.

 

Great and mischievous pirate.
Henry Morgan.

LAURENS DE GRAAF

The Caribbean had become a center of European trade after Columbus’ discovery of the New World. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish were mining staggering amounts of silver bullion from the mines of Zacatecas in Mexico and Potosí in Bolivia. The silver shipments attracted pirates and privateers all along the route from the Caribbean to Seville. To combat this constant danger the Spanish adopted a convoy system. A treasure fleet would sail from Seville, carrying passengers, troops, and manufactured goods to the Spanish colonies of the New World. Its true purpose was to transport the year’s worth of silver to Europe. The first stage in the journey was the transport of all that silver from the mines in Peru and Mexico in a mule convoy called the Silver Train to a major port, usually to the Isthmus of Panama or Veracruz. The flota would meet up with the Silver Train, offload its cargo of manufactured goods to waiting colonial merchants and then transfer the precious cargo into its holds. This made the returning Spanish treasure fleet a tempting target.
The Spanish, despite being the wealthiest state in Christendom, could not afford a sufficient military control of such a vast area of ocean. This allowed for constant attempts at Caribbean colonization by England, France and the Netherlands. Whenever a war was declared in Europe between the Great Powers the result was always widespread piracy and privateering throughout the Caribbean.
Indirectly, pirates were helping Spain:  focus on extracting mineral and agricultural wealth from the New World rather than building productive settlements in its colonies and inflation were fueled by the massive shipments of silver and gold to Western Europe; wealth contributed to Spain’s ruinous decline from Great Power status.  The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are often considered the "Golden Age of Piracy" in the Caribbean: the period when the Spanish Empire in the New World continued its rapid military decline.
Captured from Spain in 1655, the island of Jamaica had been taken over by England and Port Royal had become a new English buccaneer haven in the midst of the Spanish Empire.
Laurens Cornelis Boudewijn de Graaf alias "Scourge of the West", was a Dutch pirate, mercenary, and naval officer in the service of the French empire. He was described as tall, blonde, mustached and handsome. There was some serious speculation that de Graff was a mulatto: it is alleged that he was enslaved by the Spanish when captured in the Netherlands and shipped to the Canary Islands to work on a plantation.
Graff married his first wife, Petronilla de Guzman, in 1674 before moving on to the Caribbean. The Spanish Governor of St. Augustine confirms his marriage in a letter written to the King of Spain in 1682 by referring to him as a "stranger who was married in the Canaries".
According to the Governor of Saint Domingue, De Graaf was born in Holland and had been sailing "on the account" since 1676 as the captain of a French privateer crew. At some point in the early 1670s he escaped the galley and turned pirate. His first, reported, action as a pirate captain is recorded on March 1672, when a band of pirates attacked the city of Campeche, torching, capturing and pillaging the town. The pirates captured a merchant ship with over 120,000 pesos in silver and cargo, the next day when it sailed unknowingly into the harbor. Though he was given credit for this raid the year of his marriage in the Canary Islands makes this event highly improbable.
He is next mentioned in the autumn of 1679 when he is reported to have captured a Spanish frigate of which he named the Tigre. In 1682, de Graff had become so successful that, famous pirate Henry Morgan, in his official capacity of governer for Jamaica, sent the frigate Norwich to under command of Peter Haywood, pirate hunting with de Graff as his primary quarry.
During a brief stop in Cuba around the same time, DeGraff was told of plans to seek him out by an informant. Rather than waiting for the pirate hunting fleet, he set sail immediately in search of them. After a running gun battle that lasted hours, the Princesa lost fifty men to de Graff's 9. In an act of kindness, de Graff put the seriously wounded captain of the Princesa and his own surgeon ashore. The ship happened to be carrying the payroll for Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo, about 120,000 pesos in silver.
Once the prize was shared out, the buccaneers retired to Petit Goave to celebrate and refit their fleet, making the Princesa the new flagship. De Graff’s next foray was a trip to Cartagena. Finding little in the way of shipping, the pirates departed for the Gulf of Honduras retired to Bonaco Island to careen. The plans were ruined when Nicholas van Hoorn attacked the ships and captured them empty. When Van Hoorn reached Bonaco Island and tried to join forces with de Graff, he was bluntly turned away, having ruined any potential de Graff had had for the Spanish galleons. He was later to join forces for an attack on Vera Cruz.
