Nikolaus van Hoorn and the saint Nicholas Day
- This topic has 5 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 8 months ago by
.
-
-
-
Hello Michiel,
Never be sorry for contacting me about historical research or historical subjects of the pirate kind – because this is one of my passions and I am always reading and researching and learning more. I am always happy to talk about these things!
Well I am continuing to research Van Hoorn and am finding some very interesting information that others have not considered or put together with the whole.
So to add to this topic link below, I will mention what I have found.
The despicable Nikolaus Van Hoorn and the Saint Nicholas Day
It is very apparent that most of the commonly written modern history about DeGraaf and Van Hoorn’s collaboration beginning just prior to the Vera Cruz attack is incorrect. The two had worked together before earlier in the same year!
It’s ironic that the two who were both seen in Curacao after the defeat of the Governor of Cartegena’s punitive force/flotilla by DeGraaf and Adrienszoon – sent after them at Panama – and very likely spending the loot taken in Curacao, attacked Dutch ships after their sojourn there in the capital of the Dutch West Indies. Wow so no loyalty for their own countrymen at all!
So what I’ve learned is that DeGraaf and Van Hoorn together – ATTACKED and plundered two DUTCH West India Company ships south of Cuba – the Elizabeth and Stadt Rotterdam which were outbound from Cartegena. They took over 100,000 gold and silver rijksdaalders from these ships – an incredible haul! – and an action which upset the authorities in Curacao badly, who then issued bounties for their capture. This was a complete act of piracy because the French letters of commission/marque they had been using were invalid at this point in time and France was not at war with the Netherlands. The Dutch WIC agents supposedly sent letters (which are noted to still exist – I MUST FIND THESE!) which appealed to Spanish and French authorities to pursue DeGraaf and Van Hoorn.
No word on what ships they were sailing in from the scraps I’ve found detailing this but I have a good lead on a document in Amsterdam that may tell the rest of the story. I’ve noted it along with some other obscure documents I mean to try to get permission to look at the next time I’m in the Netherlands – probably next year because I have no time this year.
Mike, if you have access or can get access to the VOC archives in Amsterdam – you may be able to help me with my research and I can tell you specifically which volumes from what years and what pages I need copies of. You can take pictures without flash even with your cell phone. – That has worked for me in other archives and usually the curators have no problems with that.
So I was FINALLY able to get a complete copy of Marley’s Sack of Vera Cruz: The Great Pirate Raid of 1683. I am still flabbergasted at just how difficult it was to get a look at this book. It is NOT on-line and no one has copies of it available. I have had my name on lists with antique book sellers and Abe Books for years.
Only three libraries in North America have a copy. One in Canada which I really didn’t want to go that far to find. One at Stanford U – which if you aren’t faculty or a student, they won’t give you access to, and one in Texas. The Texas copy is the one I got hold of at the Willis Library at North Texas State University at Denton. My thanks to Wayne at the front desk for helping me find it.
I made a complete photo copy of it and have been devouring it.
I was elated to read about SO MANY FASCINATING details that Marley unearthed about how this attack happened. The details and eye-witness accounts are absolutely AMAZING! The characters ARE AMAZING – (expect some new characters in the game just from this research alone and this particular DLC battle is becoming more complex for us to build based on all of these new details but will be a SPECTACULAR bit of historical gaming fun when we finish it. NO ONE else has tried to do anything like this ever before in a video game!)
However, I was very disappointed with Marley’s research on the Saint Nicholas, (and called Saint Nicholas in all of his accounts) because his story of how Van Hoorn acquired her is completely different than what the English archival accounts tell us – and I think it is quite simply incorrect. I am sorry but I do not think Marley has even seen the Jamaica depositions I made available at the bottom of the link above.
Another interesting tidbit I discovered is that DeGraaf was awarded a NEW letter of commission by the French in 1685 and in this capacity he SACKED Campeche! This was not a mere “pirate attack” as other sources report. Also I find some conflicts with reports about DeGraaf dumping his cargo after this raid to escape. This simply did not happen and the Dutch and French forces/pirates/privateers/zeeroovers occupied the city for two months. I believe these reports of desperate retreat have been confused with his escape at the Battle of Bayo De Alacranes when his fleet was scattered by Pez de Malzaraga. So more research is required and I need to look for some better narrative accounts or reports from the archives at Merida and Vera Cruz – and I am going back to Mexico again this year. I need a new Spanish translator – I lost my last one. Free trip anyone??? I do have someone else in mind already I think – very easy on the eye as well. LOL
DeGraaf is purported to have actually been AWARDED THE ORDER OF SAINT LOUIS by King Louis XIV for the action at Campeche! Anyone know if the French have an archive somewhere which lists whose names are entered receiving the awards by year that is contemporary to this time-frame? If so I need to get access to that document.
I found an interesting reference to one of DeGraaf’s English captains I had never heard before – a Captain Bannister. I will continue to dig – first time I have seen mention of this guy.
I’ve also found another interesting fragment which I am not going to share with anyone yet. It mentions the pirate captain Louis Le Golif who is also known as “Half-Arse” because one of his butt-cheeks was shot away. LOL. He will be a future character addition for our game. So many believe he may be make believe because his auto-biography was not discovered until the 1940s and some consider it a forgery. However, the fragmentary mention of him I have found is contemporary to his time. The reason this is important to me is because according to his own account he was one of DeGraaf’s captains even though I can find no mention of him at Vera Cruz. My chapter on Vera Cruz in my book continues to grow. Will I ever finish it?
IN CONCLUSION: After scouring many sources, I truly believe now that there was no “DAY” at the end of the name of the ship. I believe this was somehow added apocryphally in narratives from the 19th/early 20th centuries and is incorrect.
I would now stake my reputation that the actual name of the “renamed ship” was just simply “Saint Nicholas”
During my research I also found out that Van Hoorn’s pistol survives and is in a private collection in England somewhere. A man named Richard Knight (deceased) owned it in the 1980s but I can’t find out what has happened to it. I would hope this would make it into a public museum somewhere. Anyone know anything about this artifact? I’d love to get a picture of it for my book!
For resources to prove the name is listed as Saint Nicholas only – I recommend the following:
Piratas y corsarios en Veracruz y Campeche (1972) by Juan Juarez Moreno – in which he lists numerous Spanish archives he took this information from.
Exquemalin’s famous Buccaneers of the Americas: However interestingly enough only the French and Spanish versions have the Sack of Vera Cruz narrative. Originally the book was only printed in Dutch and French. The Dutch version for some reason doesn’t have the Sack of Vera Cruz narrative. I do not understand why this was not included in my English reprint version – unless it was taken from that Dutch version originally. OR – Maybe I am just missing part of it in my copy? It is a mystery to me. In the French version I have the ship is listed as “Sante Nicholas”. Someone or some publisher should make a NEW English reprinted version with the bits missing included.
And then last – of course – I recommend the Jamaica depositions linked above at the bottom of that post where we learn the previous identity of the ship. I have some other sources I haven’t even looked in yet which are complete reprints of very old books from the 19th century which are nothing but copies of thousands of documents put together by the late John Fiske and John Franklin Jameson.
The mysteries of the name change and when it happened I believe are much more likely to be found in old English sources in this case than any other. I tend to believe that the story has to survive somewhere – but where?
I find often it is futile to intentionally look for minutia like this. What often happens to me is that when I am looking for something completely different – that’s when you will find clues or even the full information of something else you might have been trying to search out about – sometimes years before. LOL. That’s just the way research works I’m afraid.
MK
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
by Mike-C