THE BEGINNINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS
In the second half of the sixteenth and the early part of the
seventeenth centuries, strangers who visited the great Spanish islands
of Hispaniola, Jamaica or Porto Rico, usually remarked the extraordinary
number of wild cattle and boars found roaming upon them. These herds
were in every case sprung from domestic animals originally brought from
Spain. For as the aborigines in the Greater Antilles decreased in
numbers under the heavy yoke of their conquerors, and as the Spaniards
themselves turned their backs upon the Antilles for the richer
allurements of the continent, less and less land was left under
cultivation; and cattle, hogs, horses and even dogs ran wild, increased
at a rapid rate, and soon filled the broad savannas and deep woods which
covered the greater part of these islands. The northern shore of
Hispaniola the Spaniards had never settled, and thither, probably from
an early period, interloping ships were accustomed to resort when in
want of victuals. With a long range of uninhabited coast, good anchorage
and abundance of provisions, this northern shore could not fail to
induce some to remain. In time we find there scattered groups of
hunters, mostly French and English, who gained a rude livelihood by
killing wild cattle for their skins, and curing the flesh to supply the
needs of passing vessels. The origin of these men we do not know. They
may have been deserters from ships, crews of wrecked vessels, or even
chance marooners. In any case the charm of their half-savage,
independent mode of life must soon have attracted others, and a fairly
regular traffic sprang up between them and the ubiquitous Dutch traders,
whom they supplied with hides, tallow and cured meat in return for the
few crude necessities and luxuries they required. Their numbers were
recruited in 1629 by colonists from St. Kitts who had fled before Don
Federico de Toledo. Making common lot with the hunters, the refugees
found sustenance so easy and the natural bounty of the island so rich
and varied, that many remained and settled.
To the north-west of Hispaniola lies a small, rocky island about eight
leagues in length and two in breadth, separated by a narrow channel from
its larger neighbour. From the shore of Hispaniola the island appears in
form like a monster sea-turtle floating upon the waves, and hence was
named by the Spaniards "Tortuga." So mountainous and inaccessible on the
northern side as to be called the Côte-de-Fer, and with only one harbour
upon the south, it offered a convenient refuge to the French and English
hunters should the Spaniards become troublesome. These hunters probably
ventured across to Tortuga before 1630, for there are indications that a
Spanish expedition was sent against the island from Hispaniola in 1630
or 1631, and a division of the spoil made in the city of San Domingo
after its return.[83] It was then, apparently, that the Spaniards left
upon Tortuga an officer and twenty-eight men, the small garrison which,
says Charlevoix, was found there when the hunters returned. The Spanish
soldiers were already tired of their exile upon this lonely,
inhospitable rock, and evacuated with the same satisfaction with which
the French and English resumed their occupancy. From the testimony of
some documents in the English colonial archives we may gather that the
English from the first were in predominance in the new colony, and
exercised almost sole authority. In the minutes of the Providence
Company, under date of 19th May 1631, we find that a committee was
"appointed to treat with the agents for a colony of about 150 persons,
settled upon Tortuga";[84] and a few weeks later that "the planters upon
the island of Tortuga desired the company to take them under their
protection, and to be at the charge of their fortification, in
consideration of a twentieth part of the commodities raised there
yearly."[85] At the same time the Earl of Holland, governor of the
company, and his associates petitioned the king for an enlargement of
their grant "only of 3 or 4 degrees of northerly latitude, to avoid all
doubts as to whether one of the islands (Tortuga) was contained in their
former grant."[86] Although there were several islands named Tortuga in
the region of the West Indies, all the evidence points to the identity
of the island concerned in this petition with the Tortuga near the north
coast of Hispaniola.[87]
The Providence Company accepted the offer of the settlers upon Tortuga,
and sent a ship to reinforce the little colony with six pieces of
ordnance, a supply of ammunition and provisions, and a number of
apprentices or _engagés_. A Captain Hilton was appointed governor, with
Captain Christopher Wormeley to succeed him in case of the governor's
death or absence, and the name of the island was changed from Tortuga to
Association.[88] Although consisting for the most part of high land
covered with tall cedar woods, the island contained in the south and
west broad savannas which soon attracted planters as well as
cattle-hunters. Some of the inhabitants of St. Kitts, wearied of the
dissensions between the French and English there, and allured by reports
of quiet and plenty in Tortuga, deserted St. Kitts for the new colony.
