In this article we will tell you about the end of the great era of filibusters Tortuga and Port Royal.
Resignation and death of Bertrand d'Ogeron
Bertrand d'Ogeron, who ruled Tortuga for 10 years and did so much for the island's prosperity, died in France.
This is how the viewers of the Soviet-French film of 1991 saw Bertrand d'Ogeron.
The circumstances of his return were sad. In 1674, a special commission appointed to audit the financial condition of the French West Indies Company (on whose behalf d'Ogeron ran Tortuga) found a deficit of 3,328,553 livres, with the king being the worst-hit investor. As a result, in December 1674 the West India Company was liquidated, and all the colonies overseas were declared royal property. D'Ogeron had nothing to do with these machinations, after his death he did not even have any property or money that should have been transferred to the heirs. Left out of business, at the end of 1675 he returned to France, where he tried to interest the authorities in new colonization projects, but fell ill and died on January 31, 1676. For some time they forgot about him and his merits. Only in October 1864, at the initiative of Pierre Margri, Deputy Director of the Archive of the Fleet and Colonies, a memorial plaque was installed in the Paris Saint-Severin Church with the inscription:
“On the last day of January 1676 in the parish of the Church of Saint Severin, on the rue Mason-Sorbonne, died Bertrand d'Ogeron, M. de la Buer of Jallier, who between 1664 and 1665 laid the foundations of civil society and religion among the filibusters and buccaneers of the islands of Tortuga and Saint-Domengue. Thus, he prepared the fate of the Republic of Haiti by unknown ways of providence."
Church Saint-Severin, Paris, Latin Quarter, near the Sorbonne
Jacques Nepveux de Poinset as Governor of Tortuga
D'Ogeron's nephew, Jacques Nepveux de Poinset, who remained on Tortuga for the governor, continued the policy of encouraging filibusters, including English ones, from Jamaica, the governor of which complained that his lieutenant (deputy) Henry Morgan was sending corsairs for letters of marque to Tortuga. for which he receives from them a certain share of the spoils. The number of corsairs of Tortuga and Saint-Domingo in those years, researchers estimate at 1000 - 1200 people.
In 1676, the Dutch squadron of Jacob Binkes approached the shores of Hispaniola and Tortuga, which in 1673, together with Commodore Cornelis Evertsen the Younger, very successfully acted against the British and French, capturing 34 enemy ships and sinking 50. On August 9, 1673, he even captured New York. Evertsen now took possession of the French colonies in Cayenne and the islands of Marie-Galante and Saint-Martin. After that, he turned to the buccaneers of Tortuga and Saint-Domingo, urging them to accept Dutch citizenship and promising them permission to bring blacks (which the French authorities denied them) and "the satisfaction of free trade with all nations."
On July 15, 1676, a naval battle took place near Tortuga, in which 2 battleships, a frigate and a privateer sloop took part from the Dutch side, from the French side - a significant number of small ships, which, taken together, were inferior to the enemy in the number of crew and in the number of guns … The battle ended in complete victory for the Dutch: under their fire, the French threw their ships into coastal shoals and disappeared on the shore. The Dutch managed to lift and repair three of them, but they did not dare to land the landing.
In February 1678, de Poinset, at the head of a flotilla of 12 corsairs, carrying about 1,000 filibusters, sailed to the island of Saint-Christopher, where he joined up with the royal squadron of the Comte d'Estré to jointly attack the island of Curacao, which belonged to the Netherlands. The beginning of this expedition was marked by a terrible shipwreck near the Aves Islands: on the night of May 10-11, 7 battleships, 3 transports and 3 filibuster ships sank. The loss of life amounted to more than 500 people. The expedition failed, the commander of the filibusters, de Grammont, was allowed to take everything he needed from the wrecked ships and go on a "free hunt." About 700 corsairs of Tortuga and the Shore of Saint-Domengue set out with Grammont. His squadron went to the shores of modern Venezuela, where the corsairs managed to capture the cities of Maracaibo, Trujillo, the village of San Antonio de Gibraltar and take 5 Spanish ships as prizes. The total cost of the loot was 150 thousand pesos (piastres). This was less than the booty that François Olone and Henry Morgan managed to capture in Maracaibo, but not one of the pirates died in this campaign.
