François Olonnais - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Jean-David Nau , known as François Olonnais the cruel one, Olonnais, Olonnois, Lolonois, Lolona, is regarded as one of the cruelest pirates and bloodthirsty men all times confused.

Of French origin, born with the Sands of Olonne in 1630, it made its principal acts of piracy in company of Michel the Basque. After having made shipwreck in 1669 on the coast of Darién, with the Panamá, it is captured then is hâché, roasted and eaten by Indians Cannibale s.

Historical context

All the Flibustier S without exception, which they are French, Dutch, English or Indian, were unconditionally plain by their hatred of the Spanish colonial Empire. After having practically exterminated the native-born people of America and subjected the Netherlands, the Spaniards heard, with the blessing of the Pape, to reign as a Master on a whole continent, immensely rich. For these reasons, the flibustiers estimated themselves in right to fight the Spaniards to take again gold and the money to them which they had plundered and to adapt it.

Some were pushed by an extremely strong motivation, like Daniel Monbars, called “the Exterminator”, Bartholoméo the Portuguese or Roche Brasileiro, called “the Rock”. But one of the captains the most known flibustiers is the Boucanier Jean-David Nau, known as Olonnois, and often named Lolonois or even Lolona. Arrived in its youth at the the Caribbean, it had had to undergo the three years of slavery before being allowed in the company of the buccaneers. The years that he knows then in the forest, with the permanent danger to be made prisoner by the Spanish lancers and to be alive flaring, give birth to in him an unbounded hatred against the Spaniards.

Olonnais becomes pirate

After several years of hunting, the young buccaneer decides to take the sea as flibustier. Become pirate, Olonnois is the proof of its courage and its decision, so that the day when the captain falls to the combat, it is elected captain. In spite of several catches, it loses its ship in a violent storm. However its reputation of captain Corsaire allows him, with the support of Frédérick Deschamps of the Place, the French governor of the Tortue (Haiti), to arm a new unit quickly. Olonnois starts to acquire such a reputation of cruelty with respect to its prisoners that all the Spanish ships, all the cities fight against him to the last man.

After several good catches, it makes shipwreck not far from Campêche with the Mexico. When the Spaniards flush out it, they kill all the crew. Olonnois escapes death only by smearing blood and while hiding under corpses. Upon the departure of the Spaniards, it revêt the uniform of a Spaniard, gains Campêche, convinces some slaves with whom it seizes a boat and returns to the oar to the Tortoise. Again, Olonnois arrives, with the assistance of the governor, to arm a ship. While the Spaniards celebrate their victory over the pirate who they feared so much, Olonnois already watches for on its third ship the Spanish Galion S in front of Havana.

The catch of Maracaïbo

It is with Michel the Basque, another flibustier big boss, that Olonnois undertakes in 1666 the first great forwarding of flibustiers against the South American continent. The two men join together for this marketing year eight sailing ships and a body of unloading of 650 men under their orders. On the way of Maracaïbo (today with the Venezuela), objective of their raid, they seize some good catches, including one Spanish sailing ship charged with cocoa and 300.000 Taler S of money.

Maracaibo, located at the end of the lake of the same name, is connected to the sea by a narrow channel defended by a fort. Olonnois and the Basque unload their troops out of reach guns of the fort and take it by storm. Then they travel in the channel and attack the city, which then counted 4.000 inhabitants, and who defends themselves bitterly. Whereas they are still occupied plundering, the flibustiers learn that a Spanish detachment was sent in reinforcement. Olonnois goes to the meeting of this troop with a group of 380 men, and puts them in parts not far from the small town of Gibraltar. The Spaniards lose 500 men, while the flibustiers count only 40 dead and 30 wounded. Olonnois spends six weeks in the town of Gibraltar, which it puts at bag, joining together a rich person spoils. But a epidemic is declared in the rows of the pirates. They then put the city on fire and return towards Maracaïbo, which they plunder again, this time radically. The spoils of the flibustiers rise with 260.000 parts of eight réaux and approximately 100.000 crowns of objects of worship and jewels.

After the catch of the vénézuélienne city, Olonnois plans to devastate and plunder an entire country, the Spanish Nicaragua. Extremely of its success with Maracaïbo, it gathers six ships and 700 flibustiers. The primary goal of the countryside is the course Gracia has Dios (today with the Honduras), but the flotilla is taken by the storm and the currents push the flibustiers in the Golfe of Honduras. They decide “to clean” the coasts of the gulf, i.e. to plunder them until the conditions weather enable them to continue their forwarding. Their victims are small agglomerations of fishermen of tortoises, generally of the Indians. The flibustiers destroy their huts and steal their boats, thus sapping the bases of the existence of these Indians. Their spoils are thin, but hatred that they wake up is powerful.

Olonnois the cruel one

Their first prey, of some importance, is a Spanish sailing ship armed with 20 guns, in Puerto Caballo. Olonnois decides to go towards the interior of the grounds. It forces prisoners to be used to him as guides towards the town of San Pedro. The progression is difficult for the flibustiers, not only because of the natural obstacles, but also because of the ceaseless attacks of the Spaniards who were informed of the projects of Olonnois. During this walk, Oexmelin (or Exquemelin pays), Olonnois exerts against the Spanish prisoners the cruelty which is usual for him:

- “II had as a practice to cut in parts and to tear off the language with the people who did not acknowledge anything under torture. If it had been able it, it would have liked to proceed in the same way with all the Spaniards. Often, it happened that some of these unhappy prisoners, under torture, promise to show the place where their compatriots with their richnesses hid. Then, if they did not find this place, they died of a death crueler than their comrades”.

Oexmelin affirms even in its book that Olonnois opened one day the chest of a Spaniard of a blow of saber and tore off to him the still palpitating heart.

Rare and difficult conquests

After a strong resistance of the Spanish soldiers, San Pedro (Mexico) falls between the hands from the flibustiers. But the majority of the inhabitants are already flee, and had time to put their goods in safety. Without large spoils, Olonnois makes put fire at the city and returns to the coast, strongly weakened. Although the dissatisfaction is large among flibustiers after this long period without success and very expensive in human lives, Olonnois, while making gleam the hope of a rich person taken, still manages to preserve in hand its men.

When the awaited Spanish ship arrives finally, after three months, it proves that it is a difficult adversary, with 41 130 man and pieces of ordnance. But the flibustiers want their spoils and attack, bold. While the large buildings take the Spaniard under their fire, the flibustiers approach the other edge, divided into four boats, and take it. They find neither gold there nor money: the Spanish ship is charged with paper and steel. This new disappointment is so strong that the flibustiers lose their cohesion of it. Part of the troop sets out again with the Tortoise under the command of a new elected captain, Vauquelin. One second part, under the orders of Pierre the Picardy one, continues his search of spoils independently, moreover with little success. Olonnois remains with 300 men in the gulf of Honduras, and awaits catches which do not come. The chance left the so happy captain up to now.

End of Olonnais

It fails its ship on a sand bank. The crew is famished. Despite everything the efforts (one unloads the guns and gréement), the ship does not go back to flood. For six months, Olonnois must be defended against the ceaseless attacks of the Indians, then, with 150 men only, it reaches, on board flat-bottomed boats which they built, the mouth of the Rio San Juan, which leads to the Lac Nicaragua. But the Indians and the Spaniards push back them. It continues with the veil along the coasts of the gulf of Darién. Gone down with ground to find vivres and fresh water, it is made prisoner by the Indians. They were certainly cannibals, since the account of Oexmelin ends in these words: “They chopped it by districts, made it roast and ate it”.

Random links: