a few mentions of some themes that I want to mention in the description below if you're looking for those sensitive topics. But before we dive in, lots happening at redwebpod.com.
That's our HQ, our home base, our Patreon. You have weekly content, ad free, all sorts of stuff. Last Friday, if you're getting ready for the Oscars and you want to see the record breaker Sinners with 16 nominations, come hang out with us. We just covered the movie club on Sinners. My favorite movie out of 2025.
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Chapter 4: What were the consequences of Every's attack on the Mughal fleet?
Just rewatched it again for this movie club. And I got to tell you.
i love it it's good man it is solid visually the the way it's shot this is a great movie dude i wish i could go back and see it in imax again but i don't have imax at home i just have tv and then this wednesday we have a research outline we like to put out some of the research outlines that we developed the thing that i'm looking at when i record these episodes and we put those out and so wednesday we have another one
And then on Friday, we have our behind the scenes podcast or our variety show. It's kind of a little catch all, but it's called Break Room. And this Friday's episode is about Alfredo's Australian adventures and his Ark Raiders shenanigans. You get all sorts of stuff.
Yeah, reverse muggings, big thing. And it doesn't stop. Yesterday I spent 10 minutes with a random guy that I went to a corner of the map and I was like, no one's going to find me here. And then there was a random guy there and we just started duplicating rubber duckies and then sold them and made millions.
what is the way you could sell these ducks hold on a second i want to sell these ducks they're very rare ducks but i just found them and then i found them because other people were doing it it was like a duplication glitch that's going on and so i just made friends with a random guy we chatted up for 10 minutes and then just throw ducks at a wall and then pick them all up and sold them you know like what it's like one of those things in like games where you're like oh there's a glitch for levels or whatnot and everyone's like you just gotta get in gotta do it and it was like but it was like last night at like 12 at the midnight and then it patched like this morning
I'm sure. I was like, I made up my bag.
Well, if you're intrigued by what reverse mugging is, even though, like me, you think that just says charity, no, no, no. It is reverse mugging. Come hang out with us. Fredo will break it down for you. That's on Friday. Trevor, jumping in real quick to clarify just a few things because, boy, we got more cooking than I thought when we recorded this.
This Wednesday, we still have that research outline, but this Friday, along with Break Room, we have our first Scary Stories podcast. We did the pilot many months ago, and now we want to continue it. You guys really enjoyed it, and so did we. And so this Friday, Friday the 13th, our first Scary Stories show is coming out wherever you listen to Red Web.
So it'll be right here in the RSS feed, and then moving forward, it will be every other Thursday. So the next one after this will be March 26th, and off it will go. Thank you all so much for the support in launching this new series. We couldn't be more excited and proud. Philip Spann is the man behind the editing and the sound design. It comes to life in such an amazing way.
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Chapter 5: How did the Mughal Empire respond to the piracy incident?
We've had a lot of long and some heavier episodes. So this is a really fun one with a lot of interesting turns. So let's talk about it and the modern revelations on this case. But first we have to go all the way back. We're talking the mid 1600s is where we are at.
And I do want to say, due to this era in which Henry Every lives, of course, details about his life become a little bit more uncertain. However, what we're going to talk about today is based on what historians believe they have been able to piece together based on a few of the pieces of actual records and written reports that have survived to this day.
So I'm not going to give you the things that we think about or maybe a true. I'm going to give you the nuggets of truth that we can pull from history.
It's still wild that, you know, as much as things get jumbled in the telephone game, there's still so much that survives, which is so cool. Just look back hundreds of years and just be like, yeah, so this happened at this time.
It's like, dang, okay. You know, I think we had it all figured out with clay tablets. Because we have written documents on clay and on stone that have survived for millennia, several thousand years. I got homework from high school that's long gone.
It's just gone. Like as someone that collects comic books. Yeah. I mean, paper, it gets brittle and it starts to break apart and it starts fading and everything. And so the sun just chews it up, fades it away. Oh, it does.
Yeah. I mean, paper is very fragile. I feel like, not to overextend this topic, but I feel like we're in the 90s, right? We had film, which has amazing visual fidelity. And then we moved into digital, which is modern-wise very good. But in the 90s, all my home videos are like, why does this look so bad? And it's just loss. It's just lossy. You can't rescan it and get it to be 4K.
That's what paper is. Anyway. Let's talk about Henry Avery. He was born near the town of Plymouth in Devon, England. And this was in 1653, though I do want to say some sources cite the year as 1659, making the man a whole six years younger, potentially. Now, I also want to say that his name was sometimes spelled, importantly, note this, Henry Avery.
Same spelling, but an A instead of an E. And he's also been referred to because of this last name as Jack Avery or John Avery. But Avery is important for one of the key theories. Now, it's believed that his father worked at sea, which would spark Henry's interest in also becoming a maritime employee of a vessel just going out yonder.
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Chapter 6: What theories exist about Henry Every's fate after his piracy?