Another undertaking by Jacques Nepveu de Poinset was an attempt to negotiate with the Spaniards on the recognition of French rights to the western part of the island of Hispaniola (which was already not controlled by the Spanish authorities), but he did not achieve success. However, in 1679 the Spaniards nevertheless recognized the French rights to Tortuga.
In the same year, a certain Pedro Juan, whom the local French called Padrejean, revolted on Tortuga. He was a slave of a Spaniard from Santo Domingo, who killed his master and fled to Tortuga. Leading a small detachment of 25 fugitive black slaves, he raided colonist settlements. But the local buccaneers and settlers themselves were determined and very harsh people: without the participation of the authorities, they found the rebels and shot them.
Buccaneer with musket, tin figurine by Julio Cabos
In 1682, a tropical hurricane caused significant damage to the settlements of Tortuga, in 1683 a fire that broke out on the ruins of one of the buildings that collapsed during this storm almost destroyed the main city of the island - Buster. He was never destined to recover from the consequences of these natural disasters.
The extinction and desolation of Tortuga
In 1683, Jacques Nepveux de Poinset died on the island of Hispaniola, his only heir was his matlot Galichon. Poinset's successor as governor of Tortuga and the Shores of Saint-Domengue was appointed sier de Cussy, who took up his duties on April 30, 1684 and ruled the colony until 1691. This period was marked by the emergence of tobacco plantations in the western part of Hispaniola (French Coast Saint-Domengue) and on Tortuga.
Tobacco Plantation, engraving 1855. Working conditions have changed little since the end of the 17th century
However, there were few free areas on Tortuga, and the soil suitable for the cultivation of tobacco was rapidly depleted. In addition, the development of agriculture here has traditionally been hampered by the lack of fresh water (there are no rivers on Tortuga, there are few sources, you have to collect rainwater). As a result, the number of French colonists on the Coast of Saint-Domengo (western part of Hispaniola) grew steadily, and the role of Tortuga as a colony gradually declined.
The era of filibusters was also declining, and with the decrease in the number of corsair ships, the harbors of Buster and Cion were weakened. As a result, it was decided to develop French possessions in the north and west of Hispaniola - to the detriment of the old settlements on Tortuga. The new governor of Tortuga and the Coast of Saint-Domengue, Jean-Baptiste du Cass, wrote in 1692:
“The island of Tortuga is completely undeserving of attention … This island was the first conquest of the French and a haven of pirates for forty years. Today he gives nothing; people who are there remain there only to be in idleness and idleness; I will transport them, as soon as they heed the voice of reason, to the settlement in Port-de-Pays."
Governor of Tortuga and the Coast of Saint-Domengue Jean-Baptiste du Cass. Portrait by Iasent Rigaud, Naval Museum, Paris
The resettlement of the inhabitants of Tortuga was completed in 1694 and the once thriving base of filibusters ceased to exist.
And in 1713 the last blow was struck at the corsairs of the Coast of Saint-Domengue: France outlawed any form of piracy - and the filibusters then finally left the once hospitable island of Hispaniola. Some of them were hired for the royal service, others still tried, at their own peril and risk, to attack ships in the Caribbean.
Tortuga (more precisely, already Tortu) began to populate again only from the beginning of the twentieth century.
Tortu Island today
It seems logical to assume that at the present time, after the release of the famous movie saga "Pirates of the Caribbean", Tortu is experiencing a tourist boom. The coast simply has to be built up with hotels, numerous "pirate taverns" and "buccaneer's huts" should offer rum and meat according to the famous recipe. A comfortable copy of the Black Pearl (under the command of Jack Sparrow, of course) should bring tourists daily from the ports of the neighboring Dominican Republic to a theme park with a computerized model of the Kraken and a life-size Flying Dutchman. The huge cruise ships plying the Caribbean Sea should not bypass this island either.
