Tools of the Trade: Smugglers' Roads

We have spoken on many occasions about the great service done to the pirate and/or privateer by the smuggler. It is one thing to know how to run a ship, keep a crew smart and take a prize. That is work a sailor can wrap his brain around. It is an entirely different endeavor to get prize goods from ship to market without the authorities poking their noses into your business, and taking your livelihood right out of your hands. As you stand there on deck looking at your seemingly good fortune you wonder, what to do now?


That’s when the smuggler becomes your best friend.

It goes without saying that some smugglers were independent operators, buying their goods at cost usually from a foreign source and then bringing them into their own country under cover of night to avoid paying tariffs or duties. The majority of historical smuggling, however, was done by experts who worked with freebooters to their mutual gain. Of course the pirate would be expected to give a cut of his prize to the smuggler, but in the end it was very much worth it. Our seafarer could be back on the water taking another prize while his smuggling connection was selling the goods from the last one. Faster turnover meant more profit and a win for everyone.

Smuggling rings fed goods by pirates have existed for centuries. The Romans battled for years with Cilician pirates who also ran a profitable smuggling business. Grace O’Malley headed an outfit of pirates and smugglers that made her family wealthy. Even the infamous Blackbeard worked with a smuggling ring in and around Charleston, South Caroline who readily sold prize goods and slaves for he brought in to Ocracoke Inlet.

The most sophisticated operation in recent memory – and perhaps in history – was the Laffite brothers’ Barataria. Rivaled only by their Galveston network, the Laffites’ system for providing a literal outlet store for prize goods made Barataria a one stop shop for everyone involved in both privateering and smuggling. The location, with it’s innumerable access to the city of New Orleans via bayou and swamp, was unquestionably made for the savvy smuggler. It helped that the city and the entire area had a long history of not only tolerating but embracing smuggled goods and smugglers. The business really took off in Louisiana when the French turned to territory over to Spain who brought high tariffs on all imported goods along with them. The Creole natives, used to getting goods from France almost literally at cost, weren’t about to put up with Spain’s taxes and the rest is history. Smuggling in and around New Orleans has not completely disappeared to date, but it has fallen off considerably since the recall of prohibition.

A fine reminder of this kind of symbiotic relationship was accidently found recently in Hastings, England. Situated on the Channel where England brushes very close to the northern coast of France, Hastings and its surrounding area have a long history of both smuggling and freebooting. Just as one example our friend John Criss of Ireland would have known Hastings well in both his smuggling and pirating exploits.

As this article from The Hastings Observer notes, recent excavations in the city revealed a hand-hewn tunnel that archaeologists have determined was built in the 18th century. From the article:

…Archaeology South-East were call in and confirmed the find was likely to be a smugglers’ tunnel built in the early 18th century and used to smuggle goods such as tea, tobacco, alcohol, silk and sugar – usually to avoid paying duty.

Though the tunnels are currently closed to the public, they are open for ongoing research by historians and archaeologists. As the old saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. But for those of us with piracy and smuggling in our veins it’s nice to see how clever our ancestors could be, exasperation of local authorities apologized for, of course.

Header: View of the Hastings tunnel via The Hastings Observer

People: The Irish Bachelor

The story of John Criss, also known around his native Northern Ireland as “Jack the Bachelor” is probably more legend than truth. There are a few key ingredients that fit into documentation that has come down to us, though, so the tale is worth telling. Especially on Saint Patrick’s Day.

John or Seon Criss is listed in the baptismal records of the local Catholic Church in Lorne on the coast of Northern Ireland as the son of Tiarnan Criss. Though a specific date of birth is not given, the year was 1645. He grew up fishing with his father in the tumultuous era when Cromwell conquered and ruled Ireland, driving Catholics underground to avoid torture and death. It seems that young John chafed not only at English invasion but at the hardscrabble life of a fisherman. He may have been the eldest Criss son as it was he who accompanied his father to the nearest town, Derry, to sell their catches on a weekly basis.

Stories tell us that John grew into a strapping and unusually handsome young man with blond hair and eyes as green as the sea. It may have been in Derry that he earned his nickname because of his “love ‘em and leave ‘em” lifestyle. A town chronicler, writing around 1663, mentions a local seaman who had “… many a girl cock cap at him and …great success with the ladies…” Legend has it that the man in question is our pirate John Criss and this would have been about the time that Jack, fed up with the work and low wage of fishing, turned to smuggling instead.

Ireland is a country of smugglers and became even more so once the English settled in. Jack, in the grand tradition of Grace O’Malley, began taking goods usually reserved for English lords from the islands of Jersey and Guernsey to small towns on the Irish coast. There he could sell them without imposition of the high English taxes. He did so well in this trade that he was able to buy himself a small sloop or galliot from the Frenchmen he was trading with. This was probably in the late 1660s and the purchase marked Jack’s turn from smuggler to pirate.

Jack and a small crew of Irish mates began taking French and English vessels in the Channel, using Dunmanus Bay in County Cork as a base. The prize goods, and sometimes the prizes themselves, would be sold in France or England depending on their country of origin. Legend has it that, to avoid any tales being told of his piracy, Criss drown the crews of every ship he took.

Once again, success pushed Criss to go farther afield and he took his seagoing predations south to the Mediterranean. Finding little to his liking along the coast of Spain, he moved on to Italy where, perhaps due to lack of prizes on the water, he began raiding local villages. One raid in particular, at Amalfi in 1671, is blamed on a Jack Crist from England. Whether or not this is our Jack the Bachelor is up for debate.

Jack seems to have enjoyed the warmth of the Italian coast as he is next found in Naples at a lodging that is sometimes called the Ferdinand. This may be a reference to the Hotel Ferdinand II which operates in Naples today and which was supposedly built by Ferdinand II in the 15th century. It is here that Jack’s lifestyle – surprisingly not piracy but womanizing – catches up with him. John Criss was stabbed to death in his bed at the Ferdinand in 1672. After his body was discovered the authorities found that he was married not just to one woman but to three or possibly four. The story seems to correspond with the killing of another Irish sailor, called Sean Criss, in the 1720s, leaving the identity of the pirate John Criss in question.

What became of Criss’ ship and crew has not come down to us. Neither has the exact identity of his murderer as it does not appear that any of his “wives” were prosecuted. But then it could be that another woman in his life – or perhaps a jealous husband – took care of the Irish pirate erroneously remembered as “the Bachelor”.

Header: Coast of Northern Ireland via Planetware.com