The True Pirates of the Caribbean

By Nelson Subervi

The true story of the Caribbean Piracy has been obscured through time by whimsical stories, which create confusing and distorted images of these characters, by not defining the line that divides reality from fiction. In this book we will see the stark truth about them. We do not intend to give an exhaustive view of this activity, but rather to tell several stories based on the information obtained through documents from the protagonists of the events themselves, that is, from their victims and their persecutors. Most of them terrible, others romantic and heroic, about the life and actions of these legendary characters. Those who had as their framework of life the excessive ambition. A situation that generated a violent power struggle in the Caribbean, of people driven mad by the thirst for wealth, who lived on the edge of the abyss, expressing the worst of their twisted feelings. Bringing this as a result, actions of irreversible consequences, many of them served as an instrument to European empires with expansionist pretensions. They benefited in this way from the exploitation of the wealth that Spain obtained in America, on an exclusive basis. They used their supremacy as a power to impose a commercial and territorial monopoly in the new continent. Others acted on their own or in partnership with greedy merchants.

We intend to tell the stories around the facts, so that we can approach reality in a more efficient and direct way than in a conventional history book, thus offering a fully separated version of the myth in which these characters have been involved throughout time. Although several volumes of hundreds of pages would be necessary to relate the numerous acts of barbarism committed by these pirate men and women, although the latter in a very reduced number. We have summarized in it, the most prominent actors who left their mark on the Caribbean region. In the golden age of this society of adventurers.

In this book we will get to know the reasons that motivated these men to join piracy, we will see their faces, which sectors articulated around them, which kings used them as instruments, and which condemned them, to which criteria they obeyed, if their actions had political sense or if they acted individually, homosexuality in piracy, women pirates, why there were Jewish pirates in the Caribbean, which was their effect in the region, its contributions, its great actors, its codes, which empires were strengthened through its acts, which empire was weakened, and the reason for its decline.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Aug 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781071581728

Book preview

Introduction

––––––––

The true story of piracy in the Caribbean has been obscured over time by fantastic tales, that create confusing and distorted images of its characters, by not defining the line that divides reality from fiction.

We will see the hard truth about them. We do not intend to pose a comprehensive overview of this activity, but to tell several stories based on information obtained through documents from the protagonists of the events themselves, that is, from their victims and their persecutors. Most of them terrible, some others romantic and heroic, around the life and acts of these legendary characters, who had excessive ambition as their framework for life. This situation generated a violent power struggle in the Caribbean, of people driven mad by the thirst for wealth, who lived on the edge of the abyss, expressing the worst of their twisted feelings. This brought about irreversible consequences, many of them serving as instruments for European empires with expansionist pretensions, which benefited in this way from the exploitation of the wealth that Spain obtained in America, on an exclusive basis.

We intend to tell the stories around the facts, so that we can approach reality in an effective and direct way, thus offering a separate version of the myth in which these characters have been involved, throughout time. There would have to be several volumes though with the many acts of barbarism done by these pirate men and women. Women pirates were, however, smaller in number. We have summarized in it the most prominent actors who left their mark on the Caribbean region in the golden age of this society of adventurers.

Piracy was not an activity outlined by chance, it was the conjunction of several facts and events in the political, economic, and social order, that generated this society with special characteristics, through time.

To develop itself, commercial activity was essential, where several factors were tied together, even antagonistically, framed in autonomy and full religious, racial, sexual freedom, acting also on behalf of powerful and decisive sectors, such as governments and merchants.

The decline in commercial activity in the Mediterranean Sea was already relevant in the year 1591, for this reason piracy was progressively moving towards the Caribbean. But the final blow to this situation was given by King Phillip III, who decreed the expulsion of the Moorish pirates from the Spanish periphery, in 1615. By prohibiting his subjects from the activity of the Corsican, only those sailors who did not belong to Islamism could practice Corsican for the benefit of the kingdom of Castile.

The activity was reduced to almost nothing in the Mediterranean Sea. As it became marginalized from world maritime trade, it ceased to have the main category that gave it the intense commercial traffic that existed before. Therefore, it became a sea of miserable conditions, reducing piracy to an unprofitable, minimally lucrative activity. The attraction of these ambitious pirates and corsairs moved many miles away from there; to the Atlantic Ocean, especially to the Caribbean, leaving the Mediterranean Sea practically empty; as revealed by the Spanish historian Angel Joaniquet in his text Our Pirates.

