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It has long been asserted that many Sabans of European ancestry are descended from pirates. In the West Indies during the heyday of piracy people from England, Scotland and Ireland also played a role. The Reformation made changes in England both at the religious and economic levels. As the wool business became more important than the tilling of land, serfs became redundant. England swarmed with dispossessed serfs turned vagrants who wandered about the country. England wanted some place to dispose of all these undesirables and unemployed.

The West Indies was considered the best repository for these folks, where they could work with the dyestuff so essential in the wool business--indigo, cochineal, logwood. Jamaica captured under Cromwell became a sort of dumping ground for all undesirables from England. At every turn of the political wheel the losers were also whirled out of England, many of them ending up in the West Indies. The Civil War threw out the Royalists, the Restoration threw out the Puritans, Scottish Covenanters were shipped overseas, and Monmouth's supporters, victims of Sedgemoor and the Bloody Assize, sent thousands to the West Indies. The lost cause of Bonny Dundee added more to the export, the Irish 'troubles' shipped out their tally, culminating in the aftermath of the disaster at the Boyne. The indenture system also supplied labour to the colonies for a matter of fifty years or more, until black permanent slaves kidnapped from Africa replaced them, Tens of thousands of white men, women and children were ferried across the seas and sold into a curious kind of temporary bondage on the plantations. Even young children, preferably over eight years of age, were kidnapped and sold into slavery. One of the kidnappers or 'spirits' as they called themselves, boasted he had carried away and sold an average of five hundred children a year for a period of twelve years. From the politically undesirable to criminals, all kinds were lumped together and sold by their Government into seven-year bondage. The servants were lucky if they were not tricked into permanent indenture, and lived to survive the ordeal. They ranged in quality from politically radical intelligentsia, teachers, and professional men to the worst kind of footpad and pimp. An uneven grist for a harsh and brutal mill. Many of our ancestors came to the West Indies in this fashion. One of those who survived the ordeal calls to mind why many of our ancestors became pirates:

Being now at liberty, though like unto Adam, when he was first created by the hand of his Maker--that is, naked and destitute of all human necessities, nor knowing how to get any living--I determined to enter into the wicked order of the Pirates or robbers at sea. Into this society I was received with common consent both of the superior and vulgar sort and amongst then I continued.

The indenture system, as a means of stimulating emigration to the New World, lasted until indentured white servants became gradually replaced by black African slaves who proved in the long run much more satisfactory, but during the great days of piracy the indenture system was in full swing. This iniquitous program contributed directly towards piracy. The human flotsam drifting about the Caribbean after having been evicted from St. Kitts in 1629 turned to piracy. Repeated reports speak of Saba as being an independent pirate republic having her own flag with a cabbage-palm in the corner. The 'Canadian Magazine' (1914), has the following to say:

And here the rough ancestors of these Saba men hoarded their plunder unmolested, long after Teach was a mutilated corpse and Morgan a respectable Governor of Jamaica; whereas Saba was attacked by English, French, and Dutch in turn, though never subdued, till wearying of it all, they asked Holland to take them under her flag, which today with a cabbage-palm in the corner, is their national emblem.

Another magazine article says:

The fortunes of Saba have followed those of their neighbor Statia. The island is too small, too unfertile and too inaccessible for its inhabitants ever to have been able to subsist independently. In the old buccaneering days it can have served only as a last refuge and a safe depository for the spoils of the pirates driven there from the other islands, when the palmy times of piracy were over. Having no vestage of a harbour, or even a safe roadstead, the buccaneers had to careen their ships, as their descendants do to this day, in the Virgin Isles, a day's sail to the North, But once landed in Saba they were safe from any attack, however well concerted. The ravine would be a veritable death-trap for an invader, defensible with ease by a few determined men lying among the rocks to each side of the narrow defile. The only other gateway to the stronghold is appropriately called "The Ladder" and consists of more than a thousand steps, steep and narrow, leading from the water, almost perpendicularly up the cliff at the western end of the crater. Scaling this rock ladder, even under the easiest of conditions, is a feat by no means easy or pleasant; and a single man at the top with two riffles could stop an army from advancing a dozen paces. But, as if even this were not enough to render these desperadoes safe in their last resort, a circular depression at the very highest point in the island commanding an outlook on all sides has been roughly strengthened where the only track across runs near it, and testifies by its name "The Rendezvous", to its former purpose. Midway between the two towns, it was here that the last stand would have been made by the men of Bottom and Windward, English and Dutch, combined for once in the face of danger.

