Peter Harris (buccaneer)

Last updated

Peter Harris (the elder) (died 3 May 1680) was a British buccaneer who played a significant role in the Pacific Adventure, a privateering expedition led by Richard Sawkins and John Coxon. Harris served as one of the captains during this expedition, alongside Bartholomew Sharp and Edmund Cooke. On 25 April 1680, the buccaneers raided the mining town of Santa Maria, situated east of Panama City. After plundering the town, they set it ablaze and traveled downstream to the Pacific using canoes.

By 3 May, the buccaneers arrived at the port on Perico island, off the coast of Panama City. There, they encountered a Spanish fighting force composed of several barques and other ships. Despite ultimately emerging victorious, the buccaneers suffered the loss of twenty men, including Captain Harris. [1]

There was another buccaneer named Peter Harris, who is believed to have been a nephew of the aforementioned Captain Harris. This second Peter Harris was active in the same region during the years 1684 to 1685. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buccaneer</span> 17th / 18th-century Caribbean privateers

Buccaneers were a kind of privateer or free sailors 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Morgan</span> Privateer and political office holder in Jamaica (1635–1688)

Sir Henry Morgan born Harri Morgan was a Welsh privateer, plantation owner, and, later, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, he raided settlements and shipping on the Spanish Main, becoming wealthy as he did so. With the prize money from the raids, he purchased three large sugar plantations on the island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piracy in the Caribbean</span> Piracy in the Caribbean region from the 1500s to the 1830s

The era of piracy in the Caribbean began in the 1500s and phased out in the 1830s after the navies of the nations of Western Europe and North America with colonies in the Caribbean began combating pirates. The period during which pirates were most successful was from the 1660s to the 1730s. Piracy flourished in the Caribbean because of the existence of pirate seaports such as Port Royal in Jamaica, Tortuga in Haiti, and Nassau in the Bahamas. Piracy in the Caribbean was part of a larger historical phenomenon of piracy, as it existed close to major trade and exploration routes in almost all the five oceans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Dampier</span> British scientist, pirate and explorer (1651–1715)

William Dampier was an English explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between Sir Francis Drake and Captain James Cook ; he "bridged those two eras" with a mix of piratical derring-do of the former and scientific inquiry of the latter. His expeditions were among the first to identify and name a number of plants, animals, foods, and cooking techniques for a European audience, being among the first English writers to use words such as avocado, barbecue, and chopsticks. In describing the preparation of avocados, he was the first European to describe the making of guacamole, named the breadfruit plant, and made frequent documentation of the taste of numerous foods foreign to the European palate at the time, such as flamingo and manatee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olivier van Noort</span> Dutch privateer

Olivier van Noort was a Dutch merchant captain and pirate and the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world.

This timeline of the history of piracy in the 1680s is a chronological list of key events involving pirates between 1680 and 1689.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Age of Piracy</span> Maritime piracy from the 1650s to the 1730s

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bartholomew Sharp</span> 17th century English buccaneer

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Sawkins</span> English pirate

Richard Sawkins or Hawkins was a British buccaneer who participated in the Pacific Adventure, a privateering expedition headed by Captain John Coxon.

Cornelius Essex was a buccaneer and privateer best known for sacking Spanish Puerto Bello as part of a larger contingent of pirates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Davis (buccaneer)</span> English buccaneer

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 that raided Panama in 1671.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre le Picard</span> French buccaneer

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.

Francois Groginet was a French buccaneer and pirate active against the Pacific coast of Spanish Central America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund Cooke (pirate)</span>

Edmund Cooke was a merchant captain, buccaneer, and pirate. He is best known for sailing against the Spanish alongside Bartholomew Sharp, John Coxon, Basil Ringrose, Lionel Wafer, and other famous buccaneers. Cooke's flag was red-and-yellow striped and featured a hand holding a sword.

Robert Allison was a buccaneer, privateer, and pirate best known for assaulting Spanish Puerto Bello as part of a large flotilla of rovers.

Jean Bernanos was a French buccaneer, privateer, and pirate active in the Caribbean and across Spanish Central America.

Jean Rose was a French pirate and buccaneer active against the Spanish in Central and South America.

References

  1. Gerhard Peter, Pirates of the Pacific 1575–1742, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1960, Pp. 148–149
  2. Gerhard Peter, Pirates of the Pacific 1575–1742, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1960, Pp. 157–163