John Pro (died 1719) was a Dutch pirate best known for leading a pirate trading post nearMadagascar.
Pro made his fortune as a pirate cruising theIndian Ocean againstMoorish shipping, possibly alongsideDavid Williams orThomas Collins. They returned to the pirate trading post atIle Ste Marie off the Madagascar coast to divide their treasure.Adam Baldridge had abandoned the settlement in 1697 after a Malagasy uprising, but Pro remained behind to rebuild. In 1703 Williams and Collins were captured by fellow ex-pirateAert Van Tuyl after they and the crew ofThomas Howard’s shipProsperous got into a fight with Van Tuyl and his native allies. Escaping six months later, Williams made his way to Pro’s outpost.[1]
The following year theRoyal Navy warshipsSevern andScarborough sailed the region on a mission to eliminate piracy.[2] Williams and Pro were captured but escaped shortly afterward, sailing canoes toMohilla,Johanna,Mayotte, and finally back to Methelage (Messelege) on Madagascar.[3] Afterwards Williams (and possibly Pro) sailed withThomas White for a time, but they were not among the crew who disembarked atDon Mascarenas to retire from piracy.[4]
By 1707 Pro had returned to Ile Ste Marie, leading the settlement with support of the Malagasy natives. With support from other pirates such asSamuel Burgess he made a business of slave trading. Pro charged trading fees to pirates and merchants who came looking to buy slaves cheaper than they could from theRoyal African Company. Collins left to run a similar pirate outpost atPort Dauphin, which he took over after the death of its previous leader, former pirateAbraham Samuel.[3]
In 1717 Pro was visited byRobert Drury, a castaway sailor who survived the wreck of theDegrave in 1701 and had been living among the Malagasy ever since. Drury later write a memoir[a] of his time on Madagascar and described Pro and his lifestyle in detail:
One was a Dutchman, named John Pro, who spoke good English. He was dressed in a short coat with broad plate buttons, and other things agreeable, but without shoes or stockings. In his sash stuck a brace of pistols, and one in his hand. … John Pro lived in a very handsome manner. His house was furnished with pewter dishes, &c., a standing bed with curtains, and other things of that nature except chairs, but a chest or two served for that use well enough. He had one house on purpose for his cook-room and cook-slave's lodging, storehouse, and summer-house; all these enclosed in a palisade, as the great men's houses are in this country, for he was rich, and had many cattle and slaves. … I being interpreter, we settled the manner of trade, and then the captain made presents of a gun or two, &c., and the king presented him with a slave, &c. He also gave me a girl of twelve years old, which I sold immediately to John Pro.[5]
Pro, Collins[b], andJohn Rivers (another ex-pirate who led the settlement atSt. Augustine starting in 1686) all died in 1719.[3] They were among the last pirates on Madagascar, the remainder of which left or were ousted within a few years.[6]
