Horror on the High Seas: Return of the Man from Olon

It was the custom of L'Olonnois that, having tormented any persons and they not confessing, he would instantly cut them to pieces with his hanger, first some flesh, then a hand, an arm, a leg, and pull out their tongues.

~ Alexander Exquemelin in The Buccaneers of America

Doctor Exquemelin is, of course, talking about Francois L'Olonnais. Born David Nau in Olon, France, L'Olonnais ("the man from Olon") became one of the most infamously blood thirsty of the buccaneers. His most notorious act of cruelty, in which he slit open a man's chest with his cutlass (or "hanger"), pulled out the man's heart, took a bite from it and then shoved it into the mouth of the man's mate, is depicted above in a woodcut from the book.

The Pirates Own Book: When Charles Ellms Met Henry Avery

Most of the stories told of our favorite pirates have trouble at the beginning. No one is really sure where the gentleman rover in question came from. What is more certain is the grisly death met by the dread fellow; from Bartholomew Roberts to Jean Laffite, from Francois L’Olonnais to Thomas Tew, spilled blood and guts come before the end of the story. In other it must be said less frequent cases, the pirate in question fades from history never to be seen or heard from again. From Christopher Condent to that fiction about the Laffite brothers, they simply stop being pirates and “blend in”. Henry Avery was among those “lost to history”, but Charles Ellms tells us that was not at all the case.


In The Pirates Own Book, Ellms begins his chapter on Avery with the usual story of the Captain’s exceeding wealth and marriage to the Great Mogul’s daughter thanks to his capture of one of the ruler’s treasure ships. Ellms quickly sets us straight, however, by informing us that Avery was “… actually starving without a shilling” at the time of his death.

Ellms then launches into the usual routine. Avery was born in Devonshire, he tells us, and went to sea in merchant ships at an early age. Avery was mate aboard the vessel of Captain Gibson when, in 1715, he began to foment mutiny among his fellows. He clearly had the itch to go a-pirating and the rest of the crew, according to Ellms, was just as eager. Gibson was fond of the bottle and one night when he was sleeping off a drunk, Avery and his men cut the ship’s cable and headed out from Corunna in the West Indies. When Gibson awoke, Avery informed him that he had taken over the ship. “You must know that I am captain of this ship now, and this is my cabin, therefore you must walk out; I am bound for Madagascar, with a design of making my own fortune, and that of all the brave fellows joined with me.”

Gibson decides against joining Avery, and is set on shore with a small group of like-minded sailors.

Once in the waters around Madagascar, Avery recruits the captains of two armed sloops to join him in his pirating venture. They form a little flotilla and take a galley of the aforementioned Mogul in the Indian Ocean. The ship is bound for Mecca where the Mogul’s daughter is making a pilgrimage, and it is packed to the gunnels with more riches than can reasonably be imagined. As Ellms points out: “It is a well known fact that people of the east travel with great magnificence…”

Avery and his cohorts plunder the ship of all its wealth and the ship limped home to India where the Mogul immediately protested to the British government. “The noise which this made over all Europe,” Ellms says, “gave birth to the rumors that were circulating concerning Avery’s greatness.”

Meanwhile, Avery was duping the two captains of those sloops out of their share of the Mogul’s treasure. Through assurances of his own ship’s superior sailing and fighting power, he led these captains to understand that their booty would be better off aboard him. When they agreed and transferred their wealth, Avery sailed for the West Indies under cover of night, leaving the unfortunate captains behind.

Convincing his men that their wealth would now allow them to live like kings ashore, Avery first considered settling at New Providence. He then moved on to Boston but was concerned that he would not be able to sell the gems of the Great Mogul without raising suspicions. He sailed for Ireland and eventually ended up in Brideford, Devonshire, according to Ellms.

At this point, most historians agree that further information on what became of Avery is unattainable, but Charles begs to differ. In a wonderful plot twist – which the reader has to hope wasn’t true – he has Avery casting about Devonshire trying to sell his cache of diamonds. “When he unbosomed himself to [a speculator] and other pretended friends,” these men, posing as merchants, assured Avery that they could sell his treasure for the highest possible price. Leaving a deposit with former pirate, they took the diamonds and disappeared with no intention of returning. As Ellms so eloquently puts it: “… the merchants thus proving themselves as good pirates on land as [Avery] was at sea.”

The end of this story is poignant in the extreme. Avery sets out for Ireland in search of the con men. Having no luck, he is reduced to walking home to Brideford from Plymouth. “He had been there but a few days, when he fell sick and died; not being worth so much as would buy him a coffin!”

Thus the man once known as Long Ben and “the Arch Pyrate” ended up buried in a paupers’ field in Devonshire. Or so Charles Ellms tells us.

Header: Captain Avery receiving the three chests of Treasure on board his Ship from The Pirates Own Book

People: The Pirate Corso

When we speak of pirates and privateers during the age of buccaneers we tend to gravitate to British, Dutch or French names. Henry Morgan, Laurens de Graff and Michel de Grammont come to mind readily. It is rare that a Spaniard – whose holdings in the New World were usually the targets of plundering buccaneer from England, France and Holland – comes to mind. So it was with surprise and delight that I sat down to read a chapter in Benerson Little’s most recent book about a freebooter who called himself Juan Corso.


Corso’s moniker in and of itself is something of a pun. Though, as Little notes, Corso was a common surname in Spain, it also translates literally as “privateer”. Corso’s name is the equivalent of a Frenchman calling himself Jean Corsaire or an Englishman going by Johnny Privateer. Since we know nothing about Corso’s childhood or early life, it is not a stretch to say that his name is an alias if not an out and out joke.

Much of the action that made up Corso’s career is educated guess, but he appears first on the historical record cruising under the command of Captain Felipe de la Barrera y Villegas. Barrera was at the head of a small flotilla of light, shallow draft “half-galleys” that were searching the inlets and lagoons off the Gulf Coast of Mexico for illegal logwood cutters. Men from the British island of Jamaica in particular made a living cutting down, chopping up and selling logwood surreptitiously in these areas. The Spanish, who considered the costly resource theirs alone, hunted these men without remorse. Even during peace with England, Spain marked the men criminals regardless of written passes they may hold from English lords.

This was the case in 1681 when Corso, along with his frequent partner Pedro de Costa, was among Barrera’s men as they cruised into Laguna de Terminos on the coast of Campeche. The logwood cutters were surprised and, though one of their number in the form of a British sloop named Laurel managed to escape, they were rounded up or slaughtered, their camp burned and their goods seized. Though Barrera initially promised the Englishmen safe passage, they were in fact packed into the holds of his ships and taken to Campeche where they were sold to the city as slaves. Most would be worked mercilessly in the sodden swamps around the city with little water and less food, their skin burned black by the sun, their feet riddled with parasitic worms and their bodies infested with fleas and lice.

Barrera made a tidy profit on this enterprise of human misery and Corso and de Costa may have decided they wanted to rake in the same kind of cash. The two men received a commission from the mayor of Campeche and, with a group of small ships or canoes probably amounting to no more than three or four, they headed south for the Gulf of Honduras. Here logwood smuggling was particularly heavy, and Corso and his mate planned to increase their odds of catching larger ships by the capable use of stealth.

Rather ironically they ran into Laurel, the British ship that had escaped Barrera, near Trujillo, Honduras. This time the Spaniards were victorious, boarding Laurel and seizing her small crew. Her captain, Robert Oxe, would later write that he fought two hours with the freebooters and that, when they did board, he offered them his legal commission from the Earl of Carlisle. Corso and de Costa, unimpressed, disposed of the papers. Oxe says:

They said that they would come to Jamaica, too, presently, and that they had taken five hundred English prisoners.

Though Oxe and his men would not fair as badly as the unfortunates who labored in Campeche, he was ordered tortured and beaten by Corso. He complained of being hung up “… at the fore braces several times, [and beaten] with cutlasses…” about the body and face. Little tells us that Oxe and eight of his men were finally set free in a single canoe.

