Between Jamaica and Tortuga
Bequel’s birthplace and early life remain uncertain. He may have come from La Rochelle, the French Atlantic port whose merchants and sailors maintained close connections with the Caribbean. Suggested links to a trading family there remain unconfirmed, although they offer a possible explanation for his route into the maritime world.
Accounts associate his early career with the French commanders Mathurin Gabaret and François Beaulieu. The details are fragmentary, but by the end of the 1650s he had become a captain in his own right.
In December 1659, Bequel obtained permission from Edward D’Oyley, Jamaica’s English governor, to sail from Cagway—the settlement later known as Port Royal. His presence placed him among the early buccaneer captains using the island after its capture from Spain.
Bequel subsequently operated from Tortuga, then under the authority of Jérémie Deschamps du Rausset, while maintaining his Jamaican connections. A French captain could find opportunities under an English governor, particularly when Spanish shipping was the intended target.
Those arrangements required more than seamanship. A captain needed somewhere to obtain supplies, dispose of prizes and secure the documents that distinguished an authorised privateer from a pirate in the eyes of his patrons. Bequel’s movements between colonies show how closely the buccaneers’ fortunes were tied to the governments that sheltered them.
