11 Facts About Renato Beluche

Renato Beluche was a Louisiana-born Venezuelan merchant, pirate and privateer active in the early nineteenth century Gulf Coast.

Renato Beluche's remains were posthumously reinterred in the National Pantheon of Venezuela a decade later.

Renato Beluche was born in New Orleans, Spanish Louisiana, in 1780 to Rene Beluche, a recent French emigrant and master wigmaker and hairdresser, and Rose Delaporte.

Renato Beluche spent much of his early life on the Chalmette plantation.

In 1802 Renato Beluche went to sea as a pilot's mate on a ship of the line of the Spanish Navy, and by 1805 he had left the navy and become the master of a merchant schooner.

Renato Beluche joined them, and flying the French flag, he captured Spanish and British merchantmen and sent them to Grande-Terre or Cartagena de Indias in New Granada, depending on the ship's nationality.

In 1813, Renato Beluche became associated with the Gran Colombian patriots who were rebelling against Spanish rule with the letter of marque of Venezuelan general Simon Bolivar.

Renato Beluche spent the next decade in the service of the Gran Colombian revolutionaries, interrupted only by a brief period when he joined with Jean Lafitte and the Baratarian smugglers who had come to the aid of Andrew Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans.

Renato Beluche participated in the Aux Cayes Expedition, the Battle of Lake Maracaibo, and the Siege of Puerto Cabello on 8 November 1823.

In 1824, Renato Beluche settled his family in Puerto Cabello, and after the Spanish were expelled from Gran Colombia, he worked as a captain in coastal shipping.

Renato Beluche returned in 1845 and helped crush another revolt that raged from 1848 until 1850.