Buccaneers Of The Caribbean

The True Story of Piracy on the Spanish Main. This is the incredible true story of piracy in the Caribbean, proof positive that fact is stranger than fiction. From the moment the English established their first tiny colonies in the New World, semi-legal pirates took on the might of the Spanish Empire. The lure of Spanish gold was so strong that French and Dutch privateers soon joined them. Sometimes licensed by governments, but often not, desperate gangs of cut-throats dominated the Caribbean throughout the seventeenth century. Led by ruthless captains, they wrested many of the key islands from Spanish control, then fought each other for the region's strategic bases. Most notoriously, the 'brethren of the coast' established the pirate port of Tortuga, the infamous city of crime. From Piet Heyn's capture of the entire Spanish treasure fleet in 1628, to Henry Morgan's sack of Panama, this was the Age of the Bucaneers. This epic story continued up to the destruction of the pirates' lair of Port Royal by an earthquake in 1692 -- recognised at the time as the judgement of God. . . International treaties at the end of the century brought this dramatic era to a close, by which time the division of the Caribbean among European powers was complete. And a legend had been born.

During the seventeenth century, sea raiders known as buccaneers controlled the Caribbean. Buccaneers were not pirates but privateers, licensed to attack the Spanish by the governments of England, France, and Holland. Jon Latimer charts the exploits of these men who followed few rules as they forged new empires. Lacking effective naval power, the English, French, and Dutch developed privateering as the means of protecting their young New World colonies. They developed a form of semi-legal private warfare, often carried out regardless of political developments on the other side of the Atlantic, but usually with tacit approval from London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Drawing on letters, diaries, and memoirs of such figures as William Dampier, Sieur Raveneau de Lussan, Alexander Oliver Exquemelin, and Basil Ringrose, Jon Latimer portrays a world of madcap adventurers, daredevil seafarers, and dangerous rogues. Piet Hein of the Dutch West India Company captured, off the coast of Cuba, the Spanish treasure fleet, laden with American silver, and funded the Dutch for eight months in their fight against Spain. The switch from tobacco to sugar transformed the Caribbean, and everyone scrambled for a quick profit in the slave trade. Oliver Cromwell’s ludicrous Western Design—a grand scheme to conquer Central America—fizzled spectacularly, while the surprising prosperity of Jamaica set England solidly on the road to empire. The infamous Henry Morgan conducted a dramatic raid through the tropical jungle of Panama that ended in the burning of Panama City. From the crash of gunfire to the billowing sail on the horizon, Latimer brilliantly evokes the dramatic age of the buccaneers.

Fascinating chronicle of the bands of plundering sea rovers who roamed the Caribbean and coastlines of Central America in the 17th century. Detailed accounts of shrewd and fearless men, excellent navigators, and blood-thirsty adventurers who frequently committed inhuman acts of cruelty—among them the infamous Henry Morgan.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a study of pirates in the Americas during their heyday. Cruz Apestegui has drawn on a huge number of sources - both published and unpublished - to write the definitive narrative history of piracy in the Caribbean. The story begins with the arrival of the first Spanish settlers in the New World. They found an immense amount of wealth there, and the whole purpose of these early settlements was to extract this and send it back to Spain in great treasure galleons. When Spain found itself at war with France in the 1520s, these settlements and galleons became the target for privateers in the service of the French king. From these beginnings, the whole edifice of piracy, popularised by Hollywood films and the swashbuckling novels of Rafael Sabatini, emerged. The wealth of New Spain attracted ship owners who tried both legitimate trade and smuggling to turn a profit. European wars generated fleets of ships commanded by the same men who replaced illegal trade with outright seizure of ships and attacks on Spanish ports. Famous names such as Hawkins, Morgan, Drake, and Heyn all built their fortunes on these escapades. Piracy remained profitable until trade with Spa

