6 posts tagged “pirates”

Naturally, our famous pirates were not unemployed, there was a constant demand from France and England for able and ruthless sailors that could be used as a striking force. Infamous great pirate Henry Morgan was on the rise when he started recruiting his sailors from Tortuga for his great and cruel expeditions against Spanish colonies. France was also trying to bribe the pirates, so it could create a stronghold in the Caribbean.

The fun for the pirates ended with the Treaty of Ratisbon in 1684 signed by major European powers. The piracy in the Caribbean grew to such extent that part of this treaty is dedicated to the united decision to put an end to piracy in and around Tortuga. And several years earlier English parliament forbade pirates to sail under foreign flags. The punishment for disobedience was death in the gallows.

Most of the pirates, especially those who had families did not want to end their life dancing on the rope, so they had to join English fleet and hunt their own pirate buddies who were still sailing under the flag of a Jolly Roger. That was the end of the free pirate life on the Turtle Island.

Tortuga is one of the first islands that Columbus discovered during his very first voyage into the New World. The island got its name in 1493 from Columbus’ sailors because its shape reminded them of a turtle. Spanish colony was set up there and thrived for over a hundred years until it became a part of a dispute between France, England and Spain. Tortuga was changing hands for a while until the island was divided between French and English settlers in 1630. It still did not prevent Spaniards to reconquer the island a couple of times during 17th century, but there were pushed out by settlers in 1638.

This is exactly the time when English, French and Dutch pirates moved in to this island. The situation soon spiraled out of control. One can only imagine what was going there. A decade later a French governor of Tortuga made the situation even worse when he brought on the island almost two thousand prostitutes hoping to bring some harmony there. Boy, he was wrong!

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If you like books and movies about pirates and their adventures you probably heard the name Tortuga many times. In the last movie trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean island of Tortuga was showed to us as a haven for pirates. In famous writer Sabatini’s  book series about Captain Blood and the movies based on it, Tortuga is also mentioned as the main base of pirates operations. So what exactly is Tortuga? What is its history and where this island is located?

Nowadays it is a quiet island that belongs to Haiti. A little bit over 20 thousand people live on its small territory which is about 180 square kilometers. It is very mountainous and full of rocks. Yet, it is hugely dense of lofty trees that grow upon the hardest of those rocks. Basically, in translation into English it means a Turtle Island. And it has a very wild history, as it was a major center of Caribbean piracy in the seventeenth century.

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There are also ancient Greek stories about fierce Thracian pirates who chose the island of Lemnos as their base of operations. They and several other tribes were also threatening and attacking trade ships of ancient Rome. Even great Julius Caesar was the victim of pirates who kidnapped and held him prisoner in 75 BC. Caesar did not look his cool and maintained his superiority towards his kidnappers. And when pirates decided to exchanged him for a ransom, he felt insulted that they were asking so little and told the pirates that they could get for him fifty talents of gold instead. He also promised them that they all would be crucified, but the pirates did not believe him and thought that he was joking.

Well, these pirates surely messed with a wrong man, because as soon as the ransom was paid and prisoner freed, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and captured the them. He crucified each and every one of them at his own authority, as he promised. And later great Pompey went out with whole Roman fleet to completely eliminate pirates and battled them for three months of full naval warfare.

When we talk about pirates, we usually imagine these boys sailing on the ships under the flag of Jolly Roger. But in fact piracy has always been here since ancient times. In fact, historians the first documented cases of piracy dated as far back as thirteen century BC. Ancient Egyptian chronicled stories about Ramses II fighting mysterious Sea People who came almost out of nowhere and ruled for some time Aegean and Mediterranean seas. In the archives of my local web analytics company I also found stories about dangerous Illirian pirates, who were operating from western Balkans and probably from some parts in the south of modern Italian peninsula. Roman ships were constantly under their attacks, until republic subdued Illirians in the first century BC. It became one of the Roman provinces in the end.

Even now there is a lot of talk about pirate treasure. That talk, naturally, consists mostly of gossip and rumors and nothing else. But still… Would not it be good for us to know that here and there people dig out bags of gold, silver and such, left to us by generous pirates?

For several centuries, people somehow believed that pirates often buried their stolen bounty in remote places. It seems that they searched for pirate treasure since 1795. Why would they do that, you may ask? The popular belief was that pirates had intentions to return for their stuff later. But how would they find the treasure, you may ask again? Well, here comes the great belief in specially drawn, and sometimes heavily encrypted treasure maps!

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