Angie takes over the whole episode this week, with the tale of Roberto Cofresí. This part is Robin Hood, mostly a pirate, hailing from Puerto Rico. He’d start his career after the golden age of pirates, but doesn’t let that stop him. Sit back and learn his historical basis before delving into his ghost stories persisting to this day.
This story pairs well with:
Jean Lafitte
Transcript
Theresa: Hello and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast, the podcast where two compulsive nut jobs are gonna mainline history stories, spend hours just in weird forums looking up what else the CIA is involved with, and then come to each other and tell each other the stories we’ve only recently learned. I’m host one, I’m Teresa, and that is host two. I’m Angie.
Theresa: I want to know what you know the Ben recently doing with the CIA now. Thank you.
Angie: That’s gonna be my shorty.
Theresa: I’m so excited.
Angie: Uh if you’re wondering, I realize you may not know. So if you are a Patreon subscriber, uh, we have these things called shorties, and they are stories that are not necessarily long enough for a full-on thing. And uh yeah, mine might involve the CIA.
Theresa: They’re fun, the stories are fun, they’re like 10 minute blurps. Good times. Yeah. Yeah. I’m here for it. I go today. It’s me. I’m taking the whole thing.
Angie: Oh yeah, that’s right. Uh do it.
Theresa: Okay. Did you know that we are officially um how can I how can I reword this? It’s officially spooky season. Not okay, it is officially spooky season, yes, and my story does have some of those elements, but it is also Hispanic Heritage season. So my offering for Hispanic Heritage is the story of Roberto Cofressi, Puerto Rico’s Robin Hood. Oh. He is also known as one of the last successful Caribbean pirates. You know, this is a link story for you.
Angie: This story’s gonna have a bit of everything I’ve ever wanted in my life.
Theresa: And surprisingly, I don’t say syphilis one time.
Angie: Uh aside from just there. Just now.
Theresa: Put it put it on your bingo card, I guess. Um that said, all of the reputable sources that I could find were in Spanish, so I went for the less than reputable. So take the whole bowl of salt, throw it over your shoulder, and just enjoy the ride, okay?
Angie: I I’m here for it, and uh all hate mail can go too.
Theresa: Angie at gmail. dot… Whatever. Uh my sources are Cofresi Hills, the Dominican Republic, and the Pirates of the Caribbean. Maria’s Beach.com, the pirate Roberto Cofresi, Puerto Rico’s Robin Hood. Wikipedia has probably the most extensive page for him I have ever seen on Wikipedia. Like it goes on for miles. It’s basically a love story. Yeah, it’s fascinating. And they have like this the sources that are listed are there’s so many of them, and I think there are a lot of them might be like court documents or like um legal like legal notices and things because it just the list of people that’s involved is crazy. I was like, holy cow, I really, really wish I could speak and read Spanish to the extent of being able to understand all this. Um and then American Ghost American Ghostwalks.com has a great little article called The Ghost of Roberto Cofressi, Puerto Rico’s Most Famous Pirate.
Angie: That last source feels like it is just
Angie: the turid stories that they tell during the tours where you pay twenty-five dollars a ticket.
Theresa: It is, and I only included it because there’s a little paragraph at the end that made me laugh so hard that I was like, yeah, if I don’t share this part of the story, I’m toast. Like I’m cooked. And then um there is actually a website called executed today.com that has this has a little story, like a little write-up on Roberto Cofressi.
So all that to say. Roberto Cofresi Ramirez de Ariano was born June 17, 1770, 1791 in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. So basically, what you need to know is a little bit about his dad first, because his dad’s story is insane, and I was like, if I don’t include this, I’m a loser. Roberto Cofresi’s dad is a man called Francisco Giuseppe Fortano von Kepperstein.
Angie: One of these things is not like the other.
Theresa: Right? He was a noble born Austrian Austrian from Trieste. And his like his whole story is wild, but for the sake of time, I’m just gonna give you enough to get to how he ends up in Puerto Rico. So Francisco has this classical education. He bounces, goes to Frankfurt, he’s about nineteen. He likely is in Frankfurt to become a lawyer. He’s getting some sort of um additional education there, and he’s there for a couple years, and then he goes back home to Trieste, and this is where things go sideways for him.
