Claes Gerritszoon Compaen (1587,

Oostzaan Oostzaan () is a municipality and a town in the Zaanstreek, Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is ...

North Holland North Holland (, ) is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht (province), Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevola ...

- 25 February 1660, Oostzaan), also called Claas Compaan or Klaas Kompaan, was a 17th-century Dutch corsair and merchant. Dissatisfied as a privateer for the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

, he turned to piracy and captured hundreds of ships operating in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

and

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

during the 1620s.

Biography

Early life

Born in

, his father was an alleged member of the

Geuzen ''Geuzen'' (; ; ) was a name assumed by the confederacy of Calvinist Dutch nobles, who from 1566 opposed Spanish rule in the Netherlands. The most successful group of them operated at sea, and so were called ''Watergeuzen'' (; ; ). In the Eigh ...

of Dirck Duyvel housed in

Zaanstreek The Zaan () is a small river in the province of North Holland in the northwestern Netherlands and the name of a district through which it runs. The river was originally a side arm of the IJ bay and travels 13.5 kilometers (8½ miles) through the m ...

allied other nobleman in opposition of Spanish rule. Compaen went to sea at an early age and eventually became a successful merchant as a trader along the coast of Guinea. He later used the profits from these voyages to refit his ships for privateering activities against the Spanish. Based from Oostende and Duinkerken, he was initially successful capturing several Spanish prizes within a short period of time, however, several of the ships were later released by Dutch authorities. One of these captured ships was over 200 tons, fitted with 17 guns and manned by a crew of 80 men.

Piratical career

Sometime around 1621, he left port with a

letter of marque A letter of marque and reprisal () was a Sovereign state, government license in the Age of Sail that authorized a private person, known as a privateer or French corsairs, corsair, to attack and capture vessels of a foreign state at war with t ...

from the Dutch Admiralty leaving them to pay his debt of 8,000 gilders to the widow of

Medemblik Medemblik () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West Friesland (region), West-Frisia. It lies immediately south of the polder and former municipality of Wieringermeer. History Med ...

ship owner Captain Pieter Gerritszoon, from whom he had purchased his ship. He soon stopped a fishing boat, taking its cargo of

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

and

salted fish Salted fish, such as kippered herring or dried and salted cod, is fish cured with dry salt and thus preserved for later eating. Drying or salting, either with dry salt or with brine, was the only widely available method of preserving fish unt ...

, and used

letter of credit A letter of credit (LC), also known as a documentary credit or bankers commercial credit, or letter of undertaking (LoU), is a payment mechanism used in international trade to provide an economic guarantee from a creditworthy bank to an exp ...

issued by Dutch authorities although the Admiralty refused to compensate the fishermen. He seized the cargo of another ship before taking shelter in

Vlissingen Vlissingen (; ) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands on the island of Walcheren. With its strategic location between the Scheldt river and the North Sea, Vlissingen has been an importan ...

from an approaching storm. While in port, he took on 50 additional crew members. Shortly after leaving Vlissingen, he resorted to open and indiscriminate piracy selling his cargo in

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and the

Barbary coast The Barbary Coast (also Barbary, Berbery, or Berber Coast) were the coastal regions of central and western North Africa, more specifically, the Maghreb and the Ottoman borderlands consisting of the regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, a ...

. In 1625, he began operating from the Duchy of Clare. He was a close friend of the local governor as well as the

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (13 April 1593 (New Style, N.S.)12 May 1641), was an English people, English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament of England, Parliament ...

and freely operated in the

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and the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

under their protection for some time. Compaen later turned up in the

, selling captured ships and their cargo at the Moroccan ports of Saffi,

Mogador Essaouira ( ; ), known until the 1960s as Mogador (, or ), is a port city in the western Morocco, Moroccan region of Marrakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. It has 77,966 inhabitants as of 2014. The foundation of the city of Essao ...

and

Salé Salé (, ) is a city in northwestern Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town. Along with some smaller nearby towns, Rabat and Salé form together a single m ...

