Yesterday, I started One Piece, the Netflix series, and it reminded me how much I love pirates (well, actually I hadn't forgotten, but you know what I mean!) So I suggest you discover three French pirates! Multiple YouTube videos also come to develop the subject!
The golden age of piracy was in the early 1700s, and the majority of pirates (of all nationalities) operated in the Caribbean. This was the time when Blackbeard, Calico Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Stede Bonnet, Benjamin Hornigold, Samuel Bellamy and so many other pirates well known today lived.
But France also had its own little pirates!
Anne God Wills It
If you follow me a bit, you may have already heard of Anne Dieu le Veut. I talk about her regularly because she is a woman that I find fascinating. To make a long story short, Anne was a strong-willed woman. She married a buccaneer who was killed by the pirate Laurent de Graff. She then challenged Laurent to a duel, and they eventually got married! Anne was active on the ship and in the crew, and became captain after Laurent's death. Her reputation was such that when she was arrested by the Spanish, France (Louis XIV at the time) intervened to demand her release!
Francois L'Olonnais
In the scary Pirate family, the English have Blackbeard, and the French have François L'Olonnais! A bloodthirsty pirate, he particularly hated the Spanish. He had a reputation for being cruel and torturing his prisoners so violently (including cannibalism: he would have eaten the hearts of his victims) that his enemies preferred to die than to be taken prisoner. He was also very intelligent, and managed to pretend to be dead so that the Spanish would leave him alone. According to legend, he died when he was captured by a cannibal tribe and devoured (ironic, a little).
Olivier Levasseur
Like a stereotype of French pirates (or international ones for that matter), he wore a black eye patch and was based in Nassau (the pirate island). He is said to have known and collaborated with Sam Bellamy and Benjamin Hornigold before leaving on his own to live his own adventures. In 1721, he made one of the greatest discoveries in piracy by plundering an extremely rich ship belonging to Portugal. In 1730, he was arrested and hanged in Reunion. According to legend, before dying, he managed to throw a cryptogram into the crowd, which would indicate the location of his treasure. To this day, many people have tried and are still trying to find it without success! In 2018, two environmentalists found a pirate chest, but it has not been excavated (removed from the stone), so we do not know if it is Levasseur's!
To find out more, you can subscribe to my Youtube channel, because as mentioned above there are videos about pirates!