Coast of Tortu Island (Tortuga)
These sea turtles gave the name to the island of Tortu (Tortuga). This photo was taken in the waters of the Dominican Republic, but exactly the same turtles can be found off the coast of Tortu
Alas, Tortue belongs to one of the poorest and most disadvantaged countries in the world - the Republic of Haiti (part of the Northwest Department), and in some villages on this island there is still no electricity. At the same time, it is argued that the standard of living here is even higher than in other regions of the Republic of Haiti (which in the most paradoxical way coexists on the same island with the not too rich, but against the background of its neighbors, seemingly quite prosperous Dominican Republic).
Republic of Haiti and Dominican Republic
Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic
Port-au-Prince, capital of the Republic of Haiti
And if the Dominican Republic is known throughout the world for its resorts and beaches, then Haiti became famous as the birthplace of one of the three main types of voodoo cult, namely the Haitian variety, which was significantly influenced by Christianity. Few people know that in 1860 Pope Pius IX recognized this cult as one of the branches of Catholicism.
Pope Pius IX. The one who achieved the adoption of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and the infallibility of the popes, continued the "great castration" of the ancient Vatican sculptures begun in the 16th century, was declared a "servant of God" by John Paul II and numbered on September 3, 2000 G.
Another Pope, John Paul II, once said that he respects the priests who practice voodoo and recognizes the "foundational virtue" inherent in the teaching and belief of voodoo. In 1993, he even honored one of these ceremonies with his presence.
John Paul II and the priest of the cult of voodoo
And this is one of the culprits of the current plight of the country: the "banana" dictator Francois Duvalier ("Papa Doc"), who declared himself a voodoo priest and "leader of the dead":
In general, the Republic of Haiti can rightfully be called one of the most unfortunate and impoverished countries in the world. That is why for a long time we will not see on the Tortu Island either luxury hotels, or a huge amusement park, or the sails of the Black Pearl filled with tourists.
By the way, have you ever wondered what kind of ship the famous "Black Pearl" is? Is it a frigate, galleon, brig? According to some experts, she is a fantasy ship that has absorbed the features of the 17th century English galleon, the "Dunkirk frigate" and the Dutch pinas
And this is "The Flying Dutchman" from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean". From July 5, 2006 until 2010, it stood near the Bahamas Garda Cay, where The Walt Disney Company opened a theme park in 1998, and the island itself was renamed Castaway Cay - Shipwreck Reef:
Castaway Cay: "The Real" "The Flying Dutchman" from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" in front of an ocean liner
Maybe someday Tortu will be able to boast of something similar. But today, almost nothing reminds of the loud history of this island. Its only attraction now is an old ship (outwardly reminiscent of a Spanish galleon) by the harbor of Buster.
Tortuga, an old ship off Buster Bay
Nobody can say what kind of ship it is, and where it came from, but a few tourists actively photograph it, then posting photos of "an almost real pirate ship" on the Internet.
The sad fate of Port Royal
The fate of Port Royal was also sad, which, unlike the cities of Tortuga, grew and developed at an enviable pace.
Nothing foreshadowed trouble when on June 7, 1692, “the sky turned red like a red-hot oven. The earth rose and swelled like sea water, began to crack and swallow people."
In 1953, the scuba divers of the research vessel "Sea diver" lifted a gold watch made in Amsterdam (master Paul Blodel) in 1686 from the seabed. disaster.
One after another, three powerful tremors destroyed the city. Under a layer of hard sandstone, groundwater turned out to be, they came to the surface and the streets turned into a swamp that instantly swallowed hundreds of houses along with their inhabitants. The death of these people was terrible: the rector of St. Paul's Cathedral, Emmanuel Heath, recalled that when the sand hardened again, "in many places the hands, feet or heads of people protruded from it."
When the sand hardened again, "in many places the hands, feet or heads of people protruded from it." Medieval drawing
The local merchant Lewis Galdi was lucky, who, like many unfortunate people, fell into quicksand, but was suddenly thrown out of it by a new earthquake. And the coastal part of the city "slid" into the sea. Forever forts James and Carlisle have gone into the water, only sometimes Ford Rupert appears from the water now. Fort Charles survived, the commandant of which earlier, as we remember from the previous article (Privateers and corsairs of the island of Jamaica), later (in 1779) was Captain I rank Horatio Nelson, and Fort Walker, which is located on a small island.
