29. The High Seas Exterminator
Seventeenth-century French buccaneer Daniel Montbars (1645 – disappeared 1707) was weird, and not in a good way. Better known as Montbars the Exterminator, he earned his nickname and then some. One of the most feared pirates of his era, Montbars became known as the Exterminator because of the sheer bloody-mindedness and glee he displayed in killing Spaniards.
Montbars was born into a wealthy family, and was raised and educated in France as a gentleman. In childhood, he developed a hatred of Spain and all things Spanish, based on what he read of the cruelties of the Conquistadors towards the New World natives. In 1667, he joined his uncle in the French Royal Navy, and accompanied him to the Caribbean. There, Montbars’ anti-Spanish sentiment grew in leaps and bounds when his ship was sunk in a battle against Spaniards, during which his uncle was killed.