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
{58}
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
{59}
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
{60}
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
{61}
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
{63}
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
{64}
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
{65}
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
{66}
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
{68}
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
{69}
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
{70}
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
{72}
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
{73}
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
{74}
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,
{75}
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 manœuvred, 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
{76}
sunk their small craft, they manœuvred 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
{77}
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 eight111
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
{78}
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
{79}
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
{80}
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
{81}
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
{82}
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,
{83}
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
{84}
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.
Footnote 83: (return)Bibl. Nat., Nouv. Acq., 9334, f. 48.
Footnote 84: (return)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: (return)Ibid., p. 131.
Footnote 86: (return)Ibid.
Footnote 87: (return)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: (return)C.S.P. Colon., 1574-1660, pp. 131-33.
Footnote 89: (return)Ibid., pp. 174, 175.
Footnote 90: (return)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: (return)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: (return)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: (return)Brit. Mus., Add. MSS., 13,977, pp. 222-23.
Footnote 94: (return)Ibid., pp. 226-27, 235.
Footnote 95: (return)Ibid., pp. 226, 233, 235-37, 244.
Footnote 96: (return)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: (return)Charlevoix, op. cit., liv. vii. p. 10; Bibl. Nat. Nouv. Acq., 9334, p. 48 ff.
Footnote 98: (return)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: (return)Dutertre: Histoire générale des Antilles, tom. i. p. 171.
Footnote 100: (return)Charlevoix: op. cit., liv. vii. pp. 12-13.
Footnote 101: (return)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: (return)Labat: Nouveau voyage aux isles de l'Amerique, ed. 1742, tom. vii. p. 233.
Footnote 103: (return)Le Pers, printed in Margry, op. cit.
Footnote 104: (return)Le Pers, printed in Margry, op. cit.
Footnote 105: (return)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: (return)Labat, op. cit., tom. i. ch. 9.
Footnote 107: (return)Labat, op. cit., tom. vii. ch. 17.
Footnote 108: (return)Ibid., tom. ii. ch. 17.
Footnote 109: (return)Gibbs: British Honduras, p. 25.
Footnote 110: (return)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: (return)A piece of eight was worth in Jamaica from 4s. 6d. to 5s.
Footnote 112: (return) Exquemelin, ed. 1684, Part I. pp. 21-22.
Footnote 113: (return) Dutertre, op. cit., tom. i. ch. vi.
Footnote 114: (return) Charlevoix, op. cit., liv. vii. p. 16.
Footnote 115: (return)Charlevoix, op. cit., liv. vii. pp. 17-18.
Footnote 116: (return)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: (return)Add. MSS., 13,992, f. 499.Footnote 118: (return)
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