The pirates arrived off Vera Cruz on May 17, 1683, leading with two captured Spanish ships to mislead the town. De Graff and Yankey Willems slipped ashore with a force of men and routing the Spanish militia from their sleep, proceeded to remove any defenses. Van Hoorn, marching overland, joined with de Graff and attacked the bustling city, in one of the most vicious pirate raids in the Gulf of Mexico. The 5000 citizens of Veracruz were trapped in the city, when the pirates  de Graff held it under siege. The crew of 600 looted the city and terrorized the inhabitants and left unscathed several days later. On the second day of plundering, the Spanish fleet appeared on the horizon, composed of numerous warships. Retreating with hostages to the nearby island of Los Sacrificios, the pirates waited the ransoms. Finally, giving up on further plunder the pirates departed past the Spanish ships without hindrance.
In late December 1683, de Graff and a fleet of seven ships arrived off Cartagena, to be confronted by a force of three large ships. After a poorly commanded battle that left the biggest Spanish galleon San Francisco with 40 guns grounded and the other two ships captured, Graff took the San Francisco as his new flagship, renamed as the Fortune. The pirates then proceeded to blockade the town of Cartagena.  In January 1684 brought an English convoy a note for de Graff from his wife offering a Spanish pardon and commission. De Graff ignored the note, not trusting the Spanish to keep their promises.
In summer and fall of 1684 de Graff remained in Petite Goave. He was again aboard vessel and sailing away in November 1684. De Graff is next seen on Isla de Pinos presiding over a gathering of buccaneers.
Failing to reach any decision as to a target, de Graff departed, only to be sought out off the Mosquito Coast, for a raid on Campeche. After several months the pirates finally attacked in 1685. After a protracted battle, the Spaniards fled the town, leaving the pirates with a city devoid of plunder, due to the length of the battle and delay in actually attacking. After two months in the town, the pirates, failing to secure a ransom began to burn the town and execute the prisoners. De Graff stepped in and helped to stop the violence. The pirates departed Campeche in September 1685, carrying many prisoners for ransom.
The pirates having split up, de Graff is next mentioned fleeing from a superior fleet on September 11, 1685 off the Yucatan. After a day long battle with two larger Spanish ships de Graff was able to escape by dumping all cargo and cannons overboard to lighten his ship. In February 1686, the Spanish staged a raid on de Graff's plantation on French Saint Dominque. As retaliation de Graff staged a raid on Tihosuco, looted and burned by the buccaneers. Returning to Petite Goave de Graff wrecked his ship.
In 1687, de Graff was reported as a French officer by local authorities. He also engaged in a ship battle off southern Cuba with a Biscayan frigate and the Cuban guarda del costa, sinking several small ships. He is next seen defending the harbor at Petite Goave from Cuban invaders. December of 1689 sees de Graff taking ships off Jamaica, where he proceeded to blockade the Jamaican coast for over six months before leaving. He then proceeded to the Cayman Islands where he captured an English sloop.
In January 1691 he attacked a convoy near Santo Domingo and was soundly defeated by a Spanish force three times the size of his French force, narrowly escaping with his life.
In March of 1693, deGraff met and married Marie Dieuleveult. The legend says that deGraff had insulted Marie who promptly slapped him for the disrespect. It might be inferred that the insult was an illegitimate child. The two were married in 1693 and their daughter is recorded to be twelve years old by the year 1704.
The summer of 1693 saw him leading another buccaneer attack against Jamaica in several raids. The English responded in May 1695 by attacking Port-de-Paix, sacking the town and capturing de Graff's family.
The last known where-abouts of Laurens de Graff were in the direction of Louisiana to help set up a French colony near Biloxi, Mississippi. Some sources claim he died there, others claim locations in Alabama.
The decline of piracy in the Caribbean paralleled the decline of the use of mercenaries and the rise of national armies in Europe. Following the end of the Thirty Years' War the power of the state in Europe expanded, armies were systematized and brought under state control, while statal navies expanded and their mission was to cover combating piracy.
If money is involved, people will do incredible things.
It is the same story in financial services, where, despite the growth of some smaller private banks, no foreign banks are allowed. Micro-finance schemes have expanded exponentially, but it remains almost impossible to find start-up loans for small or medium businesses.