A Commander of Saba, Edward Beaks, Jr., was dismissed in the midst of his career because of allegedly being too lenient to the pirates. By Executive Decree of 20th December 1828, Governor General Cantz'laar discharged him and appointed the author's great-great-grandfather Richard Johnson, as provisional Commander. He was 71 then, and was the eldest member of the Council of Policy. After February 4th, 1830, upon the death of Richard Johnson who repeatedly had asked his dismissal because of 'advanced age and consequent debility', the next in line was Henry Johnson Hassell who functioned until Thomas Dinzey Winfield was appointed Commander on May 5th, 1830 and served until his death on June 10th, 1836. At that time Edward Beaks, Jr. was reinstated and served until his death in 1862.

1897, Saban Dignitaries. Back row: Edward James Simmons, Dr. Christian Pfanstiehl, Sammy Simmons, Lovelace Hassell, Engle Heyliger Simmons (Kings Councillor). Front row: Rev. J. W. Leverock (Anglican), Theodore Heyliger, Governor DeVeer, Lt. Gov. Thomas Holm. Father Mulder (Roman Catholic).

In 1828, on August 13th the Caraboo, a pirate ship, was anchored off Ladder Bay. Part of the booty captured elsewhere was landed and sold. The Caraboo had been captured off Gibraltar by a pirate ship named 'Damas Argentinas'.

The Caraboo was taken to St. Eustatius and the cargo estimated at 28,000 Engl. pounds. An English Man-of-War investigating the incident discovered the 'Damas Argentinas' in the harbour of St. Eustatius. They forcefully took her to St. Kitts, hanged 21 of the pirates and released 5 because of their being minors and therefore not accountable for their deeds. The Dutch Government made an investigation into the piracy matter and as a result dismissed Edward Beaks, Jr. from the office of Commander with the provision that he could never hold public office again. However in 1837 he was reinstated after a petition by the Council and 120 citizens of Saba who were able to prove to the Dutch that Commander Beaks had been helpless to do anything about the matter.

Another incident happened during the short period that my great-great-grandfather Richard Johnson was Commander. Although the historian M.D. Teenstra, who visited Saba in 1829, describes him as a 71-year old man who had never been off the island, nevertheless, he is given credit for capturing a pirate ship anchored at Ladder Bay. According to Willie Johnson of the 'Morning Star' grocery (also great-great-grandson of Commander Richard Johnson), the commander was given a sword and a silver chalice with the inscriptions by the British Government. According to Willie it was the Caraboo that he captured. One of his grandsons, Willie's father Peter Ignatius Johnson of 'Bra', made a scraper out of the sword to clean his potatoes with (so much for history) and the silver chalice was sent to the Masonic Lodge in St. Thomas. The pirate ship in question during Commander Johnson's time was the 'Governor Dorego' from Buenos Aires under the Command of the pirate Alexander Bariteau. It had in tow the three masted Brazilian schooner the 'Libre'. This all took place in April 1829. Commander Johnson is said to have seized both ships and turned them over to the Dutch Man-of-War the 'Valk' under the command of Commander van Es who took the pirates back for trial to Surinam. The pirate Bariteau was sentenced on September 29th, 1830, to twenty years of forced labour, his second in command Stevan Donay to 15 years. Manuel Echonis and Charles Stuart were each sentenced to 3 years, while Eugene Governou and the rest of the crew were deemed innocent and were granted their freedom.

The most notorious of the former Saba pirates was Hiram Beaks, a nephew of Governor Edward Beaks, Jr. His name appears in the book of 'Who's Who in Piracy'. He operated as far away as the Mediterranean and is reported to have eventually died in a naval battle off the coast of Holland.

Saban pirates were also active in the waters of nearby St. Maarten. The 'Man-Of-War Shoal' on St. Maarten which got its name from the British Man-Of-War the 'Proselyte', which went aground there in 1802, was allegedly the scene of a shipwreck. The late Wallace B. Peterson of St. Maarten once told me that he had heard that before the 'Proselyte', a Man-Of-War in hot pursuit of a Saban pirate had been purposely led over the reef by the Sabans where it had been shipwrecked.

The legacy of the pirates served us well in later years as our people continued to make a living from the sea. As St. Eustatius grew in importance, Captains from Saba served first on slaveships bringing slaves from Africa to St. Eustatius. Later on when it grew into an important commercial center, Sabans found employment as sailors and captains on locally owned as well as American schooners and served as gunrunners during the American Civil War.

Sabans have also fought in South American Wars. During the revolution against Spanish authority in Latin America the great Liberator himself Simon Bolivar visited Saba and recruited a number of men who went along with him to fight for the independence of Venezuela. From the records kept at the time we read:

March, 31st, 1816, the Republican Squadron raised anchor towards the harbour of Saba where it stayed till the 26th of the following month.