It happens to be at the time a smuggling hot spot, and Francisco ends up killing a man, or at least he’s accused of killing a man named Josephus Stefani in 1778. Officially, it’s called a duel, but they both work at a criminal court together, and it’s pr it’s likely believed that it’s more shady business gone wrong and not so much a gentlemanly disagreement.
Angie: So he’s trying to get out of it, and he’s like, We agreed, we took ten paces.
Theresa: May uh it’s very unclear today what actually happened then, so there it could have been c one, you know, half a dozen in one hand kind of thing. He gets convicted in Absentina because he’s in Barcelona, where he happens to pick up Spanish, and from there, like this whole time he has contact with his family, so he sort of knows what’s going on back home, but he is definitely not going back home today, right?
Right. From Barcelona, he makes his way to Caborojo, Puerto Rico, it’s 1784. In Puerto Rico, he rebands himself like brilliantly. Locals readily accept him into the high society and they give him the title Don, which is you know, nobility for Hispanic, right?
Right. And then his name is then like even more Hispanicized to Francisco Jose Cofresi, because honestly, it’s probably easier for the neighbors to say than how ridiculous his last last name was. Also, and more importantly, he probably picks Cabo Rojo specifically because it is very far from San Juan and anyone who might be asking questions about why he’s there in the first place.
So things are growing for him. He meets his wife, she’s a Puerto Rican woman named Maria Germana Romerez, and she is the daughter of a man called Clemente Ramirez. He’s got five more names, but I’m not equipped with the tongue rolls to be able to properly say them. And he is a nobleman and a cousin of the town founder. So she’s got some deep roots in this area and some really great connections. Her family is descended from the Himena dynasty, think like a very old lineage that was founded in the ninth century and by the 11th century can like covered and controlled places in the Iberian Peninsula, like the kingdoms of Navarre, Argonne, Castile, Leon, Galacia, like a huge swath of land. Right. As well as territories in south of France also.
In fact, the House of Aragon is founded by a Jimena Prince in the 11th century, so Captain of Argon. Like Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Fast Forward, the there’s a section of the family in Puerto Rico, and they own a ton of land in Caborajo, but like, that’s that’s sort of the back main story of what you need to know. Pop marries into this noble family, but they are nearly impoverished because despite all the land they own, Puerto Rico is dealing with some economic problems. The Spanish American Wars of Independence have some pretty s um significant con consequences in Puerto Rico, and there is a ton of pirateering all over the place, among other actual naval warfare. And this causes like maritime commons to just tank, right? And Cabrojo is one of these ports that’s hit pretty hard by it, and it’s basically at a standstill. Like merchant ships are being harassed by foreigners, they’re taxed higher as well, and then you have also the African slave trade that’s coming through, and the Africans seeing what’s going on, just start jumping off ship hoping for a better chance at freedom. So all of these things are taking like this massive financial toll on the area, as well as dealing with you know farming issues and supply and demand and all of that. So he marries into this family that does have very powerful roots and very powerful connections, but like everybody’s brick.
Like there’s no right. But he’s gonna marry and he’s gonna settle down, and in 1789, Francisco’s father dies back home, and two years later he finds out that he in fact receives a pardon for the murder that he was accused of. There is, however, no evidence to say he ever went home because he was busy trying to provide for his growing family, because at this point, when his son Roberto Cofressi was born on June seventeenth, seventeen ninety he is the youngest of four children. So they’ve had a busy couple years, right?
Right. Now, um w Wikipedia points out that Cofressi was likely baptized in the Catholic faith by the first priest in Caborojo, a man called Jose the Roxas, and um he was about 15 days old when it happened, which I think is a really fun, like that we know that. That’s kind of cool.
Isn’t that like standard though? I cut I thought it was seven days, so I was like, oh, but I’m not Catholic, so 15 just seemed cool that we would have that knowledge.