The settlement, however, was probably always very poor and struggling,
for in January 1634 the Providence Company received advice that Captain
Hilton intended to desert the island and draw most of the inhabitants
after him; and a declaration was sent out from England to the planters,
assuring them special privileges of trade and domicile, and dissuading
them from "changing certain ways of profit already discovered for
uncertain hopes suggested by fancy or persuasion."[89] The question of
remaining or departing, indeed, was soon decided for the colonists
without their volition, for in December 1634 a Spanish force from
Hispaniola invaded the island and drove out all the English and French
they found there. It seems that an Irishman named "Don Juan Morf" (John
Murphy?),[90] who had been "sargento-mayor" in Tortuga, became
discontented with the _régime_ there and fled to Cartagena. The Spanish
governor of Cartagena sent him to Don Gabriel de Gaves, President of the
Audiencia in San Domingo, thinking that with the information the
renegade was able to supply the Spaniards of Hispaniola might drive out
the foreigners. The President of San Domingo, however, died three months
later without bestirring himself, and it was left to his successor to
carry out the project. With the information given by Murphy, added to
that obtained from prisoners, he sent a force of 250 foot under command
of Rui Fernandez de Fuemayor to take the island.[91] At this time,
according to the Spaniards' account, there were in Tortuga 600 men
bearing arms, besides slaves, women and children. The harbour was
commanded by a platform of six cannon. The Spaniards approached the
island just before dawn, but through the ignorance of the pilot the
whole armadilla was cast upon some reefs near the shore. Rui Fernandez
with about thirty of his men succeeded in reaching land in canoes,
seized the fort without any difficulty, and although his followers were
so few managed to disperse a body of the enemy who were approaching,
with the English governor at their head, to recover it. In the mêlée the
governor was one of the first to be killed--stabbed, say the Spaniards,
by the Irishman, who took active part in the expedition and fought by
the side of Rui Fernandez. Meanwhile some of the inhabitants, thinking
that they could not hold the island, had regained the fort, spiked the
guns and transferred the stores to several ships in the harbour, which
sailed away leaving only two dismantled boats and a patache to fall into
the hands of the Spaniards. Rui Fernandez, reinforced by some 200 of his
men who had succeeded in escaping from the stranded armadilla, now
turned his attention to the settlement. He found his way barred by
another body of several hundred English, but dispersed them too, and
took seventy prisoners. The houses were then sacked and the tobacco
plantations burned by the soldiers, and the Spaniards returned to San
Domingo with four captured banners, the six pieces of artillery and 180
muskets.[92]
The Spanish occupation apparently did not last very long, for in the
following April the Providence Company appointed Captain Nicholas
Riskinner to be governor of Tortuga in place of Wormeley, and in
February 1636 it learned that Riskinner was in possession of the
island.[93] Two planters just returned from the colony, moreover,
informed the company that there were then some 80 English in the
settlement, besides 150 negroes. It is evident that the colonists were
mostly cattle-hunters, for they assured the company that they could
supply Tortuga with 200 beasts a month from Hispaniola, and would
deliver calves there at twenty shillings apiece.[94] Yet at a later
meeting of the Adventurers on 20th January 1637, a project for sending
more men and ammunition to the island was suddenly dropped "upon
intelligence that the inhabitants had quitted it and removed to
Hispaniola."[95] For three years thereafter the Providence records are
silent concerning Tortuga. A few Frenchmen must have remained on the
island, however, for Charlevoix informs us that in 1638 the general of
the galleons swooped down upon the colony, put to the sword all who
failed to escape to the hills and woods, and again destroyed all the
habitations.[96] Persuaded that the hunters would not expose themselves
to a repetition of such treatment, the Spaniards neglected to leave a
garrison, and a few scattered Frenchmen gradually filtered back to their
ruined homes. It was about this time, it seems, that the President of
San Domingo formed a body of 500 armed lancers in an effort to drive the
intruders from the larger island of Hispaniola. These lancers, half of
whom were always kept in the field, were divided into companies of fifty
each, whence they were called by the French, "cinquantaines." Ranging
the woods and savannas this Spanish constabulary attacked isolated
hunters wherever they found them, and they formed an important element
in the constant warfare between the French and Spanish colonists
throughout the rest of the century.[97]
Meanwhile an English adventurer, some time after the Spanish descent of
1638, gathered a body of 300 of his compatriots in the island of Nevis
near St. Kitts, and sailing for Tortuga dispossessed the few Frenchmen
living there of the island. According to French accounts he was received
amicably by the inhabitants and lived with them for four months, when he
turned upon his hosts, disarmed them and marooned them upon the opposite
shore of Hispaniola. A few made their way to St. Kitts and complained to
M. de Poincy, the governor-general of the French islands, who seized the
opportunity to establish a French governor in Tortuga. Living at that
time in St. Kitts was a Huguenot gentleman named Levasseur, who had been
a companion-in-arms of d'Esnambuc when the latter settled St. Kitts in
1625, and after a short visit to France had returned and made his
fortune in trade. He was a man of courage and command as well as a
skilful engineer, and soon rose high in the councils of de Poincy. Being
a Calvinist, however, he had drawn upon the governor the reproaches of
the authorities at home; and de Poincy proposed to get rid of his
presence, now become inconvenient, by sending him to subdue Tortuga.
Levasseur received his commission from de Poincy in May 1640, assembled
forty or fifty followers, all Calvinists, and sailed in a barque to
Hispaniola. He established himself at Port Margot, about five leagues
from Tortuga, and entered into friendly relations with his English
neighbours. He was but biding his time, however, and on the last day of
August 1640, on the plea that the English had ill-used some of his
followers and had seized a vessel sent by de Poincy to obtain
provisions, he made a sudden descent upon the island with only 49 men
and captured the governor. The inhabitants retired to Hispaniola, but a
few days later returned and besieged Levasseur for ten days. Finding
that they could not dislodge him, they sailed away with all their people
to the island of Providence.[98]
Levasseur, fearing perhaps another descent of the Spaniards, lost no
time in putting the settlement in a state of defence. Although the port
of Tortuga was little more than a roadstead, it offered a good anchorage
on a bottom of fine sand, the approaches to which were easily defended
by a hill or promontory overlooking the harbour. The top of this hill,
situated 500 or 600 paces from the shore, was a level platform, and upon
it rose a steep rock some 30 feet high. Nine or ten paces from the base
of the rock gushed forth a perennial fountain of fresh water. The new
governor quickly made the most of these natural advantages. The platform
he shaped into terraces, with means for accommodating several hundred
men. On the top of the rock he built a house for himself, as well as a
magazine, and mounted a battery of two guns. The only access to the rock
was by a narrow approach, up half of which steps were cut in the stone,
the rest of the ascent being by means of an iron ladder which could
easily be raised and lowered.[99] This little fortress, in which the
governor could repose with a feeling of entire security, he
euphuistically called his "dove-cote." The dove-cote was not finished
any too soon, for the Spaniards of San Domingo in 1643 determined to
destroy this rising power in their neighbourhood, and sent against
Levasseur a force of 500 or 600 men. When they tried to land within a
half gunshot of the shore, however, they were greeted with a discharge
of artillery from the fort, which sank one of the vessels and forced the
rest to retire. The Spaniards withdrew to a place two leagues to
leeward, where they succeeded in disembarking, but fell into an ambush
laid by Levasseur, lost, according to the French accounts, between 100
and 200 men, and fled to their ships and back to Hispaniola. With this
victory the reputation of Levasseur spread far and wide throughout the
islands, and for ten years the Spaniards made no further attempt to
dislodge the French settlement.[100]
Planters, hunters and corsairs now came in greater numbers to Tortuga.
