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Buccaneers were a kind of privateers or free sailors peculiar 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 were not strong enough and did not consistently attempt to suppress them.
Antonio de Mendoza y Pacheco was the first Viceroy of New Spain, serving from November 14, 1535 to November 25, 1550, and the third Viceroy of Peru, from September 23, 1551, until his death on July 21, 1552.
William Wright was an English privateer in French service and later buccaneer who raided Spanish towns in the late 17th century.
Robert Searle was one of the earliest and most active of the English buccaneers on Jamaica.
Michel de Grammont was a French privateer. He was born in Paris, Kingdom of France and was lost at sea in the north-east Caribbean, April 1686. His privateer career lasted from around 1670 to 1686 during which he commanded the flagship Hardi. He primarily attacked Spanish holdings in Maracaibo, Gibraltar, Trujillo, La Guaira, Puerto Cabello, Cumana and Veracruz.
Bartholomew Sharp was an English buccaneer and privateer. His career of piracy lasted seven years (1675–1682). In the Caribbean he took several ships, and raided the Gulf of Honduras and Portobelo. He took command of an expedition into the Pacific and spent months raiding settlements on the Pacific Coast of South America including La Serena which he torched in 1680. His flagship, taken at Panama, was the Trinity.
William Knight was a 17th-century English buccaneer and pirate known for joining privateering expeditions against Spanish colonies in Central and South America.
Edward Davis or Davies was an English buccaneer active in the Caribbean during the 1680s and would lead successful raids against Leon and Panama in 1685, the latter considered one of the last major buccaneer raids against a Spanish stronghold. Much of his career was later recorded by writer William Dampier in A New Voyage Round the World (1697).
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 against Panama in 1671.
Edward Mansvelt or Mansfield was a 17th-century Dutch corsair and buccaneer who, at one time, was acknowledged as an informal chieftain of the "Brethren of the Coast". He was the first to organise large scale raids against Spanish settlements, tactics which would be utilised to attack Spanish strongholds by later buccaneers in future years, and held considerable influence in Tortuga and Port Royal. He was widely considered one of the finest buccaneers of his day and, following his death, his position was assumed by his protégé and vice-admiral, Henry Morgan.
Pierre le Picard (1624–1690?) 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 Chepo expedition was a pirate voyage led by Spanish renegades Juan Guartem, Eduardo Blomar and Bartolomé Charpes in the Spanish Main during 1679. Sailing up the Mandinga River, the expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama into the Pacific where they raided shipping for several months as well as looting and then burning the town of Chepo, Panama. They were tried in absentia by the Viceroy of Bogotá and on his orders were burned in effigy at Santa Fe de Bogotá. However, the three continued committing piracy on both coasts of Central America and were never caught for their crimes. This was the second major expedition following the "Pacific Adventure" led by John Coxon that same year.
Michiel Andrieszoon was a Dutch buccaneer who served as lieutenant to Captain Laurens de Graaf. He commanded the le Tigre, which had a 300-man crew and was armed with between 30-36 guns. He is occasionally referred to in English as Michel or Mitchell, and is often erroneously given the nickname "Bréha Michiel".
The western Caribbean zone is a region consisting of the Caribbean coasts of Central America and Colombia, from the Yucatán Peninsula in southern Mexico to the Caribbean region in northern Colombia, and the islands west of Jamaica are also included. The zone emerged in the late sixteenth century as the Spanish failed to completely conquer many sections of the coast, and northern European powers supported opposition to Spain, sometimes through alliances with local powers.
The Sack of Campeche 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.
Francois Groginet was a French buccaneer and pirate active against the Pacific coast of Spanish Central America.
Alexandre Bras-de-Fer was a flibustier in the latter half of the mid-17th century. He is best known for capturing a Spanish ship after being shipwrecked, though his story is possibly apocryphal.
The Villa de Santa María de la Victoria was located in what is now the Mexican state of Tabasco. Now no longer in existence, it was located in the place occupied by the Mayan city of Potonchán, capital of the kingdom of Tabscoob.
References
- Anderson, Charles Loftus Grant. Old Panama and Castilla Del Oro: A Narrative History of the Discovery, Conquest and Settlement by the Spaniards of Panama, Darien, Veragua, Santo Domingo, Santa Maria, Cartegena, Nicaragua and Peru. Boston: Page Company, 1914.
- Scruggs, William Lindsay. The Colombian and Venezuelan Republics: With Notes on Other Parts of Central and South America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1900.
