To Americans living along the southeastern coastal shores in the early 19th century, the era's terrorists were the pirates who roamed channels of maritime commerce. Much of the piracy was an offshoot of revolutions in Latin America, where newly proclaimed republics recruited privateers to attack commerce belonging to the estranged mother country, Spain. But many of these raiders robbed indiscriminately.
In early 1819, Congress enacted special legislation to protect American shipping and seize pirates, who faced the death penalty if convicted.1 A key figure in the subsequent antipiracy campaign was Navy Lieutenant Commander Lawrence Kearny, whose two raids on Cabo de San Antonio, Cuba (cited in contemporary documents and here as Cape Antonio) in late 1821 while in command of the USS Enterprise marked the beginning of the end of piracy's last, inglorious epoch in the Caribbean.
The task facing Kearny and other Navy commanders had humanitarian and economic aspects, although both points are hard to quantify. Many contemporary periodicals chronicled pirate activities, especially horror stories about atrocities. Their sources were sketchy, however, and writers were known to invent or exaggerate episodes, which one editor admitted "cast a doubt over those barbarities which really exist."2
But in 1815, Commodore William Patterson at the New Orleans Naval Station had reason to charge that pirates operating out of nearby Barataria Bay were eliminating evidence of their crimes by destroying captured vessels and killing their crews. As this practice seems to have become common in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, many acts of piracy went undocumented. The full economic impact, therefore, is hard to assess, although contemporary examples shed light on the numbers involved. On 1 December 1819, six insurance company presidents wrote President James Monroe listing 44 recently robbed vessels. Increased naval activity had an effect in 1820; that year attacks on American ships dropped to 27. But in 1821 at least 21 incidents occurred in the year's final quarter alone.3
A Most Worthy Opponent
Lawrence Kearny, the man who helped end this state of affairs, was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in 1789 and became a midshipman in 1807. In 1810, he was named acting lieutenant on the 12-gun Enterprise, built 11 years earlier as a schooner and later rigged as a brig. The ship had seen action against French privateers and Barbary corsairs. Kearny's first stint on the Enterprise lasted until 1813 when he was promoted to lieutenant commander and sent to South Carolina. In February 1815, he returned to the Enterprise, which had captured the brig HMS Boxer and several other prizes during the War of 1812. Kearny would command her for the next seven years.4
Late in 1819, as part of President James Monroe's response to complaints about piracy, the Enterprise was added to the New Orleans station.5 In February 1820, the ship was sent to Galveston Island to oust pirate Jean Laffite from his lair. According to one version of events, when she anchored offshore:
Laffite in his splendid barge at once rowed off, and carried the embarrassed officer [Kearny] ashore, where the latter remained for several days as the pirate's guest, being entertained and feasted in the most sumptuous fashion. But all Laffite's diplomacy was useless. Kearny had orders to see that Laffite evacuated Galveston with all possible dispatch.6
The pirate had found a worthy opponent in Kearny.7
Garbled and Confusing Information
In February 1821, a year after the Laffite episode, the U.S. Senate approved a treaty to buy Florida from Spain, and American naval activities in the Gulf and Caribbean area were stepped up. Documents from the following month show the Enterprise policing the slave trade and stopping privateers—parts of a larger pattern of Navy vigilance, which brought about a corresponding lull in piratical activity.8 But in late summer 1821, the Caribbean pirates came back with a vengeance. Those based in Cuba especially began simply to launch fast, small craft from strategic points along the coast.9
Accounts of such low-tech attacks from this period frequently recount instances of sadism and murder as well as robbery.10 It was in this context that a Baltimore newspaper applauded the mid-September 1821 news that the Enterprise and other American "vessels are about to sail in quest of these freebooters—the fag-end of what was recently called privateering." At least 11 pirate vessels were said to be cruising off Cuba at the time.11
The Enterprise's operations area was Cape Antonio, on Cuba's extreme western coast—a place to be avoided by merchant ships.12 Kearny would strike twice at Cape Antonio, each time going ashore in pursuit of his quarry. These instances could be considered early examples of U.S. intervention on foreign soil.