The hunters, using the smaller island merely as a headquarters for
supplies and a retreat in time of danger, penetrated more boldly than
ever into the interior of Hispaniola, plundering the Spanish plantations
in their path, and establishing settlements on the north shore at Port
Margot and Port de Paix. Corsairs, after cruising and robbing along the
Spanish coasts, retired to Tortuga to refit and find a market for their
spoils. Plantations of tobacco and sugar were cultivated, and although
the soil never yielded such rich returns as upon the other islands,
Dutch and French trading ships frequently resorted there for these
commodities, and especially for the skins prepared by the hunters,
bringing in exchange brandy, guns, powder and cloth. Indeed, under the
active, positive administration of Levasseur, Tortuga enjoyed a degree
of prosperity which almost rivalled that of the French settlements in
the Leeward Islands.
The term "buccaneer," though usually applied to the corsairs who in the
seventeenth century ravaged the Spanish possessions in the West Indies
and the South Seas, should really be restricted to these cattle-hunters
of west and north-west Hispaniola. The flesh of the wild-cattle was
cured by the hunters after a fashion learnt from the Caribbee Indians.
The meat was cut into long strips, laid upon a grate or hurdle
constructed of green sticks, and dried over a slow wood fire fed with
bones and the trimmings of the hide of the animal. By this means an
excellent flavour was imparted to the meat and a fine red colour. The
place where the flesh was smoked was called by the Indians a "boucan,"
and the same term, from the poverty of an undeveloped language, was
applied to the frame or grating on which the flesh was dried. In course
of time the dried meat became known as "viande boucannée," and the
hunters themselves as "boucaniers" or "buccaneers." When later
circumstances led the hunters to combine their trade in flesh and hides
with that of piracy, the name gradually lost its original significance
and acquired, in the English language at least, its modern and
better-known meaning of corsair or freebooter. The French adventurers,
however, seem always to have restricted the word "boucanier" to its
proper signification, that of a hunter and curer of meat; and when they
developed into corsairs, by a curious contrast they adopted an English
name and called themselves "filibustiers," which is merely the French
sailor's way of pronouncing the English word "freebooter."[101]
The buccaneers or West Indian corsairs owed their origin as well as
their name to the cattle and hog-hunters of Hispaniola and Tortuga.
Doubtless many of the wilder, more restless spirits in the smaller
islands of the Windward and Leeward groups found their way into the
ranks of this piratical fraternity, or were willing at least to lend a
hand in an occasional foray against their Spanish neighbours. We know
that Jackson, in 1642, had no difficulty in gathering 700 or 800 men
from Barbadoes and St. Kitts for his ill-starred dash upon the Spanish
Main. And when the French in later years made their periodical descents
upon the Dutch stations on Tobago, Curaçao and St. Eustatius, they
always found in their island colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe
buccaneers enough and more, eager to fill their ships. It seems to be
generally agreed, however, among the Jesuit historians of the West
Indies--and upon these writers we are almost entirely dependent for our
knowledge of the origins of buccaneering--that the corsairs had their
source and nucleus in the hunters who infested the coasts of Hispaniola.
Between the hunter and the pirate at first no impassable line was drawn.
The same person combined in himself the occupations of cow-killing and
cruising, varying the monotony of the one by occasionally trying his
hand at the other. In either case he lived at constant enmity with the
Spaniards. With the passing of time the sea attracted more and more away
from their former pursuits. Even the planters who were beginning to
filter into the new settlements found the attractions of coursing
against the Spaniards to be irresistible. Great extremes of fortune,
such as those to which the buccaneers were subject, have always
exercised an attraction over minds of an adventurous stamp. It was the
same allurement which drew the "forty-niners" to California, and in 1897
the gold-seekers to the Canadian Klondyke. If the suffering endured was
often great, the prize to be gained was worth it. Fortune, if fickle one
day, might the next bring incredible bounty, and the buccaneers who
sweltered in a tropical sea, with starvation staring them in the face,
dreamed of rolling in the oriental wealth of a Spanish argosy.