Exquemelin's book of adventure and swashbuckling tells the true stories of distinguished pirates such as Captain Henry Morgan. First published in 1678 just a few years after the described incidents took place, The Buccaneers of America is also known by the title The Pirates of Panama. For its unabashed description of adventure and thievery on the high seas, the text has captivated audiences for centuries with its frank and reasonably accurate accounts of piracy in the waters of the Caribbean and Central America. The main focus of the book is Captain Henry Morgan, an English pirate whose skills at coastal raiding resulted in his gaining great fame and fortune. Rare for a pirate in that his raids were for the most part consistently successful and lucrative, Morgan would eventually retire and be granted the governorship of Jamaica by a British government grateful for work he performed for the Crown. This edition of the book is derived from a version of the text which first appeared in 1914. The text is generally faithful to Alexander Exquemelin's first-hand descriptions of his adventures, sailing with some of the most notorious pirates to ever venture upon the seas. Although divided into chapters, the book is written as a detailed but engaging log of the various escapades the pirates embarked upon, and is a text worthy of any enthusiast of piracy.

In Search of the Buccaneers spans seventy years and takes the reader to a dozen cities in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico where the buccaneers, often legitimately equipped with royal commissions from French, English and Dutch colonial governors, assaulted the Spanish at sea and on land. It traces the evolution of the early boucaniers - hunters in northwest Hispaniola - to sea-roving buccaneers who lived by the convention - no purchase, no pay. By the mid-sixteenth century the enormous wealth Spain had extracted from her colonial possessions was becoming depleted. At the same time her European rivals sought to establish themselves in the Caribbean islands. It was buccaneering that allowed colonization to take root and thrive. This book is written not primarily for the academically-minded but for the history enthusiast with a lively interest in the Caribbean's colourful history and heritage.

Fascinating chronicle of the bands of plundering sea rovers who roamed the Caribbean and coastlines of Central America in the 17th century. Includes exploits of the infamous Henry Morgan and his burning of Panama City.

There is no more entrancing body of water in either the Western or the Eastern Hemisphere—than the Caribbean Sea, with a fringe of lovely tropical islands on the one side and on the other the Spanish Main and its picturesque centuries-old towns and fascinating sights. Aside from its beauty, its delightful climate, and its ever-shifting scenes, the Caribbean and its shores are redolent of romance. It was the starting-point of those brave though ruthless adventurers who carved a new world for Castile and Leon. For centuries it was the treasure-house of the world and the battle-ground of the mightiest European powers. Across this sapphire sea sailed the caravels of Columbus, theGolden Hind of Drake, and the stately, plate-laden galleons of Spain. And across this same sea coursed those fierce sea-rovers the buccaneers. Of all the dare-devil spirits who sailed the Caribbean and ravaged the Spanish Main, the buccaneers were the most picturesque and romantic. Villains though they were; reddened with the blood of the innocent and helpless though their hands; black-hearted cutthroats beyond denial—yet there is something about them that appeals to all, and that, despite their ill deeds, fills one with admiration. Perchance it is the fact that we all appreciate bravery—and, notwithstanding their multitude of sins, the buccaneers were brave beyond compare. Again, it may be that in all of us lurks a little of the gambling spirit and we admire those who can take a chance, even though we do not, and no greater gamblers ever lived than the buccaneers. They staked their lives at every turn, they gambled with death, and the greater the odds the more readily did they throw themselves into the game. And it was this gambling spirit, this recklessness that enabled them to defy the world of their day. We hear much of the bold, wild ways of these adventurers; we have been taught by history and tradition to consider them devoid of redeeming qualities, and few of us realize that the buccaneers were far from being true pirates, that they were not alike, that many were corsairs through force of circumstances rather than by choice, that they had their own laws and code of honor, and that they were a most important factor in shaping the destiny of the New World. To them, incredible as it may seem, we owe an immense debt of gratitude. Had it not been for them the British never would have retained their foothold in the Caribbean, and we, to-day, might be under Spanish rule. Many of them, too, were educated men and left us records which are of incalculable scientific or historic value; for example, Dampier, who was a keenly observant field naturalist and devoted far more of his time to penning descriptions of fauna and flora than to slitting Spanish throats; and Esquemelling, the erstwhile accountant, who left us a classic as a result of his years as a ship’s supercargo among the buccaneers.