Diego el Mulato

Diego el Mulato is the name given to several pirates who were active in the Caribbean during the 1600s.

A mulatto named Diego Grillo was born in Havana in 1557. He was captured by the English privateer Francis Drake in 1572, became a member of his crew, and was taken back to England by Drake.

On 15 May 1584 four privateer ships, two frigates and three pinnaces commanded by William Parker of Plymouth and Jérémie Raymond of Cherbourg intercepted the dispatch vessel of Francisco Rodriguez near Trujillo, Honduras. They learned from it that the nearby port of Puerto Caballos (Puerto Cortés) was vulnerable. A young slave named Diego el Mulato from the Spanish ship offered to help the privateers, and two days later guided a landing party that successfully took the town.

Diego el Mulato Martín was a former slave from Havana who terrorized the Gulf of Mexico in the 1630s. He escaped from Havana in 1629 and took up the pirate's trade. He was esteemed highly enough by his Dutch companions that within eight years he had become captain of a ship. In the early 1630s Daniel Elfrith invited Diego el Mulato to make his base on Providence Island, home of the puritan Providence Island colony. A force of ten or eleven ships and two sloops under the Dutch pirate Cornelis Jol and Diego el Mulato Martín attacked Campeche on 11 August 1633. The total force was 500 men. When the defenders of the city claimed that they did not have the money to pay the ransom, the pirates burned it down.

Thomas Gage, an English Dominican priest, wrote an account that mentions Diego el mulato. Gage arrived in Mexico in 1625, where he decided to abandon the religious life. He traveled in the region and accumulated wealth. Diego el mulato seized the ship that was carrying him back to England. Gage was unharmed and was allowed to keep some books and paintings, but lost all his other valuables. This robbery occurred in 1637. Gage said of him:

This mulatto, for some wrongs which had been offered unto him from some commanding Spaniards in Havana, ventured himself desperately in a boat out to sea, where were some Holland ships waiting for a prize. With God's help getting unto them, he yielded himself to their mercy, which he esteemed far better than that of his own countrymen, promising to serve them faithfully against his own nation, which had most injuriously and wrongfully abused, yea, and whipped him in Havana...

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