August 13, 2020 • 40 mins
During the age of European expansion, members of the Jewish diaspora traveled to Caribbean and the continents of North and South America, often escaping the intense persecution of the Inquisition. Some became merchants, others explorers -- and some became pirates. Join Ben and Noel as they explore the little-known stories of specific Jewish pirates and privateers that changed the course of history as we know it in the second part of this two-part series.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:27):
Yo ho Ho Ridiculous Historians. I'm sorry, I just had
to get it out of my system. All right, Well,
I'm ben. This is part two of our exploration of
the little known story of Jamaica and Jewish pirates. Hi,
I'm nol bent. Was that just a drawn out yo?
Or were those meant to be ho ho hoes in between?
(00:47):
As a as a a piratey ref? Yeah? Priate ref?
Did it? Did it sound like a yo or yo
ho ho? I just was making sure that we're on
this zoom and then I was a little bit it
dragged it out, did that thing where it digitally kind
of stretched it so on my end it is kind
of light. Sounded like you were saying, yo, ridiculous historians
and welcome to the show. But no, I I kid,
(01:10):
but yeah, today you know, we we we did. We
did this intentional two parter and uh, I know the
first one seemed a little on the short side, but
we felt like it was a good kind of primer
to now get you into some like really cool dives
into some of the most notable Jewish pirates and privateers
from throughout history. So what do you say we we
(01:32):
we jump right in with signon yes a k a.
The Great Jew. Yes, let's walk the plank of the
podcast with the help of our super producer, Casey Pegrov,
no doubt, brandishing a scimitar behind us forcing us along.
You're right, this guy was known as the Great Jew. Also,
(01:55):
as we go through this episode, please, if you're played
along at home, let us know what your ideal pirate
nickname would be. I think that's the coolest thing. If
you're a pirate, you get a nickname. Right. We've talked
about cool professional nicknames in the past, but yes, had
the Moniker the Great Jew. He and his family, like
so many of the people you mentioned in part one
(02:16):
of the show, they fled the Spanish Inquisition in the
early fifteen hundreds, and first they went to Turkey and
then it was in modern day Ismir Turkey where sNaN
became the right hand man of a fellow named Hayredden Barbarossa,
one of the most famed pirates of all time. Barbarosa
(02:37):
would eventually go on to become a sultan and a
commander in the Ottoman Navy. And uh, these guys had
their own interesting take on the pirate flag. Uh, they
sure did. And and just one quick little little snippet
of backstory on Sanan Um he was born to Sephardic
Jewish parents who fled Spain and then look like you said,
(02:58):
located into the auto An Empire. Um. But I just
I thought the distinction of Sephardic Jews was interesting because
I wasn't intimately familiar with this tradition, and it specifically
refers to descendants of Jews who lived in Spain and
Portugal uh, from the later centuries of the Roman Empire
(03:19):
until they were essentially forced out um of those countries
in the last decades of the fifteenth century. And that's
from Britannica. They're just to just to give credit where
credit is due. But this is something I wasn't wasn't
intimately familiar with, so always interesting to learn about new
kind of cultural offshoots. But yes, to your point, Ben,
(03:41):
about their kind of interesting spin on the Jolly Roger,
which we we heard from you last episode, did have
some variations. Um. There's had a six sided star very
much seeming to be a reference to the Jewish Star
of David in place of that smiling skelets boy, and
they were a dynamic duo on the high seas. Probably
(04:05):
their biggest victory came in fifteen thirty eight during something
called the Battle of Provezza, right off the coast of Greece.
Ottoman forces led by these two guys defeated an entire
flotilla of armed ships from Christian countries that have been
kind of assembled or justice leagued by Pope Paul the Third.
(04:26):
This victory, there's ensured that the Ottoman forces would dominate
the Mediterranean for generations to come. And this is where
sNaN earned his nickname, his street name, the Great Jew.
You know who gave it to him, his enemies on
the Spanish side of the conflict. Totally, Yeah, it makes
(04:48):
me think of It makes me think of the character
and inglorious bastards um, the one with the baseball bat.
You know, he's bashing and heads all the time. He
gets his nickname from his enemies too. It was the
Ared you right, because he was known for bashing head stuff.
You always know, if you get a pretty cool sound
of nickname from your enemies, you're doing something right. You're
(05:09):
striking fear into the right hearts, you know what I mean?
I still think that, you know, the Spanish forces at
this point, we're like, why not throw in some hate speech. Yeah, well,
while we're here, let's just also being sold. I don't
know what they you know what I mean, I don't
know how they meant it to be received, but I
agree with you it is a very badass nickname. Uh.
People were so intimidated by this guy or looked up
(05:33):
to him, depending on where they stood in the conflict,
that they began spreading rumors of his sorceress powers. He
was so good at navigating the seas that people started
saying he had to use magic to do it. They're like,
there's only one way. I love picturing this conversation. It's
a bunch of other sailors meeting up and they're like, look, guys,
(05:54):
we know we're just mainly winging it out there. How
does sNaN know where he's going all the time? And
someone else that I think it's magic, bro, And they
were like, yeah, because that was a sufficient explanation of
things at the time. Well, and if I'm not mistaken,
wasn't part of that kind of anti Semitic attitude and
almost fear of Jews as having some kinds of being
(06:16):
like witches or something, or as as possessing some kind
of magical powers. You often hear kind of outdated jokes
about even like you know, the of that that fantastic
film Jojo Rabbit by Taiko A Titi, there's a character.
I don't want to spoil anything about the movie, but
there's a child who refers to Jews as being like
(06:39):
having the ability to hypnotize you or something like that,
like vampire rules or whatever. And I think that sort
of attitude about like they they're using witchcraft to do
this navigation was probably a pretty widespread idea and another
way to further dehumanize people when you really think it
all the way through. So in ristinely enough, you can
(07:01):
read more about Barbarossa and Snan's adventures in the five
volume book of Barbarossa's memoirs that he dictated to Sonan.
They currently reside in the Istanbul University Library. So this
guy is having an adventure that most people don't know about,
(07:23):
which is crazy. I would love to see the film,
which I know I've been saying, and like every episode
we do, but so many of these stories are just perfect.
They're so cinematic. Okay, we can't spend all our time
on this guy though. Uh what say we move on
to another great nickname, the pirate rabbi. Yeah, Samuel Palash
(07:46):
or Palachet. I'm gonna go with Blash. What do you
think We're probably gonna get corrected either way. Let's just
stick with it. Uh. Yeah, this guy wasn't just your
run of the mill son of Abraham Um. He was
actually a rabbi. His name was a Rabbi Schmool Palacci,
and he is said to have taken part in some
(08:07):
pretty serious pirate raids against Spanish and Dutch ships, which
would have been under the privateer side. Isn't that right then? Yeah? Yeah,
he was working for the Dutch government, and then he
was also working for the Sultan of Barbary and Morocco.
He was instrumental in one of the very first treaties
between European and Middle Eastern powers, that's the six Agreement
(08:30):
that guaranteed peace between Morocco and the Netherlands. So despite
the fact that he had trained as a rabbi, he
obviously felt more called to this life on the high
seas as a privateer, but he was still a man
of faith he was still pious, and one of the
(08:50):
rules on his ship was that the members of the
crew had to donate a tenth of their loot. I'll
just say, a cut of their booty to charity. Yeah,
lean into it, dude, I love it. And he also
kept things kosher on his ship, which, if you think
about that, that seems like at some point it could
(09:11):
get a little to right. I mean, you know, it
takes a lot of effort, uh, and certainly you don't
have the luxury of having access to like all the
things when you're you know, uh far far away at sea.
But that whole aspect of like donating to charity, that's
the real kicker for me. That's fantastic. So in sixteen fourteen,
(09:34):
Morocco and Spain went to war with each other, and
Plash was responsible for heading up a small Moroccan fleet
UM that was destined for a conflict with Spanish ships
and actually was able to be successful and capture them. Um.