Especially to the cattle-hunter must this temptation have been great,
for his mode of life was the very rudest. He roamed the woods by day
with his dog and apprentices, and at night slept in the open air or in a
rude shed hastily constructed of leaves and skins, which served as a
house, and which he called after the Indian name, "ajoupa" or
"barbacoa." His dress was of the simplest--coarse cloth trousers, and a
shirt which hung loosely over them, both pieces so black and saturated
with the blood and grease of slain animals that they looked as if they
had been tarred ("de toile gaudronnée").[102] A belt of undressed bull's
hide bound the shirt, and supported on one side three or four large
knives, on the other a pouch for powder and shot. A cap with a short
pointed brim extending over the eyes, rude shoes of cowhide or pigskin
made all of one piece bound over the foot, and a short, large-bore
musket, completed the hunter's grotesque outfit. Often he carried wound
about his waist a sack of netting into which he crawled at night to keep
off the pestiferous mosquitoes. With creditable regularity he and his
apprentices arose early in the morning and started on foot for the hunt,
eating no food until they had killed and skinned as many wild cattle or
swine as there were persons in the company. After having skinned the
last animal, the master-hunter broke its softest bones and made a meal
for himself and his followers on the marrow. Then each took up a hide
and returned to the boucan, where they dined on the flesh they had
killed.[103] In this fashion the hunter lived for the space of six
months or a year. Then he made a division of the skins and dried meat,
and repaired to Tortuga or one of the French settlements on the coast of
Hispaniola to recoup his stock of ammunition and spend the rest of his
gains in a wild carouse of drunkenness and debauchery. His money gone,
he returned again to the hunt. The cow-killers, as they had neither wife
nor children, commonly associated in pairs with the right of inheriting
from each other, a custom which was called "matelotage." These private
associations, however, did not prevent the property of all from being in
a measure common. Their mode of settling quarrels was the most
primitive--the duel. In other things they governed themselves by a
certain "coutumier," a medley of bizarre laws which they had originated
among themselves. At any attempt to bring them under civilised rules,
the reply always was, "telle étoit la coutume de la côte"; and that
definitely closed the matter. They based their rights thus to live upon
the fact, they said, of having passed the Tropic, where, borrowing from
the sailor's well-known superstition, they pretended to have drowned all
their former obligations.[104] Even their family names they discarded,
and the saying was in those days that one knew a man in the Isles only
when he was married. From a life of this sort, cruising against Spanish
ships, if not an unmixed good, was at least always a desirable
recreation. Every Spanish prize brought into Tortuga, moreover, was an
incitement to fresh adventure against the common foe. The "gens de la
côte," as they called themselves, ordinarily associated a score or more
together, and having taken or built themselves a canoe, put to sea with
intent to seize a Spanish barque or some other coasting vessel. With
silent paddles, under cover of darkness, they approached the
unsuspecting prey, killed the frightened sailors or drove them
overboard, and carried the prize to Tortuga. There the raiders either
dispersed to their former occupations, or gathered a larger crew of
congenial spirits and sailed away for bigger game.
All the Jesuit historians of the West Indies, Dutertre, Labat and
Charlevoix, have left us accounts of the manners and customs of the
buccaneers. The Dutch physician, Exquemelin, who lived with the
buccaneers for several years, from 1668 to 1674, and wrote a picturesque
narrative from materials at his disposal, has also been a source for the
ideas of most later writers on the subject. It may not be out of place
to quote his description of the men whose deeds he recorded.
"Before the Pirates go out to sea," he writes, "they give notice to
every one who goes upon the voyage of the day on which they ought
precisely to embark, intimating also to them their obligation of
bringing each man in particular so many pounds of powder and bullets as
they think necessary for that expedition. Being all come on board, they
join together in council, concerning what place they ought first to go
wherein to get provisions--especially of flesh, seeing they scarce eat
anything else. And of this the most common sort among them is pork. The
next food is tortoises, which they are accustomed to salt a little.
Sometimes they resolve to rob such or such hog-yards, wherein the
Spaniards often have a thousand heads of swine together. They come to
these places in the dark of night, and having beset the keeper's lodge,
they force him to rise, and give them as many heads as they desire,
threatening withal to kill him in case he disobeys their command or
makes any noise. Yea, these menaces are oftentimes put in execution,
without giving any quarter to the miserable swine-keepers, or any other
person that endeavours to hinder their robberies.
"Having got provisions of flesh sufficient for their voyage, they return
to their ship. Here their allowance, twice a day to every one, is as
much as he can eat, without either weight or measure. Neither does the
steward of the vessel give any greater proportion of flesh or anything
else to the captain than to the meanest mariner. The ship being well
victualled, they call another council, to deliberate towards what place
they shall go, to seek their desperate fortunes. In this council,
likewise, they agree upon certain Articles, which are put in writing, by
way of bond or obligation, which everyone is bound to observe, and all
of them, or the chief, set their hands to it. Herein they specify, and
set down very distinctly, what sums of money each particular person
ought to have for that voyage, the fund of all the payments being the
common stock of what is gotten by the whole expedition; for otherwise it
is the same law, among these people, as with other Pirates, 'No prey, no
pay.' In the first place, therefore, they mention how much the Captain
ought to have for his ship. Next the salary of the carpenter, or
shipwright, who careened, mended and rigged the vessel. This commonly
amounts to 100 or 150 pieces of eight, being, according to the
agreement, more or less. Afterwards for provisions and victualling they
draw out of the same common stock about 200 pieces of eight. Also a
competent salary for the surgeon and his chest of medicaments, which is
usually rated at 200 or 250 pieces of eight. Lastly they stipulate in
writing what recompense or reward each one ought to have, that is either
wounded or maimed in his body, suffering the loss of any limb, by that
voyage. Thus they order for the loss of a right arm 600 pieces of eight,
or six slaves; for the loss of a left arm 500 pieces of eight, or five
slaves; for a right leg 500 pieces of eight, or five slaves; for the
left leg 400 pieces of eight, or four slaves; for an eye 100 pieces of
eight or one slave; for a finger of the hand the same reward as for the
eye. All which sums of money, as I have said before, are taken out of
the capital sum or common stock of what is got by their piracy. For a
very exact and equal dividend is made of the remainder among them all.
Yet herein they have also regard to qualities and places. Thus the
Captain, or chief Commander, is allotted five or six portions to what
the ordinary seamen have; the Master's Mate only two; and other Officers
proportionate to their employment. After whom they draw equal parts from
the highest even to the lowest mariner, the boys not being omitted. For
even these draw half a share, by reason that, when they happen to take a
better vessel than their own, it is the duty of the boys to set fire to
the ship or boat wherein they are, and then retire to the prize which
they have taken.
"They observe among themselves very good orders. For in the prizes they
take it is severely prohibited to everyone to usurp anything in
particular to themselves. Hence all they take is equally divided,
according to what has been said before. Yea, they make a solemn oath to
each other not to abscond or conceal the least thing they find amongst
the prey. If afterwards anyone is found unfaithful, who has contravened
the said oath, immediately he is separated and turned out of the
society. Among themselves they are very civil and charitable to each
other. Insomuch that if any wants what another has, with great
liberality they give it one to another. As soon as these pirates have
taken any prize of ship or boat, the first thing they endeavour is to
set on shore the prisoners, detaining only some few for their own help
and service, to whom also they give their liberty after the space of two
or three years. They put in very frequently for refreshment at one
island or another; but more especially into those which lie on the
southern side of the Isle of Cuba. Here they careen their vessels, and
in the meanwhile some of them go to hunt, others to cruise upon the seas
in canoes, seeking their fortune. Many times they take the poor
fishermen of tortoises, and carrying them to their habitations they make
them work so long as the pirates are pleased."