On November 26th, 1894, the presence of Dr. Francois Moanack, then Ambassador-at-Large to the Caribbean from Venezuela and a number of other distinguished visitors, the ceremonial unveiling of a bust of the Liberator Simon Bolivar took place on Windwardside, as a remembrance of this historic event.

Our people who trace their roots back to Africa, were brought to the West Indies in large numbers after the introduction of sugar cane by the Dutch in 1640. The West Indies companies established by the various European nations involved in the slave trade had as a matter of policy the capture, importation and sale of slaves from the west coast of Africa. They were shipped to the West Indies via great fortresses on islands along the coast of West Africa. At the great slave stations in West Africa 600 to 700 slaves would be loaded naked into a slave ship. Only a third of them would survive the middle passage from Africa to St. Eustatius, which was the second largest slave market in the world.

Doctor L. Knappert in his book Geschiedenis van de Bovenwindse Eilanden in de 18e eeuw, gives a detailed description of the slave trade. It is interesting to note the various descriptions given by the Europeans to the races of Africans imported into these islands. The most sought after slaves were those who came from the interior of the Guinea coast, the 'Minache' and the 'Lowangenu' from Luanga. There were the Mandingo, considered the most intelligent, and a tribe of them called the Fulani. Very few Fulani were taken as slaves. The Fulani were known as pastoralists and warriors and superior in courage. They were tall, brown-skinned, thin-nosed and thin-lipped people. There were Coromantees from the Gold Coast and Whidahs and Fidas who were described as being very docile. Also from the Gold Coast came the Anamboes; also Asanti and Fantis of Sierra Leone who were described as being very black and very strong. The Asanti were Akan or Ture speaking people from around Central Ghana with their capital at Kumasi. There were also reports that the blacks from the Tio Calabra and Del Rey in the Cameroons were stubborn and bad, committed suicide and caused slave rebellions.

On Saba slavery was not the same as on the typical plantation islands so that as a result whites were always in the big majority throughout the slavery period. Slavery was officially abolished in the Dutch colonies on July 1st, 1863. Here on Saba, echoes of Africa persist in extended family structure and in the powerful loyalty to local communities. Elsewhere in this book there is a list of the surnames of the slaves who were freed. many former slaves moved to St. Eustatius in the hope of a better life there while the reverse is also true of those who were freed at St. Eustatius. Today many of the surnames on St Eustatius and Saba can be traced back to this original list. This was the first granting on a large scale of surnames to slaves. Before emancipation slaves were given only first names. By law it was prohibited for a manumitted slave to take the name of a Creole (white) inhabitant of the Dutch colonies. Therefore the owner of a slave who wanted to free that slave would usually devise a similar sounding name or one of someone he knew. Many blacks on Saba have former Scottish surnames such as Wilson, Granger, Maxwell, Dunlock, Windfield, Court, Beale, Leverock etc., or Irish names such as Lynch, Barnes and so on giving yet another clue as to the origin of surnames on Saba. Others were given similar sounding names. Horton became Sorton, Dinzey became Linzey, thus establishing still existing links between families whose histories are irrevocably tied together. As in other West Indian islands there has been quite a lot of mixing of the races over the centuries. We would like to end by quoting Mr Felix Choisy, former Deputy Mayor of French St. Martin as quoted in the 'Holland Herald' magazine. What he says here about St. Maarten, to a large degree holds true for Saba:

I have traced the roots of quite a few island families, and have reached the conclusion that it's a misconception that black Caribbeans are descended from African slaves only. My mother had a Spanish name, and my maternal grandmother had German and Flemish blood. On my father's side I have ancestors from Scotland, the Balearic Islands and Portugal. My great grandmother was an Indian who was taken to St. Barthelemy by a sea captain. I think I owe my high cheekbones to her. I believe we Caribbeans are a separate ethnic group, with our own Antillean personality. The color of our skin is irrelevant. I've seen families change from black to white and vice versa in three of four generations

In my research on the families of Saba, and in my own observation of life unfolding on Saba, I have reached the same conclusion as Mr. Choisy. we are a Caribbean people! The new Saba rising out of the ashes of slavery, hardship and poverty, through education, tolerance and understanding hopes to break with its centuries of isolation, to put its first timid steps into the 20th century. and to be accepted as a Caribbean island with an identity of its own among the nations of the West Indies.

Hopefully this will be accomplished in this generation. If not, the next generation should consider these goals as their cause in life and their contributions to the present and future West Indian peoples.

This page was last updated on 10/10/2004