Pirates of the Caribbean v7 #2

Pirates were often former sailors used to naval warfare. They were called buccaneers, from the French boucanier (to smoke meat) on a boucan (wooden... more

by John Straton

Title

Pirates of the Caribbean v7 #2

Artist

John Straton

Medium

Photograph

Description

Pirates were often former sailors used to naval warfare. They were called buccaneers, from the French "boucanier" (to smoke meat) on a "boucan" (wooden frame set over a fire.)[3] By setting up smokey fires and boucans with the prepared meat of marooned cattle, these castaways could lure a ship to draw near for trading, at which time the buccaneers could seize the ship. The buccaneers were later chased off their islands by colonial authorities and had to seek a new life at sea, where they continued their ship raiding.[citation needed] Beginning in the 16th century, pirate captains recruited seamen to loot European merchant ships, especially the Spanish treasure fleets sailing from the Caribbean to Europe. The following quote by an 18th-century Welsh captain shows the motivations for piracy:

In an honest Service, there is thin Commons, low Wages, and hard Labour; in this, Plenty and Satiety, Pleasure and Ease, Liberty and Power; and who would not balance Creditor on this Side, when all the Hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sower Look or two at choking. No, a merry Life and a short one shall be my Motto.
Pirate Captain Bartholomew Roberts

Piracy was sometimes given legal status by the colonial powers, especially France under King Francis I (r.15151547), in the hope of weakening Spain and Portugal's mare clausum trade monopolies in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. This officially sanctioned piracy was known as privateering. From 1520 to 1560, French privateers were alone in their fight against the Crown of Spain and the vast commerce of the Spanish Empire in the New World, but were later joined by the English and Dutch.

The Caribbean had become a center of European trade and colonization after Columbus' discovery of the New World for Spain in 1492. In the 1493 Treaty of Tordesillas the non-European world had been divided between the Spanish and the Portuguese along a north-south line 270 leagues west of the Cape Verde. This gave Spain control of the Americas, a position the Spaniards later reiterated with an equally unenforceable papal bull (The Inter caetera). On the Spanish Main, the key early settlements were Cartagena in present-day Colombia, Porto Bello and Panama City on the Isthmus of Panama, Santiago on the southeastern coast of Cuba, and Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola. In the 16th century, the Spanish were mining extremely large quantities of silver from the mines of Zacatecas in New Spain (Mexico) and Potos in Bolivia (formerly known as Alto Peru). The huge Spanish silver shipments from the New World to the Old attracted pirates and French privateers like Franois Leclerc or Jean Fleury, both in the Caribbean and across the Atlantic, all along the route from the Caribbean to Seville.

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October 10th, 2014