A researcher from the University of Caen on the trail of pirates in the Indian Ocean
In April, Jean Soulat will go to Madagascar to excavate the remains of a base built by pirates in the 17th century. Last November, he dived on a wreck in Mauritius. His work allows us to better understand the life of these adventurers who scoured the seas and marked our imagination.
The stereotypes have a hard life. The pirate is this zany character, so scarred, who limps on his wooden leg. Captain Hook, Jack Sparrow and so many other heroes have retained the legend of the sympathetic and endearing pirate. “The subject speaks to everyonenotes Jean Soulat. We know a lot of things historically. Comics, cinema and literature have for their part produced clichés. To associate history with this folklore is not enough”.
This archaeologist by training was specialized in the Merovingians. A priori, nothing predestined him to the study of piracy except “a need for adventure, a taste for exploring unknown universes that go back to childhood”. A few years ago, Jean Soulat was entrusted with the study of objects dating from the modern era (from the 16th to the 18th century) on behalf of the company Landarc. “I realized that piracy had never been studied. The excavations of two privateer frigates which were shipwrecked in Saint-Malo in 1704 and in 1749 provided information concerning the maritime past of the race, but on piracy , there was nothing”.
However, the subject attracts researchers and archaeologists in many countries. In 2019, Jean Soulat therefore created the Archeology of Piracy association with John de Bry, who runs an independent laboratory in the United States. This international structure has set itself the task of leading a research program. It is supported by several institutions including the Cae University Michel de Bouärd Archaeological Research Centernm
“Nowadays, less than a dozen pirate wrecks from the 17th-18th centuries have been discovered and attested by underwater archaeology”writes the association on its presentation page. “They are located along the east coast of the United States, in the Caribbean Sea, along the Brazilian coast and in the Indian Ocean”. These wrecks are “time capsules” which contains testimonies of their time. “The treasure is the objects and the traces they contain”.
One of them arouses the curiosity of the team. It is located near Mauritius, three meters deep, but in an area difficult to access: “we can only dive one month a year”. The sinking of the President was well documented. “We know that the boat sank on January 7, 1702 at 8 o’clock in the evening”, says Jean Soulat. A storm authorized its loss, but the drunkenness of the crew would not have arranged anything: pirates can sometimes be faithful to their legend. The wreckage was only discovered in 1979 “by a team of non-professional archaeologists”.
In 2019, Jean Soulat traveled to Mauritius with oceanographer Yann von Arnim to study more than 1700 objects from the Speaker. The inventory provides valuable information on the multiculturalism of the time:
“We have coins from around fifteen sources, from Cairo, Venice, Austria, India, France. There are porcelain from China, vases from Thailand, an Ottoman sword hilt , a British spoon, statuettes from South India”.
Jean Soulat, Archeology of piracy
A bronze cannon reassembled in 1984 and recently found in South Africa bears the signature of the Danish India Company…
In November 2021, a Piracy Archeology team was finally able to dive on what remains of the wreckage. “It was not an excavation. We were there to map the site“, specifies Jean Soulat. The guns which rest at the bottom for a distance of 400 meters make it possible to draw the ultimate trajectory of the Speaker. The crew may have thrown them into the sea in order to lighten the ship. Unless ‘they didn’t go overboard. “In November, we also found two piles of cannonballs, which makes it possible to locate the final area of the grounding”.
“It is archeology that gives us precise information about the daily lives of pirates”, assures Jean Soulat. Sometimes the objects corroborate the legend. “We have pieces of sawn ingot which attest to the practice of sharing booty”. The archaeological study also delivers chilling details. “In November, we came across a shackle.” This bracelet that was used as currency in the slave trade. The crew therefore did not live only from the boarding. It also occurs in the slave trade. No, the pirates weren’t exactly friendly.
Next April, Jean Soulat will travel to Madagascar to find traces of a “basic pirate”. Archeology will perhaps challenge another received idea: these sailors did not spend their lives at sea. “These people had liberation zones. They settled in hidden camps to stay there for a few some months”.
“Sometimes we are criticized for breaking the image of the pirate with his wooden leg and his parrot”, smiles the university. The lives of these adventurers are no less fascinating. You have to imagine the harshness of life on board, the perilous navigations, the danger of collisions. The journey was often without return. “You really had to want to run away from something”…
Jean Soulat is also a designer in his spare time. During the first confinement, he gave birth to a character inspired by his research: Barbe-Grise is a pirate from the imagination of his creator, who will board his young readers…