Recounting his first attack in mid-October 1821 involves synthesizing and interpreting a number of sources, all of which are flawed. Kearny's terse report, lacking in detail, was written almost a month after the event. Newspaper stories are garbled or confusing. And then there is an allegedly corroborative account from the pirates' side given by one James Jeffers, who is better known as "Charles Gibbs"—the alias under which he was hanged in 1831. Before he died, Jeffers gave a series of "confessions" about a lengthy pirate career. While they are riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions, Kearny in 1831 visited Jeffers in his cell and is said to have come away convinced the man had been part of the Cape Antonio "brotherhood."13
Mock Executions and a Faux Flag
The story of the first raid began on 13 October 1821 with a prelude off Cape Antonio when the schooner Combine happened on a pirate flotilla. The Combine's captain, Jacob Dunham, described it as "three small schooners, one small sloop, and a large open boat lying at anchor about two miles from the land." The pirates boarded Dunham's ship carrying muskets, cutlasses, and knives and shouting out commands in broken English. Their tactics included calling victims out of the hold one at a time for mock executions, terrifying not only the immediate targets but also those below who could hear but not see the proceedings. The pirates eventually released Dunham and his ransacked, damaged vessel. The next day, the Combine met a Spanish Navy brig, whose officers refused to pursue the pirates or even to share provisions.14
On that same day, a schooner flying red and gold Spanish colors stopped the Boston-registered brig Aristides, carrying dry goods. The Spanish flag was a ruse; the boarders first knocked down the Aristides' captain, Joseph Couthouy, taking his watch, then forced her crew to turn the vessel toward land. The Aristides ran aground in shallows, the collision shearing off her rudder and stern post. With water seeping into the hold, the pirates made the captives unload cargo onto another craft that came alongside. They punctuated their orders with beatings and threats to kill Couthouy and his entire crew.
The next day, 15 October, as the forced unloading of the Aristides continued, south of Cape Antonio another pirate schooner took a French brig bound for Campeachy and killed all on board.15
The Enterprise Intervenes
Kearny had yet to learn of this when, at dawn on 16 October, the Enterprise stopped the Colombian privateer Centella off Cape Antonio. Described as a large schooner carrying at least one 24-pounder, she was commanded by Charles C. Hopner, probably one of many Americans then in privateering service. His commission papers were in order.
While Hopner was answering questions, another merchant brig, the Charleston-registered Lucies, captained by James Misroon, rounded the cape. At 0500 by Misroon's watch, he spotted Aristides in distress and headed toward her. When the Lucies came abreast, the Aristides' captain (probably at his captors' orders) hailed his visitor, identified his craft, and added that she had been taken by pirates.
"At that instant," Misroon recorded, "we were fired at by a pirate, and shortly after was boarded by her, three others in company, all under Spanish colors." According to Jeffers, the pirates' schooner was called the Margaretta. The freebooters robbed crew and passengers and broke open trunks and cargo boxes in the hold. Others forced some of Misroon's crew to sail the Lucies closer to shore, eventually anchoring in three fathoms.
The pirate colony's score kept rising. The brig Larch, registered in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, and traveling from Kingston to Havana, happened on the scene at about the same time the Lucies was being stopped. However, the pirates who halted her may not actually have boarded the brig, as events began quickly developing.
Now at least four pirate craft—three 40-ton schooners and a 25-ton sloop—swarmed around three prizes, all close in to shore. Observers on board the Enterprise spotted this forest of masts, and Kearny understood what was unfolding. With the commissioned Centella nearby, Kearny may have asked for Hopner's help or the privateer captain (perhaps with eyes on salvage rights) could have volunteered his services.16
In either case, both warships hauled anchors, the Enterprise heading for the Aristides, the Centella for the Lucies. Kearny ordered cannon fired, and one of the suspect craft ran up a red flag in response. Despite this show of defiance, the pirates soon turned their vessels toward land, hoping to make a getaway through the shoreline jungle. Claiming to have been on board the Lucies with the boarding party from the pirate schooner Margaretta, James Jeffers recalled a decade later that the warships showed up "before we had a chance of taking any thing out of" Misroon's ship. His story is supported by Misroon's account, which noted that after the single cannon shot the pirates "precipitately left us, and began to tow and sweep their vessels in shore." The Enterprise's gunfire had the same effect on board the wrecked Aristides, whose captors scrambled over the side to their own schooner, full of goods taken off the prize, and headed for shore with all sails set. While the Centella assisted the Lucies, the Enterprise took the crew off the grounded Aristides, presumably by boat, as the warship would not likely venture close to land.
Red flag notwithstanding, none of the retreating pirates appear to have fired at the Enterprise or Centella. In the Margaretta, the former boarders of the Lucies readied themselves to go over the side as their vessel grounded. They left some poisoned coffee, hoping their pursuers would drink it once they boarded the craft. No reports suggest they did. James Jeffers mentioned the coffee episode when Kearny visited him in his cell in 1831, and it thus appears to have been an authentic detail.
