At this time most of the countries of Europe were still officially Roman Catholic, and had to accept the Papal Bull. Moreover Spain was by far the most important country in Europe, her influence extending over France, Italy and the Low Countries, and in 1580 she took Portugal as well. But in the Spiritual sphere the domination of the Pope was being questioned by many clerics and politicians, and in the international sphere the rising maritime nations of the English, French and Dutch, were ready to challenge Spanish supremacy on the seas.
Spain was now systematically ransacking the new world for treasure of all kinds, and shipping the spoils back to Europe. The Spaniards continued to extend their domination, both over the islands of the Indies and over the mainland of the American continent. Soon they had established a regular convoy of galleons to bring out goods from Spain for the colonists and to return with the treasure. Once a year a fleet of merchant vessels and heavily armed galleons, would sail into the Caribbean through the windward passage, then divide, one fleet bound for Cartagena and the Panama isthmus, the other for Vera Cruz, mule trains ran to Mexico City and Acapulco, where the galleon for the Philippines lay. On the return journey, the ships would assemble off Havana before sailing out through the Florida passage for the long journey across the Atlantic.
For a century the Spanish kept all other nations out of America, privateers might harass their ships at sea, but they held all the islands in the main. The first foreign colony founded by the French in 1562, was ruthlessly wiped out, and in 1604 the Venetian ambassador in London reported that the Spanish in the West Indies had captured two English vessels, and cut of the hands, feet, noses and ears of the crews and smeared them with honey and tied them to trees to be tortured by flies and other insects. He went on, the Spanish here plead that they were pirates not merchants.
But Pope Alexander's bull made all foreign trespassers pirates, and Spain's insistence that her colonists should only trade with the home country made the most innocent of merchants a smuggler. Nevertheless, the colonists were happy to buy goods at a cheaper rate from foreign merchants, and soon there were many illicit visitors to the Caribbean.
As the Spanish domination extended over the mainland the colonists began to leave the unprotected islands. Hispaniola, was largely deserted, only the town and fort of San Domingo were still occupied, but the Spaniards had killed off most of the native inhabitants, and the plains and woods were roamed by herds of semi wild cattle and pigs.
The French were the first to establish a foothold in the Indies, from Dieppe and St Malo, from Brest and Bayonne, came pirates such as Jean Terrier, Francois le Clerc, who was known as "Pie de Palo", (wooden leg). They learnt the routes of the gold laden galleons, and they found the deserted north coast of Hispaniola to be a suitable base to bring their ships for careening and revictualling. Some of the sailors decided to stay ashore and hunt the wild cattle, cutting the meat into strips and drying it. The meat was laid to be dried on a wooden grate or hurdle which the indians called a "barbecu", placed at a good distance over a slow fire. The meat when cured was called "boucan", and the hunters who prepared it and sold it to the pirates were of course called "boucaniers".
One contemporary observer has left a graphic description of their appearance and way of life. 'These people went dressed in shirts and pantaloons of coarse linen cloth which they steeped in the blood of the animals they slaughtered. They wore round leather caps, boots of hogskin drawn over their naked feet, and belts of rawhide into which they stick their swords and knives. They also armed themselves with firelocks which threw a couple of balls, each weighing an ounce, They were hunters by trade, and savages in their habits. they chased and slaughtered horned cattle and trafficked in their flesh, and their favourite food was raw marrow from the bones of the beasts they shot. They ate and slept on the ground, their table was a stone, their bolster the trunk of a tree, and their roof the hot and sparkling heavens of the Antilles'.
In time they began to form factories of establishments, to hunt cattle for their skins, and to cure the meat for trade. The appellation of boucanier or buccaneer was not invented or at least not applied to these adventurers till long after their first footing in Haiti. The first recorded use of the name was in 1625, at about the same time as the establishment of the first English colony on the island of St Christopher. A few years later, the Spaniards decided to drive the pirates and buccaneers out of Hispaniola, and in 1630 the first buccaneer colony was set up on the island of Tortuga, so called because of its turtle shape, off the north coast of Hispaniola. They built themselves a fort and established a sort of republic, but soon a spanish force from San Domingo attacked and wiped out the settlement, For a few years this pattern was repeated, the buccaneers drifting back from the woods after the raids, only to be dispersed again by another attack. Then in 1640 a Frenchman named Levasseur, a skilled engineer, got together a company of fifty other Frenchmen, and made a surprise raid on the island. It was immediately successful, and he declared himself governor of Tortuga. He built himself a strong fort on a high rock and armed it with cannon, he called it the Dovecote, and the only way to reach it was by means of steps cut into the rock and iron ladders.
So Tortuga became a prosperous buccaneer settlement, and the headquarters for all the sea-rovers of the Caribbean. Adventures of all nations began to flock out to the West Indies to seek their fortunes as privateers against the Spaniards. The Dutch called them "zeeroovers", the French "flibustiers", but the Spanish called them "piratas".
