Trader and adventurer, possibly born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. The vague details of his birth and early life are balanced by many stories about his later career as a slave trader, swindler, raider, and confidence trickster throughout the Pacific. He was famous for his undocumented cargoes, braggadoccio, and ability to escape arrest. He was killed by a mutinous sailor.
William Henry "Bully" Hayes (c.
With his ship, "Leonora", he mainly ran trading missions throughout Oceania specializing in rum and rifles, but he was not averse to blackbirding (slave trading) and filibustering (privateering).
The Leonora sank in 1874 and Bully Hayes was murdered around 1877 by former crewman Peter Radeck, or "Dutch Pete", after a violent disagreement, his body thrown into the ocean.
The adventures of "Bully" were the subject of the 1983 pirate adventure film Nate and Hayes, also known as Savage Islands, which starred Tommy Lee Jones as Hayes.
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