The Captain Courageous
The Enterprise now came within hailing distance of the Lucies, and Kearny asked Misroon for "all the boats and men [he] could spare, to go in pursuit of the pirates." Within ten minutes, according to Misroon, a five-boat task force was assembled. Three were loaded with Marines and Sailors, commanded by a Lieutenant McIntosh. The Enterprise's purser, named Perry, commanded the other two, filled with rescued merchant crewmen from Aristides and Lucies. Shortly after 0900, with all on board heavily armed, they headed for the pirate vessels congregating near the shore.17
It was a daring assault. Open boats offered little protection from gunfire, so Kearny must have been counting on the pirates' utter disorganization. The attackers also had a long way to go. With all hands straining at the oars, it took almost two hours for the five boats to close with their prey. As they headed for the shoreline, they saw the pirates set alight the schooner that had plundered the Aristides.18
What happened when the boats landed? On the pirate side, James Jeffers would maintain that "we had a fight with them, some of our men were killed, and I believe some of theirs." Despite this and other details Jeffers claimed of this encounter, the St. Andrew's Herald reported that "no blood was shed" during Kearny's open-boat assault. The captain's 12 November report made no mention of contact ashore or American casualties, though it mentioned a need to replace a "Launch lost at Cape Antonio."
Kearny's account of the drama was, in fact, brief in the extreme: "The pirates ran their vessels on shore when pursued by our boats and made their escape except one man now a prisoner aboard this vessel." Kearny did not record the prisoner's name or fate.19
The Enterprise's commander may not have actually been in a position to watch the shore operation unfold because, while the boats were launched, his ship spied and then chased another pirate craft. This roughly 40-ton schooner was the same one whose crew massacred the crew and passengers of the French brig bound for Campeachy the day before. Kearny retrieved the schooner but not her crew, which likely escaped ashore in the same fashion as had Jeffers and associates. The French prize had probably been scuttled. Kearny's men found a bloodstained dress on board the pirate craft that may have belonged to one of the French vessel's passengers.20
When Kearny returned to the Cape Antonio beachhead, he first set the Larch back on her way. With one pirate schooner smoldering at the shoreline, he ordered a second burned "for want of men to man her" and brought the captain and crew of the shattered Aristides aboard the Enterprise. He placed prize crews aboard his remaining haul of two schooners and the sloop, their holds still containing stolen dry goods, coffee, and tobacco. The Enterprise, he knew, was entitled to a share of salvage proceeds. (A Charleston judge later awarded "one half of the net proceeds of the vessels, and one quarter of the proceeds of the cargo" to Kearny, his officers, and his crew.)21
The Lucies' saga was not yet over. By virtue of retaking the merchant brig from the pirates, Kearny felt within his rights to claim part of her cargo. He placed a midshipman and several Sailors on board and had Misroon sign an agreement to take the Lucies to Havana, where he would demand from the cargo's consignees a third of its value as salvage. If not allowed, Misroon was to head for Charleston, where Kearny by then would be waiting for him. But when the Lucies arrived at Havana, the cargo owners balked at the arrangement, and Spanish marines seized the vessel.
When the Lucies failed to arrive, Kearny headed to Havana. There, he was so adamant about getting back his prize and her cargo that Spanish officials threatened to sink the vessel should Kearny try to take her. A Spanish prize court eventually promised the Americans their share.22
The Pirates Dig In
Kearny was lucky to obtain such a peaceful solution, as the Enterprise's success had made Americans unpopular with the pirates' connections in Havana. Authorities there were said to have refused to protect American citizens, while merchants still angry at earlier crackdowns on slaving applauded robbery committed against U.S. shipping. Kearny himself would later report that many on the island were "particularly inimical to Americans. My life and all my Officers lives are openly threatened at Havana for having interfered with their speculations."
Some of the Cape Antonio pirates, meanwhile, in anticipation of a return visit by the Enterprise, began building fortifications.23 They also continued to rob and harass passing merchant ships. On 12 December, pirates stopped and boarded a pair of vessels off Matanzas.24 On about the same day off Cuba's west coast, two schooners acting in consort began a string of attacks by robbing and burning an English brig followed on 16 December with the robberies of two other craft.25
By mid-December the Enterprise was off Havana examining "every vessel that leaves the port." On the 18th, Kearny reported that he was sailing in pursuit of a vessel fitted out inside Havana Harbor for a cruise near Cape Antonio.
Three days later, the Enterprise swooped again onto that pirate rendezvous. Close to the shore—near a "reef, behind which these Villains make a harbour," wrote Kearny—the Americans found their suspect: a 35-ton schooner carrying about two dozen men. The pirates immediately turned toward shore, and once they ran aground near the beach they clambered over the ship's sides. Again, Kearny launched men in small boats. This time the pirates offered a brief show of resistance.26
Kearny's report of the 21 December attack noted that the pirates made a stand on shore protected by a Bank (a good natural breastwork) until our party got within musket shot when they deeming "prudence the better part of Valor" took to their heels thro' the well known intricate paths of the thick woods of the Cape and effected their escape.
Kearny and his men found a pirate village next to this makeshift harbor. Along with bits of bloody clothing and stores of coffee and cigars, they found personal letters and other documents taken from ships and victims. They also found a fresh grave. Inside was the body of "an American or European," Kearny reported, who had been stabbed in the chest. He was also missing the fingers from one hand, perhaps a defensive wound as he tried to shield himself from a cutlass. Before leaving, Kearny ordered the settlement burned.27
Impetus for Added Success
News of Kearny's raids on Cape Antonio was well received in the United States. The attacks also proved to be the catalyst for a subsequent string of American (and British) naval successes against Caribbean pirates. Kearny himself was involved in at least two more major actions: in March 1822, when the Enterprise captured seven pirate craft of assorted sizes; and a year later, when he (on the schooner USS Greyhound) took eight suspect craft at Cuba's Cape Cruz, burning another pirate settlement.28
The pirates never regained the initiative against Kearny and other determined pursuers. Occasional future incidents would occur, but within three years of the Cape Antonio raids, most of the pirates of the Caribbean were gone for good.
1. Gardner W. Allen, Our Navy and the West Indian Pirates, (Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1929), pp. 16, 97-98.
2. "History of the Pirates, &c," Niles' Weekly Register, 17 May 1823, p. 163.
3. Allen, Our Navy, pp. 9-10, 19-23
4. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, 9 vols, (Washington, DC: U.S. Navy Department, Office of Chief of Naval Operations, 1959—1991), II:355-356 and III:605; and National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 45 (hereafter NARA) Personnel Records, 1798-1890, Entry 72, Statements of Service from Officers ("Returns of Services of Officers"), August 1842—August 1843, Vol. 2.
5. See under "Chronicle," Niles' Weekly Register, 1 January 1820, p. 304.
6. Carroll Storrs Alden, Lawrence Kearny, Sailor Diplomat, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1936), pp. 35-36; and Basil Lubbock, Cruisers, Corsairs and Slavers, (Glasgow: Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1993), p. 70.
7. Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, 7th ed., (New York:Appleton-Century Crofts, 1964), p. 303.
8. Bailey, Diplomatic History, pp. 173-174; Allen, Our Navy, pp. 20-21; and Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, March 13 and 26, 1821, abstracts of which appear in "Letters written to the Department by Naval Officers concerning the suppression of piracy in the West Indies and Gulf of Mexico, 1821-25," a June 1937 document in NARA U.S. Navy Subject File, 1775—1910, SG-Illegal Service (hereafter SGIS).
9. "Richmond, Oct. 24," Charleston Courier, 30 October 1821, p. 2.
10. "Piracy," Niles Weekly Register, 20 October 1821, pp. 118-119; and "From the New-York Gazette, October 20," Charleston City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 26 October 1821, p. 2.
11. "Piracies," Niles' Weekly Register, 22 September 1821, p. 64; and "The Pirates," Niles' Weekly Register, 10 November 1821, p. 162.
12. For a 19th-century public service announcement about the dangers of traveling near Cape Antonio, see "A Card," Charleston Courier, 13 November 1821, p. 2.
13. "Execution of the pirates," New York Journal of Commerce, 23 April 1831, p. 2.
14. Jacob Dunham, Journal of Voyages: Containing an Account of the Author's Being Twice Captured by the English and Once by Gibbs the Pirate, (New York, 1850), pp. 172-179, quoted in Alden, Lawrence Kearny, pp. 44-51.
15. "Pleasing Intelligence: Capture of the Pirates!," Charleston Courier, 31 October 1821, p. 2; untitled articles, Charleston Courier, 13 November 1821, p. 2; and Alden, Lawrence Kearny, pp. 51-52.
