The pirates were sent to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where a brief military tribunal found them guilty and sentenced them to death. Cofresí was captured and imprisoned, making a last unsuccessful attempt to escape by trying to bribe an official with part of a hidden stash. After 45 minutes, Cofresí abandoned his ship and escaped overland he was recognized by a resident who ambushed and injured him.
On March 5, 1825, the alliance set a trap which forced Anne into a naval battle. He never confessed to murder, but he reportedly boasted about his crimes, and 300 to 400 people died as a result of his pillaging, mostly foreigners.Ĭofresí proved too much for local authorities, who accepted international help to capture the pirate Spain created an alliance with the West Indies Squadron and the Danish government of Saint Thomas.
Most crew members were recruited locally, although men occasionally joined them from the other Antilles, Central America, and Europe. He preferred to outrun his pursuers, but his flotilla engaged the West Indies Squadron twice, attacking the schooners USS Grampus and USS Beagle. He manned them with small, rotating crews which most contemporaneous documents numbered at 10 to 20. He commanded several small-draft vessels, the best known a fast six-gun sloop named Anne, and he had a preference for speed and maneuverability over firepower. He had previous links to land-based criminal activities, but the reason for Cofresí's change of vocation is unknown historians speculate that he may have worked as a privateer aboard El Scipión, a ship owned by one of his cousins.Īt the height of his career, Cofresí evaded capture by vessels from Spain, Gran Colombia, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, and the United States. Cofresí worked at sea from an early age which familiarized him with the region's geography, but it provided only a modest salary, and he eventually decided to abandon the sailor's life and became a pirate. He was born into a noble family, but the political and economic difficulties faced by the island as a colony of the Spanish Empire during the Latin American wars of independence meant that his household was poor. Roberto Cofresí y Ramírez de Arellano (J– March 29, 1825), better known as El Pirata Cofresí, was a pirate from Puerto Rico. 4,000 pieces of eight (hidden remnants of a larger fortune)
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