Laurens Cornelis Boudewijn de Graaf (c. 1653 – 24 May 1704) was a Dutch pirate, mercenary, and naval officer in the service of the French colony of Saint-Domingue during the late 17th and early 18th century.

He was reportedly enslaved by Spanish slave traders when captured in what is now the Netherlands and transported to the Canary Islands to work on a plantation, prior to 1674.

[2] The Spanish governor of St. Augustine, Florida attested to his marriage in a letter written to Charles II of Spain in 1682, by referring to de Graaf as a "stranger who was married in the Canaries".

[note 1] There are some later records of his involvement, in March 1672, in a raid on Campeche by a band of pirates who attacked and torched a partially built frigate and captured the town.

[3] The next day, the same pirates captured a merchant ship loaded with over 120,000 pesos in silver and cargo, when it sailed unknowingly into the harbor.

[note 2] During the late 1670s, de Graaf is reported to have captured a number of vessels, converting each in turn to piracy.

After a running gun battle that lasted several hours, the Princesa struck her colors (surrendered), having lost 50 men to de Graaf's eight or nine.

In an act of kindness, de Graaf put the seriously wounded captain of the Princesa ashore with his own surgeon and a servant.

[2] But de Graaf and Andrieszoon had their plans ruined when Nicholas van Hoorn attacked the ships and captured them empty.

Having captured the vessels, van Hoorn reached Bonaco Island and proposed to join forces with de Graaf but was turned away.

[4] He rounded up over six thousand local citizens, held them inside churches and denied them food and water for three days and nights.

[5] The pirates arrived off Veracruz on 17 May 1683, leading with van Hoorn's two captured Spanish ships to mislead the town.

Local governor, Juan de Pando Estrada, commandeered three slave ships - the 40-gun San Francisco, the 34-gun Paz and a smaller 28-gun galliot.

[7] In January 1684, an English convoy, led by the 48-gun HMS Ruby, arrived carrying a note for de Graaf from his wife offering a Spanish pardon and commission.

De Graaf ignored the note, not trusting the Spanish to keep their promises, and invited English officers to board his vessels and trade with his men.

[9] In 1687, de Graaf engaged in a battle off southern Cuba with a Biscayan frigate and the Cuban Guarda del Costa (Coast Guard).

The English retaliated in May 1695 with an attack on Port-de-Paix at Saint Domingue, where they sacked the town and captured de Graaf's family.