Pirates in Cabo?
Pirate stories abound in Baja. Some true, others... not exactly true. Truth is that Thomas Cavendish sacked the "invincible" galleon Santa Ana off Cape San Lucas in 1587.
Twenty miles northeast of the rocky headland at Cabo San Lucas, sheltered from the northwest wind at Aguada Segura, two British ships lay in wait. Their prey: Manila galleons returning from the Philippines bloated to the gunwales with gold, Persian rugs, silks, jewelry, barrels of wine. Bales and bundles of cargo left no room for artillery on the ships’ double decks. Plus, by the time they reached the eastern Pacific Coast — often six months after leaving Manila — most of the half-starved passengers had scurvy. Many died. In effect, a Manila galleon was a 700-plus-ton sitting duck.
Thomas Cavendish, general of the British ships at Aguada Segura (today’s San José del Cabo) liked his odds. The notorious privateer, in fact, never attacked opponents of equal strength.
Also, true it is that a number of "Dutch Hens" entered the pirate trade against the Spanish. Joris van Spilbergen was the most famous of the group. Although he was originally thought just to be an explorer for the Dutch, he would sail up and down the coast line raiding every ship that went by. So when these pirates were not plying their trade they moored in Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo and La Paz. . The Spanish were obviously not very happy about what was going on with their ships, so they had Jesuit group head to what they called California, and asked them to try and convert these people to Christians. They figured that if the Jesuits could convert everyone this would calm down all the pirates. The Spanish thought for sure this would work. Unfortunately it didn't, the Indians were not happy, the pirates were still doing their thing and nothing had changed. Eventually in 1734 people got annoyed and they chased the Jesuits from the Cabo San Lucas area.