DNA-Match with Lewis Guittar the French Pirate (1667 Brittany - 1700 London)?
THE FRENCH PIRATE LEWIS GUITTAR was born during the Golden Age of Piracy in Brittany ca. 1667 and spent 20 years in Santo Domingo in Hispaniola. Guittar later testified he was living at Pointe au Gravois, when around December 1699 a sloop of pirates ordered him aboard and forced him -- told him they wanted him to be their captain. A pirate witness Pelletier later testified that Guittar had refused to join, but that Pelletier and the other pirates had made Guittar their captain anyway.
Capt. Guittar sometimes wore a golden toothpick on a golden necklace. Described by the master of a captured ship, “The Captain was a man of middle stature, square-shouldered, large jointed, lean, much disfigured with the smallpox, broad speech, thick-lipped, a blemish or cast in his left eye, but courteous."
Capt. Guittar began in the Caribbean and moved on to the Chesapeake Bay, taking at least nine merchant ships, including the Dutch ship La Paix. The pirates took many English prisoners, beating and torturing them to force them to turn pirate. The master of the Friendship of Belfast was killed when the pirates fired on his ship. The Pennsylvania Merchant was plundered and burned for resisting the pirates. Capt. Guittar took four ships in the Chesapeake Bay on 28 April 1700.
Alerted, Capt. John Aldred of the HMS Essex Prize in the Chesapeake Bay came ashore the same day. He told British Governor-General of Virginia Francis Nicholson that a pirate ship was in Lynnhaven Bay of the Chesapeake. Posting a reward of 20 pounds for killing or capturing any pirate, Gov. Nicholson went on board the under-manned 28-gun British guardship HMS Shoreham under Capt. William Passenger with customs agent Peter Hayman, Esq. They sailed up the James River and into Lynnhaven Bay.
Early the next morning the Shoreham fired on Capt. Guittar aboard his 84-foot, 28-gun pirate ship La Paix when many pirates were drunk. Capt. Guittar and his crew fought under the blood red pirate's flag for many hours. After seven hours of courageous conduct, firing into the pirates' ship, Peter Hayman was slain with small shot from the pirates while standing next to Gov. Nicholson on the quarter deck. Maneuvering skillfully back and forth and firing with larger guns, Capt. Passenger finally obtained the advantage after eight hours. The pirate ship, unable to steer and with its masts and sails shot away, became grounded, with 25-30 pirates killed.
The pirates decided to blow up their own ship if they could not go free. Capt. Guittar ordered a captive passenger to swim to the Shoreham and tell them the pirates would blow up their own ship with many innocent captives on board in the hold of the ship if they weren't granted quarter and pardon. (Guittar himself later testifed he had opposed blowing up the ship, and had set two sentinels to guard the powder barrels.) Gov. Nicholson granted quarter, but not pardon, and referred the pirates to the King's mercy. Capt. Guittar then surrendered, giving up 40-50 English captives, and 124 pirates were taken prisoner.
Capt. Guittar and his crew were later put on trial. Four pirate crew members were convicted and hanged on gibbets at various public places around the Chesapeake Bay as a terrible warning to other pirates. Sensitively, the Judge ordered the bodies to be left hanging on a good strong chain or rope "till they rot and fall away." Capt. Guittar and the rest of the crew were transported to England for trial, with special orders that Capt. Guittar be transported on a ship with no other pirates.
Capt. Guittar and the entire crew pleaded quarter as a defense plus the pirate's invariable defense -- "Those other wicked pirates forced me to serve against my will." But, as usual, the forced-to-serve defense failed because the defendants couldn't prove it. The quarter defense failed because quarter was granted only under the illegal threat of murder. Capt. Guittar and his crew were well and truly hanged in 1700 for Piracy on the High Seas. A summary of the court papers is on Google. For an excellent series on the fight, see Diane Tennant, Virginian-Pilot, 13 Aug 2006, http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=109136&ran=89446http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=109136&ran=89446
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If you would like to have a barrel of fun finding out whether you could be related to Capt. Lewis Guittar and other important Guittar/Guittard lines, you might be able to find out by submitting a Guittar Y-DNA test with the Guittard Family History Y-DNA Study.Perhaps one day we'll obtain a test from a Guittar in Brittany for you to match up with and validate your pirate DNA origins.
The test for Guittar-surname males -- swabbing the inside of the cheek -- is easy and quick -- three swabs at 60 seconds each -- no blood involved. Female Guittar descendants and male Guittar descendants not having the Guittar surname are invited to participate and advance the study by encouraging their Guittar-surname brothers, cousins or other relatives to submit a test.
If you or your Guittar-surname male relative decides to test, you may FIND OUT AS SOON AS YOUR TEST IS FULLY PROCESSED whether you are related to the enormous family of Guitards in Canada, or to their predecessor Guittards in Alsace, or to the 12th-century Guittards of the famous GUITTARD FAMILY COMMUNE at Thiers. If we can obtain the tests we want in Barcelona and Scotland, you might find out whether you could be related to VISCOUNT GUITARD of Catalonia in 966-985 AD, or to the PICT KING GARNOT III (GUITARD), who ruled 523-530 AD in Scotland. (Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote that Commander Guitard of the Pictavians fought alongside the legendary KING ARTHUR at the Battle of Suesia.)
Our Guittard group may be able to share part of the testing cost for a Guittar line not previously tested.Please inquire if the cost-sharing contribution is available for your line.
We've already discovered some fascinating things and made some important connections, such as the fact that the Alsace Guittards that immigrated to Ohio in the 1840's are a near-perfect match to the enormous Canadian family of Guitards that immigrated from Paris to New Brunswick in the early 1800's -- 66 out of 67 markers.So we believe the Paris-New-Brunswick Guitards actually came down from the Alsace-Ohio line's ancestors back in the 1700's in Alsace.
Moreover, we've just had a Guittard test ordered from the Puy de Dome area in France where the historic Guittard Family Commune at Thiers in Puy de Dome was in operation from the 1100's right on up through 1819.So we hope to be able to discover in a matter of weeks whether the Alsace-New-Brunswick Guittards were likely related to the 12th-century Thiers Commune Guittards and, if so, how long ago their Most Recent Common Ancestor probably lived.
Having walked the testing down from Alsace to Thiers, we hope to walk the tests down farther south to the region of French Catalonia, Andorra and Spanish Catalonia (Barcelona) where Guitards were recorded in the 900's and 1000's to see if the Alsace and Thiers families might have come from Catalonia (or vice versa) and how long ago their Most Recent Common Ancestor probably lived.
If you would like to learn more about the power and potential of DNA tracing for your Guittar family history, or how you can help or participate, please let me know.
John
Volunteer group administrator
Guittard Family History Y-DNA Study
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Re: DNA-Match with Lewis Guittar the French Pirate (1667 Brittany - 1700 London)?
Olivia Cook 12/16/11