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If you like books and movies about pirates and their adventures you probably heard the name Tortuga many times. In the last movie trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean island of Tortuga was showed to us as a haven for pirates. In famous writer Sabatini’s  book series about Captain Blood and the movies based on it, Tortuga is also mentioned as the main base of pirates operations. So what exactly is Tortuga? What is its history and where this island is located?

Nowadays it is a quiet island that belongs to Haiti. A little bit over 20 thousand people live on its small territory which is about 180 square kilometers. It is very mountainous and full of rocks. Yet, it is hugely dense of lofty trees that grow upon the hardest of those rocks. Basically, in translation into English it means a Turtle Island. And it has a very wild history, as it was a major center of Caribbean piracy in the seventeenth century.

Tortuga is one of the first islands that Columbus discovered during his very first voyage into the New World. The island got its name in 1493 from Columbus’ sailors because its shape reminded them of a turtle. Spanish colony was set up there and thrived for over a hundred years until it became a part of a dispute between France, England and Spain. Tortuga was changing hands for a while until the island was divided between French and English settlers in 1630. It still did not prevent Spaniards to reconquer the island a couple of times during 17th century, but there were pushed out by settlers in 1638.

This is exactly the time when English, French and Dutch pirates moved in to this island. The situation soon spiraled out of control. One can only imagine what was going there. A decade later a French governor of Tortuga made the situation even worse when he brought on the island almost two thousand prostitutes hoping to bring some harmony there. Boy, he was wrong!

Naturally, our famous pirates were not unemployed, there was a constant demand from France and England for able and ruthless sailors that could be used as a striking force. Infamous great pirate Henry Morgan was on the rise when he started recruiting his sailors from Tortuga for his great and cruel expeditions against Spanish colonies. France was also trying to bribe the pirates, so it could create a stronghold in the Caribbean.

The fun for the pirates ended with the Treaty of Ratisbon in 1684 signed by major European powers. The piracy in the Caribbean grew to such extent that part of this treaty is dedicated to the united decision to put an end to piracy in and around Tortuga. And several years earlier English parliament forbade pirates to sail under foreign flags. The punishment for disobedience was death in the gallows.

Most of the pirates, especially those who had families did not want to end their life dancing on the rope, so they had to join English fleet and hunt their own pirate buddies who were still sailing under the flag of a Jolly Roger. That was the end of the free pirate life on the Turtle Island.