Doubtless aboard their prize ship, now called Leon, Corso and de Costa managed to re-capture a Spanish treasure ship that had been taken off Honduras. They renamed Nuestra Senora del Honhon the Leon Coronado. With these two ships they went to work clearing the Gulf of Honduras of the logwood cutters, tallying up a fortune in prize goods. When they headed back to Campeche in triumph, they were sadly disappointed to find the mayor eager to accept their prizes after which he unilaterally sent them off to Veracruz. Despite Corso’s protests – for which he was briefly jailed – it would be months before the Governor of Mexico finally awarded him and his mates a share of their booty.

In 1682, the Spanish government reclaimed their treasure ship and Leon Coronado was made part of the Armada de Barlovento, the official pirate hunting fleet of New Spain. Probably frustrated at being slighted not only by the loss of his ship but by failure to be asked to join the Armada, Corso gathered a new set of small ships and headed for Cuba. There he began a systematic round of attacks on British and French buccaneers who stopped at the island for water and provisions. Corso sailed under a red flag of no quarter, according to Little, and he made a habit of torturing and killing the crew of ships that dared resist him. His depredations were so successful that the Governor of St. Domingue (modern Haiti) began issuing commissions against Spain at Petit Goave and Britain threatened to declare war against Spain once again. The sack of Veracruz, usually considered to have been mounted after the fate of the unfortunate logwood cutters from Laguna de Terminos was discovered, may have been just as much the result of Corso’s unchecked success in the Caribbean.

Corso retaliated for the brutal raid at Veracruz which, though largely the work of Petit Goave corsairs, he seemed to blame on the British. He raided the island of New Providence in January of 1684, leaving only a handful of people alive and free. The island sat uninhabited for three years thereafter according to Little. Corso also managed to virtually shut down sea turtle harvesting in the Caribbean causing a shortage of meat particularly in Jamaica.

Pressure from the Royal Navy in particular drove Corso away from Cuba and, by early 1685, he was back in Mexico and once again with his old mate de Costa. The two were sent out by the Governor to try and find the Gulf Coast settlement of French explorer Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. The Spanish were antsy about any encroachment on their vast holdings around the Gulf. Who better to send as a destroying force than two notorious privateers? Though Cosro and de Costa seem to have thoroughly searched the shores of the Gulf, they missed de La Salle’s sad tent city at Matagorda Bay.

Corso kept up the search and landed at several points in the Florida. At Cape San Blas his flotilla hit rough weather, possibly a hurricane, and was wrecked with the loss of all ships. Little says that approximately 35 men walked ashore alive but without supplies, firearms and little in the way of clothing on their backs. Most died of starvation, injuries and exposure including Corso and de Costa. The rest, Little tells us, set upon the bodies of the dead, carving them up and cooking them “without wasting even the heads.”

Though Corso’s success against just about every nation who colonized the West Indies at the time was matched by very few, he is largely forgotten today. He was, to my way of thinking, a Spanish version of the notorious corsaire Francois L’Olonnais whose hatred for the Spanish led him to torture and murder. Corso, a strident Spaniard if not by birth certainly by nationalization, vented his wrath in turn on the British and French.

Header: Dead Men Tell No Tales by Howard Pyle

Booty: Terrifying Pirates

Last Friday, much to my surprise and delight, the good folks at Cracked.com produce an article entitled the “The 7 Most Terrifying Pirates from History”. The title in and of itself has a wry humor to it: “pirates from history” rather than “historical pirates” makes it sound rather like History offers these guys at her restaurant, probably under the seafood portion of the menu. But, rereading that sentence, that may just be my own warped sense of humor coming through.


The article includes such familiar-to-the-Brethren favorites as Bartholomew Roberts, Blackbeard and Benjamin Hornigold and hits the usual “high notes” as far as what each man achieved in the way of a blood soaked “short life but merry one.” Some curiosities do jump out to those who have a particular interest in piratical scholarship, however.

It is gratifying to see both Francois L’Olonnais and Jean “Lafitte” (misspelled; again) on the list. Even a casual Cracked reader will know that labeling not just one but two Frenchmen “terrifying” was probably a painful exercise for their writers. I personally would have ranked L’Olonnais much higher, if it were up to me. The crazy adds to the terrifying exponentially. I also salute Cracked for including William Dampier; he, much like Hornigold, rarely gets the press he deserves.

The surprising addition of Stephen Decatur jumped out at me immediately as well. Though undeniably terrifying to his enemies, the Hero of both Barbary Wars would surely have bristled at being called a “pirate” which, in all fairness, he was not.

Not surprisingly there is the usual sloppy failure to mention either Uruj or Pierre, the equally important brothers of Khair ad-Din Barbarossa and Jean Laffite.

But that’s all splitting hairs. The point is the funny, after all, and the post certainly brings that. Then too, their choice of a certain familiar site for at least some of their research gets them extra credit on this assignment.  Happy Friday, Brethren!

Header: Dead Men Tell No Tales by Howard Pyle

Home Ports: Cradle of Buccaneers

The island of Hispaniola, which today holds the countries of Haiti and Santo Domingo on her shores, has for centuries been a base camp for all manner of freebooters. Stomping ground, home port and mother island, Hispaniola and in particular the French third of her land, has given us a myriad of colorful characters who are often spoken of here at Triple P. Tortuga, Petit Goave, Basse-Terre, Leogane and even Port-au-Prince were all used by high seas renegades as staging areas. So today, as a bit of a tribute, the history of forgotten Haiti and the contribution of her pirate progeny.


Centuries before Columbus, who “discovered” Hispaniola in 1492, the Taino people arrived. They most probably came in long canoes – similar to Polynesians in the South Pacific – from what is now Venezuela. They spoke an Arawakan language and are therefore sometimes mistakenly referred to as Arawaks themselves. These people named the island “Ayiti” which is where the modern name Haiti comes from.

The Taino had a complicated system of government that broke Ayiti into five kingdoms ruled by caciques. Twenty years after Columbus’ first landing the Spanish decided to wrest control of the island from the Taino. Not necessarily warlike by nature, the Taino were also not about to back down to the invaders and destroyed both the settlements of Saint Nicolas and La Navidad. All this was done under the leadership of Taino cacique Anacaona, the widow of Caonabo. Despite her valiant resistance, Anacaona was captured and hanged with all ceremony. The message was clear and the Taino people, for the most part, fell under the rule of their new overlords. The majority of the population was wiped out by smallpox, pneumonia, gonorrhea and other decidedly European diseases.

In 1517, with the indigenous population rung out as a source of free labor, Charles V of Spain authorized European indentured servitude and the importation of African slaves to Hispaniola. This decision would bring a fatal mix of disgruntled people, mostly male at first, to an under-protected backwater, leading to runaways and even small revolts. The men ran to the island of Tortuga where they became the original boucaniers, hunting black pigs and raiding small merchant craft.

Interestingly, a good many of the indentured servants in Hispaniola (and on surrounding Caribbean islands) were French. They set up shop on Tortuga, creating their own outlaw paradise that saw the inclusion of women – at this point, often runaway slaves – by the mid-16th century. By 1600, these people were heading out in ships and striking in particular against the Spanish. The most infamous of the era was Francois L’Olonnais. Born David Nau in the Olon region of France, indenture under a brutal Spanish master seems to have driven him insane. When he took up buccaneering he became a brutal monster, torturing Spanish captives without remorse and licking their blood from his sword.

By the 1660s the fame – and success – of these buccaneers had spread prompting French, Dutch and English adventurers to voluntarily travel to Tortuga and take up the black flag. When former buccaneer Bertrand d’Ogeron settled in the Massif de la Selle above Petit Goave and began successfully growing tobacco, France herself took note. Colonists immigrated to Hispaniola from France and French islands in the Caribbean. Spain naturally saw this as an invasion (as they had always imagined the buccaneers to be invaders, it was a natural progression) and hostilities on the island reached a fever pitch in the 1690s.

In 1697 the Treaty of Ryswick officially divided Hispaniola, with the western third going to France and becoming Saint Domingue. Immigration boomed and by the start of the French Revolution in 1789 there were upwards of 40,000 colonists of French descent on the island (by comparison, French Canada had a population of approximately 63,000 Europeans at relatively the same time).

With the Revolution, though, came the breakdown of the institutions that had made Saint Domingue a wealthy colony. When Robespierre announced the abolition of slavery at the end of 1793, the slave revolt led by Jean Jacques Dessalines in 1791 was confirmed as valid. By the end of 1794 Saint Domingue was at peace and under the capable governance of Toussaint Louverture, a former slave and brilliant military leader.