Piracy moved with full on intensity towards the Caribbean Sea, to new sceneries where international commercial routes were working, transporting valuable merchandise, especially silver and gold from Mexico and Peru, besides other merchandise from the islands of Puerto Rico, La Hispaniola, Jamaica, Cuba, and Leeward Islands. Although they set their main base and headquarters on Tortuga Island, they also used other small islands that were used as hideouts to keep their huge loot, after doing their misdeeds.

Just to have an idea of the magnitude of the facts: in just four years between 1660 and 1664, there were over five thousand pirate incursions in Spanish settlements in the Caribbean and Central America. This statistic does not include assaults on ships at sea, as there is no record of them.

The fleets of the Carrera de Indias were the only safe way to guarantee the flow of merchant ships on the route between America and Spain, protected by Spanish warships, given the large number of pirates and corsairs operating in the region.

Our stories are focused on the Golden Age of Piracy, so called by historians because it is the time of greatest splendor of these characters achieving their greatest feats, from the point of view of the pirates. But if we look at it from the angle of the victims, it would be called Times of Horror, as Professor Juan Bosch calls it, in his work From Christopher Columbus to Fidel Castro. This is just a title for framing the period between 1650 to1730- the time when the worst men from Europe gathered in the Caribbean, with an excessive voracity for evil, ambitious, ruthlessness; men who transferred to the Caribbean all their bad habits and deformities of conduct, acquired in Europe. They unleashed all their cruelty on the attacks, without any mercy or compassion, often on defenseless people, who paid with their lives and goods.

We often think of pirates as characters in legends, dressed in their characteristic eye patch, or their wooden leg, the hook on the arm, surrounded by chests full of treasures, as we have seen since childhood in story books. But they were much more than that, these were evildoers, morally degraded, who formed a society that acted under very well-established codes and rules, by which they ruled and proceeded, establishing assaults at sea. In their majority, they were organized in small groups that, even when insignificant, had the ability to martyrize and wear out the Spanish empire, through small wars at sea and on coastal villages, that were characterized for being cruel, swift, invisible, sudden and daily, devastating entire towns and murdering

people, mostly helpless, to rid them of their belongings. Through time, these events changed the course of world powers, transformed the political map of the Caribbean, leaving a great stain of blood and pain in the history of this area of the world.

Their actions favored some empires, to the detriment of the Spanish empire. This undermined it in its foundations, weakening it to the point of near collapse. Of course, the most prominent figures in the world of piracy also emerged at this time. Their perversity, however, evokes fascination. Their adventures, daring and acts of cruelty committed by them, sometimes make our minds waver before we accept them. If it were not for the documentation preserved in trial records, colonial records, and letters from the governors, which confirm their facts, the lives of many of these characters would not belong to history, but to mythology. For we would be reluctant to believe such acts of barbarism and cruelty if these documents did not exist.

On a few occasions, some sparks of humanity used to arise in their conscience, which at times separated them from that evil and violent life of full moral decadence, and they redeemed themselves by performing good deeds: by sparing the life of some victim, by showing loyalty, or a sense of equality before their crew, by performing some unusual religious act in their own ship. Just like Captain Bartholomew Robert or Edward England used to do. He was reluctant to violence against his victims bringing this situation to bear on his own crew on one occasion, to the extent of being abandoned on an island, for stopping the murder of the captain of a ship captured by them.

These characters like the medieval knights, or like the cowboys of the American West, created a society, a way of life that took a captivating era in history, in humanity, that authors and Hollywood have portrayed many times using on occasion a little romanticism and creativity, through time, such as in different artistic representations: novels, operas, literary classic among which we can highlight Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 who created a picture of the pirate with the characteristic icons of the treasure map

on tropical islands, the wooden leg, the parrot on the shoulder, or the famous treasure chest. Cinema has also contributed to this theme since the beginning of the last century.

This book is the result of an extensive research work over several years, consulting in different files, trial records, Governor letters, colonial registries, official ship diaries, handwritten notes - logs - of the pirates themselves; as well as consulting basic works when dealing with the Caribbean piracy topic. I am referring to Alexander O. Exquemelin: American Buccaneers (1684), Lussan Le Sieur Reveneau: Journal du fait a la mer du Sud avec les filibustiers de l' Amerique (1684), William Dampier: Voyage and Descriptions (1699), Woodes Rogers: A Cruising Voyage Around the World (1712), Charles Johnson: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of most notorious Pirates, published in 1724; as well as many other works.

