Montauband dating history

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Montauband (born about 1650; died Bordeaux, 1700) was a pirate. The place of his birth is unknown. He appeared as a pirate in the West Indies about 1675, and for twenty years was the terror of the Spaniards in Africa and America. He established his headquarters in the island of Tortuga, which at that time was the rendezvous of all the buccaneers. Montauband frequently ravaged the coasts of New Spain, Cartagena, Florida, and North America, as far as Newfoundland. In 1694 he escorted to France a great number of prizes that he had taken in the West Indies, but the excesses that were committed by his crew at Bordeaux forced him to abandon that port in January 1695, and he cruised for some time on the coast of Guinea, capturing many ships from the Dutch and English. After nearly losing his life by the explosion of a powder magazine he returned to Tortuga, but resolved to abandon his mode of life, and returned to Bordeaux, where he died. He wrote Relation du voyage du sieur de Montauband, capitaine de flibustiers sur les côtes de l'Amérique du Sud et de Guinée dans les années de 1694 et 1695, which is printed in the collection of Las Casas (Amsterdam, 1698). This is considered unauthentic by some authorities.