This month I give you a buccaneer who probably didn’t really exist and one who probably did. Both of them have come down through history as legendary figures though there’s little actual physical evidence of their lives. Still, never let it be said that I passed up the chance to share a good legend, especially if there’s a chance that at least part of it may be true.
A word about words: ‘pirate’ is a broad term referring to a person who does crime in a boat on the water – theft, murder, kidnapping, raiding.
A ‘privateer’ was a freelance agent, someone with papers from a government that hired them to rob ships and raid settlements owned by a rival country.
‘Corsairs’ sailed the Mediterranean and were active during the long conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Europe.
‘Buccaneers’ sailed the Caribbean and the Pacific Coast of Central America. They tended to be allied with England and France and in violent opposition to Spain.
‘Filibusters’ were pirates who raided islands in the Caribbean.
Annie “Dieu-le-Veut” le Graaf appears to have been a real person, although details about her life are spotty and contradictory. She was born in Brittany, France, on August 28, 1661. Somehow she ended up in French Tortuga. It’s possible she was a criminal who was transported there as her sentence.
17th Century drawing of Tortuga Island
Tortuga Island is a West Indian Island that today is part of Haiti. It was a haven for pirates and buccaneers in the 1600s, most of whom were French, English, or Dutch. Annie showed up when Bertrand d’Ogeron de La Bouëre, a buccaneer himself, was governor.
She married another buccaneer, Pierre Lelong, and they had a daughter before he was killed in a fight just six years into the marriage. She married another man and had a son with him before he died two years into the marriage.
Guys, I know Wikipedia is not super reliable, but I just have to share this quote about how Annie met her next husband:
In March 1693, she met the famous buccaneer, Laurens de Graaf. He agreed to marry her after she threatened to shoot him for insulting her. According to the traditional description of the event, Anne challenged de Graaf to a duel to avenge the death of her late spouse. While Laurens drew his sword, Anne drew her gun, after which Laurens succumbed by saying he would not fight a female. He then proposed to her in admiration of her courage.
They had two children together, a daughter and a son. According to lore, Annie proceeded to accompany Laurens on his voyages and took command of the ship after he died. She lived until 1710.
We think that Annie was a real person because certain dates are recorded (birth, death, marriages, birth dates of children). None of this exists for Jacquotte Delahaye, but she was said to sail and fight alongside Annie. Stories say that Jacquotte’s mother was a French-speaking Black Haitian woman and her father was a French man. Her mother died in childbirth and her father was killed by the British. She was the sole caretaker of her younger brother, who was disabled in some way. She became a pirate as early as twelve years old, using the money she earned to care for her brother. Eventually she commanded her own fleet of crews made up of both men and women.
Jacquotte is said to have faked her own death at one point and lived in disguise as a man for many years, before resuming her female identity. This gave her the nickname, “Back-from-the-Dead Red.” She died in 1663, defending her fortress in Tortuga against the Spanish.
The Salty Historian has a wonderful video about Jacquotte:
One of the reasons that Jacquotte is thought to be fictional is that stories about her don’t show up in written form until long after her death (1940, in fact). But many women fought on pirate ships. In addition to Annie, verified pirates include Anne Bonny, Rachel Wall, Mary Critchett, Rusla, and Grace O’Malley. Here at Smart Bitches, Trash Books you can read about Ching Shih and Sayyida al-Hurra.
I first heard about these women from the historical novel Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley. This novel is not a romance. I found it to be a frustrating book because it kept suggesting that the heroine was going to do various heroic things, but these hints never paid off. However, the book was vividly written and included an array of interesting characters. It helped me better understand a chaotic time in history.
Above all, it gave me new female pirates to google and y’all know I live for that! If you like historical fiction with an episodic feel and broad representation then you might enjoy this book.
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