1650s in piracy

"See also:" list of 'years of Piracy'.

Events

1650

*Pirates out of Tortuga loot and sack Santiago de los Caballeros, a frontier town between the French and Spanish territories of Santo Domingo. [ Snelders, Stephen. "The Devil's Anarchy". New York: Autonomedia, 2005. (pg. 84) ISBN 1-57027-161-5 ]
*French buccaneer Jean L'Olonnais arrives in the West Indies as an indentured servant and remained in Hispanola for three years before escaping to nearby Tortuga. [ Konstam, Angus. "Pirates: Predators of the Seas". New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2007. (pg. 105) ISBN 1-60239-035-5 ]
*An increase in frigates and other warships allows the Royal Navy to strike against Royalist privateers in Ireland and Dunkirk as well as well as Barbary corsairs in North Africa. [ Herman, Arthur. "To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Sharped the Modern World". New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004. (pg. 172) ISBN 0-06-053424-9 ]
*A journal written by Dutch admiral Wybrant Schram is published describing his battle against the pirate fleet led by Captain Claes G. Compaen in 1626, one of his last engagements during his later career as a pirate hunter. [ Snelders, Stephen. "The Devil's Anarchy". New York: Autonomedia, 2005. (pg. 6) ISBN 1-57027-161-5 ]
*Royalist pirate Brown Bushell is captured and tried for piracy as well as his involvement in surrendering the English city of Scarborough to Henrietta Maria. [ Bennett, Martyn. "The Civil Wars Experienced: Britain and Ireland, 1638-1661". London: Routledge, 2000. (pg. 155) ISBN 0-415-15901-6 ]
*April 1 - After being sighted off the Yorkshire coast by a local fisherman, Royalist privateer Captain Joseph Constant and his 30-man Dutch crew are surprised by an attack party led by Robert Colman and Captain Thomas Lassells and captured after a brief skirmish. [ Leyland, John. "The Yorkshire Coast and the Cleveland Hills and Dales". London: Seeley & Company, 1892. (pg. 212-213) ]

Arts and literature

Births

*Jean Bart, a French privateer based in Dunkirk involved in France's wars against the Netherlands between 1692 and 1697. [ Keegan, John and Andrew Wheatcroft. "Who's Who in Military History: From 1453 to the present". New York: Routledge, 2002. (pg. 21) ISBN 0-415-12722-X ]
*Benjamin Franks, an English privateer and an officer under Captain William Kidd. [ Harris, Graham. "Treasure and Intrigue: The Legacy of Captain Kidd". Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2002. (pg. 320) ISBN 1-55002-409-4 ]
*Montauband, a French buccaneer active in the West Indies between 1675 and 1695. [ Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske. "Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography". New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1898. ]
*Thomas Pound, an English pirate active in New England and the Atlantic during the late 1680s. [ American Council of Learned Societies. "Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 8". New York: Scribner's Sons, 1959. (pg. 140) ]
*Andrew Ranson, an English buccaneer active in Spanish Florida during the early 1680s. [ McCarthy, Kevin M. "Twenty Florida Pirates". Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press, 1994. (pg. 35) ISBN 1-56164-050-6 ]

Deaths

References