Abraham Samuel

18 April 1699 Letter from Abraham Samuel, signed "Tolinar Rex"

Abraham Samuel (died 1705), also known as "Deaan Tuley-Noro" or "Tolinar Rex", was a pirate of the Indian Ocean in the days of the Pirate Round in the late 1690s. He is thought to have been of mixed African and European ancestry. He was said to be born in Martinique or Jamaica, or possibly in Anosy, Madagascar. Shipwrecked on his way back to New York from Madagascar, he briefly led a combined pirate-Antanosy kingdom force from Fort Dauphin, Madagascar (modern Tôlanaro), from 1697 until he died there in 1705.

History In 1696, Samuel arrived in the Arabian Sea, serving as quartermaster under pirate captain John Hoar on his ship John and Rebecca. They put into trade at Adam Baldridge’s pirate outpost on Ile Ste. Marie in early 1697. Rebellious natives attacked Baldridge’s encampment and killed a number of pirates, including Hoar. Samuel and some surviving crewmen sailed the aging John and Rebecca down the eastern coast of Madagascar, seeking slaves to bring back to the New World with them. In October 1697, while at anchor in the harbor of abandoned French settlement Fort Dauphin, a storm came up which severed their anchor ropes and beached their ship. They took refuge in the abandoned fort while they waited for another ship to come rescue them. The elderly princess of the Antanosy king saw the shipwrecked sailors and noticed birthmarks on Samuel's body. She declared that Samuel was her long-lost son, whom her French husband had taken when he left Fort Dauphin in 1674. He was given the title of Deaan Tuley-Noro (or Tolinar Rex): "Deaan, it may be observed, is a universal title of honour, signifying lord." With 20 heavily armed fellow pirates who served as his bodyguard plus 300 Antanosy soldiers, Samuel was proclaimed king of the region surrounding Fort Dauphin, eventually taking the title of "King of Fort Dauphin, Tollannare, Farrawe, Fanquest, and Fownzahíra". Cruger had antagonized his sailors during the voyage to Madagascar (a number of whom were owed back wages) and many of them willingly joined Jones, who sailed away to continue his own piracy. Samuel sold the Prophet Daniel to four other pirates led by Edward Woodman, giving them a signed bill of sale.

Samuel continued luring ships ashore to loot them, though on occasion he traded with them instead after charging them fees for "trading licenses". In 1700, the Royal Navy's Captain Littleton met with Samuel, entertaining him and two of his wives aboard his ship. The following year, the slave ship Degrave passed by "Port Dauphine", electing not to stop there because "the King of that part of the island was at enmity with all white men, and treated all the Europeans he met with very barbarously." The Degrave soon sank, leaving a few surviving sailors (including Robert Drury, who would later write an account of his ordeal) to make their way among the Malagasy natives. By 1707, another ship found Fort Dauphin again open for trading, this time led by Tom Collins, who had once been the Degraves carpenter.