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THE GALAPAGOS:
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AN OUTLINE OF THE CONTENTS.
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CHAPTER NINE. BRIONES THE PIRATE.One of the most interesting chapters in the history of Galápagos begins in the Guayas River basin. Here, one Manuel Briones terrorized the region from 1847 to 1851. Born in Daule, one of the towns of the district, Briones followed in the footsteps of his father, a notorious bandit with a long career in crime. Manuel Briones was ruthless and bloodthirsty. He was also fearless. Not satisfied with plundering the relatively isolated settlements and the scattered farms and plantations, he began seeking the larger towns, attacking such important centers as Babahoyo, Vinces and his native Daule. Finally, the authorities were forced to organize a large scale manhunt. After considerable efforts, Manuel Briones and his gang were captured and brought to trial. With all the evidence against them, the judge felt no doubts about sentencing the criminals to eight years of deportation to Floreana. The convicts were then placed on the first ship sailing to the Galápagos. As we have seen, the colony on Floreana had already disintegrated. While a few settlers still remained on San Cristóbal, the great majority had, by this time, returned to the mainland. At the time Briones and his gang were deported, in 1851, there remained only a very small garrison on Floreana, which kept a rather lax control over a small number of convicts. In fact, being deported to the island was not half as bad as what it was reputed to be. The population elsewhere in the Galápagos was also small. General Villamil’s old partner and friend, General Mena, was still on San Cristóbal, ruling as governor over less than half a dozen settlers and a handful of soldiers. At Whale Bay, on the NW side of Santa Cruz, there was a little group of men and a woman, who probably made a living hunting tortoises. They must have supplied themselves with fresh water from the little spring at Santa Rosa Hill, a considerable distance inland. The colonization of the Galápagos Islands had indeed reached its lowest point since the islands were first settled. Our Ecuadorian sources (Larrea and others) have been rather sketchy about the Briones story, dwelling mostly on its international repercussions. In fact, some of the available data from usually reliable sources is even in disagreement with eyewitness accounts from the period. Strange to say, the best sources we have so far found about the escape of Briones and his gang, and the events that followed up to their execution, are two contemporary Swedish authors, who happened to become involved in the last chapter of the criminal’s career. One of these authors is Prof. Nils Johan Andersson, who wrote a series of letters during his voyage around the world. Prof. Andersson was the botanist on His Swedish Majesty’s Frigate Eugenie, while she was sailing around the world, a voyage that lasted from 1851 to 1853, under the command of Captain (later Rear Admiral) Christian Adolf Virgin, a distinguished officer and diplomat. During their visit to the Galápagos, Prof. Andersson became the first botanist to collect on Santa Cruz, the second largest island in the Galápagos. Prof. Andersson mentions the Briones case and gives a brief account of the capture of the American whaler George Howland by the bandits. (Andersson, 1854). More detailed material is found in the Swedish two-volume narrative of the voyage, written by Lieutenant Carl Johan Skogman, a Swedish-Finish nobleman who was an officer on the frigate. Lt. Skogman gives a wealth of information about Briones and the George Howland. (Skogman, 1854). Lt. Skogman knew Spanish and had therefore access to both the Ecuadorian officials involved and other sources such as letters and documents. Manuel Briones, a large, brutal bully of considerable strength, managed easily to maintain his leadership over the gang, after the criminals arrived on Floreana. Enjoying relative freedom, these men roamed the island more or less at will, having even access to a small boat, probably because they were engaged in fishing. The officer in charge does not seem to have worried about the convicts escaping, as it was well known that a few prisoners who had got away recently had never been heard of again. It is claimed that Briones and his men seized an American schooner that arrived to the islands from California. (Skogman, 1854). Whether this vessel had come to stock up on tortoises for the California market or to hunt seals is not known. It is said that Briones and his gang murdered everybody aboard and sank the schooner, after securing a considerable amount of money that was found on the vessel. The 53
