Diableta: The Navy’s Forgotten Pirate Boat By Jeremiah D. Foster, Historian, NHHC
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A map of the West Indies. From Stanford’s 1898 Map of the United States (Eastern Part) and Cuba with the Central and South American Republics Bordering on the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea Showing the Dependencies of the West Indies. (Located in the War Department Map Collection, 1939 – 1942; Record Group 77: Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, 1789 – 1999; National Archives Identifier 77452261, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.)
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Naval Historical Foundation
NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND
iscussions of piracy, particularly in Fleet were then deployed to various patrol the Atlantic world, are generally zones—scouring the shores, harbors, and relegated to the legendary Golden rivers of Cuba—hunting pirates in the Age of Piracy, a period that lasted from shallows and destroying their encampments approximately 1650 to 1730. While certainly on shore. iconic, this period was actually just one As the Mosquito Fleet set about its work of several episodes of piracy that plagued in early April 1823, one of these patrols, Atlantic waters well into the first quarter of consisting of the shallow draft schooners the 19th century. Generally, the appearance Fox and Jackal and the (noncommissioned) of these maritime marauders coincided with cutters Gallinipper and Mosquito, set out to the evolving landscape of empire in the examine part of Cuba’s northern coastline. Although no illustrations of Diableta are known to exist, Americas. On the morning of the 16th, this division this artistic representation In the early 1820s, the Gulf of Mexico of ships, sailing under the overall command of a 19th-century felucca is and Caribbean Sea experienced a particuof Master Commandant Stephen Cassin, likely similar in appearance. larly acute episode of piratical depredations, arrived in an unnamed harbor, which was This drawing is extracted which attended the unraveling of Spanish reportedly frequented by pirates. from a depiction of various hegemony in the region. Consequently, Just minutes after the division’s arrival, naval vessels contained in in 1822, the United States—then only an the lateen sails of a felucca appeared on the Iconographic Encyclopedia, emergent power in the area—established a horizon, seemingly standing out for the Vol. III. (U.S. Naval History naval squadron to combat the issue. However, and Heritage Command Gallinipper. Perhaps spotting the other larger Photograph NH 71069). after a year of diplomatic endeavors and a warships, the crew of the felucca frantically display of high seas dominance, the U.S. hauled down the boat’s sails and pulled Navy’s efforts met with only limited success. around the point of a nearby islet. Meanwhile, the U.S. After acquiring additional funding from Congress, the boats jumped into action with both the Gallinipper and Navy Department placed Commodore David Porter in Mosquito setting off in pursuit. command of the West Indies Squadron and charged him Master Cmdt. Cassin personally inspected the captured with organizing a select flotilla of shallow draft schoofelucca and later reported to Commodore Porter that ners and small boats that could provide a strategic and “she is a fine boat, coppered, pulls sixteen sweeps, and is tactical advantage in rooting out the pirates at their source. in every respect, equal to any of our barges.” Cassin’s force Porter got under way for the Caribbean with this so-called brought off the boat, commandeering her for service with Mosquito Fleet in February 1823 and shortly thereafter the squadron’s Mosquito Fleet cutters, and eventually established a naval depot at Allenton, Thompson’s Island bestowed on her the name Diableta. Of course, like the [Key West]. The ships and small boats of the Mosquito cutters, she too was never formally commissioned. While
