The Lost Fleet Read Free

This smoked meat was not only delicious but very desirable at a time when keeping food edible was a major concern. The boucaniers traded their smoked meat for guns, powder, tobacco, liquor, and other essentials with the ships that called at Hispaniola.
    In many ways the boucaniers of Hispaniola were like the mountain men and trappers who were the first white men into the American west. They were tough, brutal men, not fit for civilized living. Their work was hard and filthy, and they labored in sweltering, mosquito-infested jungles. They were men best left alone.
    But Spain, still hoping to maintain absolute control over the rich Caribbean, could not ignore them. Through various means, including slaughtering the animals the buccaneers hunted, the Spanish by the 1630s managed to make Hispaniola untenable for these wild men, who now numbered in the thousands.
    Driven from their hunting grounds, the buccaneers settled on the island of Tortuga, just five miles from the northwest coast of Hispaniola.
    Since 1625, Tortuga had been the home of a small French colony, complete with governor and a fortress known as the Dove Côté, though possession of the island shifted back and forth between the French and English colonists and the Spaniards who at various times captured the island, only to be driven off again. Though the island was ostensibly French, as were most of the buccaneers, there was in reality little government there. And since what little French government was there did not much care if the buccaneers were enemies of Spain, it was a fine place for the displaced hunters to make their home.
    During their hunting years, the buccaneers had sporadically attacked Spanish shipping, generally when the hunting was not good. Now, deprived of their former livelihood, and with fresh hatred of the Spanish, they began to attack shipping in earnest. In their attempt to eradicate the buccaneers, the Spaniards had created a powerful enemy. It was a classic example of the law of unintended consequences.
    Early buccaneer successes in attacking the rich homeward-bound Spanish treasure ships encouraged the former hunters to look on piracy as a full-time profession. And they were good at it. Most were excellent shots, grown expert hunting on Hispaniola. They were tough, used to fighting, and had little to lose. Invariably they attacked big ships with big crews, and though outnumbered, the buccaneers were often victorious. From small vessels they graduated to larger and larger ships as they took larger prizes. The early raids on Spanish shipping became a proving ground for these guerrilla warriors.
    As the years went on, the wild men who settled on Tortuga became increasingly organized. By the 1640s they had developed a rough pirate democracy, with formalized codes of conduct called the “Custom of the Coast,” a form of government that with some variations would be a hallmark of piracy for the next eighty years. They called themselves the Brethren of the Coast.
    H ELL T OWNS
    Piracy is nearly as old as seafaring itself. The word pirate comes from a Greek word meaning “sailor.” Julius Caesar, as a young man, was captured by pirates. But in the long history of piracy, there have been only a few genuine “hell towns,” places that not only catered to pirates but where the population and economy were almost entirely piratical. Port Royal in Jamaica was one such place, as were Nassau on New Providence Island and a number of settlements on the island of Madagascar. Tortuga was the first in the New World.
    Tortuga was so bad that around 1650, the French government imported hundreds of prostitutes to the island in an effort to civilize the buccaneers, but this measure had little effect. By 1678, thereexisted in the Caribbean a genuine outlaw community, a population without a legitimate government. The Brethren of the Coast rejected most aspects of civilized society, submission to authority being first on the list.
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