During the seventeenth century there were a great number of pirates who
committed serious ravages upon the settlements in the West Indies and
upon the mainland adjacent, and whose expeditions extended even to the
coasts of Chili and Peru. These men were called buccaneers; and the
meaning of the word gives some intimation of the origin of the
buccaneers themselves.
At an earlier day, many of the settlers in the island of Hispaniola, or
Hayti, made their living by hunting cattle and preserving the meat by
the _boucan_ process. These hunters used to form parties of five or six
in number, and arming themselves with musket, bullet bag, powderhorn and
knife, they took their way on foot through the tangled forests of the
country. When they killed one of the wild cattle, its flesh was cut into
long strips and laid upon gratings, constructed of green sticks, where
it was exposed to the smoke of a wood fire, which was fed by the fat and
waste parts of the animals. The grating upon which the meat was laid was
called a _boucan_, and the hunters were called _boucaniers_. Later these
hunters were driven from Hayti by the Spaniards and took refuge in some
of the neighboring islands, where they revenged themselves for some of
the ill-treatment by preying upon the possessions of their oppressors
wherever they could find them.
At the same time affairs in Europe brought France and England on the one
hand, and Spain on the other, into collision; and as a result, the
Spanish possessions in America became the object of French and English
attacks. Accordingly, those two nations were inclined to look with a
lenient eye upon the depredations committed by the buccaneers, so long
as the property of the English and French was respected. As a natural
consequence, many of the disreputable and daring characters of both
nations joined themselves with the original buccaneers, whom they soon
made as corrupt as themselves. Eventually these pirates increased so in
number, and grew so daring in their operations that it was necessary for
all nations to unite in putting them down; and by that time, the word
_buccaneer_ had come to mean _pirate_ in its worst sense.
From time to time there arose among the buccaneers leaders whose success
brought a large following from men of other companies, and in one or two
instances a particularly strong man gathered about him almost all the
men who were willing to engage in such enterprises. At such times the
pirates formed a very powerful organization, and none of the smaller
cities were proof against their ravages. Whether the band was large or
small, however, the method of operation was always practically the same.
Naturally there were preliminary meetings in which a few men discussed
plans and decided upon an expedition of some sort. Then a preliminary
meeting was held at which the object of attack was determined, funds
were raised, officers were elected, and the smaller details of the
expedition were determined. Then articles of agreement were drawn up,
signed by the buccaneers, and usually kept with remarkable exactness. In
conformity with these agreements, the spoils of the expeditions were
distributed among the individuals according to rank, each individual of
the ordinary class receiving one share of the plunder, while the
officers were given from two to eight, according to their position and
influence.
It was customary, however, before any allotment was made to the
individuals, to set aside a certain portion of the spoils to be
distributed among those who had suffered some injury in the expeditions,
and in case any of the members died, that member's share was distributed
to his heirs. Besides this, there were special rewards given to the
first man who should sight a prize, to the first man to board a ship,
and to other men who were noticeably brave and successful.
It was quite customary for two buccaneers to swear brotherhood each to
the other, to make written agreements to stand by each other during
life, to sign these agreements with their own blood; and then to keep
these curious partnerships to the end. There are numerous touching
accounts of the devotion with which a friend often followed the fortunes
of his sworn brother. In fact, the buccaneers usually dealt honestly and
fairly with one another, and in the same way with the Indians,
notwithstanding the fact that they were bloodthirsty, cruel and
heartless in their treatment of the captives they made on their
expeditions.
The usual place of meeting for the buccaneers was upon the west end of
the island of Tortuga, which lies off the northern coast of Hayti,
although the English pirates after 1654 met on the island of Jamaica.
The traders and planters of these islands and of others in the vicinity
were not averse to having the buccaneers among them, for no sooner had
the latter returned from a successful expedition than they spent, with
lavish hand, the money which they had made.
While it is true that between these forays the pirates were given to the
wildest excesses, and were anything but a desirable addition to a
community, yet there are always plenty of people who are willing to
profit by the wastefulness and dissipations of others. Many of the
buccaneers, accordingly, had homes which they visited in the intervals
of their cruises, where, although their business was well known, they
were in a certain sense respected. However, before the pirates were
wholly subdued, they had become less and less acceptable residents in
any community, and finally were at enmity with every soul not in their
own occupation.
That these buccaneers had a large amount of physical bravery, goes
without saying; for only a man who feared nothing could undertake such
apparently hopeless tasks as these wild plunderers carried to a
successful conclusion. In fact many times they were successful for the
reason that the vessels or towns they attacked deemed themselves secure
from attack by so small a force as the pirates could muster. They were
inured to hardship and willing to undergo any amount of pain and
suffering, if they could but gather the riches for which they sought.
The accounts of their adventures are filled with description of daring
deeds, which if undertaken in a better cause would have made the men
famous for all time.
The beginning of these expeditions may be placed at about 1625, and the
last important cruise of the pirates was made in 1688. After the latter
date they gradually dispersed, and the buccaneers appeared no more. In
1664, Mansveldt, who was one of the ablest of the pirate chiefs,
conceived the idea of forming an independent government with a flag of
its own, and locating his capital at Santa Katalina. His early death
prevented him from realizing his purpose; and though his successor, the
famous Henry Morgan, attempted to carry out the plan, it met with such
opposition from the Governor of Jamaica that it was definitely
abandoned. It was under the leadship of this same Morgan that the
buccaneers reached the height of their reputation, and executed their
most daring and successful raids. Among Morgan's performances was the
capture of the town of Puerto del Principe in Cuba, and the cities of
Porto Bello, Maracaibo and Gibraltar in South America. His greatest
exploit, however, occurred in 1670, when at the head of the fleet of
thirty-seven ships of all sizes manned by more than two thousand
pirates, he captured the forts on the Chagres River, marched across the
Isthmus of Panama, and after ten days of incredible hardship and
suffering, fighting against a force of twenty-five hundred men, captured
the city of Panama. After a stay of about three weeks he returned across
the Isthmus.
So unsatisfactory in value were the spoils of this expedition, that
Morgan was accused of embezzling some portion, and in consequence became
very unpopular with his followers.
However, as this expedition was made against the Spanish, it received
some approval from the English; and Morgan, abandoning his career as a
pirate, accepted the lieutenant-governorship of Jamaica, and was
subsequently made governor of that island, in which capacity he did much
toward suppressing piracy in the Caribbean Sea.
We have two notable accounts of the deeds of the early buccaneers. One
was published in 1678 in Amsterdam by John Esquemeling, who wrote from
observation, as he was himself one of the pirates, and present at many
of the conflicts which he describes. The second account is the journal
of Basil Ringrose, who, as a pirate, took part in Sharp's voyage around
South America, and was finally killed in a plundering raid.