The articles which fixed the conditions under which the buccaneers
sailed were commonly called the "chasse-partie."[105] In the earlier
days of buccaneering, before the period of great leaders like Mansfield,
Morgan and Grammont, the captain was usually chosen from among their own
number. Although faithfully obeyed he was removable at will, and had
scarcely more prerogative than the ordinary sailor. After 1655 the
buccaneers generally sailed under commissions from the governors of
Jamaica or Tortuga, and then they always set aside one tenth of the
profits for the governor. But when their prizes were unauthorised they
often withdrew to some secluded coast to make a partition of the booty,
and on their return to port eased the governor's conscience with politic
gifts; and as the governor generally had little control over these
difficult people he found himself all the more obliged to dissimulate.
Although the buccaneers were called by the Spaniards "ladrones" and
"demonios," names which they richly deserved, they often gave part of
their spoil to churches in the ports which they frequented, especially
if among the booty they found any ecclesiastical ornaments or the stuffs
for making them--articles which not infrequently formed an important
part of the cargo of Spanish treasure ships. In March 1694 the Jesuit
writer, Labat, took part in a Mass at Martinique which was performed for
some French buccaneers in pursuance of a vow made when they were taking
two English vessels near Barbadoes. The French vessel and its two prizes
were anchored near the church, and fired salutes of all their cannon at
the beginning of the Mass, at the Elevation of the Host, at the
Benediction, and again at the end of the Te Deum sung after the
Mass.[106] Labat, who, although a priest, is particularly lenient
towards the crimes of the buccaneers, and who we suspect must have been
the recipient of numerous "favours" from them out of their store of
booty, relates a curious tale of the buccaneer, Captain Daniel, a tale
which has often been used by other writers, but which may bear
repetition. Daniel, in need of provisions, anchored one night off one of
the "Saintes," small islands near Dominica, and landing without
opposition, took possession of the house of the curé and of some other
inhabitants of the neighbourhood. He carried the curé and his people on
board his ship without offering them the least violence, and told them
that he merely wished to buy some wine, brandy and fowls. While these
were being gathered, Daniel requested the curé to celebrate Mass, which
the poor priest dared not refuse. So the necessary sacred vessels were
sent for and an altar improvised on the deck for the service, which they
chanted to the best of their ability. As at Martinique, the Mass was
begun by a discharge of artillery, and after the Exaudiat and prayer for
the King was closed by a loud "Vive le Roi!" from the throats of the
buccaneers. A single incident, however, somewhat disturbed the
devotions. One of the buccaneers, remaining in an indecent attitude
during the Elevation, was rebuked by the captain, and instead of heeding
the correction, replied with an impertinence and a fearful oath. Quick
as a flash Daniel whipped out his pistol and shot the buccaneer through
the head, adjuring God that he would do as much to the first who failed
in his respect to the Holy Sacrifice. The shot was fired close by the
priest, who, as we can readily imagine, was considerably agitated. "Do
not be troubled, my father," said Daniel; "he is a rascal lacking in his
duty and I have punished him to teach him better." A very efficacious
means, remarks Labat, of preventing his falling into another like
mistake. After the Mass the body of the dead man was thrown into the
sea, and the curé was recompensed for his pains by some goods out of
their stock and the present of a negro slave.[107]
The buccaneers preferred to sail in barques, vessels of one mast and
rigged with triangular sails. This type of boat, they found, could be
more easily man[oe]uvred, was faster and sailed closer to the wind. The
boats were built of cedar, and the best were reputed to come from
Bermuda. They carried very few guns, generally from six to twelve or
fourteen, the corsairs believing that four muskets did more execution
than one cannon.[108] The buccaneers sometimes used brigantines, vessels
with two masts, the fore or mizzenmast being square-rigged with two
sails and the mainmast rigged like that of a barque. The corsair at
Martinique of whom Labat speaks was captain of a corvette, a boat like a
brigantine, except that all the sails were square-rigged. At the
beginning of a voyage the freebooters were generally so crowded in their
small vessels that they suffered much from lack of room. Moreover, they
had little protection from sun and rain, and with but a small stock of
provisions often faced starvation. It was this as much as anything which
frequently inspired them to attack without reflection any possible
prize, great or small, and to make themselves masters of it or perish in
the attempt. Their first object was to come to close quarters; and
although a single broadside would have sunk their small craft, they
man[oe]uvred so skilfully as to keep their bow always presented to the
enemy, while their musketeers cleared the enemy's decks until the time
when the captain judged it proper to board. The buccaneers rarely
attacked Spanish ships on the outward voyage from Europe to America, for
such ships were loaded with wines, cloths, grains and other commodities
for which they had little use, and which they could less readily turn
into available wealth. Outgoing vessels also carried large crews and a
considerable number of passengers. It was the homeward-bound ships,
rather, which attracted their avarice, for in such vessels the crews
were smaller and the cargo consisted of precious metals, dye-woods and
jewels, articles which the freebooters could easily dispose of to the
merchants and tavern-keepers of the ports they frequented.
The Gulf of Honduras and the Mosquito Coast, dotted with numerous small
islands and protecting reefs, was a favourite retreat for the
buccaneers. As the clumsy Spanish war-vessels of the period found it
ticklish work threading these tortuous channels, where a sudden adverse
wind usually meant disaster, the buccaneers there felt secure from
interference; and in the creeks, lagoons and river-mouths densely
shrouded by tropical foliage, they were able to careen and refit their
vessels, divide their booty, and enjoy a respite from their sea-forays.
