A French Pirate of the Caribbean – Part 1/2 (ca. 1635 – 1668 AD)
Jean-David Nau was born sometime around 1635, to a French family presumably of lesser means. He became an indentured servant in Martinique until the early 1650s, and upon the end of his service, he decided to pursue a career that was decidedly more profitable than working for someone else. He wandered around the Caribbean islands for a while, before eventually arriving in St. Domingue and joining in with the area’s Buccaneers.
As much as he enjoyed robbing Spanish ships and killing those aboard, Jean-David showed great proficiency for piracy and it appeared that his talents were being wasted – and so, the buccaneer governor of Tortuga gave Jean-David his own ship to command, which he eagerly accepted. It didn’t take long before he had plundered plenty of ships on his own, slaughtering everyone aboard and becoming one of the first Caribbean pirates to carry out organized land attacks!
Due to his extreme cruelty and merciless treatment of the people on the ships he plundered, Jean-David soon earned the nickname “Francois L’Ollonais”, which literally meant “The Flail of the Spaniards” – however, this reputation also meant that others in the area were able to prepare themselves for his potential attacks. About a year into his career as a pirate, L’Ollonais and his crew were shipwrecked during a bad storm off the Yucatan peninsula, where a group of Spanish soldiers were conveniently waiting to kill anyone who made it to shore.
Although his entire crew was killed the moment any one of them made it to land, L’Ollonais was able to survive by smearing himself with the blood of his dead crewmen, covering himself with their bodies, and pretending to be dead as well. When the soldiers were thoroughly satisfied that all the members of the ship had either drowned or been killed, they left – whereupon L’Ollonais dressed himself in the clothes of a dead Spanish soldier, released some of the Spanish crew’s slaves, and made his way back to Tortuga under the cover of darkness.
Thoroughly enraged against all Spaniards, L’Ollonais and his new crew entered a town, holding all of its members hostage for a ransom that was payable by the town’s Spanish rulers. Understandably upset, the governor of Havana sent a ship to the town to take care of L’Ollonais – however, L’Ollonais was able to strike first, capturing and beheading the entire crew… except for one man. This one man was spared so that he could take a simple message back to Havana from L’Ollonais: “I shall never henceforth give quarter to any Spaniard whatsoever.”
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Tomorrow: Part two!
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