Black Caesar was allegedly a 19th-century Haitian revolutionary and
pirate. Efforts to find historical evidence of his existence have been
unsuccessful. According to works of fiction, he was a participant in the Haitian Revolution under Dutty
Boukman and Toussaint Louverture as well as active
in piracy for nearly a 30-year period during the early 19th century.
Henri Caesar was allegedly born to a
slave family kept by a French plantation owner known as Arnaut. He worked as a
houseboy on the estate and, as a young man, worked in the lumberyard. He was
apparently mistreated by the supervisor and later killed the man during
the slave insurrection, torturing him with a saw. Joining the rebel
forces led by Dutty Boukman and Toussaint Louverture, he remained with the
revolution until its independence from France in
1804, when he left to try his luck at sea. Based in Port-de-Paix,
he captured a Spanish ship in 1805 and soon began attacking small villages and
lone vessels near Cuba and the Bahamas.
Adopting the name Black Caesar, he was very successful during his piratical
career before his disappearance in 1830. Although his fate is unrecorded, he
most likely fled the area after President Andrew Jackson ordered
an expedition against pirates active on the Florida coast after its purchase by
the United States in 1828.
There is one story of his capture in west Florida and, taken
to Key West,
was tied to a tree and burned to death. The widow of a preacher, whose eyes had
been burned out under torture from Black Caesar, had been used to light the
fire.
He is supposed to have buried between $2
and $6 million at several locations throughout the Caribbean including Pine Island, White Horse Key, Marco Island, Elliot Key and Sanibel Island,
although none has ever been recovered. He is said to have been associated with
another pirate, Jose Gaspar, whose existence is also doubtful.
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