This taste of freedom was short lived, however. Bonaparte, in need of income for his war machine, reinstituted slavery and the plantation system in France’s Caribbean colonies. Louverture was hauled off to France in chains and died in a dungeon. The now free black Saint Domiguens, unwilling to return to slavery, revolted again and this time the consequences were brutal. Out of this unfortunate bloodbath, which saw an unprecedented exodus of white, mixed race and free black people from the island, came men who are surely familiar to the Brethren. The Laffite brothers, who were certainly not born in Port-au-Prince as many writers would have us believe, may very well have done business – possibly piratical business – out of the city prior to 1804. Dominique Youx, that old sea dog and “bravest of the Baratarians”, was almost certainly born in Saint Domingue. Other privateers of the era were probably the product of the upheaval on the island as well, though their names are lost to us.

When the dust settled, the newly christened Haiti became the first and only free nation born of a slave revolution. At the height of the privateering era, in 1817, Haitian President Alexandre Petion would first welcome the Liberator Simon Bolivar at Aux Cayes and then supply him with ships, men and arms. All in exchange for the promise that slavery would be abolished in Grand Columbia once Bolivar’s revolution was successful. The privateer that saw Bolivar safely to and from Haiti was none other than Renato Beluche in his sloop General Arismendi.

The story of modern Haiti is less glorious than her past, of course, but that is due in large part to foreign influence and not her generous people. Personally, I feel that historians – who tend to glorify New Providence and Port Royal as the crown jewels of pirate ports – should give a little more attention to the western third of Hispaniola, where buccaneers and privateers were born.

Header: Navigational map of Hispaniola c 1639

People: D Is For Diablo

The story of today’s pirate, who is often known as “Lucifer”, is full of so much ambiguity that our anti-hero’s actual given name remains in question. He is usually called Diego with various monikers attached to that: Diego Lucifer, Lucifero or Diablo, Diego de Reyes, Diego Martin, Diego the Mulatto and, most common of all, Diego Grillo. His place of origin is also in question. Cuba claims him as born and bred in Havana while other writers see his origins in the Spanish colony of Mexico. All agree that Diego was of Spanish and African descent and that he – much like the more famous buccaneer madman Francois L’Olonnais – hated Spain and all that came from her.

Some careful researches put forth that Diego, what ever his real name may have been, was born in Campeche on the Gulf side of the Yucatan Peninsula. His father was a Spanish Criolo of some standing and his mother was at least partially African. What her status was, slave or free, entirely African or of mixed race, is unknown but even with a wealthy father, Diego’s African blood would have kept certain of Spanish society’s doors closed to him. This seems to be the sticking point that turned a privileged young man into a pirate. Some time in his youth Diego was offended by a Spaniard and, because of the highly stratified cast system in the Spanish New World, Diego could not have satisfaction. Unable to avenge himself on this individual, Diego went to sea to wreak his revenge on all that represented Spain to him.

The first hard evidence of Diego Grillo as a pirate turns up in 1626 when he is sailing in company with the Dutch freebooter Hendrick Jacobson. Jacobson (or Jakobzoon) was known as “the worst shark in the sea” and was often referred to by the Spanish along the Main as “Lucifer”. Where Diego learned to sail is unknown but it might be safe to say that he did some time in the merchant service prior to signing on board a pirate. My speculation is that Diego quite literally “ran off to sea” and, like so many others before and after him, turned criminal after realizing just how miserable working aboard a merchant vessel really was.

Jacobson died in 1627 and by that time, doubtless having learned from the old shark, Diego was ready to take command of his flagship Ter Veer. He sailed in and out of various ports, including Tortuga, Honduras, Havana (where he claimed his mother lived) and Providence, hitting Spanish shipping along the coast of Mexico in particular.

In 1633 his first big land raid occurred. Diego, some speculate returning for the revenge he nursed for years at sea, raided Campeche, plundering the city and burning the fort of San Benito. He killed the illustrious Captain of the Guard, Galvan, who some writers say was Diego’s godfather and may have been the very man who insulted him. An orgy of drunken mayhem ensued and for two days those Spanish citizens who could not or would not escape into the jungle were tortured for information on where their wealth was hidden.

Diego, for his part, spent the time searching for a certain army officer known as Calvo or Galvez. Diego ranted about cutting the man up, removing his ears and nose. This behavior has led certain researchers to conclude that Calvo was the source of Diego’s indignation. If so, the pirate was left unsatisfied: Calvo was never found.
In sharp contrast to his blood lust as Campeche, the story goes that when Diego sailed away from that wretched city he took a Spanish barco that was ferrying the recently widowed Dona Isabel Maldonado y Caraveo to Mexico City. When he discovered the lady and her retinue on board he moved her to his own cabin aboard his ship, treated her with all civility and saw to it that none of her things were plundered. He put she and her ladies safely on land just a few days later, although he did keep their ship for his own use.

Our pirate’s long career had only just begun, however. He is known to have sailed with boucanier Pierre le Grand the following year and Thomas Newman in 1636. In the 1640s he raided Sisal, Trujillo and other cities along the Yucatan, usually in concert with one or more of the Brethren of the Coast. He seems to have sailed with Francois L’Olonnais along the Darien coast and may very well have been among those who deserted the butcher to his fate, cut to pieces while still alive and forced to watch as the Natives burned his flesh to ashes. Or ate it; the stories vary. A Diego the Mulatto, most probably the same man, added his men and ships to Henry Morgan’s raids on Portobello and Panama.

Diego’s successes against the Spanish were so overwhelming that the enemy finally came courting. Spain offered Diego a pardon, money and the title of Admiral if he would stop his pillaging and sign on with the Empire. Diego bit his thumb at the Spanish crown and went back to the Yucatan to plunder more Spanish merchants. But time was not on Diego’s side and the Spanish had certainly had enough.

In 1673, after Diego’s capture of a Spanish ship led to the slaughter of 20 men aboard her because of their Spanish birth, the Crown put a serious effort into capturing the Mulatto. His partner in the heinous crime, Jan Lucas, was captured, sent to the dungeons at Veracruz and garroted without trial, probably after being tortured. Information thus rung from Lucas may have led to Diego’s capture as two months later he was in the hands of the Spanish authorities. The contemporary accounts are surprisingly silent on the details. All we know is that Diego Grillo, who was known by so many names, was hanged at Campeche for piracy.
Given his curious story, whose details may be all, half or no truth at all, maybe that is all we need to know.

Header: Pirates Boarding a Spanish Galleon by Howard Pyle

People: Monsieur le Filibustier

The stories surrounding today’s buccaneer are as colorful as any that might be told about, or by, a sea rover. He was a gentleman of Paris until creditors forced him into piracy for money. He had a winning way with the ladies and left the Spanish Senoras of towns he sacked in love with him. He retired to a chateau along the Seine a wealthy and much sought after adventurer. He wrote about his experiences and left his journal for the entire world to witness.

The list could fill a page or two but the truth of the matter is no one knows any of it for sure. Raveneau de Lussan surely could have done all those things for he handily documented all in the thrice-published tome The Filibusters of the South Sea which first appeared in 1689. But we’re not sure he wrote that book, or that his name was actually Raveneau de Lussan, or where he came from. The sparse information we do have, however, makes the entire story even more tantalizing.

Much like many of the great pirates and privateers, de Lussan appears in a hotbed of freebooters, seemingly out of nowhere. He turns up as an indentured servant in Sante Domingue in 1679. How old he was at the time is unknown but one can assume he was relatively young as his master was evidently a grower of sugar cane and a sadist to boot. Much like the real Francois L’Olonnais and the fictional Captain Blood, de Lussan and his fellows suffered mightily at the hands of their master. Some hints indicated that the man may have himself been a boucanier from the old days and therefore quite possibly a runaway indentured servant himself. Whatever the actual circumstance, de Lussan turned to that sure-fire occupation for indentures denied their promised piece of land: piracy.