16. "Pleasing Intelligence: Capture of the Pirates!," Charleston Courier, 31 October 1821, p. 2; untitled articles, Charleston Courier, 13 November 1821, p. 2; "The Pirates," Niles Weekly Register, 10 November 1821, p. 162; "Report of the Secretary of the Navy for the year 1822. Statement of Captures of Piratical Vessels and Boats made by Vessels of the United States Navy in the West Indies," NARA-SGIS; "Naval," Niles Weekly Register, 24 November 1821, p. 204; Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, 12 November 1821, NARA-M148 (Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy from Commissioned Officers Below the Rank of Commander and from Warrant Officers, 1802—1884), Roll 27 (Vol. VII:58??); and "Gibraltar, 6th November," Lloyd's List, 4 December 1821, p. 2.
17. "Pleasing Intelligence: Capture of the Pirates!," Charleston Courier, 31 October 1821, p. 2; "Confessions of Gibbs the Pirate," New York Journal of Commerce, 7 April 1831, p. 2; "Pirates Taken," Charleston City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 31 October 1821, p. 2; Alden, Lawrence Kearny, p. 52; Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, 12 November 1821, NARA-M148; and "Ship News," Charleston City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 12 November 1821, p. 2. The coffee episode is mentioned in "Execution of the Pirates," New York Journal of Commerce, 23 April 1831, p. 2.
18. "Pleasing Intelligence: Capture of the Pirates!," Charleston Courier, 31 October 1821, p. 2; "The Pirates," Niles Weekly Register, 1 December 1821, p. 213, citing the St. Andrews Herald of 13 November 1821; Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, 12 November 1821, NARA-M148; and Alden, Lawrence Kearny, p. 52, citing Dunham, Journal of Voyages, pp. 182-185.
19. "Confessions of Gibbs the Pirate," New York Journal of Commerce, 7 April 1831, p. 2; and Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, 12 November 1821, NARA-M148.
20. "Pleasing Intelligence: Capture of the Pirates!," Charleston Courier, 31 October 1821, p. 2; untitled articles, Charleston Courier, 13 November 1821, p. 2; and Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, 12 November 1821, NARA-M148. Kearny alludes to the clothing in a postscript to a 28 December 1821 letter to Commodore Patterson, NARA-M124 (Miscellaneous Letters Received by the Secretary of the Navy, 1801—1884.) Roll 91 (Vol. VII:81).
21. "The Pirates," Niles Weekly Register, 1 December 1821, p. 213; Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, 12 November 1821, NARA-M148; "Ship News" columns, Charleston City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 3, 12, and 14 November 1821, all appearing on p. 2; "Ship News," Charleston Courier, 12 November 1821, p. 2; and "Salvage," Niles Weekly Register, 19 January 1822, p. 335.
22. "Extract of a letter from Havana, dated 24th Oct., received at Boston," in National Intelligencer, 15 November 1821, p. 3; Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, 12 November 1821, NARA-M148, and Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, 23 November 1821, NARA-M148, Roll 27 (Vol. VII:75??); and "Naval," Niles Weekly Register, 5 January 1822, p. 304.
23. "Havana," Charleston City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 18 December 1821, p. 2; untitled item under "Editorial Articles," Niles Weekly Register, 5 January 1822, p. 290; Kearny to Commodore Patterson, 28 December 1821, NARA-M124; "From Havana," Charleston Courier, 23 November 1821, p. 2; and Francis B. C. Bradlee, Piracy in the West Indies and Its Suppression, (Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1923), p. 22.
24. "Piracy," Charleston City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 20 December 1821, p. 2.
25. "More Piracy," Boston Columbian Centinel, 19 January 1822, p. 2.
26. Untitled article, Charleston City Gazette and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 29 December 1821, p. 2; Kearny to Secretary of the Navy, 18 December 1821, NARA-M124, Roll 91 (Vol. VII:57); and Kearny to Commodore Patterson, 28 December 1821, NARA-M124.
27. Kearny to Commodore Patterson, 28 December 1821, NARA-M124.
28. Samuel Eliot Morison, "Old Bruin": Commodore Matthew Galbraith Perry. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), p. 81; Allen, Our Navy, pp. 39-41; G. F. Emmons, The Navy of the United States, 1775—1853, (Washington, DC: Gideon, 1853), pp. 76-79; "Report of the Secretary of the Navy for the year 1822. Statement of Captures of Piratical Vessels and Boats made by Vessels of the United States Navy in the West Indies," NARA-SGIS; and Alden, Lawrence Kearny, pp. 55-59 (citing Loyall Farragut, The Life of David Glasgow Farragut, First Admiral of the United States Navy, [New York, Appleton, 1879], pp. 95-97).