Pirates of St. Croix
From the viewpoint of today’s Hollywood filmmakers, the Pirates of old need to be portrayed, for the sake of the box office, as either murderous, unforgivable villains, children’s characters like Captain Hook in Peter Pan, or Johnny Depp’s somewhat lovable Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Once in a blue moon, a show like the superb Netflix series Black Sails comes along and tries to make an honest attempt at setting the record straight when it comes to the day-to-day lives and actual mindset of those roving bands of unforgettable characters.
Stanford Joines, somewhat of a Crucian legend himself, has written a fascinating, groundbreaking account titled “The Eighth Flag: The untold story of the Caribbean and the mystery of St. Croix’s Pirate Legacy between 1493 - 1750.”
The St. Croix Times is honored to present a serialization of this masterpiece of research and high seas drama, starting with today’s publication and continuing in the weeks to come.
The history of the Caribbean centers on a little island that was an epicenter of piracy for two and a half centuries, the last island to be subdued by colonial “law and order.” Officially, St. Croix has flown seven flags. Before the American flag and the Dannebrog, the Spanish came for gold, the Dutch to trade, the English to raid, and the Knights of St. John to be in charge. The French built a colony only to watch it die of fever.
From 1493 to 1750, Pirates, Conquistadors, Freebooters, Filibustiers, Corsairs, Buccaneers - whatever you call them - ruled the Caribbean and made St. Croix their home, stealing at sea whether they had ‘permission’ to do so or not, and paying no attention to whichever European flag flew over the island. It is time to recognize the eighth flag of St. Croix. It was black. This is the untold story of St. Croix and a Caribbean long forgotten. Come. Sail with me.
In 1647 De Poincy was ordered by Cardinal Mazarin to claim Sainte Croix for France. De Poincy was determined to kill two birds with one rock. He rounded up 66 men that he suspected might back the Queen de Thoisy against him and convicted criminals on trumped up charges, creating a group of expendables. One of them Vincent Veillet, known as “La Haye,” had long held the office of Court Clerk on St. Christopher; another was a weighing master at Customs; the others were mostly militia officers.
De Tertre says that De Poincy would only let them out of prison if they agreed to exile. He wrote that the exiles were sent to “a spacious plantation developed by the English and upon which had been planted quantities of sweet potato and cassava.”
Dr. Aimery Caron, who translated de Tertre’s journal with Dr. Arnold Highfield, believes that the island referred to was Tortola. But de Poincy had just received an order from the King to settle Sainte Croix, and Sainte Croix at the time was under control of the British royalist exiles. Because Sainte Croix was occupied by people who had no nation to back them up, it was ripe for the taking. Tortola was, at the time, a Dutch island, and the Dutch had many powerful ships. Regardless, the exiled Frenchman sailed on Jean Pinart’s small sloop to an island near to Puerto Rico and were put ashore at a large bay near a fort (I believe this was salt River). Expecting to find some people near the fort, they found only fresh bodies of English men and women spoiling in the sun; de Tertre says the exiles spent their first nights ashore breathing the stench and devoured by mosquitos. De Tertre says that the Governor of Puerto Rico learned of de Poincy’s plan to claim the island for France and sent another raiding party. Spanish soldiers drove the French exiles into the hills but took great losses, including the Governor of Puerto Rico’s nephew, and soon returned to Puerto Rico. The crew of Pinart’s ship fought alongside the French exiles in this battle, and afterward, fearing that the Spanish would return with large numbers, I believe Pinart then took the exiles to Tortola. Dutch colonists would have welcomed them as reinforcements, as a Spanish raid was anticipated, and a Spanish raiding party did wipe out the Dutch settlement later in the year. Attempting to escape the wrath of Spain, some of the survivors built a raft and sailed it on a strange adventure to several different islands before being ‘rescued’ and set ashore in Puerto Rico itself, where they were treated well. Ironically, in Puerto Rico, they were guests, not enemy squatters who posed a threat to Spanish claims. Other exiles went to nearby St. John, where the Veillet, or “Vialet” family would live for the next several centuries, establishing itself as one of the leading families of the Virgin Islands even today.
Sainte Croix
De Poincy questioned the French Buccaneers. They told him that 60 Spanish soldiers had returned to Sainte Croix. De Poincy sent 160 soldiers with the Buccaneers. Included in the invasion force were a couple of dozen battle-hardened fellow Knights of St. John under M. de Vaugalan and some of the most dangerous French Buccaneers of the age. The fort surrendered. Settlers followed, and de Poincy plunged immediately into building a new colony. Within a year, however, the Governor and 200 of the colonists were dead of malaria, and the Buccaneers were off plundering Spanish colonies. In 1651, de Poincy was allowed to buy the island of St. Croix from Louis XIV (now 17 years old) as his private estate.
It was decided a fierce fighting force must be in place to hold Sainte Croix for France, but France had neither soldiers nor warships to spare. The first thing de Poincy did was to offer land to French Buccaneer captains and fellow Knights of St. John. He then sent engineers and bondsmen to add to the Dutch village around Salt River Bay and build a private residence. The water pump tower remains from his plantation. De Poincy visited but continued to split most of his time between Martinique, where he had extensive holdings, and St. Kitts. He was already over-extended and, at 66 years old, pretty ancient by 1651 standards.
Trivia note: Napoleon’s Empress was a direct descendant of De Poincy.
(To be continued)