Thence, too, they preyed upon the Spanish ships which sailed from the
coast of Cartagena to Porto Bello, Nicaragua, Mexico, and the larger
Antilles, and were a constant menace to the great treasure galleons of
the Terra-Firma fleet. The English settlement on the island of
Providence, lying as it did off the Nicaragua coast and in the very
track of Spanish commerce in those regions, was, until captured in 1641,
a source of great fear to Spanish mariners; and when in 1642 some
English occupied the island of Roatan, near Truxillo, the governor of
Cuba and the Presidents of the Audiencias at Gautemala and San Domingo
jointly equipped an expedition of four vessels under D. Francisco de
Villalba y Toledo, which drove out the intruders.[109] Closer to the
buccaneering headquarters in Tortuga (and later in Jamaica) were the
straits separating the great West Indian islands:--the Yucatan Channel
at the western end of Cuba, the passage between Cuba and Hispaniola in
the east, and the Mona Passage between Hispaniola and Porto Rico. In
these regions the corsairs waited to pick up stray Spanish merchantmen,
and watched for the coming of the galleons or the Flota.[110] When the
buccaneers returned from their cruises they generally squandered in a
few days, in the taverns of the towns which they frequented, the wealth
which had cost them such peril and labour. Some of these outlaws, says
Exquemelin, would spend 2000 or 3000 pieces of eight[111] in one night,
not leaving themselves a good shirt to wear on their backs in the
morning. "My own master," he continues, "would buy, on like occasions, a
whole pipe of wine, and placing it in the street would force every one
that passed by to drink with him; threatening also to pistol them in
case they would not do it. At other times he would do the same with
barrels of ale or beer. And, very often, with both in his hands, he
would throw these liquors about the streets, and wet the clothes of such
as walked by, without regarding whether he spoiled their apparel or not,
were they men or women." The taverns and ale-houses always welcomed the
arrival of these dissolute corsairs; and although they extended long
credits, they also at times sold as indentured servants those who had
run too deeply into debt, as happened in Jamaica to this same patron or
master of whom Exquemelin wrote.
Until 1640 buccaneering in the West Indies was more or less accidental,
occasional, in character. In the second half of the century, however,
the numbers of the freebooters greatly increased, and men entirely
deserted their former occupations for the excitement and big profits of
the "course." There were several reasons for this increase in the
popularity of buccaneering. The English adventurers in Hispaniola had
lost their profession of hunting very early, for with the coming of
Levasseur the French had gradually elbowed them out of the island, and
compelled them either to retire to the Lesser Antilles or to prey upon
their Spanish neighbours. But the French themselves were within the next
twenty years driven to the same expedient. The Spanish colonists on
Hispaniola, unable to keep the French from the island, at last foolishly
resolved, according to Charlevoix's account, to remove the principal
attraction by destroying all the wild cattle. If the trade with French
vessels and the barter of hides for brandy could be arrested, the
hunters would be driven from the woods by starvation. This policy,
together with the wasteful methods pursued by the hunters, caused a
rapid decrease in the number of cattle. The Spaniards, however, did not
dream of the consequences of their action. Many of the French, forced to
seek another occupation, naturally fell into the way of buccaneering.
The hunters of cattle became hunters of Spaniards, and the sea became
the savanna on which they sought their game. Exquemelin tells us that
when he arrived at the island there were scarcely three hundred engaged
in hunting, and even these found their livelihood precarious. It was
from this time forward to the end of the century that the buccaneers
played so important a _rôle_ on the stage of West Indian history.
Another source of recruits for the freebooters were the indentured
servants or _engagés_. We hear a great deal of the barbarity with which
West Indian planters and hunters in the seventeenth century treated
their servants, and we may well believe that many of the latter, finding
their situation unendurable, ran away from their plantations or ajoupas
to join the crew of a chance corsair hovering in the neighbourhood. The
hunters' life, as we have seen, was not one of revelry and ease. On the
one side were all the insidious dangers lurking in a wild, tropical
forest; on the other, the relentless hostility of the Spaniards. The
environment of the hunters made them rough and cruel, and for many an
_engagé_ his three years of servitude must have been a veritable
purgatory. The servants of the planters were in no better position.
Decoyed from Norman and Breton towns and villages by the loud-sounding
promises of sea-captains and West Indian agents, they came to seek an El
Dorado, and often found only despair and death. The want of sufficient
negroes led men to resort to any artifice in order to obtain assistance
in cultivating the sugar-cane and tobacco. The apprentices sent from
Europe were generally bound out in the French Antilles for eighteen
months or three years, among the English for seven years. They were
often resold in the interim, and sometimes served ten or twelve years
before they regained their freedom. They were veritable convicts, often
more ill-treated than the slaves with whom they worked side by side, for
their lives, after the expiration of their term of service, were of no
consequence to their masters. Many of these apprentices, of good birth
and tender education, were unable to endure the debilitating climate and
hard labour, let alone the cruelty of their employers. Exquemelin,
himself originally an _engagé_, gives a most piteous description of
their sufferings. He was sold to the Lieutenant-Governor of Tortuga, who
treated him with great severity and refused to take less than 300 pieces
of eight for his freedom. Falling ill through vexation and despair, he
passed into the hands of a surgeon, who proved kind to him and finally
gave him his liberty for 100 pieces of eight, to be paid after his first
buccaneering voyage.[112]
We left Levasseur governor in Tortuga after the abortive Spanish attack
of 1643. Finding his personal ascendancy so complete over the rude
natures about him, Levasseur, like many a greater man in similar
circumstances, lost his sense of the rights of others. His character
changed, he became suspicious and intolerant, and the settlers
complained bitterly of his cruelty and overbearing temper. Having come
as the leader of a band of Huguenots, he forbade the Roman Catholics to
hold services on the island, burnt their chapel and turned out their
priest. He placed heavy imposts on trade, and soon amassed a
considerable fortune.[113] In his eyrie upon the rock fortress, he is
said to have kept for his enemies a cage of iron, in which the prisoner
could neither stand nor lie down, and which Levasseur, with grim humour,
called his "little hell." A dungeon in his castle he termed in like
fashion his "purgatory." All these stories, however, are reported by the
Jesuits, his natural foes, and must be taken with a grain of salt. De
Poincy, who himself ruled with despotic authority and was guilty of
similar cruelties, would have turned a deaf ear to the denunciations
against his lieutenant, had not his jealousy been aroused by the
suspicion that Levasseur intended to declare himself an independent
prince.[114] So the governor-general, already in bad odour at court for
having given Levasseur means of establishing a little Geneva in Tortuga,
began to disavow him to the authorities at home. He also sent his
nephew, M. de Lonvilliers, to Tortuga, on the pretext of complimenting
Levasseur on his victory over the Spaniards, but really to endeavour to
entice him back to St. Kitts. Levasseur, subtle and penetrating,
skilfully avoided the trap, and Lonvilliers returned to St. Kitts alone.