Angie: I mean, I say I I went to like one service, was super confused with the choreography.
Theresa: And so why am I sitting again? I don’t know.
Angie: We stand up, we chant, I’m waiting for the high five and the swing your partner Dosie Doe. I am deeply confused. What are we doing?
Theresa: Yeah. Uh so unfortunately we don’t know a ton about his childhood, which makes me sad because I really think he probably had a really interesting childhood given his time and place. But what we do know is that um his mother dies when he’s a child, like I think he’s about four when she dies, and his dad and aunt proceed to continue to raise him. His dad, being a Don, means that by birth he is also a Don. And this lends then to the status of his education.
Now there’s no evidence of there being an actual school there at the time, but likely Francisco may have educated his children himself and had the help of tutors. It’s pretty cool, right? Um I’m thinking l a little bit of both. We have tutors and we have dad, and we’re all working together like this co-op to educate these kids. He’s eventually going to get together with another woman, and there will be a total of five kids that he’s raising, and they are raised in this multi multicultural home. They can speak Dutch. They know Italian, they speak Spanish, like all the things that dad brought with him.
Angie: Let’s say, where are they getting outside the household practice with Dutch in this area?
Theresa: There is a ton of the Dutch in the area. You’re gonna you’re gonna see where this fits later, but also because of Francisco’s childhood and where he was raised and how he was raised, Dutch would have been a language in his home that was very commonly spoken. So he’s gonna teach his kids.
Angie: You know, I say that and then I realize like in a previous episode we talked about the Japanese merchants in early 1800s, Mexico.
Theresa: Mexico. Right, right. Um, so it’s I mean, it’s pretty cool, right? Like he’s got a multicultural childhood, he’s right there on the beach, like kind of the dream minus the economic instability of the area. When Kofressi is about fifteen, his dad dies.
And um I’m unclear why this is, but historians believe that this probably meant that Kofressi was made homeless, and he’s probably pretty broke. Um but researchers into the history of his region have described him as quote, strong, resolute child with an unyielding character and an extraordinary courage, and he loves the sea. And it seems to me that long before dad died, he was already working in some capacity as a fisherman, and he likely did own his own small boat at the time.
Whether he’s homeless and broke, at least he has some means to provide at least sustenance for himself. But to add a small twist to the story, on January 14th, 1815, three months after his dad dies, Cofressi marries a woman called Hannah in um the San Miguel Archangel Paris in Cabrojo. She is born in the area to Dutch parents, and after they wed, they move into the home her father bought her.
Angie: And okay, so now the Dutch okay, because it’s it felt non sequitur, but now I’m hearing more Dutch.
Theresa: There’s there seems to me that this is a very very international place with a lot of different people groups coming and going, right? Like you’ve got a lot of trade happening in the Caribbean anyways.
And I think Puerto Rico is like a big stopping off point. Now within a few short months, her father is gonna lose his home to a fire, and this sort of puts the whole family in some serious debt. But my guy Kofresy, his spends the next three years building ties with the residents in the nearby Saint Germain, and this includes his well off brothers in law. One is a wealthy merchant, and then he also has another brother that’s doing great for himself as well.
So he’s he’s making connections with powerful people everywhere he goes. Also in this time frame, his wife gives him two sons, one called Juan and one called Francisco Mateus, and both die shortly after they’re born, which is really devastating. And I gotta think my guy has been fighting for his life at this point because it doesn’t appear that anything has come easy for him or his family. Like he is just trying to survive, and by 1818, him and his wife are now living with their his mother in law, a woman called Anna Cordelia. 1818 is also when he likely starts dabbling in piracy.
Angie: Yes. I like how it’s dabbling.
Theresa: It’s a side dabbling. It kind of is and you’ll see why later. Yeah. Fishermen by day. Um he has a small crew of fan friends and family, and they start supposedly attacking and plundering ships. His target ships are Americans, French, and the English, but not the Spanish.
Now, for a quick aside, we need to zoom out just a little bit and see the the world that he’s sitting in for a second. In 1815, new settlers start arriving to the area after something called the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815, which is a decree that is approved by the Spanish crown in August to encourage Spaniards and Europeans of non-Spanish origin, but coming from countries that are in good standing with Spain to settle and populate Puerto Rico. Now this is going to put some big pressure on the already big economic problems that they’re dealing with. Prices of everything go up, food distribution is terrible, especially in the areas that don’t have access to like farming land. This is an island. Like it’s not miles and miles of stretching cornfields, right? And this leaves a lot of local people super poor and very desperate, and many of them turned to crime just to survive. Like just to get enough food on their plate, right?
Angie: This is colonialization.
Theresa: At its finest. And by 1816, the governor starts pushing laws to enforce duties down to local mayors, but robbery and theft keep spreading, especially in the south and central parts of the island. Cabo Rojo, where Kofressi lived, had been at the time a particularly bad center of crime. Plus, you’re dealing with corrupt officials and very weak policing. So despite the fact that my guy Colfressi is from a noble family, he is running the gang that steals fa cattle and food. Like he’s gotta help his people and he has gotta be able to feed his family.
And he also has ties to other criminal groups and known troublemakers in this area, which is pretty common activities through 1820, but it is then made worse by storms, droughts, there was a ruined harvest that fall, and this triggers an even bigger crime wave than what they’ve already been dealing with for the last few years. So they’re just getting all of it piled on top of them, on top of having to deal with this influx of people that the Spanish are like, Yep, this is the island you want to populate. It’s an island, go populate it. Just by the fact that they’re already people populating.
Angie: I mean, look, that’s the problem. But when you want more people that are the color of post-it notes, and Right.
Theresa: so on November 22nd of 1820, 15 men from Cabo Rojo, they rob three travelers on a highway just outside of an area called Yacol. And Kofes Cofressi is thought to have been a part of this robbery based on the timing and its connection to the area, and it was sort of run by his friend, a man called Christopher Papillon Dabla. And the government tries to crack down. They start sending in a lieutenant to arrest criminals, but corruption gets in the way time and time again, and some of Kofressi’s own relatives and friends hold positions of power like mayor or prosecutor, and they either protect him and his gang or refuse to pursue any case against him whatsoever.
So I mean, good for him, I guess. Now, one friend who is actually supposed to be prosecuting this crime ring, who is a friend of Kofressi, literally lies to the authorities, claiming that as far as he knew, the criminals had already fled to the U.S. Like I got a letter, they left. Bye. Like it was bookmarked.
Angie: It was fine. It’s from the neighboring city. Oh good.
Theresa: He fixed it. It’s whatever. Now, eventually, the central government’s gonna put up one of posters for Kofressi, and I actually have uh an image of one I’m gonna show you later. I thought that was really fun that I actually found it, and we can use it for our images. I’m very excited.
Angie: Oh, if you’re a Patreon subscriber, you get to see this image, or you can just uh hunt it down on our socials. Choice is yours, yeah.
Theresa: Your pick. Now, eventually they put up these these wanted posters. It’s July of 1821, and he and his gang are finally caught. But this wouldn’t be a fun pirate story if I leave a if the if I leave the legend out, because up to this point, he is so good at what he did that Cofressi becomes associated with superstition and dark magic.
There are those that believe he sold his soul to the devil for powers like invisibility and strength, and that was the secret behind all of his success. And I’m like, okay, okay, I love it.
Angie: He was just really good at it, and y’all needed a myth to cover up the fact he fell asleep during guard duty.
Theresa: He honestly, that was exactly what I thought was, and I love it so much that that is where we know a lot of these myths came from, and it’s just so fun. Now this is gonna be pretty hard to argue against in a second, but Cofresi is believed to have shared his plunder with the good people of Puerto Rico who regard him as sort of a robin hood, and they keep him and his men safe and hidden from the authorities, much like his friends are doing because he’s in the US. I haven’t seen him.
Angie: I’m I’m blind in my right eye.