It seems that de Lussan was a well educated and even refined man. His prose in Filibusters rivals that of Exquemelin, who was a trained doctor. Though there is no real “story arc” per ce the entire experience of being a buccaneer and attacking prey by land and at sea is documented, probably with a good deal of accuracy. Much like Exquemelin and Pere Labat, de Lussan leaves nothing out. He even goes so far as to quote letters left behind by the enemy he most distrusted: the Spanish. Here is part of one:

… advance within the shot of your arquebusses, let not your men fire but by twenties, to the end your firing may not be in vain. And when you find them weakened, raise a shout to frighten them, and fall in with your swords…

This snippet says a lot about Spanish fire power – or lack thereof – in the face of the buccaneers. Fearing rebellion, the Spanish governments would not allow even their soldiers in the New World the more technologically advanced muskets so favored by the French. The Spanish were forced in these cases to advance within twenty paces of the threatening ladrones while the French, expert shots, picked them off.

At sea de Lussan notes similar tactics. He indicates that captains would order those deadly muskets fired at will, killing officers and cutting rigging more capably than cannon. He notes in one case that “Using our fusils, we made so great a fire upon them that they were forced to close their port holes and bear up to the wind.”

De Lussan is also in no way shy about the buccaneers’ use of torture. He consistently refers to “persuasion” of any kind as le chevalet – the “little horse” – meaning the rack. There is very little discrimination as to who will be put on the little horse, with a few noted exceptions. De Lussan is clear that he would never allow a woman, child or member of the clergy to be tortured or even threatened if he could help it at all. He goes out of his way to note that at every city sacked from the Panama Coast to Guayaquil in Peru he, at the very least, would take the time to hear Mass in the local church before even thinking of plunder.

And really, it is the ladies upon whom de Lussan most dwells. While he repeats vehemently his distrust of all the Spanish time and again, he seems rather taken by their elite Donas. He is personally mortified when, while escorting a young and particularly lovely noblewoman to safe haven in a church, she begins to weep uncontrollably. He enquired more than once as to her obvious apprehension until she finally blurted: “Oh please Senor; do not you eat me!” To his dismay he would later learn that the Spanish told their children stories of monkey-like buccaneers descending from the dark forests to cannibalize the unsuspecting – and one assumes naughty – young person.

The finest story involving the fairer sex in de Lussan’s catalogue involves the young widow of the Spanish Treasurer at the city of Guayaquil. De Lussan took part in sacking the city in 1684 and does not seem ashamed to say he was involved in a good deal of the carnage there. He stops short of saying he himself killed the widow’s husband but tells us that he went to pay a call upon the Treasurer’s house all unaware that he had been a married man. He found the widow “… dissolved in tears and most disheveled” and excused himself immediately “… with all gallantry”. The widow evidently thought quite a bit of de Lussan, calling him back to her house the next day and virtually throwing herself at him. She promised her husband’s position and all his wealth if de Lussan would elope with her into the woods and hide there until his mates had gone. She even went so far as to remove her dainty shoes and silk stockings, baring her feet to the buccaneer as proof of her love.

Raveneau de Lussan, for all his courtly gestures, could not be tempted and returned to his ship to sail back to Tortuga. Five years later his book was available in France but what had become of the dandy filibuster is still a mystery. The book was republished in 1690 and again in 1695 with revisions but whether or not those were done by Monsieur de Lussan is up for debate. Like so many other free booters, Raveneau de Lussan simply disappeared leaving more than most but very little to hold on to nonetheless. But a good story is always worth while, and a good pirate story is so much more.

Header: Engraving of a French musketeer c 1685

Horror On The High Seas: Crazy In The Caribbean

We've met today’s pirate before as he was filtered through the imagination of Charles Ellms in The Pirates’ Own Book. But the story of Edward “Ned” Low is shocking without any of Ellms’ usual embellishments, for Ned was the kind of pirate that actually reveled in the tortures that most other pirates only wanted their foes to think they enjoyed. Ned, much like the buccaneer Francois L’Olonais, was a dyed-in-the-wool sadist.

Born in England some time in the last decade of the 17th century Low, whose last name is also spelled Lowe or Loe in some documents, grew up wild. He was most probably an abused child (his father appears to have been a hopeless drunk who regularly beat Ned’s mother) and Ned spent much of his youth on the streets leading a gang of boys in petty thefts and apparent animal torture. He did time in a work house in Devon before stowing away with his brother on a merchant ship bound for Boston. Discovered at sea, the young men were put to work and Ned got a taste of the seafaring life.

Once in the New World, Low seems to have made an honest attempt at a respectable life. He opened a store near the Boston wharves, married and fathered children. A summer epidemic, possibly cholera or yellow fever, took the life of his wife and young son and Low seems to have lost it at this point. He left his remaining offspring, a daughter, with her maternal grandparents and went to sea. There was never a time when Low would try to be “respectable” again.

Low began his new livelihood with the logwood gangs in the Gulf of Honduras. The logwood trade was booming, with French and British colonies buying up the wood for houses and shipbuilding, but all the wood cut in the Darien gap was harvested illegally. The men who worked the trade were hanged if caught by the Spanish. Low immediately became a thorn in his Captain’s side, eventually shooting at the man in the middle of an argument. Missing the Captain and killing a mate, Low stole the boat he was in and he and ten compatriots turned to piracy.

Some time in 1721, Low met George Lowther, a successful pirate, in the Cayman Islands. While their men hunted turtles, the two Captains decided to join forces. Lowther was a sadist as well, and Low learned a thing or two about extracting information such as the whereabouts of hidden loot, from captured crewmen. Lowther was known for his chosen torture: forcing splinters of wood soaked in oil under the finger- or toenails of a prisoner and setting them on fire. If the prisoner spoke up about his money or jewels or the ship’s strongbox, the splinters would be extinguished. Otherwise the under side of each nail would slowly be burned away.

Lowther and Low went their separate ways in 1722 after capturing some fifteen vessels together. Low then turned to the tactic he would use for the rest of his brief but bloody pirating career. He would sail into an unsuspecting port, now with a small flotilla of his ships in tow, and attack merchants or whalers at anchor. Frequently the ships were not fully manned so resistance was rarely an option. Crews that did put up a fight would be killed to a man and their ship commandeered for Low’s piratical fleet. It was in these raids that Low became creative and branched out from his mentor’s torture techniques. Many unfortunate sailors, and in particular Portuguese sailors whom Low hated for some unknown reason, from Maine territory to Panama were treated to Ned Low’s horrific imagination.

One Lieutenant who refused to reveal the location of money aboard ship had his abdomen ripped open, his intestine nailed to the main mast and was beaten into walking around the mast until his guts encircled it like a gory wreath. He died without revealing his secret and Low chopped up his body and threw it into the sea. A Captain, of Portuguese descent, who thought to stand up to Low threw a purse of gold coins overboard in front of the pirate. Low came unglued, had the man tied to his ship’s mast and then sliced the Captain’s lips off with his cutlass. Low had the lips cooked while the Captain watched and then force-fed them to the helpless man. He followed this atrocity with the systematic disembowelment of the entire merchant crew, saving the suffering Captain for last. Low was also known to scoop a Portuguese man-of-war, those nasty multiple-creature jelly fish, out of the water with his cutlass and apply the stingers to the naked genitals of a subdued captive. After capturing a whaler off Newfoundland, Low had her Captain’s ears sliced off, roasted with red pepper and salt, and fed to his unfortunate victim.

After abandoning one of his own ships and her crew to a British warship in June of 1723, resentment began to build among Low’s men. He was now taking his anger out not only on prisoners but on his followers as well. The situation came to a head when Low got into an altercation with the quartermaster aboard his flagship, Fortune. The man would not pay off a gambling debt according to Low and one night while the quartermaster slept, Low cut his head off. His crew, now in reasonable fear for their lives, mutinied and set their Captain adrift in one of the ship’s boats along with two loyal mates. The boat was picked up by a French merchant out of Martinique but one of the crewmen, who had escaped Low’s cruelties, recognized and identified him. On docking in their home port the merchant vessel’s Captain turned Low and his men over to the authorities and he was hanged within a week in February of 1724.

After taking well over a hundred ships and countless human lives, the pirate Ned Low’s horrible reign of terror was over at the end of a rope.

Header: Edward Low’s red skeleton flag

History: Bayou Hoodoo And Maroon Songs

Last Thursday we talked about seafaring and piratical Saints, those bastions of old Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy that so pissed off the original Protestants. We also talked about similar holy people in the Islamic world. The "Old World Saints" if you will.

