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July 18, 2017

The sea filibusters (Part 1)

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Where is the legendary sea filibusters? After all, on a geographical map to find it. However, it exists, but has a completely different name.

Take a look at the map, namely – on the northern coast of South America. One of the largest seas of the planet – the Caribbean, washes them. It is spread over a vast territory between the continents of Central and South America in the west and south, and the chains of the Greater and Lesser Antilles in the north and east.

The name it received from a large and warlike Carib Indian tribe that once lived on its shores, but destroyed by the Portuguese and Spanish colonizers.

If you remember, on the Caribbean, many first heard or rather read in Daniel Defoe’s novel “Robinson Crusoe” – in these warm waters, and put the writer the same desert island.

Caribbean and more often called filibustering. The name “filibusters” translated from French as “free sailors”. It reminds us of the turbulent period of XVI-XVII century. When the New World, namely the so-called America then, sent to Spain three-masted ships, galleons, laden with loot gold, silver and pearls and jewels.

According to some sources, with the Inca and Aztec lands, that is to say of the current Peru and Mexico, in the period between 1635 and 1660. Spaniards were taken out of various values of more than $ 2.5 billion. Dollars. This is more than double the value of all the jewelry that had been mined in all the mines of America by the middle of the XVIII century.

Combining on the map is the largest of the Canadian cities of Montreal and the Cape of Cabo Frio, which is located near the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, and from Cabo Frio to draw a line to the small island of Coco, which is located in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Panama and from there to “return” to Montreal, then spent a huge lines form a triangle, called the triangle of treasures. Galleons laden with a variety of values for the most part kept the way to the shores of Spain. Their route is always passed through the territory of the Caribbean. Many ships were killed here, bumping into reefs, getting in a storm or meet with ruthless pirates. Read more about this you can read in this article, the treasure of the lost ships.

Spanish colonizers feared competition in the enslavement of the local population, and flatly refused to recognize for the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands the right to trade and to establish settlements in the West Indies. That is why the competing countries of the kings of the right and left handed diplomas pirates, entitling them to seize and plunder the ships belonging to countries with which they fought. Issue such “evidence”, of course, not free, but was allowed to rob legally. Pirates with letters called privateers (from the name of letters of marque) or royal pirates. These pirates plundered ships under the flags of their countries. Half the loot passed to the government and settled in the vaults and warehouses in London, Amsterdam and Paris banks.

The most famous and successful of all the king of pirates is widely regarded as Francis Drake. Raider’s case he learned from the English pirates, hunted in the waters of the Caribbean. Drake was the very reliable organizer of large-scale piracy operations, which was necessary to Queen Elizabeth, looking for an opportunity to replenish the war-ravaged royal treasury. In 1572, Francis Drake made a landing on the Isthmus of Panama and robbed ‘golden caravan “, which went with a large cargo of Peruvian gold.

November 15, 1577 Drake had already appointed an admiral of the English fleet, led by five well-equipped and armed ships to teeth. Ships came from Plymouth harbor in a long pirate raid on the Spanish rears located in South America. The fact that the war between Britain and Spain at that time was not announced, nor the queen, nor the latter-day Admiral not worried. Going completely new, still untried by any route, Drake was able to circumnavigate South America and sailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which at that time the Spaniards still believed they owned an inland sea. Suddenly appeared here, he deftly brushed Spanish galleons, standing in the roads of Callao port, Valparaiso, Guayaquil and Acapulco and go to Spain. Then Drake seemed to dissolve in the ocean. To avoid a meeting with the Spanish squadrons that were waiting for him near the Strait of Magellan, Drake sailed across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic, sailed from the coast of Africa and his faithful “Golden Hind” is already September 26, 1580 he returned to Plymouth.

This is a highly efficient swimming, lasted 2 years and 10 months, and was one of the most important events in the history of geographical discoveries. It was a pirate, not the researcher became the second after Magellan navigator, carry out world tour. That he owned the laurels navigator, the first costing South America through a wide strait (later named after him) that separates Tierra del Fuego from the continent of Antarctica, and thus proved that the northern ledge of a previously unknown continent – in fact the island. In addition, thanks to Drake was studied and mapped a noticeable part of the west coast of the continent of North America.

However, not only was this famous Francis Drake in Britain troubadours. Pirate “business”, the founder and main contributor of which was the Queen Elizabeth, brought unprecedented revenues. Despite the indignation of the Spanish court, through its ambassador in London demanding the execution of the captured pirate and return them to the treasure, Elizabeth awarded his companion a higher criminal knighthood – knight title. Well, most of the unique treasure came to the royal treasury. Presumably, the value of jewelry is more than two times higher than the annual income of England.

In fact, Drake history of British colonialism was open, because it was he who broke new routes across the seas and oceans.

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