Pirate exhibit in Daytona

[Jimi D Pirate]

Check out the Florida’s East Coast Pirates exhibit which is here only through December at The Center for Florida History. This exhibition, made possible through the cooperation of two Florida museums, provides an historic account of some of the more famous Pirates of Florida’s East Coast.

Legendary pirates such as Edward Teach, A.K.A. Black Beard and others who plied the coastal waters of Florida in search of treasure, primarily during the 16th through the 18th centuries, are noted. Along with artifacts, including coins, bullion, ingots and tools recovered from shipwrecks off the East Coast of Florida, weapons from the period help illustrate the persuasive means that were used to relieve those less-fortunate of their assets.

Jimi D Pirate tho not legendary

 

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[ivan salis]

my personal favorite is Luis Aury a known pirate with a good deal of known real documented * (see my post) booty left behind on amelia island * florida in 1817 Arrgh --- now wheres da booty at now me bucko ? that be da question that needs answering. -- Ivan

 

[Jimi D Pirate]

The deposition of Don Juan Domingo Lozano, Captain of the Infatigable

Translated and printed in the Louisiana Historical Quarterly of 1938

Lozano’s ship was captured by Aury off Matanzas [Cuba] June 23, 1816 and taken to the Dry Tortugas, “…the four corsairs, [namely] the Criolla, the Belona, the ketch San Fernando (a prize they had armed), and the Favorito, and four more prizes, namely, a fragata from Santander, another from Malaga, a schooner from [New] Providence, and his own brig the Indefatigable, anchored at Las Tortuguillas [Dry Tortugas] near which they took on water the following day and [captured] two [more] prizes, a small fishing schooner from Havana and a fragata from Campeche bound for Cadiz with a cargo of lumber. That in the morning, after having given the small [fishing] schooner from Havana to several prisoners, they all set sail.”

One of the prisoners Aury freed made it to Havana, reported the event to the Governor and it was published in the newspaper Diario de la Habana October 16, 1816, . This would be great to find, copy and translate. It is summarized in Spanish in: Piratas En El Caribe, Francisco Mota (1984), and may have additional Aury captures described. The entries are brief and need to be translated. From that Spanish summary is the interesting information that one of the ships captured was from Philadelphia.

In the article “Commodore Aury” by Stanley Faye, Louisiana Historical Quarterly, (July, 1941) there is more information, the Spanish went out from Havana to fight Aury, and that Aury “burned two worthless prizes off the Dry Tortugas”.

Faye gives as his references the deposition of Lozano and another original source which should be obtained from the Spanish archives. Perhaps it is in Louisiana archives. It is “Fatio to Cienfuegos, May 14, 1817” and may be attached to Lozano’s declaration in Archivo General de Indies, PdeC, Legajo 1900.”

When Aury’s fleet sailed from the Dry Tortugas it was headed for Galveston Bay, where Aury established himself and later moved his pirate depot to Matagorda Bay. His meeting with Lafitte, who took over Galveston Bay is described in Lyle Saxon, Lafitte The Pirate (1930).

The next year, 1817, Aury made an agreement with Gregor MacGregor to take over Amelia Island, north Florida. He was ousted by the U.S. later but meanwhile brought in more captured Spanish ships, many of them loaded slavers enroute to Havana. See Narrative of a Voyage to the Spanish Main, anon. (1819). There is also reference to Aury’s pirates at work near Havana during this time in a letter from Coppinger to Capt. General, Nov. 18, 1817, referred to in the thesis “The Borderland Florida…1815-1821”

There could be many more Keys incidents relating to Aury other than his fleet anchoring at the Dry Tortugas in June, 1816. His pirates obviously knew the territory well, and if they ever landed waiting for the next Spanish ship to approach Havana they probably would have come ashore at the Keys. A search of the newspapers of Havana, the Bahamas, St. Augustine, and Charleston, plus the Philadelphia connection, could reveal more. Aury was also arrested in mid-March, 1818 in Charleston, “on an old piratical charge, but it was dismissed”.

There are also reports in English in the National Archives that do and may relate to Aury described in Guide to Materials on Latin America in the National Archives, Harrison (1961).

 

[ivan salis]

ah interesting tid bits to say the least -- many thanks --