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✅1576 - French Privateers on the Island of Santa Maria

The seas and some islands of the Azores were areas of intense privateering and piracy activity from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The earliest recorded privateer attack occurred in August 1576 on the island of Santa Maria, as detailed by Gaspar Frutuoso in Livro Terceiro das Saudades da Terra.

A group of French ships, likely Norman or Breton, consisting of two ships—"one very large, of five hundred tons, and the other smaller, of three hundred"—as well as "a launch about the size of a twelve-oared fusta," carried "up to four hundred men, more or less, although they claimed six hundred," was sailing from São Miguel Island to Santa Maria Island. With a lack of wind, the launch was rowed ahead, and the galleon and ship followed. They arrived at dawn on the feast day of Our Lady of the Snow [August 5, 1576], a Sunday, just a quarter of an hour before sunrise, near the port of Vila de Santa Maria, finding the local population unprepared, still asleep, and unaware at that time, although normally, there was good vigilance day and night.

Eight days prior, two caravels had arrived from São Miguel Island, followed by a ship from Madeira, all reporting "no news of privateers," so the people were at ease, and the sentries guarding the land were careless.

Thus, the French ships approached undetected. When a launch with armed men preparing to land was sighted, an alarm was raised. Some local residents gathered near the port, but "upon seeing the launch, it seemed to everyone that the enemies only wanted to take the caravels that were there, so they made no resistance when they landed." Others, however, said that the French privateers "were determined to take the land, and the proof of this was that they carried, as they did, a cord on their belt to tie up the women and kill the men."

The local men were few, and most were farmers and field workers, away from the town in their fields. Those in the town, seeing the first privateers advancing up the hill from the village, about sixty in number, attacked them "by throwing large stones down the rocks, which frightened them and made them retreat to the port, where they gathered."

Meanwhile, that same morning, the French ships anchored in the bay and landed nearly four hundred well-armed men. The French privateers "sent up twenty, others say thirty, of their arquebusiers to the ridge from where the stones had been thrown," while "others fired shots at the locals to force them to retreat, while others entered the village, covered by the hill." Few people were on the island and there were few weapons, leading to casualties. "The village emptied of residents and was taken by the enemies," who began looting the churches, chapels, and main houses of the town, stealing silver, ornaments, and crockery.

On that same Sunday, Captain Donatary Pedro Soares de Souza sent a request for help to São Miguel Island. His brother-in-law, Rodrigo de Baêça, arrived at São Miguel the following afternoon. There, Captain Manuel da Câmara gathered the prominent men and decided to send aid to Santa Maria Island. To avoid delays, Sergeant Major Simão do Quental volunteered to depart immediately, "only with Rodrigo de Baêça, who had brought the message, with his son, the boatmen who rowed the boat," along with the arquebuses, gunpowder, and cannonballs he had requested. He wished that "when help arrived, everyone together would better and more securely take revenge on those heretics who had desecrated God's churches and looted the village, with some deaths among the neighbors."

The aid ship reached Santa Maria Island before dawn on Tuesday, August 7. The aid from São Miguel met Pedro Soares de Souza, who had a hundred men, but along the way, many more joined Sergeant Major Quental's group, making up 250 armed men. "It was 250 against 100 scoundrels and heretics," but negotiations had already begun.

The privateers had demanded fifty cows, twenty pigs, and thirty sheep from the Captain-Major of Santa Maria Island, threatening to set fire to the village and churches if the demands were not met. The Captain responded that fifty cows were impossible due to the poverty of the land, but he would provide thirty, which they accepted.

Then began advances and retreats, but when there were some hesitations, the residents were encouraged to defend their island and not wait for the help coming from São Miguel. With renewed courage, the residents of Santa Maria began pushing the French privateers back to the sea. "By the next morning, Wednesday, August 8," when the São Miguel reinforcements from Francisco de Arruda da Costa arrived, the French had already returned to their ships.

The privateers looted the village so thoroughly on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, until their departure at night, that it would not recover anytime soon, as the land was now very poor. In the churches, they caused much damage, stealing everything they found in ornaments.

In the encounters with the enemy, ten locals were killed and eleven wounded. Of the enemies, some are suspected to have died, but no trace of their bodies was found, except for one, whose body was washed ashore by the sea, pierced by a bullet. Others were seen killed, but soon after, the locals saw them floating in the sea, as they were not seen by those on land.

Santa Maria Island was attacked by privateers again, notably with the English incursion of 1589, as well as the Barbary raids in 1616 and 1676.

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