He was though arrested by the Spanish ambassador and then
(09:56):
tried under Spanish law for piracy. There's a letter to
a Dudley Carlton, who is the British ambassador to Venice.
Then um. And he summed up the life of this
Jewish pirate thusly. And this comes from a I s
h dot Com. I'm not familiar with the words, so
(10:17):
forgive me if I'm I had rather spell it than
mispronounced it. Which is a really great resource for Jewish
culture and heritage and all kinds of history and cool storytelling.
Highly recommended. Um. But eight little known facts about Jewish pirates. Um.
And they have this quote from Dudley Carlton. And keep
in mind that maybe some of this language might sound
a little charged. I'm just reading it from historical record. Quote.
(10:41):
Here is a jew pirate arrested that brought three prizes
of Spaniards into Plymouth. He shall likely pass out of
here well enough, for he has league and license under
the King's hand for his free egress and regress, which
was not believed until he made proof of it. Okay, yeah,
so eventually they had They realized he is approved by
(11:04):
the highest authority to basically do what he wants. Right.
It's it's imagine, you know, we talked about it sometimes
in spy novels, right, the idea of a license to kill.
But imagine if there was a country where you literally
got a printed letter that you can whip out that
says something like, uh, superproducer Casey Pegram has the express
(11:26):
authorization of the US government to do whatever he wants.
Let me go. Uh. I would love that. I would
I would probably get into some really poorly thought out
high jinks, you know what I mean. Uh. Plash was acquitted.
He was set free. When he passed away in sixteen sixteen,
he was given a heroes funeral. Every single member of
(11:50):
the Jewish community in Amsterdam got together and marched in
his funeral procession. And they were not alone. They were
joined by royalty, and they were joined by elders of
the city itself. So this person had had an immense
amount of support and recognition in his time. Yeah, for sure.
(12:10):
And like we said, bust another myth about pirates. And
this guy seemed like a pretty benevolent pirate at the
end of the day and had a bit of a
moral code, which I appreciate because you think of pirates
is just you know, being wanton and uh and not
following the rules. And this guy was definitely a different
spin on that. All right, let's move on to another
uh amazing nickname. I'm not a nickname, but like a
(12:33):
gang name. Uh this was This one's about sub at
all and the Brotherhood of the Black Flag, which sounds
like definitely a Black Flag tribute band. Right, I'm not
alone in that, Okay. So this guy was a Jewish
physician living in the sixteenth century, an educated man, and
(12:56):
he was an explorer of what would now known as
the America's He's also credited by some with introducing the
potato to Europeans, which nice one, man. I've been thinking
about this during quarantine. You know what I miss? I
miss having fries, French fries that I didn't cook. Yeah,
(13:17):
so you haven't really been doing much. You haven't done
like a drive theory. Have him been to a Chick
fil A or any any of that? Uh? Yeah, I
went to I went to a drive through once, but
usually usually I've been staying in and cooking. It's a
little healthier, it's something to do. I've been I've been
cooking some weird stuff. You guys know. I know. And
you're talking about You're gonna have a seafood uh extravaganza
(13:38):
with your little Japanese grill after we get done recording.
And I think you've inspired me to go a seafood
route myself for dinner and my mom visiting. But well,
speaking of the sea and food, uh, we we were
talking about potatoes a minute ago, um, and now we're
talking back about Subatol and the Brotherhood of the Black Flag.
He formed a bond uh some something of an alliance
(13:59):
with another, their famous explorer's son, Um who realized as
well that the profession of piracy was a pretty good racket,
and that was the son of Sir Francis Drake Henry Um.
So the two became inseparable and they started this organization,
if you want to call it, that known as the
(14:19):
Brotherhood of the Black Flag. It was absolutely a band
of pirates that was hell bent on attacking as many
Spanish ships as they could right off of the coast
of a place that I think you have very recently
been a modern day Chile. Yeah, that's right. They are
said to have buried six thousand pounds of Spanish gold
(14:43):
and an even larger amount of silver near harbor In
in Chile. At this time, no one has found that
buried treasure. However, treasure hunters have found some documents that
were partially written in Hebrew that they believe may have
been written by Subatol himself. So, and it's quite possible
(15:07):
that someone off the coast of Chile may one day
find the hidden treasure of the Brotherhood of the Black Flag.
Absolutely ben and and just for reference, if you wanted
to check out this area in Chile today, if you
ever find yourself back on a plane and maybe you
live there, it is near the guy a Can Harbor today.
(15:27):
And that's spelled g u a y a c a N.
I think guy I Can. It's probably a decent pronunciation there.
But let us know who do we have next? Been? Ah,
here we go. We've been, We've been setting up for this.
We talked about heist, talked about pirates. Now we're talking
(15:48):
about a pirate heist. It comes to us courtesy of
Mosha Cohen Anarkis or Moses going Enriquees, depending on where
you go with the translation. He was one of the
most famous of the revenge seeking Jewish privateers and pirates.
He started his life living in secrecy as a Jewish
(16:11):
person because he grew up under the Inquisition in Portugal.
He was at a time one of the most well
known prominent successful merchants in the capital of Portugal, Lisbon,
and then he was discovered to be Jewish and to
be practicing his faith. In sixteen o five, he and
(16:31):
a hundred and fifty other people were publicly tortured and
this changed Cohen's life. He decided that he was going
to work against Spain and Portugal and fight against the
injustices of the Inquisition. First he had to escape. Yeah,
that'll certainly do it, um. And he did that thing.
(16:53):
He got out of Amsterdam, and he pretty quickly seemed
to find his way into the good grace is of
the Dutch and he became essentially a spy for them,
for the Dutch Navy, and he settled in Jamaica, which
was already starting to become this kind of safe haven
for these Jewish expats uh. And he worked with the
(17:15):
Dutch on behalf of the Netherlands to attack these Spanish
vessels UM and just kind of be a thorn in
the side of these UH colonial ambitions to take over
the New World, because everyone was vying for a lot
of that real estate. Right, Yeah, that's right. This is
part of a massive land and resource grab on the
(17:37):
part of the European powers. Cohen even teams up with
one of the most feared pirates of the day, a
man named Sir Henry Morgan. And Sir Henry Morgan is
a dangerous, dangerous dude, right. But this land grab, this
age of expansion, panic that so many European powers going through,
(18:01):
uh makes them bend the rules a little bit more.
And so the Dutch and British governments, actually they're not
very loud about it, but they back up Cohen and
Henry Morgan. Would that be Captain Henry Morgan of the
of the Rum fame, the Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. Yeah,
I remember, you know Captain Morgan's surely it's named after him, right, Yeah,
(18:24):
I mean what would what would imagine? Uh? Captain Morgan
was a Sir Henry Morgan, I guess is a Welsh privateer,
and it was a plantation owner who eventually became the
Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. So he was in the halls
of power. But to be clear that what I'm talking
about when I say the quiet support is the Dutch
(18:46):
and British government's quietly supporting Cohen in his partnership. Sir
Henry Morgan was already kind of like above the reproach
in a lot of ways because he was so powerful
and just for the record, confirmed cap To Morgan Rum
is named after Sir Henry Morgan for his adventures in
the in the Caribbean. Yeah, I mean it makes sense
(19:08):
to me, right, and drink responsibly, and you too can
live like the Captain. You know, I wonder why they
never had a tagline like promote yourself or even use
that I'm the captain now meme. That would be great,
That would be good. You know what I was thinking
in my mind, I was confusing the uh, the Captain
Morgan's tagline with the Captain Crunch tagline, which I think
(19:31):
is superior. Is you and the Captain make it happen? Uh?
There we go. Yeah, and drink responsibly and eat your
sugary cereals responsibly. Kids, Right, eat your breakfast candy responsibly.
