Francois L'ollonais

[caster89]

Francois L'Ollonais first arrived in the Caribbean as an indentured servant during the 1650s. By 1660, his indenture was complete and he began to wander the various islands, before finally arriving in Saint-Domingue and becoming a buccaneer, preying in its vicinity on shipping from the Spanish West Indies and the Main.

A year or two (dates regarding l'Ollonais are at best sketchy) into his piratical career, l'Ollonais was shipwrecked near Campeche, in Mexico. A party of Spanish soldiers attacked l'Ollonais and his crew, killing almost the entire party. L'Ollonais himself survived by covering himself in the blood of others and hiding amongst the dead. After the Spaniards departed, l'Ollonais, with the assistance of some slaves, escaped and made his way to Tortuga. Shortly after this, he and his crew held a town hostage, demanding a ransom from its Spanish rulers. The governor of Havana sent a ship to kill l'Ollonais' party, but l'Ollonais captured and beheaded the entire crew save one, whom he spared so that a message could be delivered to Havana. In the message, l'Ollonais declared: "I shall never henceforward give quarter to any Spaniard whatsoever".

In 1667, l'Ollonais sailed from Tortuga with a fleet of eight ships and a crew of six hundred pirates to sack Maracaibo. En route, l'Ollonais crossed paths with a Spanish treasure ship, which he captured, along with its rich cargo of cacao, gemstones and more than 40,000 pieces of eight.

At the time, the entrance to Lake Maracaibo (and thus the city itself) was defended by a fort of sixteen guns that was thought to be impregnable. L'Ollonais approached it from its undefended landward side and took it. His pirates then proceeded to pillage the city, but found that most of the residents had fled and that their gold had been hidden. L'Ollonais' men tracked down the residents and tortured them until they revealed the location of their possessions. They also seized the fort's cannon and demolished most of the town's defence walls to ensure that a hasty retreat was possible.

L'Ollonais himself was an expert torturer, and his techniques included slicing portions of flesh off the victim with a sword, burning them alive, or "woolding", which involved tying knotted rope around the victim's head until their eyes were forced out.

Over the following two months, l'Ollonais and his men raped, pillaged and eventually burned much of Maracaibo before moving south to Gibraltar, on the southern shore of Lake Maracaibo. Despite being outnumbered, the pirates slaughtered Gibraltar's garrison of 500 soldiers and held the city for ransom. Despite the payment of the ransom (20,000 pieces of eight and five hundred cows), l'Ollonais continued to ransack the city, acquiring a total of 260,000 pieces of eight, gems, silverware, silks as well as a number of slaves. The damage l'Ollonais inflicted upon Gibraltar was so great that the city, formerly a major centre for the exportation of cacao, nearly ceased to exist by 1680.

Word of his attack on Maracaibo and Gibraltar reached Tortuga, and l'Ollonais earned a reputation for his ferocity and cruelty and he was given the nickname "Flail of the Spaniards" (French: Fléau des Espagnois). Seven hundred pirates enlisted with him when he mounted his next expedition, this time to the Central American mainland, later that year. After pillaging Puerto Cabello, l'Ollonais was ambushed by a large force of Spanish soldiers en route to San Pedro. Only narrowly escaping with his life, l'Ollonais captured two Spaniards. Exquemelin wrote:

"He drew his cutlass, and with it cut open the breast of one of those poor Spaniards, and pulling out his heart with his sacrilegious hands, began to bite and gnaw it with his teeth, like a ravenous wolf, saying to the rest: I will serve you all alike, if you show me not another way."
Horrified, the surviving Spaniard showed l'Ollonais a clear route. However, l'Ollonais and the few men still surviving were repelled, and retreated back to their ship. They ran aground on a sandbar in the Gulf of Honduras, and, unable to dislodge their craft, headed inland to find food, but were captured by Kuna's Tribe in Darién, and he was eaten by the Amerindians. Exquemelin wrote that the Amerindians:

"tore him in pieces alive, throwing his body limb by limb into the fire and his ashes into the air."

a brutal end, to a most brutal pirate.

~ cc.wikipedia.org

[corsair91]

François L'Olonnais: The Most Twisted Pirate (Pirate History Explained)
24 Apr 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_KyMXT31c0

The Legends of History
24 Apr 2018

Francois L'Olonnais was a pirate who tortured his victims for fun. It's hard to see which he enjoyed more. Plundering booty or simply hurting people.



François L’Olonnais: The Most Savage Pirate of the Caribbean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY3NRGlmmIA

Biographics
5 Sept 2020

[corsair91]

The Pirates of Sid Meier’s Pirates!
Firaxis


L'Olonnais

Born in Olonne, France, Jean David Nau arrived in the Caribbean during the 1650s as an indentured servant. By 1660 his indenture was over, and he turned to the potentially more lucrative career of piracy. By 1668 he was dead. In his brief career L'Olonnais would prove himself to be one of the bravest and most cunning pirates who ever sailed the seas. He would also prove himself to be one of the most brutal and evil men who ever lived.

Stories of L'Olonnais' outrageous cruelty abound. On one occasion he was interrogating prisoners, seeking a safe way past a fortification. When the terrified men said that they didn't know of any such route, he cut the heart out of one prisoner and "began to bite and gnaw it with his teeth, like a ravenous wolf, saying to the rest: 'I will serve you all alike, if you show me not another way.'"

On another voyage L'Olonnais captured a Spanish ship carrying 50 soldiers sent out to capture him. L'Olonnais promptly killed all of the prisoners except one, who he sent to Havana with the message, "I shall never henceforward give quarter to any Spaniard whatsoever."

