The earliest buccaneers were French settlers driven from their homes by the Spanish, escaped servants, former soldiers, and logwood cutters from the Campeche coast in southern Mexico who settled in western Hispaniola (Haiti) in the early 17th century. They hunted wild pigs and cattle and sold the dried meat to passing ships. The term buccaneer actually come from the French boucan, a grill for the smoking of viande boucanée, or dried meat. The French called their adventurers flibustiers (from the Dutch vrijbuiter, "freebooter"), and the Dutch called theirs zeerovers ("sea rovers"); the Spaniards called them corsarios ("corsairs"). By the middle of the 17th century their numbers had swelled into the thousands. They spread from Hispaniola to the island of Tortuga, where the French governors liberally issued commissions for attacks on Spanish maritime trade. In 1655 when the English drove the Spaniards from Jamaica, many buccaneers moved to Port Royal. The chief bond between these “Brethren of the Coast,” as they styled themselves, was hostility toward the Spaniards, who then regarded the Caribbean and the South Pacific sea-lanes as their monopoly.The buccaneers were inspired by the example of 16th-century seamen, such as Sir Francis Drake, but they are to be distinguished from genuine privateers because the commissions that they held were seldom valid. They exercised a quasi-democratic discipline among themselves when they went off "on the account," electing their captains, marooning mutineers, arranging for the equitable distribution of shares of plunder, and drawing up elaborate insurance schemes for injuries suffered. The earliest buccaneers went under assumed names, such as L'Olonnais (Jean-David Nau) or Rock Brasiliano, a Dutchman who had lived in Brazil. With the appearance of Henry Morgan, an outstanding leader, they began to organize themselves into powerful bands that captured Porto Bello in 1668 and Panama in 1671.They attracted remarkable men like William Dampier, Lionel Wafer, and Basil Ringrose, whose racy written accounts of their adventures had a greater influence on later generations than was justified by their exploits. Their stories influenced such important authors as Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

The last great buccaneering enterprise was the unsuccessful attack on Panama in about 1685 by a force of about 3,000 men. On the outbreak of the War of the Grand Alliance in 1689, these freebooters became legitimate privateers in the service of their respective nations, and buccaneering came to an end.

[Anonymous]
Descripción de las costas Caribbean
Havana (?), 1770s.

The manuscript describes the route of the bullion fleets from the Spanish colonies of the West Indies and Central America to Spain in the eighteenth century. In effect, the manuscript is a pilot-guide detailing the hazards of navigation between the island of St. Martin, at the northern end of the Leeward Islands, to Havana

Brady, Cyrus Townsend, 1861-1920
Sir Henry Morgan, buccaneer: a romance of the Spanish Main.
New York: G.W. Dillingham Company, 1903.

Among the most famous pirates was Henry Morgan (1635?-1688), a Welsh privateer. Selected commander of the buccaneers in 1668, Morgan quickly captured Puerto Principe (now Camagüey), Cuba, and– in an extraordinarily daring move – stormed and sacked the well-fortified city of Porto Bello on the Isthmus of Panama. In 1669, he made a successful raid on wealthy Spanish settlements around Lake Maracaibo on the coast of Venezuela. Finally in August 1670, Morgan, with 36 ships and nearly 2,000 British and French buccaneers, set out to capture Panama, one of the chief cities of Spain’s American empire. Crossing the Isthmus of Panama, he defeated a large Spanish force (Jan. 18, 1671) and entered the city, which burned to the ground while his men were looting it. On the return journey he deserted his followers and absconded with most of the booty. As the Treaty of Madrid (1670) had only recently been signed to compose Anglo-Spanish differences in those parts, the news of his success at Panama was not officially welcome. Morgan was brought back to England under arrest but on the renewal of trouble with Spain, he was knighted and sent out as deputy governor of Jamaica. He and his superiors attempted to suppress buccaneering, a task impossible without adequate naval patrols.

Viaud, Pierre
The shipwreck and adventures of M. Pierre Viaud, a native of Bordeaux and captain of a ship.
London: Printed for T. Davies, Convent Garden, 1771.The first edition of this work was published in Bordeaux and Paris in 1769. It is the story of a shipwreck that occurred February 16, 1766 off the coast of the Florida panhandle. Le Tigre, a brigantine loaded with merchandise "certain to sell," was on route from St. Domingue (present day Haiti) to New Orleans when she was caught by a vicious storm in the Gulf of Mexico. In danger of sinking, her crew attempted to make it to Mobile and then Pensacola, but the ship ran aground instead 300 yards east of Dog Island (a barrier island south of Tallahassee).

