Interesting exploration of the stories/legend surrounding Maria Hallet and Black Sam Bellamy! The author explores the history of 18th century cape cod and who Maria was, with many theories surrounding the lovers’ legend. Although the amount of theories that exist, it could be confusing at times. 

 I first learned about Maria and Sam’s love story through a pirate documentary and became fascinated! While this doesn’t provide much more information or answers compared to the doc, it was still an informative and interesting read. Hopefully I can find books that are more thorough in their research, as this felt like a surface level summary.

“1 realized a universal truth about folklore. Some of it is always based in fact, and most of it is created over generations of time. The beauty of these stories, however, rests in their mixture of the latter elements.”

“These men and women told a quieter tale, for they gave the witch and the pirate the ending that life had denied them. They said that on foggy evenings, one could make out the figures of Maria and Sam walking hand in hand along the shores and meadows of the Cape. No one surmised the content of their talks, for the two tragic figures had forged a tie in life that bound them forever.

So if you hear the forlorn cries of a woman in the howling night, or you spy two figures strolling in the foggy mists of Cape Cod, know that you have perhaps witnessed the ghosts of Sam Bellamy and Maria Hallett.”