Jean du Casse
Jean Baptiste du Casse ( Bayonne * 1646, † 1714) was a French Buccaneer and Admiral.
Since his parents were Huguenots, he was not included in the French civil service, after which he entered the service of the Compagnie de Sénégal, a French trade organization for the African region. There he worked as a slave trader and sold his goods in the French operations in the Caribbean.
After a successful trip he paid in Saint Domingue on his win a ship with which he seized on a fully loaded Dutch merchant ship. After his return to France, he gave half of the loot to the Crown, to which he was received by Louis XIV as a lieutenant in the French navy.
In 1691, he was appointed governor of Saint Domingue, where he soon gave the respect of the local buccaneers. In the following months he and his crew robbed the English possessions in the area regularly, including several times shortly before the badly drawn by an earthquake affected Port Royal.
1697 he started together with a French expeditionary force under the command of Baron de Pointis a successful raid on the wealthy Spanish coastal city of Cartagena (today Colombia), but was betrayed by his men of de Pointis to the amounts made fifth share of the booty. He sailed then to France to claim his part personally by the king and actually received for himself and his buccaneers 1.4 million franc indemnity. In addition, he was promoted to the looting of Cartagena to admiral and knighted in the Order of St. Louis.
1708 Spain and France concluded a joint alliance and Casse took over, standing in the Spanish service, the protection of the annual treasure fleet. Thanks to its large Caribbean experience survived the Spanish galleons in the next few years almost intact the crossing to Europe. Casse received one of the highest honors of the Spanish Crown, that nation, whom he had years earlier added yet through his privateering in fear for his services with the Order of the Golden Fleece.
He was one of the last Caribbean buccaneers, who disappeared after the Franco-Spanish peace from the scene.