That still baffles me. So here let's fast forward to
the heist. We promise you a heist. There is a
heist e vault in Cohen helps the Dutch West India
(19:54):
Company pool one of the most profitable sea heist in
the entire history of piracy. They steal like over a
billion dollars worth of gold, and silver from a Spanish
fleet off the coast of Cuba. And when we say
a billion, that's US roughly adjusting for how much this
(20:14):
gold and silver would be worth in today's age. But
it's still it's still kind of tough to get a
super accurate calculation there. Just it was a lot of money.
But wait a minute, Ben, I thought the Dutch West
India Company was a legitimate business. What do they do
in pulling off heists? Dutch West India Company. Well, they okay,
(20:37):
specifically Cohen helped Admiral Pete Hind And so if we're
gonna be all unfun and factual about it, the Dutch
West India Company was not. It's probably not officially sanctioning
this heist, but without doing a whole episode about them. Yet,
I wouldn't put it past a man. They are a
very bad group. Oh but no, no, no, there's a
(20:58):
thing and I used you look up dust West India
and Britannica. Dutch West India Company, It says, using booty
acquired from the capture by the Dutch seaman Pietre Heine
of part of a Spanish treasure fleet, the company challenged
the Portuguese hold on Brazil beginning in six thirty and
attained his greatest success during the administration of Count John Maurice.
(21:20):
So they definitely ran on it, and they're definitely sanctioning it. Yeah,
we should do at some point a story about some
of the many crimes of those organizations, because even if
you know a lot about them, you might not know
the whole terrible story. So, not long after successfully pulling
off this massive sea heist, Cohen starts his own pirate
(21:45):
island because off the coast of Brazil you mentioned earlier.
And then once Portugal takes over the area, Cohen becomes
this adviser to Captain Henry Morgan drink responsibly indeed, and
then know Cohen does finally kind of retire. I guess
uh he's getting up there in years, Um, Sir Henry
(22:06):
Morgan becomes the Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, uh and actually
pardoned Cohen. So Cohen was living in the clear um
and he stayed in Jamaica until he passed away, living
the life of a civilian, you know, but having had
some hell of adventures. The pirates life was certainly for him.
But um, he knew when to say when, just like
you should when you're drinking Captain Morgan's rum. That's right,
(22:29):
and that's a lovely pirate stereotype to bust. Not all
pirates died on the high seas in you know, a
wave of treasure and blood falling to cannon fire. Some
people were actually able to retire, which I thought was
pretty cool. And now I think we have time for
one more. Someone who's been called occasionally the most famous
(22:51):
Jewish pirate Jean Lafitte. He was born in France in
about sevent I had no idea John Lafitte was was
jew spirate. UM certainly heard of him from Lafitte's blacksmith
shop in uh in, New Orleans, which I believe is
the oldest bar still an operation there or possibly in
the United States. It's it's been around for a very
(23:12):
very long time, um, and it's a pretty fun little
dive bar to check out. They have really good hurricanes.
But yeah, John Lafitte was born in France about seventeen eighty,
like you said, And there is a pretty controversial work
called The Journal of Jean Lafitte. Controversial in it may
or may not have been written by him, um, or
it could be some kind of forgery. It could be
(23:33):
it could have been written by a third party. Um.
He does claim that his mother's father was a Spanish
Jew who was subjected to torture under the Inquisition UM And,
much like some of the previous entries in this list,
seeing that happened to his family created a lifelong hatred
for Spain um and for obviously the Spanish Inquisition UM
(23:57):
and decided that he wanted to wreck their shop man
like just absolutely be another thorn in the side of
the Spanish Armada, right um. So he wanted to mess
with their money because they have these holdings in the
New World um and that's where the Inquisition was absolutely
like burning their way across the lamb. So Jehan moves
(24:18):
to New Orleans to escape the Inquisition. He doesn't move alone.
He brings his brother Pierre, and together they found a
blacksmith shop and they do pretty well. But there's a
conspiracy of foot because they have a second secret profession.
They have commissions from the Republic of Cartagena to intercept
(24:40):
Spanish boats. So while they're operating their blacksmith shop, they
carry on this secluded interdiction career from a secluded colony
in Barrataria Bay off the coast of New Orleans. That's cool.
Secret pirates. It is super cool. And from that same
article from j host dot com Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean,
(25:03):
they have a really great quote from a professor by
the name of Edward Bernard Glick who wrote an article
called Lafitte's Jewish Origins in the Jerusalem Post back in
two thousand and six, and he says Lafitte was also
a Sephardic jew along with his first wife, and Glick
points out that not only did Lafit run a single
pirate ship, he had a whole fleet of them that
(25:24):
he kind of ran like kind of like a mob
boss almost from his blacksmith shop, which also was a
site for fencing stolen pirate loot. That's my favorite part,
by the way. You know, you come for the horse
shoes and then you stay for the emeralds, right or
maybe like a cursed skull. I don't know. I don't
know what kind of stuff they're fencing in this pirate shop.
(25:51):
So years before the Battle of New Orleans and before
the War of eighteen twelve, he's already got beef with
the authorities, and there's there's very strange flex, a weird
flex that he does. I bet Myles and Jack would
love this. The Louisiana Governor, William C. C Clayboard place
as a reward of five hundred dollars on the fite's head.
(26:15):
And what does he do. He retaliates by putting a
five thousand dollar bounty on the head of the governor.
He's telling the governor of Louisiana stopped playing with broke
boy rules. You know what I mean? Seriously, Holy cow,
that is a that I wouldn't say that's a weird
flex as much as it's just a power move of
epic proportions. Um, so, okay, we we know where this
(26:38):
guy stands. But then, in the War of eighteen twelve, Lafitte,
in his capacity as a spy, actually warned American troops
of the British invasion. But not like the Beatles one.
This is like, you know, a military invasion. And he
offered to help out Andrew Jackson, who is the general
defending New Orleans at the time, with some of his
top guys from his pirate crew up and he said,
(27:01):
we'll do this, will help you out Andy, which I'm
sure I'm sure. He called Andrew Jackson. Andy, right, he said,
we'll help you out. Andy. All you have to do
is give us a full pardon for anything we ever
may have or may have not done. Deal. And Andy says, yeah, deal.
(27:21):
The pirate gang does a great job Jackson. In fact,
later in life, Jackson goes on to call la Fit
one of the ablest men of the Battle of New Orleans.
So it sounds like he earned that pardon. And you know,
he uh, he takes it easy for a little while.
But a couple of years after this massive, you know,
hero moment, he starts back up into pirating, piracy, pirating.
(27:45):
I'm gonna go with pirate pirating. It's just fun to say. Um.
But he moves shop to Galveston, Texas and brings close
to a thousand buccaneers along with them, and he established
like a pirate community that he referred to is his kingdom.
Uh named campesh on the Barrier Island of Galveston's um,
(28:07):
which is a thing. It's on the Gulf coast. I
didn't realize Galveston was an island, and they lived under
the rule of at the time, the Nueva Espana Colony
of Mexico. And he partnered up with a Portuguese jew
um by the name of Jao Huau de la Porta,
(28:29):
and some of their biggest named you know, heist buds
were folks like Jim Bowie of the Alamo fame um
also known for the knife that was named after him.
So until he passed away in eighteen twenty five, Jean
Lafitte remained one of the most feared pirates of the
(28:53):
Spanish Main, and the Spanish Main is the eastern coast
of Spain's possessions in the New World. At this time.
You can see traces of his story everywhere in New Orleans.
There there's a national park named after him. Uh. The
author we mentioned part one of this series even posits
that this man was the inspiration for Johnny Depp in
(29:15):
the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. But I still I
still feel like the inspiration is Um, that guy from
the Rolling Stones, not Keith Stewart. Keith Stewart is a
guy I went to high school with. And if you're
hearing this, Keith, I hope you're well the other Keith, yes,
and he was. He'd be played his father in one
of the movies. I think that was a nod to
(29:36):
how he definitely was. I think he's probably inspired like
maybe Lafitte was part of the historical president, but certainly
his mannerisms were all Keith Richards. Yeah. So maybe in
that point we're talking about the creative uh inspiration of
the screenwriters for the script writers and the creative inspiration
of the actors. But there, there you have it, folks.