Like an elf in Lord of the Rings, you just want to hit that sea and ride it. So he does do this. As he grows up, he begins his career as an entry-level mate on a merchant vessel. And it's speculated that by 1690, Henry had joined the Royal Navy and was aboard the ships HMS Kent and HMS Rupert before then entering into the slave trade.
some records note that every was referred to as long ben or long john not to be confused with the fast food fish place long john silver completely different person and pirate have you ever been along john silver i have never been i feel like that's a great way to pick up food poisoning i I'm sorry?
Who is going and supplying this place and funding this place?
This shouldn't be made fast. I don't know anyone that eats here. Right. In the middle of Texas, we are a side... Okay, we have the Gulf Coast. That's fair. But there's a lot of landlocked states that would make me nervous to get some of that popcorn shrimp. No hate. I guess I haven't tried it, so I can't judge. Maybe it's the best.
Now, funny enough, talking about this name of Long Ben or Long John, historian Dee Cordingly has noted that these names are notably ironic to the sense that he's not long in any way. He's not tall. In fact, I'm going to quote Dee Cordingly here. Quote, Henry Avery did not conform to any of the popular images we have of pirates today.
He was of middle height, rather fat, with a dissolute appearance and what was described as a jolly complexion. So in other words, he was relatively unfit and looked like someone who lived a wild, potentially unhealthy lifestyle and had maybe some rosacea of the cheeks, some like a red, cheerful appearance. But otherwise...
isn't like some handsome muscle-bound swashbuckler Johnny Depp or something like that. From here, his life gets a little vague for a few years leading up until the kind of main focus of what we're going to talk about today. And we do have concrete evidence regarding a few of these major pieces that we're going to talk about, which is, like you said, awesome that it survived the test of time.
And so his historical record picks up again in 1693. This time he has moved up the ladder, so to speak. He is the first mate aboard a ship called Charles II. Charles II was a privateering vessel tasked with pillaging French goods in the Caribbean. However, things took a turn for the worse after the crew spent several months in a Spanish port without any pay.
To be very clear, they are no longer in the Caribbean. They are actually in northern Spain. I think they were in the city of Karuna, which Initially, yes, they were meant to go to the Spanish West Indies here in the Caribbean, but instead they've been locked in a port. It says that like there was issues with paperwork, which I would assume maybe are permits or orders of operation or things to do.
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Chapter 7: What recent discoveries shed light on Every's disappearance?
It's a little fuzzy, but it's the next year in May when he says, F this.
Yeah, hell no. At that point, it's just broken promises that are never going to come. And that's like, all right, you get the classic pirate mutiny type thing.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, at a certain point, when you're hearing about great riches and these, air quotes, strange new lands, and you want to go chasing these gold treasure troves and hidden cities like El Dorado, which is an episode we did, Task Force, I guess I can hear the call of the wild.
Pirate, I always hear as like a lawless individual, but maybe in this context, it feels more like, listen, I'm dropping the Navy reputation. I'm just doing my own thing. Yeah. A solo entrepreneur, a.k.a. Pirate.
The wild thing is that pirates are still a thing to this day. That's true. And it's definitely more crime focused for sure. Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, depending on which oceans you go to, there's, you know, there's pirates. They're modernized at this point. So, you know, they try and like seize the ship either for goods or hostage situation type of stuff.
And then you see sometimes the boats, depending, you know, if they're going through these dangerous, treacherous waters. You'll see boats lined with barbed wire and all kinds of defenses and stuff like that. I'm like, this is wild. It is still a thing. It is wild. Yeah, I just you think it wouldn't is modern day. You know what I mean?
You're on the water, but I guess you're just so far out there and you're so isolated. There's not really going to be a system in place per se that, you know, hey, we're going to get to you within minutes or we're surveying the water. It's like there's just so much.
Right. You're in international waters. It's essentially, I don't know, maritime law, to be totally honest. And so you're essentially in no man's land where there are rules of engagement, but it's no one's jurisdiction.
Yeah, that's true. Jurisdiction.
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Chapter 8: How does the story of Henry Every reflect on modern piracy and treasure hunting?
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I think that's so important. Task Force, your emotional well-being matters. Find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash redweb. That's betterhelp.com slash redweb. So they're now heading down to Southern Africa, and their first raid is actually not too long after, as they ransacked three English merchant ships in the Cape Verde Islands.
This is an archipelago of about 10 islands off the west coast of Africa. So very near the equator, just off the west coast. So you can kind of see through their acts, you can see where they've been and where they're going.
Over the next few months, the crew made their way south along the west coast of Africa, and then they captured French and Danish ships in the process of kind of making new recruits. People probably died of scurvy, not eating enough apples or what have you, and you need to just stack up your crew a little bit.
And so you coerce some locals or other trade merchants who, well, they don't want to die, and so you coerce them into the life of piracy. I don't feel like you got a lot of honest men to support you in that world, but hey, it works for them, I guess.
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