Jacquotte Delahaye

Delahaye reportedly came from Saint-Domingue in modern Haiti, and was the daughter of a French father and a Haitian mother, who spoke French.{{sfn|Breverton|2018|page=}} Her mother is said to have died while giving birth to her brother, who suffered a mild mental disability, and was left in her care after her father's death. According to legend and tradition, she became a pirate after the murder of her father.

Jacquotte was a war hero, and to escape her pursuers she faked her own death and took on a nom de guerre in the form of a male alias, living as a man for many years. Upon her return, she became known as "Back From the Dead Red" because of her striking red hair.{{sfn|Owen|Wright|2021|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=lH0eEAAAQBAJ&q=Jacquotte+Delahaye+pirate 6, 7, 177]}}

She led a gang of hundreds of pirates, and with their help took over Tortuga, a small Caribbean island off the northwest coast of Hispaniola, in the year of 1656, which was called a "freebooter republic".{{sfn|Parker|2010|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=SKgs8-pj4_YC&dq=Jacquotte+Delahaye&pg=PA77 77]}} Several years later, she died in a shoot-out while defending it.{{sfn|Parker|2010|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=SKgs8-pj4_YC&dq=Jacquotte+Delahaye&pg=PA77 77]}}

Primary sources which mention her, her work and happenings, or her life are unknown, nor are there any first-hand accounts. Laura Sook Duncombe wrote: "If Anne de Graaf has only a small chance of having really lived, Jacquotte Delahaye has an even smaller one."{{sfn|Duncombe|2017}} The Spanish author Germán Vázquez Chamorro wrote in Mujeres Piratas ('Pirate Women'){{sfn|Chamorro|2004|pages=201 - 206}} that she did not exist, but was a literary creation "...added into the lore of the buccaneer period to make the ruthless men more palatable to the modern reader."{{sfn|Duncombe|2017}}{{efn-ua|"The women who are often discussed in pirate histories – including Queen Teuta of Illyria, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Cheng I Sao, and Grace O'Malley – are found in this collection. So are names that rarely see the light of day, such as Sayyida al-Hurra, Maria Cobham, Lai Choi, and Rachel Wall. Duncombe even mentions the suggestion that Bartholomew Roberts might have been a woman in disguise. Rather than use footnotes or end notes, she seamlessly weaves this information into her narrative, removing the need to search for this elsewhere and thus break its flow. Pirate Women also includes fictional pirates, such as Anne de Graaf, Jacquotte Delahaye, and Gunpowder Gertie."{{sfn|Vallar|2017}} Indeed, she has been listed in the top ten of female pirates, even as her existence is questioned.{{cite web |author=Kris |date=September 5, 2020 |url=https://knowinsiders.com/top-10-most-notorious-female-pirates-of-all-time-32207.html |title=Top 10 Most Notorious Female Pirates of All Time |publisher=Knowinsiders|access-date=February 22, 2022}}}} Stories of her exploits are attributed to oral storytelling and Leon Treich, a French fiction writer of the 1940s.{{sfn|Little|2016||page=}}{{sfn|Klausmann|Meiefnzerin|Kuhn|1997|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=C-TWAAAAMAAJ&q=Jacquotte+Delahaye 168]}}{{efn-ua|"With her unbeatable combination of beauty and bravery, Jacquotte Delahaye inspired countless tales over the years. Some even maintain that she herself was a work of fiction. Certainly, unlike many pirates, there is no real historical evidence confirming her existence. But where's the fun in that?"{{cite web |url=https://historycollection.com/women-pirates-every-bit-fearsome-blackbeard/10/ |title=Female Pirates Who Were Every Bit as Fearsome as Blackbeard |first1=D.G. |last1=Hewitt |date=March 1, 2018 |publisher=History Collection |access-date=February 20, 2022}}{{sfn|Favilli|Cavallo|Shapiro|2017}} As Little observes: "... purported facts about these "pirate women" have been carved from thin air. Jacquotte Delahaye, for example, is said to have been a biracial female filibuster."{{sfn|Little|2016||page=}} Jaeger is equally dismissive: "C'est dans cette circonstance, raconte Léon Treich, que Jacquotte Delahaye fut tuée, près de la Pointe - au - Maçon, comme elle chassait le taureau . Elle avait deux engagés avec elle deux seulement [ ... ] Ils l'invitèrent à se"{{sfn|Jaeger|1984|pages=59-61}}}}

