For the past twenty-nine years, 19 September has been known as International Talk Like a Pirate Day. The parodic holiday was created by John Baur and Mark Summers, from Oregon, back in 1995 to celebrate the stereotypical English West Country accent we often associate with pirates.
Given Europe’s prominence on the open seas, many countries have had their fair share of infamous pirates. Britain gave birth to some of the most famous, from Bartholomew Roberts to Captain Kidd, Calico Jack to arguably the most wretched of them all Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. However, Portugal has had its fair amount of pirates throughout the centuries, each taking advantage of the nation’s maritime culture and lucrative trade. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at Portugal’s five most famous pirates, or should I say piratas.
Simão Fernandes
Simão Fernandes is the earliest known pirate on our list. Born in 1538 on the island of Terceira in the Azores archipelago, he trained as a navigator at the famed Casa de Contratación in Seville, Spain, before turning on his contemporaries and fighting against the Spanish empire.
After spending time loyally serving the Spanish crown, it was during the 1570s that Fernandes turned against the Spanish empire and entered a career in piracy alongside the notorious Welsh pirate John Callis, whom he presumably met whilst operating off the south Wales coast. Together, the pirates would prey upon Spanish shipping. John Callis was hanged in England for piracy offences in 1576, but the following year, Fernandes escaped the hangman’s noose after he converted to Protestantism and became a subject of Queen Elizabeth I. This action was thought to pave the way for the British to turn a blind eye to Fernandes’ piracy offences despite the then Anglo-Spanish friendly relationship.
Although Portuguese Ambassador Francisco Giraldi made efforts to bring Fernandes to justice for the alleged murder of seven Portuguese sailors, Simão Fernandes was exonerated by Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. It is likely that the spymaster knew of Fernandes’ crimes but thought that the vastly experienced Fernandes would be an asset to the English voyages of discovery in the New World, given that his exceptional navigational knowledge of the Indies was far superior to any man in England.
Having entered the services of the English, Fernandes led the 1585 and 1587 expeditions to find colonies on Roanoke Island, part of modern-day North Carolina, but then known as Virginia in the New World. The expedition to Roanoke became known in the history books as the “Lost Colony” after the colonists disappeared.
Records of Fernandes’ activity vanished without trace after 1590, when he allegedly sailed an English fleet to the Azores. It is presumed that he did not make it back to the archipelago alive.
Moses Cohen Henriques
Moses Cohen Henriques was born in 1595, just after the time of Simão Fernandes, in the Netherlands. He was of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin. His ancestors had fled to the Netherlands, where they were free to practise their faith after the forced conversion of Catholicism during the Portuguese Inquisition.
He served under Dutch naval officer Admiral Piet Pieterszoon Hein as part of the Dutch West India Company. Over time, Moses Henriques rose through the ranks and became the Admiral’s preferred sailor.
Having helped capture a Spanish treasure fleet off the coast of Cuba during the Eighty Years’ War, he later scouted the Portuguese colony of Pernambuco on the Brazilian coast as a spy in preparation for a Dutch invasion. This experience spurred Henriques to lead a Jewish contingent in Brazil in 1630. With a force of 3,000 men, Henriques captured the colony and turned it into a refuge for the Jewish community. He even built a synagogue, a first of its kind for the new world. Henriques’ profound accomplishment soon failed when the Portuguese recaptured the colony, forcing Henriques and the Jewish followers to flee.
As Northern Brazil came into the hands of the Portuguese Empire in 1654, Henriques founded his own pirate island off the Brazilian coastline, where he would prey upon Spanish and Portuguese ships in revenge. At this time he was said to have become the trusted advisor to Henry Morgan. Henriques would later migrate to Jamaica after the English conquest. It was there that he helped establish the Jamaican Jewish community. Despite knowledge of Henriques’ association with piracy during the Spanish Inquisition, he was never caught nor faced trial. His trusted friend and associate Henry Morgan became the governor of Jamaica and gave Henriques a full pardon in 1681. Whilst little is known about Henriques’ later life, it is believed that his raids on the Spanish earned him the equivalent of one billion US dollars in today’s money.
Bartolomeu Português
Bartolomeu Português was born in 1623 and was the mastermind behind the first ‘pirate’s code’, a code of conduct for governing pirate ships. Like many of his contemporaries, Bartolomeu Português arrived in the Caribbean around the early 1660s, operating off the Mexican Campeche coast until 1669. One of his most famous adventures was the defeat of a Spanish ship loaded with four cannons, 70,000 pieces of eight, and 120,000 pounds of cacao beans off the coast of Cuba. His plan didn’t go smoothly, having lost half of his crew to death and serious injury, but despite the odds, Bartolomeu Português took the plundered ship and sailed towards Jamaica.
On his voyage, he was confronted with high winds and treacherous waves, so his battered vessel had no choice but to head for western Cuba. Upon reaching Cape San Antonio, Português and his crew were captured by three Spanish warships who seized their treasure and plundered cargo. Captured by the authorities and held prisoner onboard, Português escaped, stabbing the guardsman with a dagger and swimming ashore, using wine jars as floats as, ironically, he could not swim.
On dry land, Português found himself in southern Mexico. He trekked through 120 miles of jungle and eventually found a ship willing to take him back to Port Royal, Jamaica. Português returned to Campeche yet again with a crew of twenty men, and together they captured a Spanish ship with a lucrative cargo. With a curse over his head, Português’ victory fell short, when the stolen vessel ran aground off the Isle of Pines near the Cuban coast and the entire cargo was swallowed up by the ocean.
