27. A Caribbean Rampage
Daniel Montbars went on a piratical rampage against the Spanish Main – Spain’s possessions in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the coastal mainland from Florida to Venezuela. He raided Spanish settlements in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. On the Venezuelan coast, he sacked and burned the towns of Maricaibo, San Pedro, Porto Caballo, and Gibraltar, among numerous other settlements and forts.
It was during this rampage that Montbars became known as the Exterminator. He gave no quarter, and tortured captured Spanish soldiers. Among his more infamous and weird tortures was opening a victim’s abdomen, pulling out a gut and nailing it to post, then forcing the victim to “dance to his death by beating his backside with a burning log“. He and his crew amassed a fortune, which they reportedly buried near Grand Saline, Texas. However, the Exterminator never came back to retrieve it: he vanished in 1707, most likely lost at sea.