As Benerson Little summarizes:{{sfn|Little|2016||page=}}

{{blockquote|Jacquotte Delahaye, for example, is said to have been a biracial female filibuster.{{efn-ua|name="filibuster"}} An entire, if brief, biography has been written of her and repeated without question in books and online. She commanded a ship with a crew of a hundred men; she rejected a marriage proposal from filibuster Michel d'Artigue, known as 'le Basque'; and she led the attack on Fort de la Roche on Tortuga and recaptured it from the Spanish. But there is no evidence that she existed.}}

Delahaye's story is the lead subject of Back from The Dead Red, a small independently produced animated film written by Joanna Benecke.{{cite web |last1=Hobbs |first1=Jake |date=June 7, 2017 |title=Back From the Dead Red {{mdash}} Engine House Interview |url=https://showmetheanimation.com/features/back-from-the-dead-red-engine-house-interview/ |access-date=February 21, 2022 |website=Show Me the Animation}}

In the period romantic comedy television series Our Flag Means Death, Leslie Jones appeared as the pirate "Spanish Jackie", who some think was based on Delahaye.{{cite web |last1=Robinson |first1=Tasha |date=March 11, 2022 |title=Leslie Jones on her badass pirate in Our Flag Means Death |url=https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/22971883/leslie-jones-interview-our-flag-means-death-spanish-jackie |website=Polygon |access-date=2023-11-29}}{{Cite web |date=2022-04-07 |title=Our Flag Means Death: Was Spanish Jackie A Real Person? |url=https://screenrant.com/our-flag-means-death-spanish-jackie-real-person-influences/ |access-date=2022-04-07 |website=ScreenRant |language=en-US}}

The life of Delahaye is the basis of the historical fiction book The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron.{{cite web |last=Memmott |first=Carol |title=The 10 best works of historical fiction in 2024 |website=The Washington Post |date=2024-11-15 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/11/15/best-historical-fiction-2024/ |access-date=2025-03-24}}

• Charlotte de Berry
• Filibuster
• Privateer

{{Notelist-ua| | refs=

{{efn-ua| name="filibuster"| According to the OED, filibuster n. 1 prolonged speaking or other action which obstructs progress in a legislative assembly while not technically contravening the required procedures. 2 (historical) a person engaging in unauthorized warfare against a foreign state. v. [often as noun, 'filibustering'] obstruct legislation with a filibuster. ORIGIN 18th century: from the {{langx|fr|flibustier}}, first applied to pirates who pillaged the Spanish colonies in the West Indies, influenced by {{langx|es|filibustero}}, denoting American adventurers who incited revolution in Latin America; ultimately from {{langx|nl|vrijbuiter}}, 'freebooter', who cruised from Tortuga off the north coast of Saint-Domingue (modern day Haiti) during the 1650s." {{Cite OED|filibuster}} }}

