17 Facts About Louis-Michel Aury

Louis-Michel Aury was a French privateer operating in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean during the early 19th century.

Louis Louis-Michel Aury served in the French Navy from 1802 or 1803 until 1811 as a sailor on a ship stationed in the French colonies of the West Indies.

Louis-Michel Aury participated in various privateering and filibuster efforts to overturn governments in East Florida, Mexico, Spanish Texas, the Caribbean Sea, Central America, and South America.

Louis-Michel Aury decided to support the Spanish colonies of South America in their fight for independence from Spanish rule.

Louis-Michel Aury was then commissioned as a commodore in the navy of New Granada, at considerable personal expense, in December 1815 ran the Spanish blockade and evacuated hundreds of people in his vessels from the besieged fortress city of Cartagena de Indias to Haiti.

Louis-Michel Aury subsequently accepted an appointment as resident commissioner of Galveston Island, Texas, made by Jose Manuel de Herrera, an envoy from the fledgling Republic of Mexico, who had declared Galveston a port of the Republic.

One of Louis-Michel Aury's privateers had captured a Spanish vessel from Tampico, and letters found on board revealed that the port of Soto La Marina on the Soto La Marina River in Mexico was undefended.

Henry Perry resolved to make a descent upon the place, and Louis-Michel Aury agreed to transport them.

However, while Louis-Michel Aury was away, the pirate Jean Lafitte had taken control of the base at Galveston.

On his return to Texas, Louis-Michel Aury made an ill-fated attempt to establish another base at Matagorda Bay.

Louis-Michel Aury finally left Texas in 1817 to assist the Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor, who claimed to be commissioned by representatives of the revolting South American countries, in attacking Spanish Florida from Amelia Island.

MacGregor left the island on September 4, and Louis-Michel Aury sailed into the port of Fernandina on September 17,1817.

Louis-Michel Aury surrendered the island to American forces under the command of Commodore JD Henley and Major James Bankhead on December 23,1817.

Louis-Michel Aury remained over two months as an unwelcome guest; Bankhead occupied Fernandina and President James Monroe vowed to hold it "in trust for Spain".

On 4 July 1818 Louis-Michel Aury captured Old Providence Island in the western Caribbean with the help of 400 men and 14 ships.

Louis-Michel Aury found the island populated by white English-speaking Protestants and their slaves.

At two o'clock in the afternoon the approaching flotilla hoisted a flag with two blue bars and a white one between them showing an escutcheon in the center similar to the Argentinian flag; Louis-Michel Aury dispatched a boat to shore to demand the port's surrender within one hour.