In this book, we will find out the reasons that motivated these men to join piracy, we will see their faces, what sectors articulated from them, which kings used them as instruments and which condemned them, to which criteria they obeyed, if their actions had political sense, or if they acted individually, homosexuality in piracy, women pirates. We will also find out why were there Jewish pirates in the Caribbean, what was their effect on the region, their contributions, their major players, their codes, which empires were strengthened through their actions, which empire was weakened, and why did they decline.

The Author

CHAPTER I

The Caribbean

Nelson Suberví

The true Pirates of the Caribbean and their Golden Age

The Caribbean

––––––––

The Caribbean is a privileged place by nature, it has many characteristics that are favorable: its geographical position, in the center of the American continent and relatively close to Europe, its tropical weather, its fertile lands, of exuberant beauty; in addition to its countless mining resources, make this multicolored, extensive and fragmented archipelago a special, paradisiacal region that no other place in the planet has.

In addition to these attributes, history wanted to place the Caribbean as the main stage where the first events of the most transcendental historical event for humanity in the last millennium, the Discovery of America, took place on October 12, 1492. Or the meeting of two worlds, as some historians prefer to call it.

Nelson Suberví

This event changed the world as they knew it at that time, in all respects. With the integration of the two terrestrial hemispheres that hadn’t had any contact until then, this shocking development brought about a true revolution in trade, politics, cartography, navigation, food, new maritime routes, mining, religion, medicine, agriculture and other areas.

This is where the European and the American man met for the first time. This way, a laboratory was started that would later serve as an advance for the conquest of the American continent.

The Caribbean began to be an imperial boundary when the first conquering expedition reached the northern coast of the island of Hispaniola, arriving on the second voyage of Christopher Columbus, on November 27, 1493. Some 1,500 men arrived in 17 ships, accompanied by a small group of women. They also brought horses, seeds of different agricultural products, farming equipment and weapons.

That way the process of looting and exploitation began; these events were led by individuals who came in search of wealth and power at any cost. The conquistadors were backed by the Spanish empire to which tribute had to be paid, provoking an unbridled race in search of wealth, leaving in their wake dire consequences for the natives of these lands, who were deprived of their territories, their goods, their culture and their freedom; they were enslaved and annihilated until almost total extermination.

After a few years, the conquistadors arrived to the mainland, and found in Meso America –México (1519) and in the Andean area - Perú (1532), gold, silver, unimaginable riches, besides unknown plants in Europe such as corn, tobacco, cocoa, potato. All these minerals and products had to be transported to be traded, establishing an intense maritime traffic between Europe and the West Indies, carrying goods and precious metals, looted in the different conquered territories.

The true Pirates of the Caribbean and their Golden Age

Those Spanish ships inevitably had to cross the Caribbean Sea on their way back. The Caribbean was the platform of the Spanish power, it had a production and consumption circuit, which served as support, supply, and maintenance for all the European ships that sailed through the Atlantic Ocean. In addition to this, the Caribbean fleet served as a distribution chain for the most demanded agricultural production: tobacco, sugar, ethanol, leather, cotton, and meat, in addition to metals. These were placed in the most important ports, where the ships of greater tonnage arrived, and from there they were incorporated to the international networks of the commerce. It is for that reason that in this region the following were besieging, waiting for a prey to assault it: pirates, corsairs, buccaneers, and filibusters, from France, the Netherlands and England. These acted as an extension of the naval forces of those nations, protected by patents of corsage, granted by empires that legitimized theft, or acted independently. These empires were excluded of the feast of exploitation, on a large scale, of the wealth that the West Indies generated for Spain.

The concession given by Pope Alexander VI, by means of the Bula Inter Caetera -1493- and after the arrangements made in the treaty of Tordesillas -1494- where it was defined that only Spain and Portugal were absolute owners of the Atlantic Ocean, closed the possibilities for other nations to enter it, thus establishing a trade monopoly with America. This intense activity involved many foreigners, who were part of the economic life of these empires. For this reason, important information was filtered out of Spain and Portugal regarding routes, types of shipments, navigation schedules, etc. These factors, in addition to the reasons mentioned above, led to the establishment of piracy in the Caribbean.

England, France, and Holland did not intend to let Spain continue with the absolute monopoly of the exploitation of the American continent, maintained for more than 100 years. These Empires began to prepare to fight Spain. For at the time, it was the most influential world power in the world and had naval fleets superior to those of its enemies, who avoided a direct confrontation with its forces.

Nelson Suberví

Despite these circumstances, the empire struggle began, using different methods of combat in the Caribbean. Spanish fleets loaded with wealth were raided, destroyed, and hijacked by pirates and corsairs, supported by patents of corsairs, granted by governments that were enemies of Spain. That way they triggered little conflicts in the ocean and on coastal villages. This way they stripped ships of their wealth, and to the unfortunate victims who were caught in their clutches, of their lives.