. While at Salé, he sold most of his prizes (over 300 ships in his career) to Simon the Dancer, Jr., son of the famed Dutch privateer Simon the Dancer who had been active in the area during the previous decade. The heavy costs of dealing with him eventually caused Compaen to do business with his chief rival

Jan Janszoon Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, commonly known as Reis Mourad the Younger (c. 1570 – c. 1641), was a Dutch pirate who later became a Barbary corsair in the Regency of Algiers and the Republic of Salé. After being captured by Algerian corsairs o ...

. This caused a major disagreement, with Simon sending a fleet to attack him while at port. Compaen was warned of the attack ahead of time and was able to successfully defeat the attackers as well as capture one of Simon's ships. During the raid, Simon's flagship was reportedly so badly damaged it was forced to retreat from the battle. Following this defeat, Simon was forced to leave Salé seeking asylum in the Dutch Republic. Receiving a pardon from

the Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, he eventually became a corsair himself.

Battle with the Hollandia

In 1626 Compaen began looking to request a pardon from the Dutch so as to return to his homeland. On 5 July two ships belonging to the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

were sighted. These ships, the ''Hollandia'' and the smaller yacht ''Grootenbroek'', had been separate from the main fleet which had gone ahead to the Verdian Isles without them while the ''Hollandia'' was escorted to

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

to repair a leak (another account claims it stopped to stock up on limes for its crew suffering from

scurvy Scurvy is a deficiency disease (state of malnutrition) resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, fatigue, and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, anemia, decreased red blood cells, gum d ...

).Roeper, V.D. ''Hamel's World: A Dutch-Korean Encounter in the Seventeenth Century''. Amsterdam: Sun Publishers, 2003. (pg. 86-87) Compaen ordered his four ships to attack the stragglers although he was forced to withdraw after his flagship suffered severe damage from the ''Hollandia'' under Captain Wybrant Schram. Seventy of his men had also been killed in battle. When Schram's logbook was later published, Compaen gained particular notoriety from the battle whose reputation was established as ''"the most notorious Dutch pirate"''. With his other three ships guarding the harbor, both protecting the flagship and preventing the two East India ships from leaving, Compaen managed to sail his ship into Sierra Leone for repairs. Although tensions were high between the two parties while in port, he left peacefully with his fleet once repairs had been completed. The ''Hollandia'' and the ''Grootenbroek'' were allowed to leave and eventually arrived in Batavia in December 1626.

Pardon and later years

Compaen, at certain times, often found it difficult to control his large crew who were given to heavy drinking and survived on poor rations being short of supplies. In one incident, he attacked a Spanish settlement because his fleet were running low on provisions. He and his crew were unable to defeat the Spanish defenders however and ended up retreating with heavy losses. While sailing along the Spanish coast, he also encountered the pirate Colaert of Duinkerken. Despite his fleet being outnumbered 4 to 1, he was able to escape from the stronger Colaert. In 1626 or 1627, Compaan returned to Salé with a number of recently captured prizes. While there, he was told he had been granted a pardon from the Netherlands. He sailed immediately for home, only four days before a Dutch fleet arrived looking to apprehend him. Stopping to drop off some of his crew in Ireland, he arrived in

Vlie The Vlie or Vliestroom () is the seaway between the Dutch islands of Vlieland, to its southwest, and Terschelling, to its northeast. The Vlie was the estuary of the river IJssel in medieval times. Today it's still possible to reach the port of ...

and officially received his pardon from Prince

Frederik Hendrik Frederick Henry (; 29 January 1584 – 14 March 1647) was the sovereign prince of Orange and stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from his older half-brother's death on 23 April 1625 until his ...

the Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

. He apparently found less success in his later years, eventually dying a pauper in Oostzaan on 25 February 1660. A biography on his piratical career, ''The Life of Claes G. Compaen'', was published in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

De Groot De Groot () is a surname of Dutch origin. Translating as "the great/big/large/tall" it originated as a nickname for a big or tall person.1587 births 1660 deaths 17th-century pirates Pirates from the Dutch Republic Pardoned pirates Dutch privateers People from Oostzaan 17th-century Dutch criminals Dutch merchants