You Did Not Want to Become a Prisoner of Francois L’Olonnais – Especially if You Were Spanish
French pirate Francois L’Olonnais (1630 – 1669) had a reputation for brutality that stood out even in an age and profession marked for brutality. He especially had it in for Spaniards, and his relentless vendetta against them earned him the nickname “The Flail of Spain”. He was sold into indentured servitude as a child, and spent his youth toiling on Spanish plantations in the Caribbean. Between the back breaking work, harsh conditions, and mistreatment, he a developed a burning hatred of Spain and all things Spanish. After his indenture ended, he moved to Tortuga, a French island north of modern Haiti that was a nest of piracy and lawlessness.
L’Olonnais excelled as a buccaneer, and within a short time he had his own ship and a letter of marque authorizing him to prey on Spanish shipping as a privateer. He earned a reputation for viciousness and cruelty in treating prisoners, particularly Spanish ones. An expert torturer, he reveled in slicing off strips of his victims’ flesh, burning them, or tightening ropes around their skulls until their eyeballs popped out of their sockets.
In 1666, L’Olonnais assembled a fleet of 8 ships and 440 pirates to attack Maracaibo in Venezuela. The citizens fled, so he tracked them into the surrounding jungles, and tortured them into revealing where they had hidden their valuables. He and his men then spent two months engaged in widespread rape, pillage, and murder, then put the town to the torch before leaving.
He had a fittingly brutal end the following year, when he led another pirate expedition against Central America, only for his men to get ambushed and massacred in Honduras. He was one of the few survivors who managed to escape back to a ship, but it ran aground off the coast of Panama. Disembarking, L’Olonnais led his men inland in search of food, only to get captured, killed, and eaten by an indigenous tribe.