Governments thus established a partnership with these sailors who supplemented their forces without having to expand a war fleet that required the acquisition of ships, weapons, payments to soldiers and sailors. In addition, it avoided having a direct confrontation with the powerful Spanish forces.

These Corsican and pirate fleets were an extension of the regular naval forces of these empires. The operations largely benefited the government that granted the patent, creating a partnership between privateers, the empire, and the companies, thus applying in the Caribbean the old practices of piracy, previously used in the Mediterranean Sea. As time went on, the successful incursions of corsairs and pirates dismembered Spanish unity, breaking the monopoly of over a century. By the 17th century, the Caribbean had become a puzzle where each piece depended on different powers and interests, where France, England, Denmark, Holland, as well as Spain had possessions. That map had changed; Spain was no longer the only empire that dominated the Caribbean; it had lost its domination in this region forever

Piracy

Piracy emerged simultaneously with sailing; violent robbery on the high seas is its main feature. There is an inseparable link between piracy and commercial activity, through the navigation of ships loaded with goods and treasures, moving through the seas. Many times, they became victims of pirates who wandered after those targets.

The true Pirates of the Caribbean and their Golden Age

Piracy has served as a means for targeted governments, who used it to benefit from the wealth of a common enemy. In these circumstances, the empires legitimized it by covering it with heroism and splendor, by means of evil alliances, granting a patent of corsair to a pirate captain. With this, their misdeeds were legitimized.

In other cases, the empire´s fundamental objective was to venture into rival territories with the purpose of undermining their domain, sabotaging the flow of navigation, cutting off supplies for tactical purposes, or to weaken the economy of the empire. In this way they were advancing on their plans. Sometimes, meanwhile confrontations were being fought in the Caribbean, the rival nations continued with their diplomatic activities in the European castles. ''Ignoring'', apparently, the existing or ongoing conflict, thus evading a direct confrontation with an adversary whose naval superiority meant an uneven fight.

The pirates - now privateers - became a complement to the military fleets, an extension of them that expanded their area of action. A tactical, judicious solution. A way to counteract the shortcomings of underdeveloped societies. As was the case in that time for France, England, and Holland, while Spain and Portugal were at the forefront of industry and technology, condition which gave them supremacy and dominance over vast territories of the world.

Piracy was the result of a series of political, social, and economic facts and events that intertwined through the years and generated a society with special characteristics. The piracy was a complex phenomenon in which a way of life was acquired, it took commerce and sailing to exist, because they are inseparable connections where diverse factors harmonize, based on freedom and autonomy.

Nelson Suberví

17th and 18th Centuries

17th and 18th centuries were difficult times for Europe, war was a machinery that demanded many people, employed in many levels of the fight, being this an especially important source of work, so it was often the case that when hostilities between empires ended, in times of peace, the sailors on a privateer's ship would find themselves idle, hungry and dispersed in the coastal towns, due to the reduction of the fleets. Unemployment emerged periodically in ceasefire, or because of a reduction in trade. Mass unemployment was directly proportional to the increase in recruitment of pirates. That is the case of England, that by the end of the Spanish succession war in 1713, had reduced its men in their Royal Navy from 53,785 soldiers in 1703 to 13,430 in 1715, meaning that approximately some 40000 men were left unemployed. In this situation, it was tempting to enroll in a pirate ship with unknown destination to the Caribbean, but where they would receive as salary a proportion of the loot obtained in the adventures. Besides that, they harbored the illusion of making a quick fortune, fueled by personal success stories told by other adventurers.

Also, when governments went into war, they had these sailors at their disposal. And when peace came, they got rid of them, since for these men it was hard to adapt to a normal life, doing a routine job after having been privateers in times of war. They ended up joining a pirate ship on their own, creating international conflicts that way, so governments would have to capture them, and sometimes, execute them.

Other reasons that led sailors and ship passengers to become pirates, was kidnap. When a ship was captured on high seas the hostages were threatened to join the pirate crew, at the risk of being executed on the spot or being abandoned on a lonely island. Many agreed and became active pirates, as if they had discovered their own calling. Other renegades tried to escape at the slightest opportunity, running the risk of being killed in the attempt.

The true Pirates of the Caribbean and their Golden Age

People saw a hopeful way out of their dire situation in this activity, a way to reach wealth or to awaken illusions, a refuge