It is recorded that Português and his remaining crew returned to Jamaica, however, this is where the story of Bartolomeu Português becomes unknown. According to Alexandre Exquemelin in his book The Buccaneers of America, Bartolomeu Português “made many violent attacks on the Spaniards without gaining much profit from marauding, for I saw him dying in the greatest wretchedness in the world”. Some say that he died in c. 1670, allegedly penniless.
Manuel Ribeiro Pardal
Manuel Ribeiro Pardal was a prominent Portuguese pirate during the late 1660s and early 1670s. Little is known about his early life, but it is recorded that he worked alongside the Spanish to attack English bases in the Caribbean. As Captain Henry Morgan raided Puerto Bello in 1668, the Spanish were probably keen to remove him, along with Moses Henriques, who was in the same area.
Despite thoughts that Pardal would take on Captain Morgan himself, instead he attacked a turtle-hunting settlement on Little Cayman in 1669. Pardal’s fleet of five ships, sailing under false colours, landed on the beach as the 200-strong crew raged havoc on the settlement. Pardal was able to capture the Jamaican ship Hopewell and two sloops, as well as several prisoners, all ending up in Cuba. As the flotilla made its way to the Cuban shores, Pardal captured the ship of notorious Dutch pirate Bernard Speirdyke as a final trophy for his collection.
Word soon spread about Pardal’s victories and, in 1671, a festival was held in his honour when he arrived in Cartagena, Colombia. At that time, the governor of Cartagena appointed Pardal “Admiral of the Corsairs”, which made him a well-respected figure in the region.
In the same year, Pardal sailed his flagship, the San Pedro y Fama, to the coast of Jamaica. He captured a French frigate and a sloop after attacking remote villages in northern Jamaica. Remembering his old arch-enemy Captain Morgan, Pardal is said to have written a poem on a sailcloth, issuing Captain Morgan a challenge. The sailcloth was hung on a tree at Point Negril and allegedly read: “I come to seek General Morgan with two shippes of twenty guns and, having seen this, I crave he would come out upon ye coast to seeke mee, that hee might see ye valour of ye Spanish.”
Pardal and his ship, the San Pedro, would eventually meet their fate during a battle against Captain Morgan’s lieutenant, Captain John Morris, off the northern coast of Cuba in 1671. Pardal was killed in action and the San Pedro was captured by Captain John Morris, thus bringing an end to Manuel Pardal.
José Joaquim Almeida
José Joaquim Almeida was a Portuguese-American known for his battles against the British during the Anglo-American War of 1812 and Argentina’s War of Independence. Born in 1777 on São Miguel Island in the Azores, José Almeida had wanted to pursue a naval career from a very young age. But it wasn’t until he emigrated to the United States that he eventually took up life at sea. Arriving in the United States in 1796, aged just 19 years old, Almeida settled in Baltimore, Maryland. He married Teresa Ana, and together they had ten children. In the US, Almeida took on the anglicised name Joseph, presumably to please English ears.
When war broke out between the United States and Great Britain in 1812, Almeida joined the fight against the British. By then, he had his own 139-tonne schooner, the Joseph & Mary, which he sold to sixteen investors while keeping one share for himself.
Sailing under Captain William Westcott, Almeida’s schooner was hit by friendly fire, but the crew managed to capture two ships off the coast of Cuba. Almeida, along with Captain Westcott and their men, were captured by the British frigate HMS Narcissus, putting an end to Almeida’s plans. Recovering from the devastating blow, he became the captain of the schooner Caroline and captured over thirty-five British ships, earning him a merry $300,000 profit.
His success at sea brought the attention of several funding partners and, after his successful attack on a flotilla of nine British ships, Almeida was made a war hero. “We have met the enemy and they are ours,” Almeida stated upon his return to the US.
In the following decades, Almeida sailed between the Caribbean and the Iberian coast; he defeated eight ships without any outside help, seizing one with a valuable cargo of sugar and coffee. In 1816, Almeida left Baltimore aboard the schooner Congress, catching the attention of the Spanish, who thought it was an attempted coup in Santa Elena to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte.
Almeida sailed around Cape St. Vincent, near Sagres, after a long stint operating off the Spanish coast before returning to the Caribbean to make numerous other captures. Later, in Buenos Aires, he requested citizenship for acting in service to the nation and not as a pirate. By the early 19th century, piracy had largely come to an end in the Caribbean, but Almeida was still at large, even right through to the 1820s.
It was during the breakout of the Cisplatine War between Argentina and the Empire of Brazil over control of the Banda Oriental in Argentina when Almeida resumed his activity. Off the coast of Brazil, he captured two Portuguese ships carrying 250 slaves. Despite his many victories, José Almeida was finally defeated in 1829 when his crew mutinied against him as they sailed to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Almeida was arrested on shore and imprisoned in Morro Castle. Charged with heinous acts of piracy by the English, French and Portuguese, José Almeida was sentenced to death and was executed on 7 February 1832.
Did you know?
Christopher Columbus was attacked by pirates off Cape St. Vincent in 1476 while en-route from Genoa to England. Whilst Columbus’ ship went down, he managed to escape albeit wounded by swimming six miles to the shore.
Fun Fact
‘Pieces of Eight’ was a term used for the large silver coins of the King of Spain. Pieces of Eight or “peso de ocho” was a piece of eight reales.