In the New World, however, sailors in general and pirates and privateers in particular came into contact with a far more varied realm of religious thought. Many towns didn't have churches, or if they did they were shy a priest, rabbi or minister. Prayer outside of established Spanish colonies came to be more of a personal experience. And aboard ship or in some lonesome cay or bayou where goods could be dropped off and your vessel could be hauled up for a careening, the locals - if there were any - might introduce a seaman to a whole new religion.

It should come as no surprise that pirates, who were generally a mixed bag of outlaws in the first place, gravitated to the "exotic" religions being practiced in secret on plantations, in runaway camps and at sea. These were the roots of what we know today as Voudon (Haiti), Voodoo/Hoodoo (Southern U.S.), Candomble (Cuba), Santeria (Brazil), and many others throughout the Americas. Like that favorite pirate stew salmagundi, they are a heady mix of African animism, Native American spiritualism and Catholic ritual and imagery.

I say Catholic not because Protestants didn't own slaves. But these religions tended to thrive in places where Master followed the Roman religion. Catholics rarely paid attention to the religious feelings of local Natives or slaves. If the heathens went to church now and then, good enough. On the other hand, Protestants felt a moral obligation to convert the godless and keep them away from their soul-withering Devil worship. Lest we forget, Tituba the preacher's slave was the first witch named at the Salem trials.

Out of this melting pot bubbled a slew of appropriate spirits for seamen to devote themselves to and many did so with gusto. In Voudon, the lwa (or loa which roughly translates to spirit) of the seas were a married pair, Agwe and La Sirene (shown above on a hand-sequined prayer flag or drapeau). Agwe, who was frequently represented by the Catholic Saint Ulrich, was a sailor and Admiral. He was a favorite of most Haitian seamen and one legendary privateer at the very least - Dominique Youx of Baratarian fame - was devoted to Met Agwe. La Sirene the mermaid, sometimes shown as Stella Maris or Saint Martha, was invoked to prevent drowning and, along with her husband, for safe passage.

In Santeria, Yemaya was the queen of the seas. She was represented as the Virgin Mary and her statue was often kept aboard even the smallest fishing vessels for protection. Conversely, the married pair Oya and Shango were favorites of the bloodiest brigands. Their anger was thought to manifest itself in lightning storms and the St. Elmo's fire we discussed last week was believed to be their way of ensuring pirates that their ship would find a fat prize. Some legends say that Francois L'Olonnais invoked the pair as did Black Caesar who was one of Edward Teach's lieutenants. They are frequently prayed to in their Catholic guises of St. Barbara and St. James.
In New Orleans, where what Americans now call voodoo came with Haitian refugees and intermingled with the local hoodoo to become something similar to and yet different from Haitian Voudon, Baron Samedi reigned supreme. One of the three major Ghede Barons (as shown above in a painting by Voodoomama) that ruled the land of the Dead, Baron Samedi has become the official lwa of the Crescent City. Stories are told that Marie Leveau, the famous Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, introduced Jean Laffite to the Baron. Laffite, who is himself a folk hero in the bayous, became so devoted to the lwa that their personalities intertwined. Like Baron Samedi, Laffite became sophisticated, charming, amusing, uncanny and wildly successful. It wasn't until he lost the Baron's favor that Jean Laffite was finally overcome. It certainly fits the tale that Laffite, who angered the Lord of the Cemetery, has no known final resting place.

Of course the stories go on and on, multiplying in the warm, tropical breezes and humid cypress swamps. But we'll stop here for now. The legendary heroes of freebooting around the world probably each had their own God or Saint. Who they all were, we'll never know. But some of the folktales will always fascinate, and make us wonder.

The Pirates Own Book: The Ancient Pirate

Those of you who are regulars around here at Triple P know what's up with me when I turn to Charles Ellms and the happy balm that is his The Pirates' Own Book. I'm in a funk, down on myself, harassed by the blue devils. Somehow, though, Ellms delightful writing (and a healthy dose of woodcut illustrations that always make me smile) seems to help me pull myself up by my bootstraps and get on with the work at hand. So I share my joy with you. And all's right with the world.

Today we explore the short but action packed piratical career of Captain Condent. Ellms does not give the Captain a christian name but I'm fairly certain that we are not talking about Christopher Condent, although his life was action packed as well. According to Ellms, Condent was born in Plymouth and travelled to New Providence as a young man. Here, his hopes of signing aboard a pirate ship were dashed by the new Governor Rogers who was already hanging pirates right and left. This puts the start of Ellms' story somewhere around 1718, which will come up as a curiosity later.

Condent boards a merchant sloop bound for New York and a singular occurrence elevates him from seaman to Captain. Evidently a disgruntled American Native who had been ill-treated by the crew locked himself in the cockpit below decks with a fair amount of black powder. His intent was to blow up the ship and no one wanted to approach him for fear that he would follow through an his threat. Condent took pistol and cutlass, jumped into the hold and - after taking a ball from the native's gun, which broke his arm - shot and killed the man. Ellms gets right to the gory stuff here, saying the gunner then cut up the dead man's body, sliced out his heart, roasted and ate it. Shades of L'Olonnais.

The crew mutinies and elects Condent Captain at this point. The pirates went on a spree in the Caribbean, capturing Spanish and Dutch ships willy nilly. Condent found a Dutch privateer to his liking, made her his flagship and named her Flying Dragon. He took his new ship to the coast of Brazil, and happily plundered Portuguese merchants until he decided to head out across the Atlantic. His goal was Angola and the rich slave trade.

Condent, who now had a compliment of two captured merchants along with Flying Dragon, did well along the African coast. He took French and Portuguese ships, but Ellms makes no mention of slaves. Finally, Condent turns back toward Brazil where he receives word that the Brazilians have captured a pirate ship and "the pirates [are] imprisoned". He embarks on a cruise of revenge. As Ellms tells it:

...he used all the Portuguese who fell into his hands, who were many, very barbarously, cutting off their ears and noses; and as his master was a papist, when they took a priest, they made him say mass at the mainmast and would afterwards get on his back and ride him about the decks, or else load and drive him like a beast.

Judging from this vaguely confusing quote - and the illustration above - it appears that Flying Dragon's master had very little fear for his Catholic soul, mass or no.

We soon find Condent again off the coast of Africa and still having success. He loses one of his companion ships to fire and decides to make for Madagascar. Once there, Condent and his crew determine to sail for the Indian Ocean, where they are wildly successful. They returned, dropped anchor off Mauritius, shared out their booty and "broke up their company". The crewmen "settle among the natives" and Condent requested a pardon for himself and his men from the "governor of Mascarenhas". The governor agrees to the pardon if the pirates will destroy their ships, and Condent orders them sunk.

Condent himself then sails to Mascarenhas where he is welcomed by the governor. To such a degree, in fact, that Condent marries the governor's sister-in-law. Ellms ends on this note:

...but, as I have been credibly informed, he is since come to France, settled at St. Maloes, and drives a considerable trade as a merchant.

This ending is confusing as it made me, at least, think that Ellms is talking about a man who is still living and working. That would mean Condent was something like 140 years old. And that, Brethren, is not just remarkable but pretty much impossible. Perhaps the Captain was (is?) an example of my mother's old adage that Heaven doesn't want him and Hell won't have him. As always, Charles Ellms gives me something to ponder.

Tools of the Trade: Heavy Lifting

Guns, as they were referred to by pirates and privateers of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, were not the weapon of choice for sea raiders. I've said it before - and I know you long time Brethren are clear on the concept - but just to avoid any confusion: the prize ship and her crew may have as much or more value as what she is carrying. All this sink and burn mentality that romances and Hollywood like to throw out is absurd. Even the true sociopaths among the pirate ranks, guys like L'Olonnais and Teach, knew a prize had value. So why fill it full of holes if you don't need to? Of course those two crazies never did. Men would happily swim for it to avoid a random shot to the knee cap (Teach) or being cut to pieces by a pirate cutlass (L'Olonnais). You just didn't argue with Edward or Francois.

But sometimes, if you were new at the game and didn't yet have a reputation for gnawing on peoples hearts or if a Navy vessel caught you off guard, a fight was inevitable. Cannon had to be run out. So today, a few interesting facts about the big guns of privateers and pirates.