There were the Frenchmen, Pierre Le Grand, Daniel Montbars "the exterminator", and the cruel L'Olonnois, from Britain, John Davis, Lewis Scot, and the most famous of them all Henry Morgan, and among the Dutchmen, Edward Mansveld and Roc Brasiliano, and a young surgeon named Exquemelin, who wrote a book about the exploits of his companions.
Exquemelin went out to the West Indies in 1658, and published his book in Amsterdam in 1678. It was an immediate success, and editions in other languages soon appeared, the English translation was published in 1684, entitled, Buccaneers of America, or a true account of the most remarkable assaults committed of late years upon the coasts of the West Indies, by the Buccaniers of Jamaica and Tortuga, both English and French.
Jamaica had become the centre of the English buccaneers, following its capture by Cromwell's forces in 1655. Indeed, without the presence of the buccaneers's ships in those waters (even if their privateers commissions were a little out of date) it is very unlikely that England would have been able to hold her overseas possessions at all. Nearly 100 years before the Royal Navy established the West Indies station, the ships of the buccaneers were a kind of unofficial navy in the Caribbean.
But they were very small ships, frequently no more than small sloops, single masted, with four to six guns in the waist or on the forecaste, shallow drafted and able to creep up unseen on a Spanish galleon in the dark tropic night or the mists of Early dawn.
It was in a sloop like this that Pierre Le Grand set out with a crew of 28 men. For many days they searched for a prize, until their food and drink was exhausted. Just as they were about to give up the hunt they came up one evening with the Spanish treasure fleet, the largest galleon some way behind the rest of the fleet. The buccaneers sloop was so small the Spanish ignored it believing it to be a small fishing vessel, as the sun set Le grand and his men were able to come up under the galleon's stern without being seen. The men took of their boots so that they could climb up the ornately carved sterncastle easily, then Le Grand told his surgeon to bore holes in the bottom of the sloop so that there could be no going back on their plan. Barefooted, armed with pistols and swords, the buccaneers swarmed up on the pookdeck of the galleon, killed the unsuspecting helmsman, and burst into the great cabin where the officers were playing cards. Small wonder that the Admiral with a pistol at his breast, should have cried out "Jesus bless us! are these devils or what are they?". Other buccaneers took possession of the gunroom, and in a few minutes the ship with its vast treasure was in their hands.
But Pierre Le Grand's most remarkable action was that he then sailed his prize and crew straight back to Dieppe, where he lived a rich man in retirement for the rest of his life.
For most of the buccaneers prided themselves on the speed with which they could squander every last piece of eight they had plundered. Exquemelin wrote, 'my own master would buy, on like occasions, a whole pipe of wine and placing it in the street would force everyone that passed by to drink with him, threatening to pistol them if they would not do it. At other times he would do the same with barrels of ale or beer, and, very often, with both hands he would throw these liquors about the streets and wet the cloths of those passing by, without regarding whether he spoiled their apparel or not whether they were men or women'.
Exquemelin wrote in detail, not only about the buccaneer's exploits but their organisation. They exercised a strange democratic disipline, putting most decisions to the vote, sharing their food equally whatever the standing in the ship's company, and sometimes deposing or marooning their captains if they were dissatisfied. Each man, in fact, was hired as an individual, 'before the pirates go to sea they give notice to everyone who goes upon the voyage of the day on which they ought to embark, intimating also to them their obligation of bringing, each man in particular so many pounds of powder and shot'. each man could leave his ship and companions at any time, provided he paid for his food and drink.
All important decisions were put to the vote, 'Being all come aboard that join together in council, concerning what place they ought to go wherein to get provisions, sometimes they resolve to rob such or such hogyards, wherein the Spanish often have a thousand head of swine together. 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 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, 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, the mention how much the captain ought to have for his ship. next the salary of the carpenter, or shipwright. This commonly amounts to 100 or 150 pieces of eight. Afterwards for provisions and victualling they draw out of the 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 man ought to have, that is either wounded or maimed in his body. Thus they order for the loss of a right arm 600 pieces of eight. for the loss of a left arm 500 pieces of eight, for a right leg 500 pieces of eight, for a left leg 400 pieces of eight, for an eye 100 pieces of eight, for the loss of a finger of the hand the same reward as for an eye'.
'A very exact and equal dividend is made of the remainder among them all. Thus the Captain or chief commander, is allotted five or six portions to what the ordinary men have, the Master's Mate only two, and the other officers proportionate to their employment. After whom they draw equal parts form the highest to the lowest mariner, the boys not being omitted, it is the duty of the boys to set fire to the ship or boat wherein they are'.
'They make a common oath to each other not to abscond or to conceal the least thing they find amongst the prey. If afterwards anyone if found unfaithful, who has contravened the said oath, immediately he is separated and turned out of the society'.
The buccaneer's habit of taking a vote on any matter of importance could, of course, prove an embarrassment, there cases on record in which a vote was insisted upon at the height of a battle to decide the way in which the fight should be continued.
Soon however, strong personalities began to emerge among the buccaneer captains, who were not prepared to accept the possibility of being deposed. The ships were theirs, and the would send out word that they were "going on the account" and call for crews to join them.

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