Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin

Bust of Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin in the Jardin des Personnalités in Honfleur

Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin (pseudonym: John Esquemeling or Oexmelin; * around 1645 in Honfleur ; † around 1707 ) was the author of "De Americaensche Zee-Rovers" (in German: The American pirates ).

The first German-language edition appeared a year later by Christoph Riegels in Nuremberg under the title “Die Americanische Sea-Räuber”. The first Spanish edition appeared in Cologne in 1681, the first English edition in London in 1684 and an expanded French edition in Paris in 1686. A modern German edition is entitled “The Pirate Book of 1678 - The American Pirates”.

Exquemelin's report is one of the most important sources on the piracy of the 17th century, quickly became a bestseller after its first publication and has appeared in numerous editions in all European languages ​​to this day.

origin

Exquemelin probably came from the French port city of Honfleur . After his return from the Caribbean Sea , he settled in Holland , possibly because he was a Huguenot - a member of a religious community that was persecuted in France at the time ( Edict of Nantes or Edict of Fontainebleau ). On behalf of the French West India Company , Exquemelin went to Tortuga , Île de la Tortue in 1666 , and remained there for three years in the service of the company.

Afterwards he became a flibustier himself , probably hired as a surgeon and surgeon under various privateer captains until 1672 and thus reported first hand, among other things, of the conquest of the city of Panama by the pirate Henry Morgan . Exquemelin later returned to the Caribbean Sea at least once. During a privateer attack against Cartagena in 1697, his name appears on the sample roll .

expenditure

Title page of the first edition of De Americaensche Zee-Roovers (1678)

• De Americaensche Zee-Roovers The Dutch original edition from 1678 in full text at Gallica .
• The American sea-robber German translation from 1679 at the Library of Congress .
• The History of the Buccaneers of America English edition from 1856 (digitized version)
• The pirate book from 1678 (based on old translations of the book The American pirates , revised by Reinhard Federmann.) Erdmann, Tübingen 1968.

Web links

Commons : The Buccaneers of America  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin in the catalog of the German National Library
• More about Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin ( Memento from March 18, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (French)
• New edition 2011

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Esquemeling