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capture of this schooner may later have led the scoundrels to think of the possibility of embarking on a career in piracy. At the time of these events, General Juan José Flores, who had been president when General Villamil began colonizing the islands, lived in exile in Perú. Flores was constantly plotting to overthrow the current Ecuadorian government, headed by General José Urbina. General Urbina, a liberal, had pushed through a number of reforms, including the abolition of slavery. Flores, a conservative, had ruled the country from 1830 to 1835 and, after a liberal interlude, from 1839 to 1845, when he was deposed. Nearly all our sources claim that Briones planned his escape from Floreana with the purpose of intercepting an expedition sent by Flores from Perú with the intention of starting an uprising in Ecuador. By intercepting the revolutionaries, it is claimed that Briones hoped to gain a pardon for himself and his gang. That Flores was plotting to return to power was a well known fact, for he had been trying for some time to get together an army of sorts. He had also tried unsuccessfully to enlist the aid of several foreign countries for his come-back to power. Since this had been going on for some time, it would be surprising if Briones had not heard about it, even before his deportation. None of our sources explains how Briones got to know when Flores was about to send an expedition from Perú. That he should have obtained such information while on Floreana may seem a bit farfetched. However, it is not as impossible as it might appear. Nearly all the whalers coming around Cape Horn or the Straits of Magellan called at Peruvian ports on their way to Galápagos and beyond. Also, there were smaller vessels coming out for tortoises and tortoise oil and at least some of them could have been Peruvian. On the other hand, Briones could have learnt about the Flores expedition after he returned to the mainland, where he first reached the Peruvian coast. He could have found this knowledge and the interception of the revolutionaries a convenient excuse to justify the capture of the George Howland and the murder of the Flores followers he met with in the Gulf of Guayaquil. But Briones’ behavior after the capture of one of the Flores vessels completely disagrees with his purported intentions. The story of Briones and his men heading directly to Guayaquil, where they expected to be welcomed as heroes, happens to be untrue. Briones and his gang did no such thing. Regardless of what Briones may have claimed or not after his capture, it is obvious that he had already decided to get hold of a ship, when the New Bedford whaler George Howland anchored off Floreana. Captain Cromwell, her master, could not have suspected any danger when he sent four of his men ashore to collect firewood. These men were captured by the convicts, failing therefore to return aboard. From this point on, we shall have to rely largely on the account made by the ship’s cooper, Mr. Peacock, as recorded by Lt. Skogman. (Skogman, 1854). Peacock is after all the only eyewitness whose account, as far as we know, is still on record for this part of the story. According to him, a boat came alongside the Howland and the visitors asked Captain Cromwell if he would be willing to send the ship’s carpenter ashore, to help them repair their boat. Cromwell, who intended to sail as soon as the firewood party returned, refused to do this. Instead, he offered to pay the visitors for locating the missing crew members, whom he thought might have lost their way in the woods. It is reasonable to assume that the men in the boat had only come out on a scouting mission. After agreeing to look for the missing men, they returned to the island, coming back later with a larger number of convicts. The unsuspecting Americans were taken completely by surprise, and the vessel was seized without bloodshed. Captain Cromwell was bound hand and foot, and set ashore with part of his crew. The remaining seamen were forced to set sail, and Briones and his gang headed for San Cristóbal. While on their way, Briones ordered the mate and two of the seamen to paint the sides of the ship. This was a mistake, as the three men saw the opportunity to lower a boat, escaping towards Floreana and their stranded shipmates. Peacock’s attempt to join them was checked by one of the bandits, who hit him over the head with the flat side of a cutlass, stunning him. On arriving to San Cristóbal, Manuel Briones sent a party ashore, where General Mena, a woman (mistakenly thought by Peacock to be the general’s daughter), and four soldiers were captured. Among 54
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these last was a Lt. Barroterán, who is mentioned in most of our Ecuadorian sources, and may have been in command of the small garrison. These prisoners, a considerable amount of money belonging to the governor, and a quantity of supplies were brought out to the ship. Here, several of the convicts raped the woman, who was later taken ashore in an uncharacteristic gesture of kindness. The male prisoners were all shot. Peacock (in Skogman, 1854) tells how three shots were fired at General Mena, wounding him. The old gentleman stood there, unflinching, and tapped his chest with his fist, as he repeated scornfully, "Here! Here!", while the convicts reloaded for a second attempt. Four more shots were fired at the old general before he finally fell dead. The governor’s body was thrown over the side, along with those of the four soldiers. Two of the latter were only wounded, and grabbed hold of the ship’s side. The convicts hit and stabbed their hands, forcing them to let go. Soon after, they could be seen in the wake of the ship, struggling to stay afloat, then finally going under. The convicts