When Blackbeard broke into Impel Down’s Level 6 and recruited the strongest prisoners in the world, Oda made a specific choice about their historical models: every member of the Impel Down escapee group is based on a figure from the Spanish conquest of the Americas — the conquistadors and their associates who invaded, subjugated, and extracted from South and Central America in the 16th century. The models and the characters share not just names but plot structures.
Shiryu = Zheng Zhilong (Tei Shiryuu)
Shiryu of the Rain is based on Zheng Zhilong (鄭芝龍, Japanese pronunciation: Tei Shiryuu) — a Chinese pirate and admiral who operated in the East China and South China Seas during the Ming dynasty. Zheng Zhilong built enormous wealth through trade with the Dutch East India Company, lived in Japan for a period, and married a Japanese woman. His son, Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga), expelled the Dutch from Taiwan and became a national hero in Chinese history.
Shiryu: formerly the head jailer of Impel Down who turned against his own institution, a swordsman of extreme ability, defined by betrayal of authority and transition to piracy under a more powerful figure.
Avalo Pizarro = Francisco Pizarro
Avalo Pizarro (“the Corrupt King”) is named after Francisco Pizarro — the Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire of Peru with a force of approximately 180 soldiers, using military deception to capture and execute the Inca emperor Atahualpa. Pizarro extracted the largest ransom in history from the Inca (a room full of gold and two rooms of silver), then executed Atahualpa anyway.
Pizarro’s end: disputes over authority and wealth with other Spaniards escalated until he killed a rival. Spain declared him a criminal. He was assassinated by the faction he had betrayed, and his unburied body is preserved as a mummy in Lima, Peru to this day. The “Corrupt King” epithet fits precisely: a man who obtained absolute power through completely illegitimate means and was destroyed by the system he had corrupted.
Catarina Devon = Catalina de Erauso
Catarina Devon (“the Crescent Moon Hunter”) is based on Catalina de Erauso, known as the “Lieutenant Nun” — a Spanish woman who escaped from a convent, disguised herself as a man under a false name, traveled to the Americas, and fought in the Spanish conquest of Chile under yet another false identity. She was documented as a historical figure but carries a semi-legendary status.
Devon collects the heads of beautiful women. Catalina de Erauso documented her own violent acts in her autobiography, which was published after she was granted a papal dispensation to continue dressing as a man. Both are women who operate in violent male-dominated spaces through deception and transformation — Devon’s Nine-Tailed Fox fruit (shape-shifting into other people) is the direct expression of Catalina’s life strategy of assuming false identities.
San Juan Wolf = San Juan de Ulúa (Fortress)
San Juan Wolf (“the Giant Battleship”) is not based on a person but on a fortress: San Juan de Ulúa, a massive fortification built on a coral island in the port of Veracruz, Mexico. Constructed during the Spanish colonial period and expanded over centuries, it became the most heavily defended structure in the Americas — effectively an island fortress that controlled the entrance to Mexico’s most important port.
San Juan de Ulúa is where John Hawkins and Francis Drake were defeated by the Spanish navy in 1568. A fortification so massive it is described as a battleship — San Juan Wolf, who is described in his Vivre Card as having a maximum height of 180 meters and is given the epithet “Giant Battleship.”
Vasco Shot = Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Vasco Shot (“Heavy Drinker”) is based on Vasco Núñez de Balboa — the Spanish explorer who became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean, having crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513. Balboa committed repeated massacres and acts of brutality during his expeditions, which eventually led Spain to have him arrested on charges of treason. He was beheaded.
The person who arrested Balboa and had him executed was his own former subordinate: Francisco Pizarro. In One Piece, Vasco Shot and Avalo Pizarro are crewmates — the same two historical figures, now on the same side rather than in fatal conflict. Their real-world relationship (subordinate who destroys superior) is compressed into a crew dynamic.
Blackbeard the Archaeologist
Oda stated in an SBS column that if Blackbeard were not a pirate, he would be an archaeologist. And every island where Blackbeard appears contains imagery from Native American cultures: Drum Kingdom has totem poles (North American indigenous culture). Jaya contains imagery echoing South American ruins. The burning island where Bonney is held has carvings from the Toltec civilization of Mexico.
Blackbeard’s crew models — the Spanish conquistadors — were the people who destroyed the archaeological record of the Americas. Blackbeard himself would have been the person trying to recover it. The tension between his crew’s models (destroyers of indigenous culture) and his own alternate self (recoverer of indigenous history) is built into his character’s background.
For the original five members and the Baron Munchausen film connection, see Blackbeard’s Original Crew. For the full character model guide, see Every One Piece Character and Their Real-Life Model.