Theresa: Yeah. So you can imagine how their minds are working while he’s in prison, and I’m imagining like it’s gonna be one of those scenes in the movies where they’re like montage how to get him out kind of thing. But on August 17th, 1821, while my guy is in prison, Juana, his wife, gives birth to their only daughter Bernardina. And due to his noble status, Cofresy probably receives a pass for the birth and then takes the opportunity to escape. She says, I didn’t know you could just get a pass to go for a birthday party. Brand new information for me.
Angie: I mean the this is what this is Okay. The reason why you and I don’t know this is our tax bracket.
Theresa: Is different.
Angie: Yeah, truly. If we had noble blood, suddenly we’d be like, What do you mean I don’t get a day pass?
Theresa: I’m going K by I my father will hear about this.
Angie: Um Ward unlock this door. I say.
Theresa: Um there’s an alternate theory that says he broke out or was released on parole, but while he was a fugitive, he’s already named his daughter’s godparents, which is pretty cool. And on December 4th of that year, a wanted poster is circulated all around St.
Joe Main um by their mayor. And this there’s little documentation at this point of where he actually is. Historians have suggested that he is absolutely exploiting his upper class connections and they just hide him for like a couple of years.
Surprise. Like they just right, like they just keep moving him around. And um also we have to remember that his family holds a lot of the regional public offices. So like they just think maybe he’s scooting from one wealthy family to another.
Angie: Can you imagine though? This is your putts of a cousin. That is the embarrassment of the family. I mean, he does some okay, he’s got some great plus. You know, his his PR agent, fantastic, but I’ve got to put him up again. He’s he you know what, and he’s gonna ruin Thanksgiving.
Theresa: You remember last year, right? Um I ha I have a feeling that his to me it makes sense that his family and all the locals are helping hide him because he’s been helping them. So they’re like, Oh, well, I guess we sort of have to put him up because he brought the he brought the cow last week.
Angie: Like he’s filling the fridge. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t do dishes. We don’t answer the door for the police unless they have a judicial warrant completely filled out.
Theresa: And then we’re just gonna hide him under the rug. Um, yeah. So when he does become a wanted man and he realizes he’s gonna have to keep on the move, he moves Juana his wife, the baby, and Anna, his mother-in-law, to her brother’s ho to Juana’s brother’s house, and he would visit them in secret. And also Juana would visit him at his secret headquarters in the rural world ward of Pendernails in Caborojo. Now I’m like, how are you how nobody’s following her to find him?
Okay. Anyway, it’s unknown how far Cofressi traveled during this time, but he had associates on the East Coast and may have taken advantage of Eastern migration from Caborojo. He may have been captured and imprisoned in San Juan for a little bit, but there’s nothing in the records that indicate that. What we do know is that some of his associates are released months before his next recorded appearance in the documents. It is eighteen twenty three, and our guy is back on the scene, and he is likely working on a privateering ship called El Scipion, captained by a man called Jose Ramón Torres. It’s managed by his cousin, another Romeris de Ariano.
And historians believe that this is because several of his friends and family clearly profit from the selling of stolen goods about this time that joining this crew may have been a way to stay hidden from the authorities a little longer and it’s also going to just help put more experience under his belt. Okay. So I’m like, okay.
Alright. Alright, either way, it’s he’s privateering no matter what, for sure we know for sure by 1823. Now on this ship they’re gonna use some pretty shady tactics that Kofressi’s really good at like flying the flag of Ground Columbia to trick other ships into lowering their guard down.
Angie: You know, not the first person we’ve had on the pod that did a false flag operation. I’m right I’m here for it.
Theresa: Right? They used this trick to capture British ship called the Aurora an American ship called the Otter but capturing the otter backfired and a court ordered the crew to pay restitution which sucks.
Everybody’s earnings were kind of down that week you know that financial hit seems to be at the point where Kofressi is pushed like fully into piracy like all the way like this is my only lot in life this is what I’m doing. I dabbled in it before but now I’m really into it because sources seem to be somewhat mixed on his actual entrance. Was it as early as eighteen eighteen or was it as late as eighteen twenty three? Either way he’s doing stuff in the meantime but 1823 is when he like has his coming out as the grand pirate that he
Angie: is he’s he’s doing a full court press at this point.
