Jan Erasmus Reyning (1640–1697) was a Dutch pirate, privateer and naval officer. Jan Erasmus Reyning was born in Flushing in 1640 as the son of a Danish mariner and a Zeeland woman. As a boy, he went to sea with his father and later started a seaman's career of his own. He was taken prisoner during the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667), and later served as an engagé (servant) on a French plantation on the island of Hispaniola. Around 1667 he became a buccaneer, i.e. a hunter in central Hispaniola, and around 1669 he started a career as a pirate or filibuster.