25. The Tortuga Privateer
At the end of his term of indentured servitude, Francois L’Olonnais moved to Tortuga, a French island north of modern Haiti that was a nest of piracy and lawlessness at the time, and joined its buccaneers. He quickly impressed, and within a short time, Tortuga’s French governor gave L’Olonnais his own ship, a Letter of Marque authorizing him to prey on Spanish vessels as a privateer, and turned him loose.
In going about his legalized piracy, L’Olonnais set himself apart with a reputation for viciousness and ferocious cruelty in the treatment of prisoners, particularly Spanish ones. An expert torturer, L’Olonnais 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.