(29:58):
For a long long time time, the stories of these
privateers and pirates were rarely explored in the history books,
and that began to change in the last decade or
so when historical graveyards were unearthed in the Caribbean. That revealed,
(30:18):
you know, the extent of the Jewish population that had
gone their seeking safety from the Inquisition, and also helped
us understand that several individuals in these communities were indeed pirates. Yeah,
that's right. And back in two thousand seven, the Caribbean
Volunteer Expeditions, which is a nonprofit cultural preservation society in
(30:40):
the Caribbean, has started to take a lot of steps
and compiling a lot of these research materials and artifacts
and inventorying these grave sites like you mentioned, ben Um
to really shine a light on this mainly you know,
kind of lost part of history transcribing epitaphs and is
creating a wealth of information that folks that are interested,
(31:03):
that want to find out more about the the Jewish
pirate community um that was forced out of Spain largely
due to fear of being persecuted and tortured by the
absolutely horrific Spanish Inquisition. I say this with sincerity. What
an astonishing story, and how fortunate we are to be
able to learn more about it in the present day.
(31:26):
You know, I'm I'm pretty happy that we made this
two parter. Oh I am too, And I did want
when I had one last little thing that that I
think it's super interesting and I always wondered about because
of this master Let's let's not forget like this was
about uh Jamaica specifically about about these Jewish pirates that
got their start after immigrating to Jamaica Um in addition
(31:47):
to other places. But that was sort of the big
one in terms of like how much of the you know,
parliament they made up in terms of the seats um
and that has a lot to do with maintains a
big part of the heritage of Jamaica Um, which you
think of oftentimes intertwined with Rastafarianism UM and as it
turns out, the concept of Rastafarianism has a lot of
(32:10):
connections with Judaism. Their messiah UH, the Ethiopian emperor highly Selassie,
was said to have been descended from King Solomon UM
and obviously one of their most powerful symbols in Rastafarianism
is the Lion of Judah. And Rastafarians also keep kosher. Yeah,
there are so many misconceptions about Rastafarianism here in the West,
(32:35):
it probably deserves its own episode as well. There is
fascinating history there. Of course, piracy is not over. Piracy
continues in different parts of the world. Right. You've probably
seen stories about piracy in the Middle East or off
the coast of Somalia recently. But this age of piracy
(32:59):
seems to be unique because of the way it meshed
and involved in concert with the age of maritime expansion
from Europe and the UH, one of the many waves
of anti Semitism that Europe experienced at the time. So
Tricorn hats off to you pirates of history. I don't know,
(33:21):
I'm in a weird spot with this because I don't
want to completely condone the you know, the behaviors of
these people, which at times had to be brutal and
violent and bloody. But also I I love the idea
of fighting back against this institutional evil of the Inquisition,
you know what I mean. And you've got to give
(33:41):
them props for their open mindedness culturally and allowing folks
that were basically cast off, if not outright, you know,
hunted by by certain individuals in power and bringing them
into their ranks and not judging them for their heritage
or any of that stuff. So that's pretty cool and
very punk rock if you ask me. Yeah, oh oh,
(34:01):
that's great. That's that's a great way to to segue
into this Noel Casey, we would be doing a terrible
job if we didn't include some of the cool parts
of real life pirate code. Uh. This comes to us
from Mark Mancini over at Mental Flaws. Some of these
rules might surprise you. So we talked about voting, mentioned voting.
(34:23):
That's awesome. Uh. They also said you can't steal from
other pirates. I guess honor among thieves. Oddly enough, they
said nobody can gamble, which which feels like a weird
vice to isolate, but I guess it was bad for
life on the ship. Uh. Everybody had a bedtime that
a curfew lights out, you get a spanking. Yeah. Uh.
(34:48):
They also had to uh also had to always be
ready to tangle. Each man must keep his peace, cutlass,
and pistols at all times, clean and ready for action.
I just love this piece cutless and pistols. Yeah. I
like how they say piece cutless and pistols because you
gotta wonder what's the piece? What's the piece? I thought
the piece was the pistol. Yeah. Maybe it's like a
(35:11):
bolow or or a side piece, maybe like a like
a little when you keep in your pirate boot, yeah,
or like a mace, or like a frisbee. I don't know.
Tell us what you think the best pirate piece would be. Uh.
They also did it never bring your date home? Right.
Most of these things did not have instant fatal punishment.
(35:33):
But if you brought a person of any sort with
you for romantic purposes onto the ship, you would be
put to death. Yeah, a lot of a lot of
things punishable by death or maroon ng, which I guess
this means abandoning you on a desert island with nothing
but maybe a mixed tape of your favorite songs, and
(35:53):
one last one I left to point to because it
is kind of progressive. Is the way that Mental Flaws
puts it is lose a lem, get workers comp And
here's the code. Every man who shall become a cripple
or lose a limb in the service shall have eight
hundred pieces of eight from the common stock and for
lesser hurts proportionately. And pieces of eight being a very
(36:14):
popular and widely accepted Spanish coin. Um that I think
we're even American legal tender until eighteen fifty seven. What
a ride, oh man. I you know, we busted a
lot of stereotypes here, uh, and we talked a little
bit about the complex cultural situation. But still, you know,
(36:36):
like the six or seven year old in me is
so into the idea of just hopping on a boat
and living life on the high seas. I don't think
I would want to do it with a crew though.
I want to be like Kevin Costner in water World
and just have like my own thing in a system.
You guys remember water World. That's one of Casey's favorite films,
right yeah. Jean Triple Horn turned in a Tour de
(36:58):
forest performance as to Dennis Hopper and I hear the
ride at the Universal is pretty cool. Um, but wait
a minute, Ben, what how would you feel about like
more of like a like a Tom Hanks and castaway
kind of situation. What would be your unanimate object that
you would anthropomorphize? M m. That wouldn't be a computer
(37:19):
with a satellite link. Uh. You know that's a good question.
If you had to anthropomorphize something on a desert island,
I would try. I would try to make like a
really cool sculpture or something, you know, leave a mark
after I'm done. As far as companionship, I'd probably see
if I could befriend some of the native fauna, you
know what I mean, and have like a sidekick bird
(37:43):
or uh, mammal of some sort, because I don't know,
if you could be a friend of fish. Perhaps there
would be corvidds on this island where you where you
wind up. I know you have a real kinship with
those little guys. Uh what about you know? What would
you uh, what would you do a while away the
lonely days on a desert islands. I'm gonna go with coconut,
(38:05):
just because it's obvious. You know, you can draw a
little face on it. I mean, I might not have
a volleyball. Volleyball seemed good because it's like sort of,
you know, squishy, you can put your head on it,
maybe maybe a pillow, but then it would get dirty.
I don't know. I'm I'm gonna stick with coconuts. Yeah,
a tiger. I want a tiger. I wouldn't be friends
with the tiger. Be friends of the tiger that would
(38:25):
let you ride around on his back and potentially also
talk to you once you started going mad and hallucinating,
and then eventually it would also probably eat you. Um,
but dared to dream, is what I say about all
of this stuff, as did many of these incredible pirty characters. UM.
Huge thanks to super producer Casey Pegraham for being here
(38:45):
and through all of this, through this intentional two parter,
even though god it could have been a three partner man.
The length of these are way out of whack, But
what are you gonna do? UM, gotta get a vacation
at some point. Huge thanks to Alex Williams told posted
our theme, Christopher Haciotes Here in Spirit, John Strickland the Quister,
Thanks to Gabe Lousia. Thanks to the authors, mentioned in
today's episode, Who doesn't love to learn more about pirates? Uh,
(39:11):
thanks of course to Eve's Jeff Coat and a behind
the scenes peak here folks. Uh, this is one of
the last things we're recording before some of us hit
the figurative road for a week's vacation. UH. And this
was a little bit uphill. We've got I've got some
gremlins on the wings of the internet connection. So I
want to thank you Casey and you know for bearing
(39:33):
with me as we were sorting out some of the
technical difficulties. Uh, and all the various strange sounds that
happened today. All good man, All good. It was a pleasure.