Charlevoix relates an amusing instance of the governor's stubborn
resistance to de Poincy's authority. A silver statue of the Virgin,
captured by some buccaneer from a Spanish ship, had been appropriated by
Levasseur, and de Poincy, desiring to decorate his chapel with it, wrote
to him demanding the statue, and observing that a Protestant had no use
for such an object. Levasseur, however, replied that the Protestants had
a great adoration for silver virgins, and that Catholics being "trop
spirituels pour tenir à la matière," he was sending him, instead, a
madonna of painted wood.
After a tenure of power for twelve years, Levasseur came to the end of
his tether. While de Poincy was resolving upon an expedition to oust him
from authority, two adventurers named Martin and Thibault, whom
Levasseur had adopted as his heirs, and with whom, it is said, he had
quarrelled over a mistress, shot him as he was descending from the fort
to the shore, and completed the murder by a poniard's thrust. They then
seized the government without any opposition from the inhabitants.[115]
Meanwhile there had arrived at St. Kitts the Chevalier de Fontenay, a
soldier of fortune who had distinguished himself against the Turks and
was attracted by the gleam of Spanish gold. He it was whom de Poincy
chose as the man to succeed Levasseur. The opportunity for action was
eagerly accepted by de Fontenay, but the project was kept secret, for if
Levasseur had got wind of it all the forces in St. Kitts could not have
dislodged him. Volunteers were raised on the pretext of a privateering
expedition to the coasts of Cartagena, and to complete the deception de
Fontenay actually sailed for the Main and captured several prizes. The
rendezvous was on the coast of Hispaniola, where de Fontenay was
eventually joined by de Poincy's nephew, M. de Treval, with another
frigate and materials for a siege. Learning of the murder of Levasseur,
the invaders at once sailed for Tortuga and landed several hundred men
at the spot where the Spaniards had formerly been repulsed. The two
assassins, finding the inhabitants indisposed to support them,
capitulated to de Fontenay on receiving pardon for their crime and the
peaceful possession of their property. Catholicism was restored,
commerce was patronized and buccaneers encouraged to use the port. Two
stone bastions were raised on the platform and more guns were
mounted.[116] De Fontenay himself was the first to bear the official
title of "Governor for the King of Tortuga and the Coast of S. Domingo."
The new governor was not fated to enjoy his success for any length of
time. The President of S. Domingo, Don Juan Francisco de Montemayor,
with orders from the King of Spain, was preparing for another effort to
get rid of his troublesome neighbour, and in November 1653 sent an
expedition of five vessels and 400 infantry against the French, under
command of Don Gabriel Roxas de Valle-Figueroa. The ships were separated
by a storm, two ran aground and a third was lost, so that only the
"Capitana" and "Almirante" reached Tortuga on 10th January. Being
greeted with a rough fire from the platform and fort as they approached
the harbour, they dropped anchor a league to leeward and landed with
little opposition. After nine days of fighting and siege of the fort, de
Fontenay capitulated with the honours of war.[117] According to the
French account, the Spaniards, lashing their cannon to rough frames of
wood, dragged a battery of eight or ten guns to the top of some hills
commanding the fort, and began a furious bombardment. Several sorties of
the besieged to capture the battery were unsuccessful. The inhabitants
began to tire of fighting, and de Fontenay, discovering some secret
negotiations with the enemy, was compelled to sue for terms. With
incredible exertions, two half-scuttled ships in the harbour were fitted
up and provisioned within three days, and upon them the French sailed
for Port Margot.[118] The Spaniards claimed that the booty would have
been considerable but for some Dutch trading-ships in the harbour which
conveyed all the valuables from the island. They burned the settlements,
however, carried away with them some guns, munitions of war and slaves,
and this time taking the precaution to leave behind a garrison of 150
men, sailed for Hispaniola. Fearing that the French might join forces
with the buccaneers and attack their small squadron on the way back,
they retained de Fontenay's brother as a hostage until they reached the
city of San Domingo. De Fontenay, indeed, after his brother's release,
did determine to try and recover the island. Only 130 of his men stood
by him, the rest deserting to join the buccaneers in western Hispaniola.
While he was careening his ship at Port Margot, however, a Dutch trader
arrived with commodities for Tortuga, and learning of the disaster,
offered him aid with men and supplies. A descent was made upon the
smaller island, and the Spaniards were besieged for twenty days, but
after several encounters they compelled the French to withdraw. De
Fontenay, with only thirty companions, sailed for Europe, was wrecked
among the Azores, and eventually reached France, only to die a short
time afterwards.
Footnotes:
[Footnote 83: Bibl. Nat., Nouv. Acq., 9334, f. 48.]