Theresa: Yeah yeah um okay so this is pretty fortuitous time that he comes back onto the scene and makes this grand entrance because of February 1823 the world is gonna lose another beloved pirate one called Jean Lafitte oh and if you’re curious this is episode 41 we share this episode with Emperor Norton but the r the episode is called five hundred dollars for the rest of him and Teresa tells a banger of a story about the Lafitte brothers in Jean.
Angie: It’s it’s homegrown piracy from Louisiana.
Theresa: At its finest. At his finest so at his death Cofresy essentially steps right into the power vacuum that Lafeite left like Cofressi’s like I got you buddy I’ve thought I’ve been watching you I know what to do and he goes on to become the last major target of U.S. anti-piracy efforts in the West Indies. Get it right Kofrasi is my hero. Even though piracy at this point has been heavily police and most pirates don’t last long or succeed much Kofrasi he is confirmed to have raided at least eight ships some accounts at this point credit him with over seventy he doesn’t run his crew crew with a formal pirate code like earlier pirates during the golden age of piracy did instead his leadership comes all the way down to his sheer boldness something that even the people that hunted him were like damn he’s good um reports from this time say that he had a pretty brutal rule if the ship was captured only the sailors willing to join his crew are spared oh so he’s a complicated man.
Angie: You know okay but I’m assuming if you’re choosing piracy as a profession complications are just part of they’re they’re part and parcel to the job description. You gotta be good with ambiguity.
Theresa: Yeah he can have to be okay with being morally great I think um now this whole time right he’s built this wide network of civilian informants and he has all this associates that are going to help support his operation and keep it hidden it is so extensive that it reportedly took authorities fourteen years after he died to fully understand all of it like his network was a web.
Angie: They needed a forensic accountant they needed somebody trained to just come in sort it all out and be like it was a munder l money laundering scheme. These were his shell companies the uncle was in on it
Theresa: for sure yeah now Colfressi’s rise of the pirate was actually kind of an unusual thing timing wise because this is almost a hundred years after the golden age of piracy by then governments had mostly wiped out any of the old school pirates who used to run like the wilds of Jamaica and Tortuga so when Cofressi shows up attacking these Spanish shipping routes, he stands out. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yes. And the authorities, the international authorities, make it a priority to capture him. Because he’s a bit of a problem. By late 1823, he is probably getting a ton of pressure on land, so he shifts all of his main base to the island of Mona. Um, and it’s pretty easy to reach from Cabo Rojo and already had a pirate history. The famous pirate William Kidd had used it as a hideout bait back in sixteen ninety-nine. So it’s got some history to it, right?
Angie: The realtor was like, This has some provenance. You’ll probably notice the coat. This was put in directly
Theresa: by
Angie: That’s why the price of what it is.
Theresa: Exactly. So he’s got that as his main base, and then he has a second base at Sanoa, which is an island near back then Hispaniola, which is now today the modern Dominican Republic. Around November of 1823, some sailors on the ship El Scipion take advantage of their officers being ashore and they mutiny and they take control of the ship entirely for piracy. And all of this gets later connected back to Cofresi. A captured pirate under the name of Jamie Marquez admits under police questioning that one of the ship’s crew members was most definitely one of Cofresi’s guys.
The ship gets seized by the authorities. Boo. I know, right? At one point, Spanish patrol boats catch up with Cofres’ crew off the coast, um, near an area called Semana, with no way to outrun them, Cofressi supposedly orders his own ship sunk on purpose. It drifts into the bay, right? It drifts into the bay, it sinks near town, and this actually works as a massive distraction because the bigger Spanish ships can’t follow into the shallow wetlands, and his crew they just row to shore in smaller boats.
The ship reportedly full of still loot has never been found. Yes. Right? Okay. There’s also around the same time, I thought this was really cute. There’s a 15-year-old named Pedro Geronimo Gyoko, and he’s traveling alone by ship to school. Like, at first I took this out, like, he rides a boat to school every day.
