7. This Terrible Pirate Was a Terror on Sea and Land
Jean-David Nau, better known as Francois L’Olonnais (1630 – 1669), was one of history’s most ruthless and feared pirates. He earned a terrible reputation for brutality that stood out even in an age and within a profession where brutality was the norm. Born in dire poverty in France, L’Olonnais’s family sold him into indentured servitude as a child. In that capacity, he arrived in the Caribbean when he was fifteen-years-old, and spent the next ten years of his life toiling on Spanish plantations.
The young indentured servant performed back-breaking menial work in horrible conditions. He endured such mistreatment and sundry humiliations that, by the end of his term of indentured servitude in 1660, he had developed a burning hatred of Spain and all things Spanish. The result was a lifelong vendetta. For the remainder of his days, L’Olonnais had a bone to pick with the Spanish, and his relentless pursuit of that vendetta earned him the nickname “The Flail of Spain”.