As always. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
(39:53):
podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:27):
Yo ho Ho Ridiculous Historians. I'm sorry, I just had
to get it out of my system. All right, Well,
I'm ben. This is part two of our exploration of
the little known story of Jamaica and Jewish pirates. Hi,
I'm nol bent. Was that just a drawn out yo?
Or were those meant to be ho ho hoes in between?
(00:47):
As a as a a piratey ref? Yeah? Priate ref?
Did it? Did it sound like a yo or yo
ho ho? I just was making sure that we're on
this zoom and then I was a little bit it
dragged it out, did that thing where it digitally kind
of stretched it so on my end it is kind
of light. Sounded like you were saying, yo, ridiculous historians
and welcome to the show. But no, I I kid,
(01:10):
but yeah, today you know, we we we did. We
did this intentional two parter and uh, I know the
first one seemed a little on the short side, but
we felt like it was a good kind of primer
to now get you into some like really cool dives
into some of the most notable Jewish pirates and privateers
from throughout history. So what do you say we we
(01:32):
we jump right in with signon yes a k a.
The Great Jew. Yes, let's walk the plank of the
podcast with the help of our super producer, Casey Pegrov,
no doubt, brandishing a scimitar behind us forcing us along.
You're right, this guy was known as the Great Jew. Also,
(01:55):
as we go through this episode, please, if you're played
along at home, let us know what your ideal pirate
nickname would be. I think that's the coolest thing. If
you're a pirate, you get a nickname. Right. We've talked
about cool professional nicknames in the past, but yes, had
the Moniker the Great Jew. He and his family, like
so many of the people you mentioned in part one
(02:16):
of the show, they fled the Spanish Inquisition in the
early fifteen hundreds, and first they went to Turkey and
then it was in modern day Ismir Turkey where sNaN
became the right hand man of a fellow named Hayredden Barbarossa,
one of the most famed pirates of all time. Barbarosa
(02:37):
would eventually go on to become a sultan and a
commander in the Ottoman Navy. And uh, these guys had
their own interesting take on the pirate flag. Uh, they
sure did. And and just one quick little little snippet
of backstory on Sanan Um he was born to Sephardic
Jewish parents who fled Spain and then look like you said,
(02:58):
located into the auto An Empire. Um. But I just
I thought the distinction of Sephardic Jews was interesting because
I wasn't intimately familiar with this tradition, and it specifically
refers to descendants of Jews who lived in Spain and
Portugal uh, from the later centuries of the Roman Empire
(03:19):
until they were essentially forced out um of those countries
in the last decades of the fifteenth century. And that's
from Britannica. They're just to just to give credit where
credit is due. But this is something I wasn't wasn't
intimately familiar with, so always interesting to learn about new
kind of cultural offshoots. But yes, to your point, Ben,
(03:41):
about their kind of interesting spin on the Jolly Roger,
which we we heard from you last episode, did have
some variations. Um. There's had a six sided star very
much seeming to be a reference to the Jewish Star
of David in place of that smiling skelets boy, and
they were a dynamic duo on the high seas. Probably
(04:05):
their biggest victory came in fifteen thirty eight during something
called the Battle of Provezza, right off the coast of Greece.
Ottoman forces led by these two guys defeated an entire
flotilla of armed ships from Christian countries that have been
kind of assembled or justice leagued by Pope Paul the Third.
(04:26):
This victory, there's ensured that the Ottoman forces would dominate
the Mediterranean for generations to come. And this is where
sNaN earned his nickname, his street name, the Great Jew.
You know who gave it to him, his enemies on
the Spanish side of the conflict. Totally, Yeah, it makes
(04:48):
me think of It makes me think of the character
and inglorious bastards um, the one with the baseball bat.
You know, he's bashing and heads all the time. He
gets his nickname from his enemies too. It was the
Ared you right, because he was known for bashing head stuff.
You always know, if you get a pretty cool sound
of nickname from your enemies, you're doing something right. You're
(05:09):
striking fear into the right hearts, you know what I mean?
I still think that, you know, the Spanish forces at
this point, we're like, why not throw in some hate speech. Yeah, well,
while we're here, let's just also being sold. I don't
know what they you know what I mean, I don't
know how they meant it to be received, but I
agree with you it is a very badass nickname. Uh.
People were so intimidated by this guy or looked up
(05:33):
to him, depending on where they stood in the conflict,
that they began spreading rumors of his sorceress powers. He
was so good at navigating the seas that people started
saying he had to use magic to do it. They're like,
there's only one way. I love picturing this conversation. It's
a bunch of other sailors meeting up and they're like, look, guys,
(05:54):
we know we're just mainly winging it out there. How
does sNaN know where he's going all the time? And
someone else that I think it's magic, bro, And they
were like, yeah, because that was a sufficient explanation of
things at the time. Well, and if I'm not mistaken,
wasn't part of that kind of anti Semitic attitude and
almost fear of Jews as having some kinds of being
(06:16):
like witches or something, or as as possessing some kind
of magical powers. You often hear kind of outdated jokes
about even like you know, the of that that fantastic
film Jojo Rabbit by Taiko A Titi, there's a character.
I don't want to spoil anything about the movie, but
there's a child who refers to Jews as being like
(06:39):
having the ability to hypnotize you or something like that,
like vampire rules or whatever. And I think that sort
of attitude about like they they're using witchcraft to do
this navigation was probably a pretty widespread idea and another
way to further dehumanize people when you really think it
all the way through. So in ristinely enough, you can
(07:01):
read more about Barbarossa and Snan's adventures in the five
volume book of Barbarossa's memoirs that he dictated to Sonan.
They currently reside in the Istanbul University Library. So this
guy is having an adventure that most people don't know about,
(07:23):
which is crazy. I would love to see the film,
which I know I've been saying, and like every episode
we do, but so many of these stories are just perfect.
They're so cinematic. Okay, we can't spend all our time
on this guy though. Uh what say we move on
to another great nickname, the pirate rabbi. Yeah, Samuel Palash
(07:46):
or Palachet. I'm gonna go with Blash. What do you
think We're probably gonna get corrected either way. Let's just
stick with it. Uh. Yeah, this guy wasn't just your
run of the mill son of Abraham Um. He was
actually a rabbi. His name was a Rabbi Schmool Palacci,
and he is said to have taken part in some
(08:07):
pretty serious pirate raids against Spanish and Dutch ships, which
would have been under the privateer side. Isn't that right then? Yeah? Yeah,
he was working for the Dutch government, and then he
was also working for the Sultan of Barbary and Morocco.
He was instrumental in one of the very first treaties
between European and Middle Eastern powers, that's the six Agreement
(08:30):
that guaranteed peace between Morocco and the Netherlands. So despite
the fact that he had trained as a rabbi, he
obviously felt more called to this life on the high
seas as a privateer, but he was still a man
of faith he was still pious, and one of the
(08:50):
rules on his ship was that the members of the
crew had to donate a tenth of their loot. I'll
just say, a cut of their booty to charity. Yeah,
lean into it, dude, I love it. And he also
kept things kosher on his ship, which, if you think
about that, that seems like at some point it could
(09:11):
get a little to right. I mean, you know, it
takes a lot of effort, uh, and certainly you don't
have the luxury of having access to like all the
things when you're you know, uh far far away at sea.
But that whole aspect of like donating to charity, that's
the real kicker for me. That's fantastic. So in sixteen fourteen,
(09:34):
Morocco and Spain went to war with each other, and
Plash was responsible for heading up a small Moroccan fleet
UM that was destined for a conflict with Spanish ships
and actually was able to be successful and capture them. Um.
He was though arrested by the Spanish ambassador and then
(09:56):
tried under Spanish law for piracy. There's a letter to
a Dudley Carlton, who is the British ambassador to Venice.