Angie: That’s a school bus, Yeah, it’s to boarding school kind of thing. And Cofres’ ship intercedes in intercepts the crew and they board it. And he lines up all the passengers and he starts asking their names. And when he realizes who the boy is, he changes course and he personally delivers him safely to the beach and lets him go. Turns out Cofressi knew who his father was and had been an immigrant who had been kind to Cofresi’s own family in the past. Oh despite their reputation.
So he makes the the boy makes it home fine and later becomes a well-known abolitionist. It was like, okay, that’s actually really cool. Yeah. Now Cofressi’s attacks hit both locals and foreigners, and he is active his activity is hurting the region’s economy. Like this is how much of a problem he is.
Angie: He started being super helpful and now he’s gone full circle.
Theresa: Yeah. Pretty much. When he targets Spanish ships specifically, he usually goes after the newer immigrants who had arrived after the 1850 decree, leaving those that he knew were born there alone. Um because his problem is like this is your fault, Spain. Like our economic situation is your problem. Stop sending people.
Angie: Yeah, the the it’s the gentrifiers we’re after.
Theresa: Right. Okay, so um I discovered that the whole picture is geopolitically just absolutely messy. Spain has lost all of its colonies to the Americas by this point. Puerto Rico and Cuba are the last two holdouts, and they are dealing still with all of this political and economic troubles.
Um and in an attempt to choke off trade to all the former colonies, Spain has stopped issuing letters of mark, which we know to be the official per permission for private ships to act as legal privateers. Right? Right. This move backfires, but it what it does is puts a bunch of sailors out of work. And they just end up joining Cofressi’s crew instead.
They’re like, Oh, well, we’ve been fired, we’ve been hired, we’re good. Yeah. Yeah.
See you. CME’s still a need. Cofresi’s got you. Things get worse diplomatically because Cofressi’s pirates would attack foreign ships while flying the Spanish flag, which violated agreements with other countries that had had they had had with Spain about returning captured sh loot and or excuse me, returning captured ships and paying for any lost items. So Spain’s like, You have got to stop. You’re making us look bad. Pretty much, yeah. This turns into an international problem, shocking.
So Puerto Rico’s governor, a man called Miguel de La Tour makes capturing Cofressi again his top priority. By December of 1823, other countries start sending warships to help patrol the Moana Passage. The Mona Passage, excuse me. Grand Columbia sends two warships led right by a man called Renato Beliche. He is a former associate of the pirate John Lafitte. And Britain sends a ship called the HMS Scout after a separate pirate incident involving a ship called the William Henry. So there is a huge international crew that really want to catch Cofressi so that we can get back to some sort of semblance of normality on the seas here.
Angie: And my big takeaway is that the pirate industry is very insular. Yeah.
Theresa: And that’s how it seems yeah. Yeah. So on January twenty third, eighteen twenty four facing both Spanish losses and pressure from the US governor, DeLatur the the governor of Puerto Rico, De La Torre rolls out strict antipiracy measures. Pirates would now be tried by a military tribunal and treated as enemy combatants. He orders a full manhunt for the pirates, bandits and anyone helping them and offers medals, certificates and cash rewards gold and silver to whomever will help catch them. To make a very long and complicated short story shorter and easier to digest, there is now this huge international manhunt as I mentioned for Cofressi and by the spring of eighteen twenty five the flotilla led by Cofressi on his ship called Anne which he may have either hijacked or purchased the stories differ. Um they also differ around the name the legend says he called it El Mesquito. The ship was probably just called Anne. That’s that’s what all the documents say but I’m not going to tell you rename its ship.
Angie: No it’s like looking at a show dog. It’s named 14 words long but we call him Billy Yeah exactly.
Theresa: So um just okay so just all that to know that he is the last substantial pirate threat in the Caribbean. Now remember how Commodore Hazard Perry burned bright but short yes well in 1825 Cofressi is finally captured with the help of a US ship called the USS Grampus which I only had to say because I thought the name was hilarious. I had to look up what a Grampus was it’s a type of marine mammal. But I was thinking Grampus
Angie: Yeah I mean I okay at least it’s a marine mammal because I was like don’t let white people name things.
