Pirate Francois Olonez was at one time no less popular than the cinematic Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean saga, but he was not much like him. He was not a nice guy, but a psychopath who killed his prisoners with particular cruelty. Many pirates were in the service of their monarchies and therefore did not rob "their own". The exhibition Mare clausum. Opening in Seville tells about this and much more. Mare liberum. Pirates of Spanish America ".
The main archive of the Indies in Seville has organized an exhibition of more than 170 documents and maps related to pirates who operated in the Caribbean in the 16th-18th centuries. Thanks to literature and cinematography, the opinion was formed that the sea robbers, at least many of them, were romantics capable of heroic deeds, but in reality they were cruel and greedy people.
The title of the exhibition explains what were the two European approaches to the use of sea space in the era of great geographical discoveries. The first - Mare clausum ("closed sea") - was held by the Spaniards, who believed that they had the primary and even exclusive right to exploit the wealth discovered in America. But countries such as France, Holland and Great Britain also wanted to grab a piece of the New World and professed a different principle - the principle of the high seas (Mare liberum).
The first pirates were the French. The first recorded case of piracy dates back to 1522, when the French corsair Jean Fleury attacked the Spanish ship of the conquistador Hernán Cortés, which was transporting Montezuma's treasures to Seville. Christopher Columbus himself, who was returning from his third trip to America, did not escape the attack of the pirates. True, he managed to fight back.
French pirates dominated the sea until the end of the 16th century, then the British violated their hegemony, and later, in the 17th century, the Dutch and Danes joined them. The Spaniards, who called the open territories in America "Indies" (Las Indias), could not resist the well-armed and mobile pirates who captured and plundered not only ships, but also settlements. Thus, the city of Santa Marta on the coast of present-day Colombia for fifty years was destroyed and plundered twenty times by pirates.
The activity of pirates increased, and the legends of dragons and monsters that lived in the Atlantic were replaced by stories of no less terrible characters, who were often painted without an eye, with a leg torn off by a cannon shot and in tattoos. They were called differently: pirates, corsairs, buccaneers and filibusters - and there were differences between them.
The corsairs were in the service of the state. From the crowned heads, they received a "patent for corsair", which allowed them to kill and plunder the enemies of the monarchy. There were especially many corsairs among the English and Dutch, and the most famous corsair was Francis Drake. “Drake was considered the national hero of his country. Queen Elizabeth I awarded him a title of nobility. In addition, he became the second navigator, after Juan Sebastian Elcano, to sail around the world through the Strait of Magellan. Moreover, a captured Portuguese sailor, who knew the area well, helped him in this,”one of the exhibition guides told the BBC correspondent.
Less known to today's reader are buccaneers, French settlers in America who first hunted and smoked bucan from buffalo meat. Then they took up a more profitable business - piracy - and also were in the service of the crown, only now the French. And finally, the seas were sailed by filibusters (from the English fly boat - "flying boat"), who were considered the most cruel and evil pirates. They hunted not only by raids on ships, but also on settlements. The main refuge of filibusters was Tortuga Island, one of the Cayman Islands. According to the pirate code they developed, the murder of a "brother" was considered one of the most terrible crimes. As punishment, the killer was tied together with the victim to a stone and thrown into the sea.
Promotional video:
Despite the fact that the main victims of the attacks were Spanish ships carrying the stolen treasures, this does not mean that there were no Spanish subjects among the pirates. One of them - Benito Soto Aboal - robbed English and Portuguese ships. He is considered the last and bloodiest pirate of the Atlantic. The last case of a pirate attack is associated with his name. In 1823 he boarded a ship from Calcutta to the United States. As always, he ordered to kill the crew and sank the ship. But there were worse villains. The Frenchman Francois Olonez proved to be a real sadist. He probably spied on the brutal ritual of the Maya Indians. According to the sailor's testimony, after torture, Olonez chose one of the victims, with a wave of a knife cut open the wretch's chest, took out the heart and, taking a bite off, ate it in front of the other prisoners.
LYUBOV STEPUSHOVA