Then um. And he summed up the life of this
Jewish pirate thusly. And this comes from a I s
h dot Com. I'm not familiar with the words, so
(10:17):
forgive me if I'm I had rather spell it than
mispronounced it. Which is a really great resource for Jewish
culture and heritage and all kinds of history and cool storytelling.
Highly recommended. Um. But eight little known facts about Jewish pirates. Um.
And they have this quote from Dudley Carlton. And keep
in mind that maybe some of this language might sound
a little charged. I'm just reading it from historical record. Quote.
(10:41):
Here is a jew pirate arrested that brought three prizes
of Spaniards into Plymouth. He shall likely pass out of
here well enough, for he has league and license under
the King's hand for his free egress and regress, which
was not believed until he made proof of it. Okay, yeah,
so eventually they had They realized he is approved by
(11:04):
the highest authority to basically do what he wants. Right.
It's it's imagine, you know, we talked about it sometimes
in spy novels, right, the idea of a license to kill.
But imagine if there was a country where you literally
got a printed letter that you can whip out that
says something like, uh, superproducer Casey Pegram has the express
(11:26):
authorization of the US government to do whatever he wants.
Let me go. Uh. I would love that. I would
I would probably get into some really poorly thought out
high jinks, you know what I mean. Uh. Plash was acquitted.
He was set free. When he passed away in sixteen sixteen,
he was given a heroes funeral. Every single member of
(11:50):
the Jewish community in Amsterdam got together and marched in
his funeral procession. And they were not alone. They were
joined by royalty, and they were joined by elders of
the city itself. So this person had had an immense
amount of support and recognition in his time. Yeah, for sure.
(12:10):
And like we said, bust another myth about pirates. And
this guy seemed like a pretty benevolent pirate at the
end of the day and had a bit of a
moral code, which I appreciate because you think of pirates
is just you know, being wanton and uh and not
following the rules. And this guy was definitely a different
spin on that. All right, let's move on to another
uh amazing nickname. I'm not a nickname, but like a
(12:33):
gang name. Uh this was This one's about sub at
all and the Brotherhood of the Black Flag, which sounds
like definitely a Black Flag tribute band. Right, I'm not
alone in that, Okay. So this guy was a Jewish
physician living in the sixteenth century, an educated man, and
(12:56):
he was an explorer of what would now known as
the America's He's also credited by some with introducing the
potato to Europeans, which nice one, man. I've been thinking
about this during quarantine. You know what I miss? I
miss having fries, French fries that I didn't cook. Yeah,
(13:17):
so you haven't really been doing much. You haven't done
like a drive theory. Have him been to a Chick
fil A or any any of that? Uh? Yeah, I
went to I went to a drive through once, but
usually usually I've been staying in and cooking. It's a
little healthier, it's something to do. I've been I've been
cooking some weird stuff. You guys know. I know. And
you're talking about You're gonna have a seafood uh extravaganza
(13:38):
with your little Japanese grill after we get done recording.
And I think you've inspired me to go a seafood
route myself for dinner and my mom visiting. But well,
speaking of the sea and food, uh, we we were
talking about potatoes a minute ago, um, and now we're
talking back about Subatol and the Brotherhood of the Black Flag.
He formed a bond uh some something of an alliance
(13:59):
with another, their famous explorer's son, Um who realized as
well that the profession of piracy was a pretty good racket,
and that was the son of Sir Francis Drake Henry Um.
So the two became inseparable and they started this organization,
if you want to call it, that known as the
(14:19):
Brotherhood of the Black Flag. It was absolutely a band
of pirates that was hell bent on attacking as many
Spanish ships as they could right off of the coast
of a place that I think you have very recently
been a modern day Chile. Yeah, that's right. They are
said to have buried six thousand pounds of Spanish gold
(14:43):
and an even larger amount of silver near harbor In
in Chile. At this time, no one has found that
buried treasure. However, treasure hunters have found some documents that
were partially written in Hebrew that they believe may have
been written by Subatol himself. So, and it's quite possible
(15:07):
that someone off the coast of Chile may one day
find the hidden treasure of the Brotherhood of the Black Flag.
Absolutely ben and and just for reference, if you wanted
to check out this area in Chile today, if you
ever find yourself back on a plane and maybe you
live there, it is near the guy a Can Harbor today.
(15:27):
And that's spelled g u a y a c a N.
I think guy I Can. It's probably a decent pronunciation there.
But let us know who do we have next? Been? Ah,
here we go. We've been, We've been setting up for this.
We talked about heist, talked about pirates. Now we're talking
(15:48):
about a pirate heist. It comes to us courtesy of
Mosha Cohen Anarkis or Moses going Enriquees, depending on where
you go with the translation. He was one of the
most famous of the revenge seeking Jewish privateers and pirates.
He started his life living in secrecy as a Jewish
(16:11):
person because he grew up under the Inquisition in Portugal.
He was at a time one of the most well
known prominent successful merchants in the capital of Portugal, Lisbon,
and then he was discovered to be Jewish and to
be practicing his faith. In sixteen o five, he and
(16:31):
a hundred and fifty other people were publicly tortured and
this changed Cohen's life. He decided that he was going
to work against Spain and Portugal and fight against the
injustices of the Inquisition. First he had to escape. Yeah,
that'll certainly do it, um. And he did that thing.
(16:53):
He got out of Amsterdam, and he pretty quickly seemed
to find his way into the good grace is of
the Dutch and he became essentially a spy for them,
for the Dutch Navy, and he settled in Jamaica, which
was already starting to become this kind of safe haven
for these Jewish expats uh. And he worked with the
(17:15):
Dutch on behalf of the Netherlands to attack these Spanish
vessels UM and just kind of be a thorn in
the side of these UH colonial ambitions to take over
the New World, because everyone was vying for a lot
of that real estate. Right, Yeah, that's right. This is
part of a massive land and resource grab on the
(17:37):
part of the European powers. Cohen even teams up with
one of the most feared pirates of the day, a
man named Sir Henry Morgan. And Sir Henry Morgan is
a dangerous, dangerous dude, right. But this land grab, this
age of expansion, panic that so many European powers going through,
(18:01):
uh makes them bend the rules a little bit more.
And so the Dutch and British governments, actually they're not
very loud about it, but they back up Cohen and
Henry Morgan. Would that be Captain Henry Morgan of the
of the Rum fame, the Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. Yeah,
I remember, you know Captain Morgan's surely it's named after him, right, Yeah,
(18:24):
I mean what would what would imagine? Uh? Captain Morgan
was a Sir Henry Morgan, I guess is a Welsh privateer,
and it was a plantation owner who eventually became the
Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. So he was in the halls
of power. But to be clear that what I'm talking
about when I say the quiet support is the Dutch
(18:46):
and British government's quietly supporting Cohen in his partnership. Sir
Henry Morgan was already kind of like above the reproach
in a lot of ways because he was so powerful
and just for the record, confirmed cap To Morgan Rum
is named after Sir Henry Morgan for his adventures in
the in the Caribbean. Yeah, I mean it makes sense
(19:08):
to me, right, and drink responsibly, and you too can
live like the Captain. You know, I wonder why they
never had a tagline like promote yourself or even use
that I'm the captain now meme. That would be great,
That would be good. You know what I was thinking
in my mind, I was confusing the uh, the Captain
Morgan's tagline with the Captain Crunch tagline, which I think
(19:31):
is superior. Is you and the Captain make it happen? Uh?
There we go. Yeah, and drink responsibly and eat your
sugary cereals responsibly. Kids, Right, eat your breakfast candy responsibly.
That still baffles me. So here let's fast forward to
the heist. We promise you a heist. There is a
heist e vault in Cohen helps the Dutch West India
(19:54):
Company pool one of the most profitable sea heist in
the entire history of piracy. They steal like over a
billion dollars worth of gold, and silver from a Spanish
fleet off the coast of Cuba. And when we say
a billion, that's US roughly adjusting for how much this
(20:14):
gold and silver would be worth in today's age. But
it's still it's still kind of tough to get a
super accurate calculation there. Just it was a lot of money.