[Footnote 84: C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660, p. 130. This company had been
organised under the name of "The Governor and Company of Adventurers for
the Plantations of the Islands of Providence, Henrietta and the adjacent
islands, between 10 and 20 degrees of north latitude and 290 and 310
degrees of longitude." The patent of incorporation is dated 4th December
1630 (_ibid._, p. 123).]
[Footnote 85: Ibid., p. 131.]
[Footnote 86: Ibid.]
[Footnote 87: This identity was first pointed out by Pierre de Vaissière
in his recent book: "Saint Domingue (1629-1789). La societé et la vie
créoles sous l'ancien régime," Paris, 1909, p. 7.]
[Footnote 88: C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660, pp. 131-33.]
[Footnote 89: Ibid., pp. 174, 175.]
[Footnote 90: This was probably the same man as the "Don Juan de Morfa
Geraldino" who was admiral of the fleet which attacked Tortuga in 1654.
_Cf._ Duro, _op. cit._, v. p. 35.]
[Footnote 91: In 1642 Rui Fernandez de Fuemayor was governor and
captain-general of the province of Venezuela. _Cf._ Doro, _op. cit._,
iv. p. 341; note 2.]
[Footnote 92: Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 13,977, f. 505. According to the
minutes of the Providence Company, a certain Mr. Perry, newly arrived
from Association, gave information on 19th March 1635 that the island
had been surprised by the Spaniards (C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660, p. 200).
This news was confirmed by a Mrs. Filby at another meeting of the
company on 10th April, when Capt. Wormeley, "by reason of his cowardice
and negligence in losing the island," was formally deprived of his
office as governor and banished from the colony (_ibid._, p. 201).]
[Footnote 93: Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 13,977, pp. 222-23.]
[Footnote 94: Ibid., pp. 226-27, 235.]
[Footnote 95: Ibid., pp. 226, 233, 235-37, 244.]
[Footnote 96: Charlevoix: Histoire de. ... Saint Domingue, liv. vii. pp.
9-10. The story is repeated by Duro (_op. cit._, v. p. 34), who says
that the Spaniards were led by "el general D. Carlos Ibarra."]
[Footnote 97: Charlevoix, _op. cit._, liv. vii. p. 10; Bibl. Nat. Nouv.
Acq., 9334, p. 48 _ff._]
[Footnote 98: Charlevoix, _op. cit._, liv. vii. pp. 10-12; Vaissière.,
_op. cit._, Appendix I ("Mémoire envoyé aux seigneurs de la Compagnie
des Isles de l'Amérique par M. de Poincy, le 15 Novembre 1640").
According to the records of the Providence Company, Tortuga in 1640 had
300 inhabitants. A Captain Fload, who had been governor, was then in
London to clear himself of charges preferred against him by the
planters, while a Captain James was exercising authority as "President"
in the island. (C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660. pp. 313, 314.) Fload was
probably the "English captain" referred to in de Poincy's memoir. His
oppressive rule seems to have been felt as well by the English as by the
French.]
[Footnote 99: Dutertre: Histoire générale des Antilles, tom. i. p. 171.]
[Footnote 100: Charlevoix: _op. cit._, liv. vii. pp. 12-13.]
[Footnote 101: In this monograph, by "buccaneers" are always meant the
corsairs and filibusters, and not the cattle and hog killers of
Hispaniola and Tortuga.]
[Footnote 102: Labat: Nouveau voyage aux isles de l'Amerique, _ed._
1742, tom. vii. p. 233.]
[Footnote 103: Le Pers, printed in Margry, _op. cit._]
[Footnote 104: Le Pers, printed in Margry, _op. cit._]
[Footnote 105: Dampier writes that "Privateers are not obliged to any
ship, but free to go ashore where they please, or to go into any other
ship that will entertain them, only paying for their provision."
(Edition 1906, i. p. 61).]
[Footnote 106: Labat, _op. cit._, tom. i. ch. 9.]
[Footnote 107: Labat, _op. cit._, tom. vii. ch. 17.]
[Footnote 108: Ibid., tom. ii. ch. 17.]
[Footnote 109: Gibbs: British Honduras, p. 25.]
[Footnote 110: A Spaniard, writing from S. Domingo in 1635, complains of
an English buccaneer settlement at Samana (on the north coast of
Hispaniola, near the Mona Passage), where they grew tobacco, and preyed
on the ships sailing from Cartagena and S. Domingo for Spain. (Add.
MSS., 13,977, f. 508.)]
[Footnote 111: A piece of eight was worth in Jamaica from 4s. 6d. to
5s.]
[Footnote 112: Exquemelin, _ed._ 1684, Part I. pp. 21-22.]
[Footnote 113: Dutertre, _op. cit._, tom. i. ch. vi.]
[Footnote 114: Charlevoix, _op. cit._, liv. vii. p. 16.]
[Footnote 115: Charlevoix, _op. cit._, liv. vii. pp. 17-18.]
[Footnote 116: According to a Spanish MS., there were in Tortuga in 1653
700 French inhabitants, more than 200 negroes, and 250 Indians with
their wives and children. The negroes and Indians were all slaves; the
former seized on the coasts of Havana and Cartagena, the latter brought
over from Yucatan. In the harbour the platform had fourteen cannon, and
in the fort above were forty-six cannon, many of them of bronze (Add.
MSS., 13,992, f. 499 _ff._). The report of the amount of ordnance is
doubtless an exaggeration.]
[Footnote 117: Add. MSS., 13,992, f. 499.]
[Footnote 118: According to Dutertre, one vessel was commanded by the
assassins, Martin and Thibault, and contained the women and children.
The latter, when provisions ran low, were marooned on one of the
Caymans, north-west of Jamaica, where they would have perished had not a
Dutch ship found and rescued them. Martin and Thibault were never heard
of again.]