|
|
|
Louis Michel Aury
|
"Terror of the Gulf"
|
|
 |
 |
| |
|
Louis Michel Aury
|
|
Welcome to the official Louis Michel Aury web site. A more detailed site is under construction, but here are a few facts about this pirate/privateer(depending which side of the fence you are on!):
|
|
|
(picture:presumed to be a self portrait, c.1816)
|
-Born in Paris, France in 1788
-Begins service in French Navy in 1802; then switches to privateer ships
-Sails from North Carolina in 1813 on his own privateer ship with Venezuelan letters-of-marque to raid Spanish ships
-Accepts commission as Commodore of the Navy of New Grenada
-At great expense, he evacuates hundreds from besieged city of
Cartagena, Colombia to Aux Cayes, Haiti; has falling out with Simon Bolivar, a leader of Latin American
Revolution against Spain, over payment for his services
-Accepts commission from fledgling Republic of Mexico as Civil and Military Governor of Texas and establishes a privateering base on Galveston Island, Texas in 1816
-While Aury is away on a raid on New Spain, the infamous pirate Jean Laffite takes over the operation at Galveston
-Apon his return to Texas, Aury realizes the futility of trying to regain control of Galveston from the colorful Laffite and makes an ill-fated attempt to establish another base on Matagorda Bay
-Aury leaves Texas in 1817 to assist the Scottish adventurer MacGregor in liberating Florida from Spain
-U.S. Army drives Aury out of Florida in December, 1817
-Captures Old Providence Island in the western Carribean and begins a successful settlement with an economy thriving on captured Spanish cargo
-Unsuccessfully continues to try to rebuild relations with Bolivar
-Thrown from a horse and killed in 1821, but some erroneous reports put him living in Cuba in 1845
|
|
|
|
|
