Michel le Basque

Michel le Basque[1] (born Michel Etchegorria; fl. 1666-1668) was a pirate and flibustier (French buccaneer) from the Kingdom of Navarre in the southwest of France. He is best known as a companion of François L'Olonnais,[2] with whom he sacked Maracaibo and Gibraltar.

Michel le Basque
Michael Le Basque, Each Man with a Prisoner, from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes MET DP835015
Born
Michel Etchegorria
NationalityKingdom of Navarre
OccupationPirate and flibustier
Years active1666-1668
Known forCompanion of François L'Olonnais
Notable work
Sacked Maracaibo and Gibraltar
Piratical career

History

Michel le Basque of Saint-Jean-de-Luz was an early buccaneer, hunting oxen and wild pigs on Santo Domingo and neighboring islands around 1657.[3] Successful as a buccaneer, he retired to Santo Domingo and was appointed as a district official by Governor Bertrand D’Ogeron.[4] In 1666 in Portobelo he took part in the seizure of the Spanish galleon Margarita from the Tierra Firme squadron, a capture yielding over a million piastres.[5] He then joined forces with corsair L’Olonnais, using his own ship to ferry their ground troops.[3]

Later in 1666 they undertook one of the first great buccaneer expeditions on the South American continent. They gathered eight boats and a landing force of 650 men.[6] On the way to Maracaibo they captured a few vessels, including a large Spanish ship loaded with cocoa and 300,000 talers of silver.[7]

Maracaibo, located at the end of the lake of the same name, was connected to the sea by a narrow channel defended by a 16-gun fort called Castillo de San Carlos. L’Olonnais and le Basque landed their troops out of reach of the fort’s guns,[8] capturing it after a three-hour land battle. They made their way up the channel and attacked the city, which then had 4,000 inhabitants and a 250-man, 14-gun garrison who defended the town bitterly.[3]

While they were still engaged at Maracaibo, the buccaneers learned that a Spanish detachment had been sent as reinforcement. L’Olonnais marched to meet them with 380 men, and ambushed them not far from the small town of Gibraltar.[8] The Spaniards lost 500 men, while the buccaneers suffered only 40 dead and 30 wounded. L'Olonnais spent six weeks in the city of Gibraltar, which he ransacked, collecting an enormous haul of cattle, gold, jewels, silver ingots, silks, and slaves.[3]

When an epidemic broke out in the ranks of pirates, they set fire to the city and returned to Maracaibo, which they plundered thoroughly. The city was largely deserted; L’Olonnais tortured the captives they’d taken to force them to reveal where they’d hidden their valuables.[8] The buccaneers’ treasure amounted to 260,000 pieces of eight and a great deal of religious objects and jewelry.[3]

After the capture of Maracaibo, le Basque continued piracy for a few years. The Spanish sent two ships to capture him; with two small boats he boarded the larger Spanish ships and seized them in turn. Reportedly he sent a letter thanking the Governor of Cartagena for having equipped him with such good ships.[9][6] Again in 1667, le Basque returned with only forty men and once more attacked Maracaibo, taking the richest inhabitants as hostages for ransom.[10] Finally he returned to Basque Country where he, like Jean-Baptiste du Casse and others, was received and congratulated by the Sun King, Louis XIV of France. Some sources say he returned to the Caribbean where he captured a Spanish ship off Portobello in 1668, and was killed later that year leading a raiding party upriver.[3]

The story of the attacks on Maracaibo and Gibraltar, although softened and treated with artistic license, is used by Emilio Salgari in his novel The Black Corsair.

Purported female buccaneer Jacquotte Delahaye (actually an invention of a 1940s French novelist) was said to have rejected a marriage proposal from le Basque.[5]

le Basque's story was dramatized as the serial novelette "The Pearl-Fisher" by Emmanuel Gonzales.

See also

References
  1. Real name Michel Etchegorria or Michel D’Artigue; first name occasionally Michael. "le Basque" ("Michel the Basque") is a nickname referring to his origins in Basque Country France, used here because he was far better known by this name than by his real name.
  2. "Bertan 5 - Corsarios y piratas - Korsarioak eta piratak - Corsairs and pirates - Corsaires et pirates". bertan.gipuzkoakultura.net (in French). Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  3. Marley, David (2010). Pirates of the Americas. Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 16, 284. ISBN 9781598842012. Retrieved 12 September 2017.
  4. Haring, Clarence Henry (1910). The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century. New York: E. P. Dutton. p. 124. Retrieved 22 August 2017.
  5. Little, Benerson (2016). The Golden Age of Piracy: The Truth Behind Pirate Myths. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. ISBN 9781510713048. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  6. Burney, James (1891). History of the Buccaneers of America. London: Swan Sonnenschein. pp. 64, 152. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  7. Latimer, Jon (2009). Buccaneers of the Caribbean: How Piracy Forged an Empire. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. p. 159. ISBN 9780674034037. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  8. Stevens, Charles McClellan (1899). The Buccaneers and Their Reign of Terror: An Authentic History. New York: Hurst. pp. 140–142. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  9. This incident, possibly apocryphal, is more commonly attributed to buccaneer Laurens de Graaf.
  10. Rectoran, Pierre (2004). Corsaires basques et bayonnais du XVe au XIXe siècle: pirates, flibustiers, boucaniers (in French). Paris: Cairn. pp. 201–205. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
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