Many buccaneer ships went without cannon at all. The vessels were too small to support even the smallest bore guns (more on that in a minute) and the element of surprise followed by bravery and terror were their most trusted weapons. By the Golden Age of piracy, most pirate ships carried guns but again speed and maneuverability were more important than sheer might. Two to four 4 pound cannon were average and larger ships might carry 6 pounders. By the American and French Revolutions, when the great age of privateering began, lighter and longer carronades were becoming more common. More guns could be added, if the ship had room for them, without adding bulk and accuracy improved.

The weight of a cannon is truly the measure of whether or not it is feasible to carry it. Most people are unfamiliar with just how heavy these behemoths could be. When talking about a 6 pound cannon, for instance, what is being referenced is the size of the ball and the bore of the gun. Actual weights would look a little something like this:

A 4 pound cannon would be 6 feet long and weigh 1,400 pounds
A 9 pound cannon would be 8 feet long and weigh 2,300 pounds
A 12 pound cannon would be 9 feet long and weigh 3,700 pounds

The weights given are approximate. All the same, they point to the potential for damage when you consider getting the gun aboard ship, making sure there is room for both the gun and its carriage, recoil during firing and the ever present possibility of a cannon coming loose from its moorings and rolling free on a crowded deck. More than one limb was lost to crush injuries during any of the above maneuvers or accidents and the deck of a ship had to be sturdy enough to hold whatever size gun was mounted on her. The huge men-of-war that carried 32 and 44 pound guns in multiples boggle my mind.

Another interesting point is the carriage itself. Carronades were mounted on slide carriages that took up much less room compared to the size of the gun. Conventional cannon sat on four wheeled carriages made of wood. By the late 18th century these were painted different colors depending on the ship's country of origin. American yankees painted their carriages red while the British favored gray. French ships carried yellow carriages as did the privateers out of New Orleans until after the War of 1812, when they switched to the American red.

Of course, as any tactful rover will tell you, it's not really the size of the gun but the expertise of her handling that matters. Perhaps our Brethren had more panache than those big bang navies after all. Something to ponder.

Mind your guns, mate, and keep your balls free of rust. You might need them after all.

People: Henry Morgan Part 2

Henry Morgan seems never to have considered himself a pirate. Buccaneer, perhaps; privateer, certainly but never a thief or raider. As we saw yesterday, he sailed out on his expeditions with legitimate commissions from the English government. Throughout the amazing second half of his career, nothing would change - except for his fame and fortune.

The fragile peace between England and Spain had no hope of lasting. By 1667, Morgan had been given the position of Admiral of the Brethren of the Coast. Morgan was ready to lead when Governor Modyford came to him with the news of war. The Captain quickly rounded up twelve ships and over six hundred men and began plotting his next attack.

Initially the flotilla tried to hit Porto Princepe, Cuba, but found that word had come ahead of them and the town was largely deserted. No problem for Morgan. He had a checklist of Spanish cities he wanted to unburden of their treasure, and so it was on to Portobello in modern day Panama.

As he did in Granada, Morgan found local natives who had escaped slavery and were more than happy to give the buccaneers information on how to put the hurt on their former masters. Morgan knew ahead of time what he faced at Portobello, and it didn't take him long to convince his men that the pickings would be ripe.

Morgan dropped anchor away from the citadels of Santiago and San Philipe and his men moved in using canoes as they had in Nicaragua. The forts were captured with only a few shots fired and prisoners in the form of friars, nuns and elderly men and women were rounded up. Morgan had a plan for the swift take-down of the fortress at Portobello, and he wasn't jerking around.

On Portobello plain, the Governor and the Spanish Army were horrified to see the clergy and other prisoners being herded before the buccaneers as human shields. Though there was some hesitation, a cannon was fired on the civilians and some were killed. This spectacle of carnage stayed further resistance and Morgan and his men poured into Portobello. The Admiral allowed his buccaneers to tear the city apart in search of treasure, but he would not allow them to set anything on fire. He would ask for a ransom.

Initially, the Viceroy of Panama refused to pay the demand of 350,000 pesos and responded that Morgan was an "inferior person" that he did not have to bargain with. Morgan waited, comfortable where he was, while the Viceroy believed the Spanish Army in Cartagena would come to the rescue. They never did. The ransom was paid and Morgan sailed off for Venezuela.

At lake Maracaibo, Morgan initially tried a raid on the city of the same name. Unfortunately he came in the wake of Francois L'Olonnais. The buccaneer from Tortuga had stripped the place and Morgan's men were unhappy with the slim booty. They sailed on into the lake and turned their sights on the fortress of Gibraltar, where Morgan allowed his men to chase the frightened citizens hiding in the jungle down and torture them to reveal their hidden treasures.

Meanwhile, the Spanish had blockaded the narrow pass of the lake so that when Morgan tried to return to the Pacific there was no outlet. Through a ruse, he made the small Spanish fleet of three ships think that he was depositing men on shore to attempt an overland escape. This bought him time to dole out each man's share of booty and then ready his ships for a fight. He filled one of his sloops with bombs and black powder and, on April 23, 1669, he sailed out to meet the enemy.

The fire ship, manned by only 12 buccaneers, hit the Spanish flagship first and she burned to the waterline. A second Spanish ship ran aground in the swamplands and the third was captured by Morgan. The remaining Spaniards hurried to the fortress at Maracaibo and prepared for a fight, but none ever came. Morgan, cagey as always, waited for that night's high tide and left the lake under cover of darkness with a new ship and a fortune in each man's pockets.

It wasn't over yet. Morgan dreamed of capturing the treasure city of Panama on the Pacific Coast of the isthmus and - after so much success - his men were ready to follow him anywhere. But Modyford was calling Morgan home. A tentative peace with Spain was at hand once again and Morgan's fleet returned to Jamaica. Fortunately for Morgan and his dream, however, local Spaniards weren't ready to give up the fight. Raids on Jamaica's coastline by Spanish and Portuguese pirates outraged the Governor's council and he was once again in a position to offer a commission to his loyal Admiral Morgan.

This time upwards of 2,000 English and French buccaneers signed on to sail with Morgan. They took the castle at San Lorenzo, Panama and then sailed their smaller vessels into the Chagres River heading west across the isthmus. The dry season was in full bloom, however, and as they went the river slowly shrunk beneath them until they could do nothing but abandon first their boats, then their canoes, and finally trudge like pack animals through the humid, vermin infested jungle. Food ran short since advanced warning had gone out to villages along the way. Alexander Exquememlin, who was on this death march, even left us a recipe for boiling leather bags to eat as it was done by Morgan's men. Delightful.

After seven hellish days the buccaneers finally broke free of the jungle and found not only a refreshing, breezy savanna but a heard of cattle kept for the use of the city of Panama. A respite was declared, beef was cooked boucanier style and the men were again ready to achieve their goal.

The Spaniards did what they could to defend the fort of Panama but the fight was a foregone conclusion. Morgan took the city in two hours, but what he found was not up to expectations. The last of the garrison carried out their final, desperate order as the buccaneers entered the city and put the torch to it. Panama burned to the ground around Morgan and his men. The buccaneers set to picking through the charred ruins and chasing down the townspeople but nothing like their prior success in valuables was achieved. Morgan, in a fit of rage, allowed horrible atrocities to be committed on the local people and took part in many himself (we talked a little bit about Morgan's dark side here). Wealthy women were rounded up for ransom, and more than one civilian was murdered.

The buccaneers began to grumble that Morgan was holding out on them and, despite his protests to the contrary, they never really got over their suspicions. Morgan marched back to the Pacific, loaded up his own ship and sailed off to hit a few more towns and ransom his captives. Most of his flotilla was left behind and to their own devices.

The whole situation exploded when Morgan returned to Jamaica. Peace with Spain had again been declared and Morgan along with Modyford were arrested and taken to London as much to mollify Spanish outrage as to actually be punished. Though Modyford spent time in prison, Morgan instead became a favorite at court. When a new Governor of Jamaica was appointed he quickly made Morgan Lieutenant Governor once again, and Morgan returned to his comfortable life as a Caribbean planter and politician.

Before he left England, Morgan successfully sued Exquemelin for the portrayal of him as a duplicitous, sadistic pirate in the Doctor's book Buccaneers of America. To this day there is a deal of debate as to who was actually right, Morgan or Exquemelin. Probably both of them if the truth could actually be known.

