Michel le Basque

Michael Le Basque, Each Man with a Prisoner, from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, print, George S. Harris & Sons (MET, 63.350.201.19.14) Michel le Basque (born Michel Etchegorria; fl. 1666–1668) was a pirate and flibustier (French buccaneer) from the Kingdom of Navarre in the southwest of France. He is best known as a companion of François L'Olonnais, with whom he sacked Maracaibo and Gibraltar.

History

Michel le Basque of Saint-Jean-de-Luz was an early buccaneer, hunting oxen and wild pigs on Santo Domingo and neighboring islands around 1657. Successful as a buccaneer, he retired to Santo Domingo and was appointed as a district official by Governor Bertrand D’Ogeron. In 1666, in Portobelo he took part in the seizure of the Spanish galleon Margarita from the Tierra Firme squadron, a capture yielding over a million piastres. He then joined forces with corsair L’Olonnais, using his own ship to ferry their ground troops.

Maracaibo, located at the end of the lake of the same name, was connected to the sea by a narrow channel defended by a 16-gun fort called Castillo de San Carlos. L’Olonnais and le Basque landed their troops out of reach of the fort’s guns, The buccaneers’ treasure amounted to 260,000 pieces of eight and a great deal of religious objects and jewelry. Again in 1667, le Basque returned with only forty men and once more attacked Maracaibo, taking the richest inhabitants as hostages for ransom. Finally he returned to Basque Country where he, like Jean-Baptiste du Casse and others, was received and congratulated by the Sun King, Louis XIV. Some sources say he returned to the Caribbean where he captured a Spanish ship off Portobello in 1668, and was killed later that year leading a raiding party upriver.

In popular culture

The story of the attacks on Maracaibo and Gibraltar, although softened and treated with artistic license, is used by Emilio Salgari in his novel The Black Corsair.

Purported female buccaneer Jacquotte Delahaye (actually an invention of a 1940s French novelist) was said to have rejected a marriage proposal from le Basque.

le Basque's story was dramatized as the serial novelette "The Pearl-Fisher" by Emmanuel Gonzales.