6. Francois L’Olonnais Once Escaped With a Gory Trick Straight Out of The Walking Dead
When his indentured servitude ended, Jean-David Nau changed his name to Francois L’Olonnais and moved to Tortuga, a French island north of Haiti. At the time, Tortuga was a nest of piracy and lawlessness, and L’Olonnais wasted no time in joining its buccaneers. He showed so much zeal that within a short time Tortuga’s French governor gave L’Olonnais his own ship, and a letter of marque authorizing him to prey on Spanish shipping as a privateer. He instantly set himself apart with a terrible reputation for viciousness and ferocious cruelty in the treatment of prisoners, particularly Spanish ones.
An expert torturer, L’Olonnais enjoyed tormenting his victims in a variety of fiendishly gruesome ways that were gory enough for a slasher film. Early in his career, he was shipwrecked off Yucatan. While most of the crew survived to reach shore, most were killed soon thereafter when Spanish soldiers found and attacked them. L’Olonnais survived by covering himself in blood and viscera, and hiding among the dead. Later, he snuck into a nearby town that was celebrating the killing of the pirates, and arranged for an escape back to Tortuga.