The best-selling narrative by survivor Pierre shocked European audiences with its lurid tale of disaster at sea, betrayal, death, murder, native savages, wild animals, cannibalism, and, eventually, a happy ending. After these (probably much exaggerated) tribulations, Viaud was rescued by soldiers from the garrison at St. Marks. Some have dismissed it as a work of fiction but others argue that few maritime annals are better authenticated than this account of shipwreck and horrifying sufferings.

Besson, Maurice, 1885-
The scourge of the Indies: buccaneers, corsairs, & filibusters.
London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1929.
PhilipIV_1a.jpg & PhilipIV_2a.jpgPhilip IV (1605-65)
King of Spain
Document signed “Yo el Rey”, 2pp, Legal folio.
Madrid. 2 June 1651 to the Viceroy of Mexico (Nueva España).

Informing the Viceroy that don Pedro Velaz de Medrano, a renegade Spaniard in French service, acting as a French Vice-Admiral, has set sail with a squadron of 5 ships. Further, that the news from Seville is that his plan is to lie in wait between Havana and Vera Cruz in order to attack this year’s silver fleet from Mexico. “All suitable precautions are to be taken and reinforcements gathered from vessels now in Veracruz.”

Esquemelin, Alexandre Olivier, 1645-1707
Bucaniers of America.
London: William Crooke, 1684.The word buccaneer came into use after this English translation of De Americaensche zee-rovers in 1684, of Bucaniers [sic] of America. The book became an instant “best seller” and has remained in print to this day.

Esquemelin, a Dutchman, went to the Caribbean in 1666 with the French West India Company. He served as surgeon for nearly ten years with the buccaneers and came into contact with all the leading figures, such as Henry Morgan, François l’Ollonais (Jean-David Nau), Pierre le Grand and Bartholomew Portugues. Apart from its obvious authenticity, Esquemelin’s vivid narrative style produced an account full of color and vitality. It had all the ingredients for popular success with its exotic locations, scenes of violence and implied sex.

[Anonymous]
Manuscript Document, "Pirate Raid on Porto Bello."
Panama, 1680.

Although in the 16th and 17th centuries Panama was thesecond strongest fortress in South America (after Cartagena), it didn't stop English pirates from making several raids on that part of the coast. They found it a lucrative occupation and in 1671 Morgan's buccaneers sacked the town. After the demolition of Porto Bello in 1673, massive granite ramparts were constructed. Nonetheless... "On Friday, the 17th of February, a boy came running down the street by the slaughterhouse at Porto Bello, calling out, 'To your arms, Christians, for the English are coming...' The enemy, seeing that the inhabitants has [sic] fled and left their houses empty (with so little trouble to themselves) promptly set about looting wherever they found unprotected houses." The report, though unsigned, is probably the work of one of the missionaries whose letters rendered them the unofficial historians of their period.

Dampier, William, 1652-1715
A new voyage round the world. Vol. I: describing particularly, the isthmus of America, several coasts and islands in the West Indies...
London: James Knapton, 1699.

William Dampier (1651-1715) was the best known and probably the most intelligent of the buccaneers who harassed the Spaniards. Between 1678 and 1691 he was engaged in piracy, chiefly along the west coast of South American and in the Pacific. Throughout the next twenty years, he traveled extensively, circumnavigating the globe three times. His books contain a wealth of accurate information about the places that he visited, delivered in a straightforward, unaffected style. Dampier was amply rewarded for his efforts. His Voyages were great successes and were reprinted regularly becoming models for many of his less literate companions, often to his dismay. In 1698, after the first volume of his voyages had been published to great acclaim, he was commissioned as a captain the Royal Navy.

Wafer, Lionel, 1660?-1705?
A new voyage and description of the Isthmus of Panama.
London, 1704.

Wafer was a naval surgeon who deserted to join the buccaneers. This book recounts his adventures and observations during his various expeditions to the Isthmus of Panama, the western coast of South America and the West Indies from 1680 to 1688. While crossing the Isthmus of Panama after the taking of Santa Maria, Wafer was injured and left in the care of Darien Indians from whom he gained much information. William Dampier, whose sloop picked up Wafer after his recovery, regarded Wafer as the authority on Panama and the Isthmus region.

Rogers, Woodes, d. 1732
A cruising voyage round the world: first to the South-Seas, thence to the East-Indies and homewards by the Cape of Good Hope. Begun in 1708 and finish’d in 1711.
London: A Bell, 1712.

A classic pirate voyage with William Dampier aboard as pilot. They rescued Alexander Selkirk, off Juan Fernandez, where he had been accidentally marooned by one of Dampier’s masters on an earlier voyage. The story of Selkirk was later immortalized by Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe.