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The Real Pirates of the Caribbean

Khalid Elhassan January 7, 2020 32 min

24. Hiding in Blood and Guts

françois l'olonnais — Francois L’Olonnais and his men indulged in an orgy of atrocities when they captured Maracaibo. Wiki Fandom

Early in his career, Francois L’Olonnais was shipwrecked off Yucatan. Most of the crew survived to reach shore, only for all of them to get killed soon thereafter when Spanish soldiers found and fell upon them. L’Olonnais survived by covering himself in blood and viscera, and hiding among the dead. Later, he snuck into a nearby town which was celebrating the killing of the pirates, and arranged for an escape back to Tortuga.

He resumed his depredations against Spain, and in 1666 assembled a fleet of 8 ships and 440 pirates to attack Maracaibo in modern Venezuela. En route, he came across and looted a Spanish treasure ship, which yielded 260,000 Spanish dollars, in addition to gemstones and cocoa beans. It was a prelude to the most monstrous act of his career.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.