Complex sentence: Ideally located for the Atlantic slave trade, they grew prosperous and often attracted privateers and pirates, among them Sir Francis Drake, a corsair privateering under Letter of marque granted by the English crown who twice sacked the (then) capital Ribeira Grande in the 1580s.
Split into simpler sentences: Ideally located for the Atlantic slave trade, they grew prosperous and often attracted privateers and pirates. Among them, Sir Francis Drake, a corsair privateering under Letter of marque granted by the English crown, who twice sacked the (then) capital Ribeira Grande in the 1580s.