Eventually the ravages of a hard and hearty life at sea caught up with Henry Morgan. After spending time as Jamaica's Governor, Morgan died of an unknown illness at the age of 53. He was given a funeral complete with cannon salutes and he is buried on his beloved island of Jamaica. It can be argued that Morgan achieved all the success anyone could hope for and he was certainly ruthless in his ambition. I like to think, though, that over and above all his faults and flaws what he really did was pursue what he loved - power, wealth and the open, blue water. A good life, if you can get it.

People: "With The Look Of A Warrior"

Second only to the corsairs of the Gulf in Pauline's piratical heart are the precursors of the Golden Age of piracy: the buccaneers. These guys were flamboyant, cruel, loyal to one another and probably a whole lot of fun to hang out with (provided you didn't piss them off, of course). Most people who have even a passing knowledge of pirates know of Henry Morgan and many imagine him as the rightful king of the buccaneers. Today, Brethren, allow me to challenge that thought with this brief biography of the man I consider to be Le Roi des Boucaniers: Chevalier Michel de Grammont.

De Grammont was probably not born into nobility, although he liked to let people think so. He obtained the title of Chevalier from his mates on Tortuga and was known as Le Sieur - the Lord - when he made his base the port of Petit Goave (check out Monday's post for more on that).

Aside from France, there is no definitive documentation as to where Michel de Grammont came from. He claimed to have been born in Paris and to have served in the French navy. Some sources, including that buccaneer doctor turned biographer Alexander Exquemelin, state that de Grammont had been a privateer for France who went rogue by taking ships outside the reach of his letter of marque. The point is moot, really. By 1678 de Grammont was raising hell on the Spanish Main and, to Spain in particular, that was really all that mattered.

Le Sieur seems to have been a natural leader. Exquemelin tells us that he "was beloved of the buccaneers at San Domingue" and that these men "gladly followed his every command." He is described as handsome with dark hair and complexion and "with the look of a warrior". He made such an impression on his men that even when he teamed up with other famous buccaneers - the Ducthman Laurens de Graff in particular - his were the only orders obeyed.

In 1678, with France at war with the Dutch, de Grammont led buccaneers on a sanctioned raid on the Dutch held island of Curacao. A storm blew in, sending the French navy ships along on the expedition hurrying for safe ports and nearly wrecking de Grammont's flotilla off the Aves Islands. Dutch ships did sink in the storm and, with the navy gone, de Grammont and his men began a wracking operation to salvage the goods and munitions from the enemy fleet. The operation paid off well, and de Grammont returned to Petit Goave a hero.

Upon his return to port, de Grammont and de Graff got together and planned a raid on the rich Venezuelan coast. They hit the city of Maracaibo first, which had only recently been plundered by their brutal compatriot Francois L'Olonnais. The Spanish in the fort at the mouth of Lake Maracaibo watched the buccaneers begin building a trench around them in preparation for siege and decided to give up without a fight. To de Grammont's consternation there was little or no booty left after the previous raid. He and de Graff decided to turn inland.

After securing Gibraltar on the other side of the lake, the buccaneer commanders hit La Guayra further south. Here they found the treasures they were looking for, following the hapless locals into the jungle and wringing their money and jewels out of them. A Spanish force, sent from Caracas, intercepted de Grammont outside of the city and he was forced to retreat. Unable to load most of their booty on their ships, they took prominent citizens as hostages. One ship - of course the one most richly laden with goods - was sunk and de Grammont was wounded by an arrow to the neck. Legend has it that he simply snapped the thing in half and went back to the fight.

After recovering at Petit Goave, de Grammont took to the sea again with his sights on the port town of Campeche in Mexico. He teamed with de Graff once again and they captured the town in the summer of 1685. The municipality was not as rich as they had hoped and they decided to hold the city for ransom. Though they managed to repulse the Spanish army, the Viceroy of the territory refused to concede to their demands. In a rage, de Grammont had several prominent citizens beheaded in the town square. Though some sources claim it was only de Graff's intercession that stopped the bloodshed, Exquemelin is clear that de Grammont chose only those involved in the governance of the town - and only men - to be executed. Eventually the buccaneers burned Campeche and sailed away.

In 1686 de Grammont was offered a pardon and land by the French government in an attempt to get him to quit enraging Spain. He would have nothing to do with the offer and returned to sea with another flotilla. This time he hit the Yucatan peninsula and then sailed for Spanish Florida. It was hurricane season and the ships were caught off guard in the Gulf. De Grammont's ship was separated from the others and disappeared, presumed sunk. Never captured by the enemy to hang as a pirate, never left to grow old on some hunk of land, Michel de Grammont died the way great warriors want to die - right in the thick of what they love the most.

A master tactician, a man who literally led his men into battle rather than just exhorting them from the rear, an able seaman and a relatively humane enemy, the Sieur de Grammont seems to me the very model of the old school buccaneer. And that pretty much kicks ass.

Horror On The High Seas: That One Guy That Takes It Too Far

Pirates liked to torture people. That is one of those statements that is hard to refute. Its right up there with dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It happened a lot and no amount of argument will take away the hard evidence.

There were standard tortures that just about every pirate utilized at some point without much thought. Beatings were popular. Fists and pieces of wood or the flat of a cutlass you already have are pretty economical ways to get information out of another person. If we're to believe The Sopranos the mob still takes that approach today and the bos before there were "bosses", Jean Laffite, kept a hulking rock of a blacksmith name Thiac around to dole out the occasional dose of piratical justice.

More inventive but equally common tortures were "sweating", in which the generally naked prisoner was forced to run around a tree, stump or the mainmast while the pirates poked and jabbed at him with lances, swords, bayonets and even forks. Flogging always won the day and was a particular favorite to use on merchant or navy Captains who were found to be excessively fond of the same sort of punishment for their men. Usually the torture was applied to extract information about treasure hidden either aboard ship or in the town being raided. Sometimes, though, it was just a slow day and what else is a sociopath gonna do? No hard feelings, mate.

Whether its sucking up to the boss or torturing prisoners, there's always that one guy who has to take things right to the edge. The guy who isn't satisfied with the "usual" and really dips deep into the well of creativity for all he's worth. In the case of pirates and torture, that guy was Francois L'Olonnais.

We've spoken about The Man from Olon, who was born Jean-David Nau in Brittany, France, before so I won't get caught up in the details of his life. What is pertinent to this discussion is that L'Olonnais - or L'Olonnois if you prefer - was sold into indentured servitude at a young age. His master took him to one of the Spanish holdings in the Caribbean and he was worked mercilessly and beaten regularly for years of his life. He was probably a few fries short of a Happy Meal from childhood but this brutal treatment turned him from slightly tweaked to psychopath. When his indenture was up, he went to the island of Tortuga and began a bloody career whose savagery and success would be surpassed only by Henry Morgan.

But back to the torture. L'Olonnais was very probably an extremely intelligent guy and he had the kind of insight into human nature that allowed him to manipulate others without even taking out a sword. L'Olonnais had a penchant for torturing one prisoner with extreme prejudice while his or her friends and neighbors watched helplessly, wondering who would be next.

Alexander Exquemelin, who sailed with L'Olonnais as ship's surgeon, wrote quite candidly of his murderous habits in Buccaneers of the Americas. From the book: "It was the custom of L'Olonnois that, having tormented any persons and they not confessing, he would instantly cut them in pieces with his hanger and pull out their tongues." He frequently racked prisoners and, notorious for his impatience, just got fed up when they tried to fight the torture. On one occasion he dismembered a man on the rack and licked the blood from his sword while the man's associates stood by, probably soiling themselves.

Other tortures favored by L'Olonnais included slow, keep-them-alive-as-long-as-possible dismemberment. Again from Exquemelin: "...to cut a man to pieces, first some flesh, then a hand, an arm, a leg..." L'Olonnais also employed the torture of woolding which involved tying a rawhide or rope tightly around the head with knots over the eyes and tightening it with a stick until the person's eyes popped out of their skull. Unlike many other pirate leaders, L'Olonnais often performed the tortures himself and only on Spanish citizens. Hatred combined with insanity turned a man into a demon.