had taken with them from Floreana a Frenchman, Hieron, who was living on the island at the time. Whether he was a convict or a settler is not known, but he was obviously not one of Briones’ men, as he had come along against his will. They had brought him because he had some knowledge of navigation. On the day after the George Howland sailed from San Cristóbal, Hieron warned Peacock that the convicts were talking about killing him, for they considered the cooper was of no use to them. On hearing this, the American hid himself in the hold, among some oil barrels. He survived the rest of the voyage eating blubber and whatever the Frenchman managed to smuggle down to him. With his knife, he dug a hole in one of the water casks so he could have something to drink. Living in constant fear of being discovered, Peacock spent all his time in the darkness of the hold, thus losing count of the days. He could not tell afterwards whether he had been sixteen or eighteen days below. In the meantime, the whaler had reached the vicinity of Túmbez, where the convicts sold two barrels of sperm oil. Peacock’s Spanish seems to have been rather limited, and his opportunity to overhear what was being said above decks must have been even more so. Obviously, what little he could tell later about what happened after he hid in the hold must have come to him through Hieron. He did learn of the escape of two of his shipmates, who managed to get away in one of the boats, while they were near the Peruvian coast. (This left only Peacock and the carpenter from the original crew). Apparently, the cooper did not learn about the two women the convicts had met on the beach near Túmbez, for he told nothing about them in his statement. These, a mother and her daughter, were seized by some of the convicts, raped and murdered. The convicts continued along the coast, heading for the Gulf of Guayaquil. Shortly after reaching this latter area, they overtook two vessels that were headed for some unknown destination in Ecuador. One of the small ships managed to escape into waters that were too shallow for the whaler, but the other one was boarded, and twenty-three of the forty-two men aboard her were killed by Briones and his gang. Among the victims were Colonel Manuel Tamayo and the lieutenants Moreno and Guerrero, as well as several other officers. Like those who had managed to escape, the men on the captured vessel belonged to an expedition sent north by General Flores. The nineteen whose lives were spared were taken aboard the George Howland. They later left the whaler in two boats, heading for Túmbez. It is not clear whether they escaped or were just sent ashore by Briones for some unknown reason. While at anchor in the inner parts of the Gulf of Guayaquil, the escaped convicts sighted an approaching frigate. Since such a ship was too well armed and too large for them to tackle, and seeing their only escape route blocked, the Briones gang abandoned the George Howland, where Peacock still remained hidden in the hold. Briones and his men were later captured by a detachment of Ecuadorian soldiers who had been sent out to watch for any vessels sent by General Flores. Four of the convicts were taken on the Island of Puná, at the mouth of the Guayas River. Eleven men were overtaken when they were aboard a whaleboat. Among these were the prisoners still held by the convicts – the ship’s carpenter, the Frenchman Hieron, and the two 55
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caretakers of the lighthouse on Santa Clara Island, at the entrance to the gulf, who had been brought along as pilots for the neighboring waters. Both Briones and his lieutenant, a huge mulatto called Antonio Huncho, were among those captured. The convicts were promptly sent upriver to Guayaquil, where the officials apparently saw no merit in their gruesome attack on the Flores expedition, and wasted no time in judging them and sentencing them to be shot for piracy and cold-blooded murder. The frigate that was seen approaching the George Howland happened to be His Swedish Majesty’s Frigate Eugenie. She had left Callao in Perú on March 18, 1852, at seven in the evening. From there, she worked her way up the coast, making the best possible use of the unstable breezes and light winds, anchoring whenever there was calm. Thus, she entered the Gulf of Guayaquil two days later. Lt. Skogman remarks, as so many other travellers, on the dramatic change in scenery that is experienced after leaving behind the desolation of the Peruvina coast, to discover the vivid green of the mangroves along the shore of the Ecuadorian side of the border. (Skogman, 1854). A bark was sighted just inside the gulf. The stranger aroused some curiosity because of her unusual maneuvers. At first, she seemed bent on getting as much distance as possible between herself and the frigate. Then, she headed back, to finally anchor a short distance from where the Eugenie was waiting for a favorable breeze. After hoisting the flag of Hamburg, the strangers lowered a boat, and the bark’s master came over. The visitor seemed scared and very upset. He told Captain Virgin and his officers that an American whaler had been captured in the Galápagos by some escaped convicts, who killed all the crew, and sailed to the mainland to embark on a career of piracy. He