Pirates

ENGLISH PIRATES ON THE SEA OF CORTEZ


Sir Francis Drake, Thomas Cavendish, William Dampier, Woodes Rogers, Thomas Dover, and other English privateers left behind a colorful Baja legacy. In spite of Spain's repeated attempts to colonize the peninsula, throughout the Spanish colonial period the pirates probably gained more wealth in the Californias than the Spanish themselves. For 250 years they plagued the Manila galleons off the coast of the Californias, finding the bays and lagoons of Baja's Cape Region perfect hiding places from which to launch attacks on treasure-laden ships.

In La Paz, using their knowledge of the strong breeze that blows into the harbor every summer afternoon, the pirates attacked Spanish galleons while the vessels were effectively trapped in the bay. Four centuries after the first Manila-Acapulco voyages, this afternoon wind is still known as El Coromuel, named for the Puritan Cromwells-father and son- who ruled successively as Lord Protectors of England.

The Disappearance of the Desire

The most notorious of the Pacific privateers was Sir Thomas Cavendish, whose greatest feat of plunder occurred at Cabo San Lucas in 1587. There his two English vessels, Desire and Content, commandeered the Spanish galleon Santa Ana following a protracted sea battle. Cavendish set fire to the Santa Ana after looting its cargo holds and setting its crew and passengers ashore. The Spanish crew later retrieved the burned hulk and restored it for a return to Acapulco.

The plundered treasure, meanwhile, was divided between the Desire and Content. The ships set sail for England immediately, but during the first night of their triumphant voyage the Desire disappeared. Cavendish reported in England that the captain and crew of the Desire must have scuttled the ship on a nearby island and disappeared with the loot. Neither the wreckage of the vessel nor the treasure was ever discoved; some historians speculate that at least part of the missing wealth remains buried near the Cape.

A Visit by Robinson Crusoe

In 1709, famed corsair Woodes Rogers landed in La Paz after rescuing a seaman who'd been marooned five years on a deserted island off Chile's coast. The rescued man was Alexander Selkirk, whose island sojoum became the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719. Selkirk was aboard Roger's Dover when the crew captured the Spanish galleon Encarmacion off Cabo San Lucas in 1709; he served as sailing master on the ship's return voyage to England the following year.