His most notorious act of torture, pictured above in a woodcut from Exquemelin's book, took place in Central America while he was trying to avoid the Spanish army. His prisoners, taken from Nicaragua, led he and his men into a Spanish trap. When the pirates managed to beat back the Spanish, L'Olonnais secured his prisoners and asked them what route would be safe on his march back to the Gulf. When one of the men said that no one knew a safe route, L'Olonnais opened the man's chest cavity with his sword, pulled out the beating heart, gnawed on it a moment and then shoved it in the face of another prisoner. "Tell me the way," he screamed. "Or I shall do the same to one and all!" No further Spanish ambushes were encountered.

The history of piracy is generally awash in blood and guts and not a jolly three hour cruise where we all talk a little funny. The story of Jean-David Nau surely brings that point home. Though in possession of wealth beyond most men's wildest dreams, Francois L'Olonnais met an end that befit his reign of terror. He was slowly cut to pieces by angry Darien natives whose villages he had previously raided. His body parts were burned while he watched and his ashes scattered to the winds. I often wonder if he died well. The surviving members of his crew do not say.

Tune in again tomorrow when Horror on the High Seas takes us out to the great South Pacific where we meet a very young woman who courageously faced down Malay pirates.

Tools of the Trade: Nice Ride!

Its a little hard to be a pirate without a ship. Really, if you're stuck on land all you are at that point is a highwayman and the end result of that profession is, it seems to me, far more severe and direct. Plus you're working by land. Land. Only lubbers enjoy that and you, my Brethren, are no lubbers. So today, let us discuss the two (three semantically, but two in point of fact) favored flavors of boat for the pirates of the Golden Age, and the privateers of the Revolution and South American liberation.

The go to ship of 18th century buccaneers and pirates was what was then referred to as a sloop. This was a small craft with one mast that could carry what amounted to an enormous press of sail when measured to the size of the hull. This ability to pack on sheets gave the sloop an advantage in speed over almost any other ship. Besides speed they had superior maneuverability and could move fast even tacking into the wind. This made escape from pesky naval vessels surprisingly easy. The ships had a shallow draught, meaning that their hulls were high and relatively flat at the bottom so that they could navigate shallow bays which larger frigates could not hope to enter. Another handy escape mechanism. A Jamaica or Bermuda built sloop, both of which were favored by buccaneers like our buddy L'Ollonais, could carry a compliment of up to 75 men and a 6 to 8 small guns. From 1700 to about 1750, this was the pirate ship of choice (Blackbeard's massive frigate Queen Anne's Revenge being a fluke of an ego as big as the ship and a reputation to match).

By 1730, a variant of the sloop was starting to show up in the Colonies. Called a schooner, this similar ship had two masts, generally speaking, and was lean and mean from a standpoint of draft and hull size. These ships, frequently made of the coveted white oak that grew in North America and was so difficult to penetrate with a cannon, were a real innovation in terms of speed and safety. The problem was that a schooner did not have the hold space available in a proper sloop, limiting the amount of stores and plunder that could be packed aboard. Once again, though, about 75 men and 8 small guns were viable on a schooner, and many American pirates found them handy for short expeditions around the Atlantic coast and the Caribbean.

In the very late 1700s and on to the 1830s, the brigantine or brig came into her own. Sloops and particularly schooners were still in use in the Gulf but the ideal ship for those waters was the hermaphrodite brig, pictured above. Hermaphrodite refers to the ship's rigging: the foremast (at the front of the ship) carried square or "ship" rigged sails while the mainmast carried fore-and-aft (literally "front and back") rigged sails. Most of the Laffite brothers' Baratarian pirates chose these ships since they were ideally suited to taking advantage of the frequently changing wind conditions in the Gulf. Brigs could also carry more men (up to 120) and arms (up to 12 cannon) than a sloop or schooner and their wider construction allowed a larger though still relatively shallow hull. More stores and booty could be brought aboard making expeditions farther afield possible. Renato Beluche sailed more than one brig from the Atlantic around Cape Horn to the Pacific.

Just remember now, pirates didn't, generally speaking, sail into the bay and haggle with the used schooner dealer. A ship was a prize just like her cargo which is why all this movie nonsense of blasting away at the prize with all guns white hot rarely happened. Freebooters tended to trade up. If the prize was more suited to your purpose than what you were sailing, you left the prize's crew on your ship and sailed off aboard theirs.

So take that prize and fair winds, Brethren. I hope your sloop comes in soon.

People: Scourge of the Spaniards

A happy Monday to you, Brethren. I hope that another week finds you well. To help us all through the day that is most likely to find at least some of us thinking we hate our stinking jobs, let's talk about buccaneer, megalomaniac and sociopath Francois L'Olonnais, shall we? Sounds like fun!

Born Jacques Jean David Nau some time in the first half of the 17th century, the young man who would change his name to L'Olonnais (after his birthplace in Brittany, Olon) went off to the Caribbean in 1650 to become an indentured servant on a Spanish sugar plantation. Indentured servitude, either voluntary or imposed for some criminal act, was extremely prevalent in this era and area. Men and women looking for a better life in the New World signed up to serve wealthy families or corporations for a set number of years in return for passage by ship and some supplies such as a cow or a piece of land promised as a reward when their time was done. It all sounded good at first. If a person wasn't afraid of hard work they could get to the Americas and potentially be set to start their own farm or business when the contract of indenture was over. The problem was that indenture was tantamount to slavery with a time limit. A kinder master was still Master, and a sadistic one could cripple or kill at a moment's whim. Hate the job? Tough. Your in it, perhaps for life.

Francois, who was probably one of those slightly unbalanced kind of guys to begin with, drew the short straw in the Master department. Once he arrived on what is now Cuba he experienced starvation, beatings and round the clock work for three years. When his time was up the promise of land was forgotten. Francois was set adrift, penniless and nearly naked in a foreign country. He was angry and now certifiably insane. Like so many of his comrades, he turned to the occupation of buccaneer and his particular hatred of the Spanish earned him the moniker Fleau de Espagnols: Scourge of the Spaniards.

Francois settled on the island of Tortuga where small expeditions with a handful of men earned him the admiration of the French Governor La Place. The Governor shared Francois' hatred for the Spanish and in 1660 he gave the new buccaneer a ship to captain. Francois rounded up more sailors and set out to not only earn his moniker but prove that he was indeed a sociopath.

Savvy if touched, Francois pursued only Spanish ships and killed all but one or two people aboard to ensure that his horrible tortures would be talked about around the Caribbean. Spanish merchant seamen got to a point where they were so terrified of L'Olonnais that they would simply abandon their ship rather than face his sadistic wrath. Needless to say, this made getting rich easy for Francois and keeping crewmen remarkably easy too. Although there was no love lost for Francois back on Tortuga, men readily signed up for his ships in order to partake in some of his tremendous wealth.

When another war between France and Spain broke out in 1667, Francois saw an even broader opportunity for plunder and torture. He began raiding port towns along the Spanish Main. Eventually acquiring a fleet of ships, Francois notoriously sacked Maracaibo on the Venezuelan coast and then Gibraltar off Spain. The now infamous pirate was fearless and feared and tortures such as pulling out fingers and removing still beating hearts were part and parcel of these exploits. No one was spared and women and children were particularly targeted because L'Ollonais believed they would give up the locations of treasure more readily.

Update: Your humble hostess was looking over a map of the Spanish Main this afternoon and realized that the Gibraltar in question is not The Rock off Spain but the small port town on Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. Sorry, Brethren. Carry on.

Like a modern day celebrity, Francois began to believe his own press. He assumed that he could not be defeated and took risks that led to just the opposite of success. In 1668 he made the decision to take six of his ships and raid the vast silver mines of Nicaragua. He landed and trekked well over 500 men inland where he successfully raided the mines. On the way out, though, the buccaneers were overcome by a group of warriors from the Darien tribe. These men, who lived on the coast and were familiar with Francois and his atrocities, showed no mercy to the brutal pirate.

L'Ol0nnais was painstakingly cut into pieces by the warriors who took care to keep him alive as long as possible. His parts were thrown onto a fire while he watched and some of those who escaped the horror reported that the warriors cannibalized the pirate's body. I'm thinking they probably wouldn't have troubled themselves to eat such bitter meat but who knows. Either way, its an end fit for a sociopath. Don't you think?