had also heard that they were terrorizing the neighboring waters. The master of the bark was understandably shaken by the gory tales he had heard, and the approaching frigate had scared him at first. After realizing his mistake, he had approached to seek her protection. He requested to be allowed to sail in the company of the Swedes, so that his crew and cargo would be safe. Captain Virgin obligingly invited him to do so. No time was lost in lowering a launch, a sloop and one of the boats. These were made ready for combat, then sent out under the command of Lt. C.A. Sundin to locate the pirates. In the meantime, the George Howland was sighted, lying at anchor farther in. Lt. Sundin was instructed to take up a position that would block any attempt by the pirates to escape. At daybreak, the boats were recalled. The George Howland was still at anchor. There was no sign of life on her decks. Suddenly, some men appeared, embarking on two balsa rafts that headed for the shore. These men may have been local fishermen, as the convicts seemed to have left in one or two of the whaler’s boats, probably while it was still dark. There being no wind, the frigate was unable to move any closer. It was decided that there was no point in sending the boats after the men on the rafts. The distance was too great for rowing and, should the seamen have managed to catch up with the rafts, they would by then have been too exhausted by the heat and the effort to put up a good fight. It was one o’clock in the afternoon when a breeze finally came, allowing the Eugenie to approach the whaler. As the Swedes came closer, they discovered a smaller sailing vessel secured to the whaler’s stern. By then, the American flag had been hoisted up-side-down, aft on the Howland – a distress signal. Around four o’clock, the wind had died, returning with increased force later. This allowed the frigate to move rather close before sunset. Lieutenant Sundin was sent over with the launch and the sloop. This time, his orders were to board and seize the pirate ship. There were still no signs of life on board, until a man suddenly appeared, approaching the Swedes in a friendly manner. He introduced himself as Mr. Peacock, cooper of the George Howland. Despite his assurances that nobody else was aboard, the Swedes took no chances. All hatches were battened down, armed guards were posted next to them as well as near every other exit. Then, the ship was thoroughly searched. A six-pounder was found on the starboard side, loaded with bits and pieces of old harpoons, chisels and other junk. The ship’s papers were found and taken to the frigate. The sails, which had been left lying on the deck, were properly furled and secured. Peacock was taken to the frigate for questioning. Aside from telling his story, he informed that the ship had 280 barrels of sperm oil on board. 56
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The George Howland seems to have been well outfitted, but the conditions the Swedes found on her were shocking. There was a terrible stench and much filth everywhere. The smaller vessel was even worse. She was obviously the one that had belonged to the Flores expedition. On her, the Swedes found spoilt food, broken crockery, filthy and tattered clothes and all sorts of rubbish. The ballast in her bilges was covered with dried blood, as were large parts of her deck. The stench the men from the Eugenie met with was even worse than that they had experienced in the cabins of the larger ship. On March 26, Captain Virgin went upriver with one of the boats, headed for Guayaquil, where he intended to contact the local officials and the American consul. Early the following morning, a French corvette anchored near the Eugenie. She had come from Guayaquil with the purpose of capturing the pirates who were said to be operating in the gulf. Her commanding officer was obviously disappointed when he found out that the Swedes had already taken charge of the George Howland. The corvette returned upriver that same morning. In the afternoon, the George Howland sailed for Guayaquil, under the command of Lt. A. Fries, to be handed over to the American consul. Lt. Skogman was left behind on the frigate, to go through all the papers and letters that had been found on the smaller vessel. The correspondence found on her is of considerable interest, as it gives much information about the human side of the intended coup against General Urbina’s government. There were letters to Colonel Tamayo from his wife and his sister-in-law. In the former the longing and love between husband and wife is movingly obvious. Also, there is a fierce loyalty towards General Flores, for whom the Tamayo family had sacrificed everything they had and all they could scrape together from relatives and friends, in order to help their leader’s cause. Such compromising documents could of course not be handed over to the authorities without harming the Tamayo family and their relations. Ever a gentleman, Captain Virgin arranged with a trusted person in Guayaquil to have the letters forwarded to the colonel’s widow. General Flores knew about the Swedish frigate’s presence in the Gulf of Guayaquil, and hastened to send messengers to contact Captain Virgin, in an attempt to gain his support. One of his main arguments was that he had been