Fort Charles Marititime museum, Jamaica, suburb of Kingston, modern photo
Contemporaries recalled how the bells of St. Paul's Cathedral were ringing at this time, swaying by the wind - as if saying goodbye to the city and singing the funeral service for its inhabitants, but soon they also fell silent.
Robert Renn wrote in The History of Jamaica (1807):
“All the piers sank at once, and within two minutes 9/10 of the city was covered with water, which rose to such a height that it poured into the upper rooms of the houses, which were still standing. The tops of the tallest houses could be seen above the water, surrounded by the masts of ships that sank along with the buildings."
The death of Port Royal, engraving
The city cemetery went into the sea - and the bodies of the dead floated next to the corpses of long-dead people. Among others, Henry Morgan, the former lieutenant governor of Jamaica and the recognized leader of the island's privatizers, was buried here. People later said that, having swallowed his remains, "the sea took for itself what had long been due to him by right."
The destruction of the city was completed by tsunami waves, which also destroyed the ships standing in the harbor of Port Royal: there were 50 of them, of which one was a military, the rest belonged to merchants and privatizers. But the frigate "Swan", pulled ashore for repair work, was lifted by the tsunami wave and carried ashore, where it crashed into the roof of a dilapidated building. Archaeologists then calculated that 13 acres of the urban area were submerged in the earthquake, and another 13 acres were washed into the sea by the tsunami.
Port Royal now, before and after the earthquake. In a modern photograph of Port Royal: The orange line shows the boundaries of the city before the earthquake of 1692, yellow - its boundaries after the earthquake
Ruins of Port Royal, underwater filming
And then marauders came to the destroyed city. E. Heath reports:
“As soon as night fell, a group of obscene crooks attacked open warehouses and abandoned houses, looted and shot their neighbors, while the earth trembled beneath them, and houses collapsed on some of them; and those impudent whores who were still in place were as arrogant and drunk as ever."
Eyewitnesses recalled that the dead were stripped and their fingers cut off to remove the rings.
The consequences of this disaster were dire: from 1,800 to 2,000 houses were destroyed, about 5,000 people died. The more distant consequences turned out to be no less terrible: due to the multitude of unburied bodies decomposing in the sun, an epidemic began, which claimed the lives of several thousand more people.
Both in Europe and in America, the death of Port Royal was perceived by everyone as a heavenly punishment, which finally befell the "wicked and sinful city." Moreover, even the members of the Council of Jamaica, who met two weeks later, decided that "we have become an example of the harsh judgment of the Most High."
Most of the surviving townspeople moved to nearby Kingston, where the British colonial administration has since settled. It is Kingston that has since been the capital of Jamaica. However, some residents of Port Royal did not want to leave the city - they began to build new houses on the other side of the harbor. But the time of this city, apparently, is really gone: at first it burned down in a fire in 1703, and then several hurricanes buried the remains of the old Port Royal, under a layer of silt and sand. Until 1859, the ruins of half-buried houses could still be seen here, but a new earthquake in 1907 destroyed the last traces of the "Pirate Babylon".
Kingston. Aftermath of the 1907 earthquake
A small settlement on the site of Port Royal has survived, now it is home to about 2,000 fishermen and their families.
Modern Port Royal
Modern Kingston, map
But even having lost their bases on Tortuga and Port Royal, the corsairs continued to attack ships in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico for some time. The new center of filibusters was the island of the Bahamas archipelago New Providence. At the beginning of the 18th century, the filibusters, unwillingly, were helped by the Spaniards and the French, after whose attack in 1703 and 1706, most of the English colonists left the restless island. Filibusters, who did not accept the loss of their old bases, went here. It was in the Bahamian city of Nassau that the "star" of one of the most famous pirates in history, Edward Teach, better known by the nickname "Blackbeard", rose. It was there and at that time that the "sea Amazons" "Calico" Jack - Anne Bonnie and Mary Reed would then become famous.
The next article will tell about the pirates of the island of New Providence and the peculiar pirate republic of Nassau.
Anne Bonnie, Edward Teach (Blackbeard), Edward England and their adversary, also a former corsair - Woods Rogers on Commonwealth of the Bahamas stamps