But wait a minute, Ben, I thought the Dutch West
India Company was a legitimate business. What do they do
in pulling off heists? Dutch West India Company. Well, they okay,
(20:37):
specifically Cohen helped Admiral Pete Hind And so if we're
gonna be all unfun and factual about it, the Dutch
West India Company was not. It's probably not officially sanctioning
this heist, but without doing a whole episode about them. Yet,
I wouldn't put it past a man. They are a
very bad group. Oh but no, no, no, there's a
(20:58):
thing and I used you look up dust West India
and Britannica. Dutch West India Company, It says, using booty
acquired from the capture by the Dutch seaman Pietre Heine
of part of a Spanish treasure fleet, the company challenged
the Portuguese hold on Brazil beginning in six thirty and
attained his greatest success during the administration of Count John Maurice.
(21:20):
So they definitely ran on it, and they're definitely sanctioning it. Yeah,
we should do at some point a story about some
of the many crimes of those organizations, because even if
you know a lot about them, you might not know
the whole terrible story. So, not long after successfully pulling
off this massive sea heist, Cohen starts his own pirate
(21:45):
island because off the coast of Brazil you mentioned earlier.
And then once Portugal takes over the area, Cohen becomes
this adviser to Captain Henry Morgan drink responsibly indeed, and
then know Cohen does finally kind of retire. I guess
uh he's getting up there in years, Um, Sir Henry
(22:06):
Morgan becomes the Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, uh and actually
pardoned Cohen. So Cohen was living in the clear um
and he stayed in Jamaica until he passed away, living
the life of a civilian, you know, but having had
some hell of adventures. The pirates life was certainly for him.
But um, he knew when to say when, just like
you should when you're drinking Captain Morgan's rum. That's right,
(22:29):
and that's a lovely pirate stereotype to bust. Not all
pirates died on the high seas in you know, a
wave of treasure and blood falling to cannon fire. Some
people were actually able to retire, which I thought was
pretty cool. And now I think we have time for
one more. Someone who's been called occasionally the most famous
(22:51):
Jewish pirate Jean Lafitte. He was born in France in
about sevent I had no idea John Lafitte was was
jew spirate. UM certainly heard of him from Lafitte's blacksmith
shop in uh in, New Orleans, which I believe is
the oldest bar still an operation there or possibly in
the United States. It's it's been around for a very
(23:12):
very long time, um, and it's a pretty fun little
dive bar to check out. They have really good hurricanes.
But yeah, John Lafitte was born in France about seventeen eighty,
like you said, And there is a pretty controversial work
called The Journal of Jean Lafitte. Controversial in it may
or may not have been written by him, um, or
it could be some kind of forgery. It could be
(23:33):
it could have been written by a third party. Um.
He does claim that his mother's father was a Spanish
Jew who was subjected to torture under the Inquisition UM And,
much like some of the previous entries in this list,
seeing that happened to his family created a lifelong hatred
for Spain um and for obviously the Spanish Inquisition UM
(23:57):
and decided that he wanted to wreck their shop man
like just absolutely be another thorn in the side of
the Spanish Armada, right um. So he wanted to mess
with their money because they have these holdings in the
New World um and that's where the Inquisition was absolutely
like burning their way across the lamb. So Jehan moves
(24:18):
to New Orleans to escape the Inquisition. He doesn't move alone.
He brings his brother Pierre, and together they found a
blacksmith shop and they do pretty well. But there's a
conspiracy of foot because they have a second secret profession.
They have commissions from the Republic of Cartagena to intercept
(24:40):
Spanish boats. So while they're operating their blacksmith shop, they
carry on this secluded interdiction career from a secluded colony
in Barrataria Bay off the coast of New Orleans. That's cool.
Secret pirates. It is super cool. And from that same
article from j host dot com Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean,
(25:03):
they have a really great quote from a professor by
the name of Edward Bernard Glick who wrote an article
called Lafitte's Jewish Origins in the Jerusalem Post back in
two thousand and six, and he says Lafitte was also
a Sephardic jew along with his first wife, and Glick
points out that not only did Lafit run a single
pirate ship, he had a whole fleet of them that
(25:24):
he kind of ran like kind of like a mob
boss almost from his blacksmith shop, which also was a
site for fencing stolen pirate loot. That's my favorite part,
by the way. You know, you come for the horse
shoes and then you stay for the emeralds, right or
maybe like a cursed skull. I don't know. I don't
know what kind of stuff they're fencing in this pirate shop.
(25:51):
So years before the Battle of New Orleans and before
the War of eighteen twelve, he's already got beef with
the authorities, and there's there's very strange flex, a weird
flex that he does. I bet Myles and Jack would
love this. The Louisiana Governor, William C. C Clayboard place
as a reward of five hundred dollars on the fite's head.
(26:15):
And what does he do. He retaliates by putting a
five thousand dollar bounty on the head of the governor.
He's telling the governor of Louisiana stopped playing with broke
boy rules. You know what I mean? Seriously, Holy cow,
that is a that I wouldn't say that's a weird
flex as much as it's just a power move of
epic proportions. Um, so, okay, we we know where this
(26:38):
guy stands. But then, in the War of eighteen twelve, Lafitte,
in his capacity as a spy, actually warned American troops
of the British invasion. But not like the Beatles one.
This is like, you know, a military invasion. And he
offered to help out Andrew Jackson, who is the general
defending New Orleans at the time, with some of his
top guys from his pirate crew up and he said,
(27:01):
we'll do this, will help you out Andy, which I'm
sure I'm sure. He called Andrew Jackson. Andy, right, he said,
we'll help you out. Andy. All you have to do
is give us a full pardon for anything we ever
may have or may have not done. Deal. And Andy says, yeah, deal.
(27:21):
The pirate gang does a great job Jackson. In fact,
later in life, Jackson goes on to call la Fit
one of the ablest men of the Battle of New Orleans.
So it sounds like he earned that pardon. And you know,
he uh, he takes it easy for a little while.
But a couple of years after this massive, you know,
hero moment, he starts back up into pirating, piracy, pirating.
(27:45):
I'm gonna go with pirate pirating. It's just fun to say. Um.
But he moves shop to Galveston, Texas and brings close
to a thousand buccaneers along with them, and he established
like a pirate community that he referred to is his kingdom.
Uh named campesh on the Barrier Island of Galveston's um,
(28:07):
which is a thing. It's on the Gulf coast. I
didn't realize Galveston was an island, and they lived under
the rule of at the time, the Nueva Espana Colony
of Mexico. And he partnered up with a Portuguese jew
um by the name of Jao Huau de la Porta,
(28:29):
and some of their biggest named you know, heist buds
were folks like Jim Bowie of the Alamo fame um
also known for the knife that was named after him.
So until he passed away in eighteen twenty five, Jean
Lafitte remained one of the most feared pirates of the
(28:53):
Spanish Main, and the Spanish Main is the eastern coast
of Spain's possessions in the New World. At this time.
You can see traces of his story everywhere in New Orleans.
There there's a national park named after him. Uh. The
author we mentioned part one of this series even posits
that this man was the inspiration for Johnny Depp in
(29:15):
the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. But I still I
still feel like the inspiration is Um, that guy from
the Rolling Stones, not Keith Stewart. Keith Stewart is a
guy I went to high school with. And if you're
hearing this, Keith, I hope you're well the other Keith, yes,
and he was. He'd be played his father in one
of the movies. I think that was a nod to
(29:36):
how he definitely was. I think he's probably inspired like
maybe Lafitte was part of the historical president, but certainly
his mannerisms were all Keith Richards. Yeah. So maybe in
that point we're talking about the creative uh inspiration of
the screenwriters for the script writers and the creative inspiration
of the actors. But there, there you have it, folks.