deposed while the legally elected president of his country, which in fact was true when it had happened several years earlier, in 1845. However, Captain Virgin had no intention of getting involved in the politics of any country the frigate visited, so he politely refused his help. Later in the year, Flores attempted to seize Guayaquil with the aid of the Peruvian government. This operation was a total failure. General Flores was allowed to return to Ecuador in 1863, as a private citizen. He died the following year. Briones, Huncho and four other pirates were executed on March 29. Their execution was witnessed by two officers from the Eugenie, who had come upriver on the George Howland. Nils Johan Andersson, the botanist to the expedition, was also present and describes the execution as follows: "At our arrival to Guayaquil, we became at once the witnesses to a ghastly scene. Six of the captured pirates were to be shot. On a plaza, where Ecuador’s flag waved with its two white stripes separated by a horizontal blue one with seven stars – the number of provinces – there were six stakes planted in the ground. A troop of soldiers formed a tight circle, surrounded by a dense mob. Side streets, lightposts, carriages, horses, balconies, windows swarmed with onlookers. The criminals, each accompanied by a friar, came walking one after the other, dressed in white shirts and wearing red caps. They were tied with their backs to the stakes, blindfolded; a detachment of soldiers with guns was placed in front of them at a distance of about a yard, and the guns were fired. The leader, a strong, gigantic figure, fell at the first shot; two negroes were hardier, and on one of them four or five shots had to fired before all was over." (Andersson, 1854). Lt. Skogman tells how Huncho, Briones’ second in command, gave away some money he had managed to conceal from the authorities, dividing it among the soldiers who were to execute him. He was about to give one of them a pair of dice, but decided to keep them, saying, "Maybe they play dice in Hell. I may as well keep them." (Skogman, 1854). By the time the Eugenie left Ecuador, all the escaped convicts had been captured by the Ecuadorian authorities. On her way to San Francisco, the frigate called at Panama and, after taking on water at the Islas Perlas, she made a detour to the Galápagos Islands. This was decided by Captain Virgin at the suggestion of Prof. Andersson and Dr. Johan Gustaf Kinberg, who besides being the ship’s surgeon was a physician, a 57
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veterinary and a zoologist. At that time, Galápagos was already of much interest to naturalists. Andersson made the most extensive botanical collections from the archipelago up to that date, while Dr. Kinberg brought back a wide assortment of specimens from the animal kingdom. The Swedes visited the handful of people still living on San Cristóbal, among them the woman who had been raped by the convicts and her husband. These two as well as the other settlers were overjoyed to hear about the capture and execution of Briones and his men. A banquet of tortoise meat was prepared in honor of the Swedish officers, who found the meat delicious, if one is to believe Lt. Skogman. It was accompanied with fine French wine, brought ashore from the frigate. The visitors found Floreana totally abandoned. The tiny garrison and the officer in charge had left on a sailing vessel that had called on her way to Perú. Andersson also landed at Whale Bay, on the NW side of Santa Cruz, where he found two huts, at the foot of a steep hill by the beach. When he and his party had approached in their boat (the frigate was not in the area), they saw a small group of men leaving the huts and fleeing inland. After landing, the Swedes discovered a woman in one of the miserable dwellings. Nobody could communicate with her, as she spoke only Spanish, a language none of the visitors understood. Andersson tells however that he had heard on San Cristóbal about a small party of criminals who lived on Santa Cruz, under the leadership of a woman. (Andersson, 1854). At this stage, the colonization of Galápagos seemed to hold little if any promise. Only an optimist like General José Villamil could still harbor any dreams about the future of these islands. Until his death, in 1866, the old patriot continued trying to get something going on the islands. All was in vain, especially since his projects were based on false information, like his plans of exploiting the vast guano reserves that someone had reported existed on the Galápagos. These, like the even more farfetched rumors of great coal deposits, proved to be pure fantasy. However, it was during the last years of the old general’s life that the first seeds of permanent settlement were planted. But nobody could have told then what they would lead to. 58
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Notes.
This transcription has been revised with pagination found in the online edition published by the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands. |
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Source.
Jacob P. Lundh. The source of this page is the J. P. Lundh website.
Last updated by Tom Tyler, Denver, CO, USA, Jan 8, 2026.
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