Jean david nau biography of alberta

Born in France around 1635, Jean David Nau came to the Caribbean as an indentured servant during the 1650’s.  By 1660, however, he had completed his indenture and drifted to St.

Domingue where he became a boucanier and eventually, a buccaneer whose career lasted seven years.  Fellow pirates called him L’Olonnais.  His successes garnered recruits eager to join his expeditions, but his brutality gained him notoriety as one of the cruelest of all pirates.

Most of what we know of L’Olonnais comes from a book, first published in 1678, entitled The Buccaneers of America by Alexandre Oliver Exquemelin.

Like L’Olonnais, Exquemelin came to the islands as an indentured servant.  From his last master, he learned the skills of a surgeon.  He later sailed with Henry Morgan.  Unlike L’Olonnais, Exquemelin retired from piracy to become a naval surgeon and wrote about his adventures with the buccaneers.  His accounts of L’Olonnais, however, come from the sole su