François Le Clerc
François Le Clerc , called Jambe de Bois ("wooden leg") or in Spanish Pie de Palo (* Réville , Normandy ; † 1563 off the Azores ), was a French privateer captain of the 16th century.
Life
After Le Clerc lost a leg in a naval battle off Guernsey in 1549 , he became known as the Jambe de Bois ("wooden leg"). In 1552, Le Clerc first attacked Puerto Santo on the Portuguese island of Madeira with a letter of piracy from the French King Henry II , making it the first pirate with a wooden leg that is documented. In March 1553, Le Clerc began with eight ships, whose supreme command he had, to attack the Spanish merchant fleet and American settlements and raided first San German on Puerto Rico and then systematically the ports of the island of Hispaniola . Le Clerc and his men had their headquarters on the island of St. Lucia . From there they attacked Spanish ships sailing past. During an attack on Santiago de Cuba on July 1, 1554, Le Clerc and his followers destroyed the city so thoroughly that it did not recover for a long time. Until 1555 he endangered the Spanish shipping traffic to the Canary Islands . As a Huguenot , he fought at the beginning of the French Wars of Religion , but soon died at sea.
literature
- Alexandre O. Exguemelin, Reinhard Federmann : The pirate book of 1678 . Thienemann-Verlag, 1983, ISBN 3-522-61120-9 .
- Hartmut Roder : Pirates - The Lords of the Seven Seas . Edition Temmen : Bremen 2000, ISBN 3-86108-536-4 .
- Günther Kahle: Latin America in the Politics of the European Powers 1492-1810 . Böhlau Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-412-04093-2 .
- Robert Bohn : The pirates. CH Beck, 2003, ISBN 3-406-48027-6 .
- Eugen Pfister: The other side of the coin - French steps into the "New World" 1540–1598 in: Alexander Marboe, Andreas Obenaus (ed.) Seafaring and the early expansion . Mandelbaum Verlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85476-299-7
Web links
- Francois Le Clerc on "Rob Ossian's Pirate's Cove"
Remarks
- ↑ John Terrence MacGrath: The French in Early Florida: In the Eye of the Hurricane . University Press of Florida, 2000, p. 29.
- ^ Kris E. Lane: Blood and Silver. Piracy in the Americas 1500-1750 . Signal Books, 1999, ISBN 1-902669-00-2 , p. 23.
- ^ David F. Marley: Wars of the Americas. A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492 to the Present . Abc-Clio, 1998, ISBN 0-87436-837-5 , p. 55.
- ^ Marley: Wars of the Americas . P. 57.
- ^ Lane: Blood and Silver . P. 24.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Le Clerc, François |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Jambe de Bois |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Privateer captain |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 15th century or 16th century |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1563 |
| Place of death | La Palma |