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{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book |title=A Gross of Pirates From Alfhild the Shield Maiden to Afweyne the Big Mouth |first1=Terry |last1=Breverton |isbn=9781445682938 |date=December 15, 2018 |type=Ebook |location=Stroud|publisher=Amberley Publishing |language=English}}
• {{cite book |last1=Chamorro |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oGFSvv_IVioC&q=Germ%C3%A1n+V%C3%A1zquez+Chamorro+Mujeres+Piratas |title=Mujeres Piratas|year=2004 |isbn=9788496107267 |type=Hardcover |publisher=Editorial Edaf, S.L. |edition=Algaba Ediciones |language=Spanish|first1=Germán Vázquez |pages=201–206}}
• {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zA90DQAAQBAJ&q=Jacquotte+Delahaye+pirate |first1=Laura Sook |last1=Duncombe |title=Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas. |location=Chicago, Illinois |type=Print, E-book |isbn=9781613736043|date=April 1, 2017 |publisher=Chicago Review Press |language=English}}
• {{cite book |title=Histoire tirée des " Histoires du soir des filles Rebelles" |first1=de Elena |last1=Favilli |first2=Francesca |last2=Cavallo |language=French |first3=Jessica|last3=Shapiro |location=Paris, France|publisher=Les Arènes |date=October 4, 2017 |isbn=978-2352046783}}
• {{cite book |pages=59–61 |title=Les femmes d'abordage chroniques historiques et légendaires des aventurières de la mer |first1=Gérard A. |last1=Jaeger|location=Paris|year=1984 |isbn=9782862150550 |publisher=Clancier-Guénaud |language=French}}
• {{cite book |title=Women Pirates and the Politics of the Jolly Roger |first1=Framsida Ulrike |last1=Klausmann |first2=Marion |last2=Meiefnzerin |first3=Gabriel |last3=Kuhn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C-TWAAAAMAAJ&q=Jacquotte+Delahaye |location=Montreal, New York |publisher=Black Rose Books |year=1997 |page=168 |isbn=9781551640594}}
• {{cite book|last1=Little|first1=Benerson|title=The Golden Age of Piracy: The Truth Behind Pirate Myths|publisher=Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.|location=New York|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M2uIDAAAQBAJ|access-date=15 September 2017|language=en|isbn=9781510713048 |date=October 4, 2016 |type=Ebook}}
• {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lH0eEAAAQBAJ&q=Jacquotte+Delahaye+pirate|pages=6, 7, 177 |last1=Owen |first1=Erika |title=Lawbreaking Ladies: 50 Tales of Daring, Defiant, and Dangerous Women from History |location=United States |publisher=S&S/Simon Element |isbn=9781982147082 |date=March 23, 2021 |type=Hardcover |language=English |first2=Alexander (Illustrator) |last2=Wright}}
• {{cite book |first1=Charles H. |last1=Parker |year=2010 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SKgs8-pj4_YC&dq=Jacquotte+Delahaye&pg=PA77 |title=Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400–1800 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=77|isbn=9781139491419 }}
• {{cite web |title=Books for Adults - Nonfiction |year=2017 |first1=Cindy |last1=Vallar |publisher=Pirates and Privateers|url=http://www.cindyvallar.com/Duncombe.html |access-date=February 21, 2022}}

• Apps, Gemma. (May 4, 2021) [https://sagasofshe.wordpress.com/2021/05/04/jacquotte-delahaye-aka-back-from-the-dead-red/ Jacquotte Delahaye] Sagas of She. WordPress.
• {{cite book |last=Zuidhoek |first=Arne |title=A-Z Pirate Encyclopedia: Deprived of God & Country |date=2015 |publisher=Uitgeverij Julius de Goede BV |location=Utrecht |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g4euAQAACAAJ|via=Google Books |language=en}}

• http://kiba.vox.com/library/post/pirate-quotes.html{{Dead link|date=January 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• {{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONaaP19xVO0 |title=Jacquotte Delahaye - Pirate #livre audio |format=Video |date=January 31, 2022 |work=Histoire tirée des " Histoires du soir des filles Rebelles" de Elena Favilli et Francesca Cavallo. |language=French|via=YouTube}}
• [https://www.stronghold-nation.com/history/ref/jacquotte-delahaye Jacquotte Delahaye] {{mdash}} video game at Stronghold nation
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070606102518/http://www.privateerdragons.com/pirate_list.html Privateer Dragons' Island. Pirate History and Reference Piracy by Dates: Late 1500's - Mid 1700's]

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Category:Fictional female pirates

Category:Fictional Haitian people

Category:Written fiction presented as fact