Buccaneers were a kind of privateer or free sailors, and pirates particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 until about 1688, during a time when governments in the Caribbean area were not strong enough to suppress them.
Sir Henry Morgan was a Welsh privateer, plantation owner, and, later, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, he and those under his command raided settlements and shipping ports on the Spanish Main, becoming wealthy as they did so. With the prize money and loot from the raids, Morgan purchased three large sugar plantations on Jamaica.
Tortuga Island is a Caribbean island that forms part of Haiti, off the northwest coast of Hispaniola. It constitutes the commune of Île de la Tortue in the Port-de-Paix arrondissement of the Nord-Ouest department of Haiti.
Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin was a French, Dutch, or Flemish writer best known as the author of one of the most important sourcebooks of 17th-century piracy, first published in Dutch as De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, in Amsterdam, by Jan ten Hoorn, in 1678.
This timeline of the history of piracy in the 1680s is a chronological list of key events involving pirates between 1680 and 1689.
Jean-David Nau, better known as François l'Olonnais, was a French pirate active in the Caribbean during the 1660s.
The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation for the period between the 1650s and the 1730s, when maritime piracy was a significant factor in the histories of the North Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Robert Searle was one of the earliest and most active of the English buccaneers on Jamaica.
Roche Braziliano was a Dutch pirate from the town of Groningen. His piratical career lasted from 1654 until his disappearance c. 1671. He was first made famous in Alexandre Exquemelin's 1678 book The Buccaneers of America; Exquemelin did not know Braziliano's real name, but historians have argued his probable real name was Gerrit Gerritszoon and that he and his parents had moved to Dutch Brazil. He is known as "Roche Braziliano", which in English translates to "Rock the Brazilian", due to his long exile in Brazil.
David Marteen was a Dutch privateer and pirate best known for joining Henry Morgan’s raids against Spanish strongholds in present-day Mexico and Nicaragua. He is also the subject of a popular buried treasure legend.
Pierre le Grand was a French buccaneer supposedly active during the 17th century. He is known to history from only one source, Alexandre Exquemelin's Buccaneers of America, and thus his historical existence has been questioned. The accounts that Exquemelin gives of Le Grand and another buccaneer named Pierre Francois are also remarkably similar. It is possible that Exquemelin, who was not an eye-witness to these events, was confused. Pierre le Grand could have been a nickname for Pierre Francois. However, there does seem to be at least one reference to Le Grand in historical records other than Exquemelin. C. H. Haring's well-researched 'The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century' (1910), note 1 on page 135, refers to a Spanish report that credited Pierre Legrand with leading a raid against Spanish settlements in Cuba and Havana in 1665. English records, however, credit Edward Mansfield with leading these attacks.
The Brethren or Brethren of the Coast were a loose coalition of pirates and buccaneers that were active in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico. They mostly operated in two locations, the island of Tortuga off the coast of Haiti and in the city of Port Royal on the island of Jamaica.
Captain John Coxon, sometimes referred to as John Coxen, was a late-seventeenth-century buccaneer who terrorized the Spanish Main. Coxon was one of the most famous of the Brethren of the Coast, a loose consortium of pirates and privateers. Coxon lived during the Buccaneering Age of Piracy.
Laurens Prins, anglicized as Lawrence Prince, was a 17th-century Dutch buccaneer, privateer and an officer under Captain Sir Henry Morgan. He and Major John Morris led one of the columns that raided Panama in 1671.
Pierre le Picard was a 17th-century French buccaneer. He was both an officer to l'Olonnais as well as Sir Henry Morgan, most notably taking part in his raids at Maracaibo and Panama, and may have been one of the first buccaneers to raid shipping on both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts.
The Providence Island colony was established in 1630 by English Puritans on Providence Island, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of the coast of Nicaragua. It was founded and controlled by a group of English investors, the Providence Island Company.
The Sack of Campeche, known to later Spanish historians as Mansfield's Assault, was a 1663 raid by pirates led by Christopher Myngs and Edward Mansvelt which became a model for later coastal pirate raids of the buccaneering era.
Francis Witherborn was an English buccaneer, privateer, and pirate active in the Caribbean. He is best known for his brief association with Henry Morgan.
Henry Morgan's raid on Porto Bello was a military event which took place in the latter half of the Anglo-Spanish war beginning on 10 July 1668. Notable Welsh Buccaneer Henry Morgan led a largely English Privateer force against the heavily fortified town of Porto Bello. After landing Morgan and his men attempted to take the castles protecting the town. One such involved using captured citizens as human shields to seize one of the castles. After capturing them all by force the privateers subsequently entered the city and then plundered it before Morgan demanded a large ransom from the Governor of Panama Don Agustín de Bracamonte. While the negotiations for this was going on – Bracamonte led a sizeable force from Panama City intent on recapturing the city and putting the privateers to the sword.
Henry Morgan's raid on Puerto del Príncipe was a military event which took place during the latter stage of the Anglo-Spanish War between March and April 1668 on the Spanish island of Cuba. Some 700 Buccaneers in twelve ships led by Captain Henry Morgan landed in the Gulf of Santa María and marched to capture the inland town of Puerto del Príncipe.
