Portal:Piracy/Selected picture/10

Image credit: Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates

Howard Pyle's illustration of pirates extorting tribute from a captured citizen following the sacking of a city. In 1667, French pirate François l'Olonnais sailed from Tortuga with a fleet of eight ships and a crew of six hundred pirates to sack Maracaibo. En route, l'Olonnais crossed paths with a Spanish treasure ship, which he captured, along with its rich cargo of cacao, gemstones and more than 260,000 pieces of eight. Over the following two months, l'Olonnais and his men raped, pillaged and eventually burned much of Maracaibo before moving south to Gibraltar, on the southern shore of Lake Maracaibo. The damage l'Olonnais inflicted upon Gibraltar was so great that the city, formerly a major center for the exportation of cacao, nearly ceased to exist by 1680.