Theresa: Yeah honestly this makes more sense so Cofressi is imprisoned at Al Castillo Castillo San Felipe Del Moro and he is found guilty by a Spanish military court and executed by a firing squad with most of his crew on March 29th 1825. His last words were I have killed hundreds with my own hands I know how to die fire.
Angie: Uh for those of you playing at home you couldn’t see my eyes pop up and my mouth pop open
Theresa: truly I don’t have that kind of gall now the uh American Ghostwalk tours website gave me this bit of information. Cofressi is rumored to be buried in the Santa Maria or near the Santa Maria Magdalena Cemetery. There is an older caretaker there that insists that because they were executed for being criminals that neither the famous pirate nor his crew were buried there but they could have been buried behind the cemetery which is a hill that overlooks sort of the wall of the area and the cemetery itself there is an old document that suggests the hill site at one point did have crosses on it which do support this old caretaker’s claim it goes on to tell us that there is of course a ghost story that says that our guy Roberto Cofresi hangs out on Mona Island which is rumored to be littered with his and tr hidden treasure and there are witnesses that have claimed seeing his ghost wandering around his hometown of Caborojo. He’s drinking rum and singing old Spanish hymns Wow.
they go on to say that while drunk he might tell you where his treasure hides and evidently and I would love to know more about this there is a story about an American archaeologist that became obsessed with like finding where the treasure was that she quite literally just jumped into the water and was torn apart by sharks to her all they looked like were tiny fish. And so she just jumps right in. I want to know how you know that’s what they look like.
Angie: How much rum did she have for her to be that off the
Theresa: mark because um Roberto Cofressi told her where to go and
Angie: I mean looking she was so drunk she left her glasses, uh, didn’t know. Yeah.
Theresa: Uh so that’s the story of the Robin Hood of Puerto Rico, a very complicated character, a very fun character, and I have some images.
Angie: Uh, please and thank you. Let’s get this going.
Theresa: Um, where is my share? Okay. So here is a statue of him, which I think is pretty stinking cool.
Angie: If it will actually show that is a statue I was not expecting to see. Okay, so first um, wow. Uh words. It is a very tropical view, middle of a water feature. They’re surrounded by uh palm trees and plants, and in the center is this rectangular block rising up that says Roberto Cofressi, and there is a man standing on top of it with no shirt on. He has a sword and he’s holding it.
Theresa: I think it’s supposed to be the bow. I thought it was thought it was the bow boat. but the more you look at it, you can kind of see how it it looks like the front of the ship.
Angie: Yeah, yeah, but he’s also holding it like it’s a towel and he’s fresh from the shower and didn’t know you were walking into the bathroom, and so he’s just covering his handbit.
Theresa: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, love it. Okay, so there’s that. And here is their wanted poster.
Angie: So it just says see buska at the top, and then Roberto Cofressi and a bunch of other words. I will not be trying to. Some beautiful copper script handwriting. No image, but it is just, I’m assuming, a list of his description and the things that he’s done.
Theresa: That’s that’s my takeaway too. I was so excited that we actually could see what the wanted poster looked like. Like, oh, I wonder what a what a wanna poster would have looked like in 1823. Like, huh.
Angie: I’m a little little bummed that it doesn’t have a likeness because I feel like that every wanted poster should. I mean, at least that I I kind of felt that’s what it did.
Theresa: I mean, I’m thinking that they all knew what he looked like. They just had to locate him.
Angie: Like it’s Bob. The town is that big. We’re going after it. We’re calling him Roberto here, but his name is Bob.
Theresa: So that’s the the the last of the Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh, Roberto Cofressi.
Angie: Wow. If you’ve enjoyed this tale of pirates, uh rate review subscribe, send this to another probable pirateer, but you know, trying to stay under the interpol radar, which we respect and understand. Um and on that note, goodbye.
Speaker 3: Bye.
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