(29:58):
For a long long time time, the stories of these
privateers and pirates were rarely explored in the history books,
and that began to change in the last decade or
so when historical graveyards were unearthed in the Caribbean. That revealed,
(30:18):
you know, the extent of the Jewish population that had
gone their seeking safety from the Inquisition, and also helped
us understand that several individuals in these communities were indeed pirates. Yeah,
that's right. And back in two thousand seven, the Caribbean
Volunteer Expeditions, which is a nonprofit cultural preservation society in
(30:40):
the Caribbean, has started to take a lot of steps
and compiling a lot of these research materials and artifacts
and inventorying these grave sites like you mentioned, ben Um
to really shine a light on this mainly you know,
kind of lost part of history transcribing epitaphs and is
creating a wealth of information that folks that are interested,
(31:03):
that want to find out more about the the Jewish
pirate community um that was forced out of Spain largely
due to fear of being persecuted and tortured by the
absolutely horrific Spanish Inquisition. I say this with sincerity. What
an astonishing story, and how fortunate we are to be
able to learn more about it in the present day.
(31:26):
You know, I'm I'm pretty happy that we made this
two parter. Oh I am too, And I did want
when I had one last little thing that that I
think it's super interesting and I always wondered about because
of this master Let's let's not forget like this was
about uh Jamaica specifically about about these Jewish pirates that
got their start after immigrating to Jamaica Um in addition
(31:47):
to other places. But that was sort of the big
one in terms of like how much of the you know,
parliament they made up in terms of the seats um
and that has a lot to do with maintains a
big part of the heritage of Jamaica Um, which you
think of oftentimes intertwined with Rastafarianism UM and as it
turns out, the concept of Rastafarianism has a lot of
(32:10):
connections with Judaism. Their messiah UH, the Ethiopian emperor highly Selassie,
was said to have been descended from King Solomon UM
and obviously one of their most powerful symbols in Rastafarianism
is the Lion of Judah. And Rastafarians also keep kosher. Yeah,
there are so many misconceptions about Rastafarianism here in the West,
(32:35):
it probably deserves its own episode as well. There is
fascinating history there. Of course, piracy is not over. Piracy
continues in different parts of the world. Right. You've probably
seen stories about piracy in the Middle East or off
the coast of Somalia recently. But this age of piracy
(32:59):
seems to be unique because of the way it meshed
and involved in concert with the age of maritime expansion
from Europe and the UH, one of the many waves
of anti Semitism that Europe experienced at the time. So
Tricorn hats off to you pirates of history. I don't know,
(33:21):
I'm in a weird spot with this because I don't
want to completely condone the you know, the behaviors of
these people, which at times had to be brutal and
violent and bloody. But also I I love the idea
of fighting back against this institutional evil of the Inquisition,
you know what I mean. And you've got to give
(33:41):
them props for their open mindedness culturally and allowing folks
that were basically cast off, if not outright, you know,
hunted by by certain individuals in power and bringing them
into their ranks and not judging them for their heritage
or any of that stuff. So that's pretty cool and
very punk rock if you ask me. Yeah, oh oh,
(34:01):
that's great. That's that's a great way to to segue
into this Noel Casey, we would be doing a terrible
job if we didn't include some of the cool parts
of real life pirate code. Uh. This comes to us
from Mark Mancini over at Mental Flaws. Some of these
rules might surprise you. So we talked about voting, mentioned voting.
(34:23):
That's awesome. Uh. They also said you can't steal from
other pirates. I guess honor among thieves. Oddly enough, they
said nobody can gamble, which which feels like a weird
vice to isolate, but I guess it was bad for
life on the ship. Uh. Everybody had a bedtime that
a curfew lights out, you get a spanking. Yeah. Uh.
(34:48):
They also had to uh also had to always be
ready to tangle. Each man must keep his peace, cutlass,
and pistols at all times, clean and ready for action.
I just love this piece cutless and pistols. Yeah. I
like how they say piece cutless and pistols because you
gotta wonder what's the piece? What's the piece? I thought
the piece was the pistol. Yeah. Maybe it's like a
(35:11):
bolow or or a side piece, maybe like a like
a little when you keep in your pirate boot, yeah,
or like a mace, or like a frisbee. I don't know.
Tell us what you think the best pirate piece would be. Uh.
They also did it never bring your date home? Right.
Most of these things did not have instant fatal punishment.
(35:33):
But if you brought a person of any sort with
you for romantic purposes onto the ship, you would be
put to death. Yeah, a lot of a lot of
things punishable by death or maroon ng, which I guess
this means abandoning you on a desert island with nothing
but maybe a mixed tape of your favorite songs, and
(35:53):
one last one I left to point to because it
is kind of progressive. Is the way that Mental Flaws
puts it is lose a lem, get workers comp And
here's the code. Every man who shall become a cripple
or lose a limb in the service shall have eight
hundred pieces of eight from the common stock and for
lesser hurts proportionately. And pieces of eight being a very
(36:14):
popular and widely accepted Spanish coin. Um that I think
we're even American legal tender until eighteen fifty seven. What
a ride, oh man. I you know, we busted a
lot of stereotypes here, uh, and we talked a little
bit about the complex cultural situation. But still, you know,
(36:36):
like the six or seven year old in me is
so into the idea of just hopping on a boat
and living life on the high seas. I don't think
I would want to do it with a crew though.
I want to be like Kevin Costner in water World
and just have like my own thing in a system.
You guys remember water World. That's one of Casey's favorite films,
right yeah. Jean Triple Horn turned in a Tour de
(36:58):
forest performance as to Dennis Hopper and I hear the
ride at the Universal is pretty cool. Um, but wait
a minute, Ben, what how would you feel about like
more of like a like a Tom Hanks and castaway
kind of situation. What would be your unanimate object that
you would anthropomorphize? M m. That wouldn't be a computer
(37:19):
with a satellite link. Uh. You know that's a good question.
If you had to anthropomorphize something on a desert island,
I would try. I would try to make like a
really cool sculpture or something, you know, leave a mark
after I'm done. As far as companionship, I'd probably see
if I could befriend some of the native fauna, you
know what I mean, and have like a sidekick bird
(37:43):
or uh, mammal of some sort, because I don't know,
if you could be a friend of fish. Perhaps there
would be corvidds on this island where you where you
wind up. I know you have a real kinship with
those little guys. Uh what about you know? What would
you uh, what would you do a while away the
lonely days on a desert islands. I'm gonna go with coconut,
(38:05):
just because it's obvious. You know, you can draw a
little face on it. I mean, I might not have
a volleyball. Volleyball seemed good because it's like sort of,
you know, squishy, you can put your head on it,
maybe maybe a pillow, but then it would get dirty.
I don't know. I'm I'm gonna stick with coconuts. Yeah,
a tiger. I want a tiger. I wouldn't be friends
with the tiger. Be friends of the tiger that would
(38:25):
let you ride around on his back and potentially also
talk to you once you started going mad and hallucinating,
and then eventually it would also probably eat you. Um,
but dared to dream, is what I say about all
of this stuff, as did many of these incredible pirty characters. UM.
Huge thanks to super producer Casey Pegraham for being here
(38:45):
and through all of this, through this intentional two parter,
even though god it could have been a three partner man.
The length of these are way out of whack, But
what are you gonna do? UM, gotta get a vacation
at some point. Huge thanks to Alex Williams told posted
our theme, Christopher Haciotes Here in Spirit, John Strickland the Quister,
Thanks to Gabe Lousia. Thanks to the authors, mentioned in
today's episode, Who doesn't love to learn more about pirates? Uh,
(39:11):
thanks of course to Eve's Jeff Coat and a behind
the scenes peak here folks. Uh, this is one of
the last things we're recording before some of us hit
the figurative road for a week's vacation. UH. And this
was a little bit uphill. We've got I've got some
gremlins on the wings of the internet connection. So I
want to thank you Casey and you know for bearing
(39:33):
with me as we were sorting out some of the
technical difficulties. Uh, and all the various strange sounds that
happened today. All good man, All good. It was a pleasure.
As always. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
(39:53):
podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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