The Saga of Orange County's "Pirates": The Sacking of Mission San Juan Capistrano by Hippolyte Bouchard in 1818

Pirates!! Any visitor to Disneyland knows all about them: buried treasure, old flint-lock guns, bearded men chasing people (or food) in circles, a dog with the jail keys in its mouth, and ship cannons that somehow miss a target just a hundred feet away. Some historians point out that Disneyland didn't simply import tales of buccaneers from far-off shores, and tell the story of pirates attacking the not-so-distant Mission San Juan Capistrano way back in 1818, during the height of the mission era in California. The attack and its aftermath have all the makings of the archetypal pirate tale: the “pirates” burned down some mission buildings, drank the stores of wine, and caused general mayhem before sailing away, leaving behind a legacy of buried treasure stories. Or so the story goes. This book tells the true story of Orange County's "Pirates," uncovering the dramatic stories of the attackers themselves, and their impact on the Acjachemen and Spanish colonists at the mission. Read more