During one famous cruise, L'Olonnais amassed around 600 pirates and took them into the Gulf of Venezuela, where he sacked the city of Maracaibo, sacked the city of Gibraltar, and then sacked Maracaibo again on his way home to Tortuga. In the course of two short months L'Olonnais took treasure and cargo valued in excess of 600,000 pieces of eight.

L'Olonnais was received as a hero in Tortuga, and when he announced that he was going on another expedition, this time to Venezuela, he received over 700 volunteers. The voyage began well and the pirates captured the city of Puerto Cabello and, after a hard fight, the nearby town of San Pedro. Satisfied with their takings thus far, many of the pirates decided to return to Tortuga to spend their loot, while L'Olonnais continued on with a smaller force of around 300.

Some time later, his ship went hard aground on a sandbar. Unable to dislodge the vessel, L'Olonnais built a smaller boat from the wreckage and with about half of his men sailed to the coast of Cartagena, looking for canoes and other boats to carry the remaining crewmen.

But at last his luck ran out. Once ashore L'Olonnais and his men were repeatedly attacked by both Spaniards and natives, and the pirates were eventually overwhelmed and massacred by a party of Darien Indians. Alexandre Oliver Exquemelin, author of "The Buccaneers of America," describes L'Olonnais' ending thusly: "[T]he Indians within a few days after his arrival took him prisoner and tore him in pieces alive, throwing his body limb by limb into the fire, and his ashes into the air; to the intent no trace nor memory might remain of such an infamous, inhuman creature."


https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/11/15/pirates-of-pirates-5

[corsair91]

https://www.worldhistory.org/Francois_L'Olonais/


François L'Olonais Cigarette Card
https://www.worldhistory.org/image/14737/francois-lolonais-cigarette-card/


A late-19th century cigarette card showing the French buccaneer and pirate François L'Olonais (1630-1668). L'Olonias was the cruellest of all buccaneers, torturing and executing almost all of his captives during a brutal career attacking the Spanish Main. He was tortured and killed by cannibals in 1688. Produced by Allen & Ginter. Lithographer: George S. Harris & Sons. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)



François L'Olonais
https://www.worldhistory.org/image/14736/francois-lolonais/

Illustration

A 17th century illustration of François L’Olonais (1630-1668), the infamous French buccaneer who terrorized the Spanish Main. (From an early edition of The Buccaneers of America by Alexander Exquemelin)

[corsair91]

Francis l’Olonnais | Pirates That People Never Talk About
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWZljheQSZs

Thomas Weiss


Francis L’Olonnais was likely born as Jacques Jean David Nau in Sables-d’Olonne, France around 1634. He was transported to the Caribbean as an indentured servant and upon being released, around 1660, he travelled to Hispaniola where he became a buccaneer. L’Olonnais worked on other ships and distinguished himself to the extent that the governor of Tortuga gave him a ship.


Thomas Weiss
https://www.youtube.com/@ThomasWeissAuthor
Pirates content



Francois L'Olonnais, The Psycho Pirate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY3JsLwR5Pc

Francois L'Olonnais,, the Spanish Main's most bloodthirsty buccaneer gets REALLY nasty.

https://www.youtube.com/@Roguesgalleryonline



Pirate of the Carribean - L'Olonnais
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQqnX2wgP3o

The bloody and tragical story of the cruel buccaneer François L'Olonnais.

https://www.youtube.com/@thecajuncutthroat



François L’Olonnais: French Pirate That Had His Heart Eaten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rDXu0Ekisw

https://www.youtube.com/@HistoryofPirates

[corsair91]

7 Most Ruthless & Feared Pirates of All Time: The Ultimate Sea Predators in History...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMbv76kUBAc


Now, throughout the course of history, hundreds and thousands of people have taken to the seas to grasp their chances at fortune. Piracy itself can be traced back to around the fourteenth century BC to around the Mediterranean region, and, since then, piracy has been a near constant force in some regions of the world. What we understand as the 'golden age of piracy', with the iconic pirate captains, buccaneers, privateers and frigates, however, primarily took place between the 1650s and the 1730s. The general concept was the same - pirates took to the seas to rob the wealthy, illegally, in the hopes of making a name for themselves, along with heaps of treasure and gold. Some pirates were notorious for their brute force; some for their intelligence and business capabilities; but some stand out for just how fearsome they were.

The names of some particular pirates have been spoken about infamously long after the pirates themselves have been lost to the annals of time; and that is the subject of today's video. We will be travelling to the golden age of piracy and beyond, where we will be meeting some of history's most notorious and feared pirates, giving a profile of their most notable acts, and why they were so notorious. We will meet the individuals that once made the seas echo with the sounds of their very names, striking pure terror into the hearts of locals, merchants and government officials alike. It is as dramatic a subject as it is fascinating. Join us, as we take a look at the most feared pirates of all time.

If you enjoyed this video and want to stay updated on our latest content, be sure to hit the like button, subscribe to our channel, and turn on notifications. We're constantly working on new and exciting videos, so stay tuned for more!

Timre Codes on youtube page

0:00 Introduction
1:25 Calico Jack
4:03 Charles Vane
5:59 Jeanne deClisson

8:38 Francois L’Ollonais
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMbv76kUBAc&t=518s

12:33 Ching Shih
15:31 Anne Bonny
17:45 BlackBart


Walk The Plank
https://www.youtube.com/@walktheplank9223