French buccaneers established a settlement on the island of Tortuga in 1625, and were soon joined by like minded English and Dutch privateers and pirates, who formed a lawless international community that survived by preying on Spanish ships and hunting wild cattle.

The buccaneers were pirates who attacked Spanish shipping in the Caribbean Sea during the 17th century.

The Spaniards tried to drive them out of Tortuga, but the buccaneers were joined by many other French, Dutch and English and turned to piracy against Spanish shipping, generally using small craft to attack galleons in the vicinity of the Windward Passage.

There even were Royal Navy officers sent to lead the buccaneers, such as Christopher Myngs.

Among the leaders of the buccaneers were two Frenchmen:

Many of the letters of marque used by buccaneers were legally invalid, and any form of legal paper in that illiterate age might be passed off as a letter of marque.

The legal status of buccaneers was still further obscured by the practice of the Spanish authorities, who regarded them as heretics and interlopers, and thus hanged or garrotted captured buccaneers entirely without regard to whether their attacks were licensed by French or English monarchs.

Although a few historians have claimed, with no evidence, that homosexuality was universal among the buccaneers, it is recognized by most that matelots shared women as well as their chattels, and that buccaneers were frequent and enthusiastic patrons of female prostitutes.

* In 1625 French buccaneers established a settlement on Tortuga, just to the north of Hispaniola, that the Spanish were never able to permanently destroy despite several attempts.

In the ensuing years Cozumel was often the target of attacks by pirates, and in1650, many of the islanders were forcebly relocated to the mainland town of Xcan Boloná to avoid the buccaneers ’ predation.

By 1640, the buccaneers of Tortuga were calling themselves the Brethren of the Coast.

The Spaniards however had been warned of their approach and had sent the gold to Panama and by the time the buccaneers had reached Santa Maria most of the party were in favour of stealing out on the Pacific Ocean in the Mosquito's canoes.

* April 23-Arriving at Panama the buccaneers encountered three Spanish warships, one of which commanded by Captain Peralta who had previously fought against Sir Henry Morgan's raid of Panama only a decade before, engaging in a day long battle ending after two of the Spanish ships were boarded and forcing the remaining ship to retreat.

By 1863 when Samuel Baker arrived Gondokoro, boats of buccaneers ( even one flying an American flag ) were anchoring at Gondokoro, with the sole purpose of picking up slaves to the new world.

He played a significant part in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection in March 1837 when he confirmed that the giant Galápagos tortoises were native to the islands, not brought in by buccaneers for food as Darwin had thought.

The term ' buck ', as in buck dancing, is traceable to the West Indies and is derived from a Tupi Indian word denoting a frame for drying and smoking meat ; the original ' po bockarau ', or buccaneers were sailors who smoked meat and fish after the manner of the Indians.

In 1684 the French and Spanish signed the Treaty of Ratisbon that included provisions to suppress the actions of the Caribbean privateers, which effectively ended the era of the buccaneers on Tortuga, many being employed by the French Crown to hunt down any of their former comrades who preferred to turn outright pirate.

Others, the buccaneers, arrived in the mid-to-late 17th century and made attempts at earning a living by farming and hunting on Hispaniola and nearby islands ; pressed by Spanish raids and possibly failure of their means of making a living ( wild herds having been deliberately wiped out by the Spanish ) they turned to a more lucrative occupation.

Notably, at the 1697 joint French-buccaneer siege of Cartagena, led by Bernard Desjean, Baron de Pointis, the buccaneers and the French regulars parted on extremely bitter terms.

Less tolerated by local Caribbean officials, buccaneers increasingly turned to legal work or else joined regular pirate crews who sought plunder in the Indian Ocean, the east coast of North America, or West Africa as well as in the Caribbean.

As a rule, the buccaneers called themselves privateers, and many sailed under the protection of a letter of marque granted by British, French or Dutch authorities.

Furthermore, even those buccaneers who had valid letters of marque often failed to observe their terms ; Morgan's 1671 attack on Panama, for instance, was not at all authorized by his commission from the governor of Jamaica.

As the western part of Santo Domingo was neglected by the Spanish authorities, French buccaneers settled there, first on the Ile de la Tortue ( Tortuga, Tortoise ), then on Grande Terre ( mainland ).

Cutlasses are famous for being used by pirates, although there is no reason to believe that Caribbean buccaneers invented them, as has sometimes been claimed.

In the next scene pirates run around chasing women holding trays of food, and two foolish buccaneers who have stolen snacks are chased by an angry woman holding a rolling pin.

In the course of time and subjected by the ravages of Moro piracy, the natives had to fight back the buccaneers as well as the tulisanes at the end of the 19th century.

When a Spanish force attacks and raids the town of Bridgetown, Blood escapes with a number of other convict-slaves ( including former shipmaster Jeremy Pitt, the one-eyed giant Edward Wolverstone, former gentleman Nathaniel Hagthorpe, former Royal Navy petty officer Nicholas Dyke and former Royal Navy master gunner Ned Ogle ), captures the Spaniards ' ship and sails away to become one of the most successful pirates / buccaneers in the Caribbean, hated and feared by the Spanish.

From 1630 onward, the island of Tortuga was divided into French and English colonies allowing buccaneers to use the island more frequently as their main base of operations.

* July 6-Laurens de Graff and Michel de Grammont storm ashore at Campeche with a force of 750 men and begin looting the city for two months while the Armada de Barlovento searches for the buccaneers base on the island of Roatán off the coast of Honduras.

Carousing with the buccaneers for whom the island was a refuge, the Drummonds fell in with the pirate John Bowen of Bermuda who offered loot if they lent the Scots ships to him for a raid on homeward bound Indiamen.

This expedition collected buccaneers and ships as it went along, at one time having a fleet of ten vessels.

Joined by eight other privateers, in addition to fifty English South Sea buccaneers, Wright sailed from the San Blas Islands intending to raid a Spanish city, most likely the city of Cartago in Costa Rica, however many of the privateers missed the rendezvous at San Andrés Island.

* Based near the Tres Marias Islands at the mouth of the Gulf of California around 50 French buccaneers, later joined by 30 more, and led by Captain Franz Rools begin raiding Spanish shipping and coastal settlements in New Spain and Peru.

The buccaneers robbed Spanish shipping and colonies, and returned to Port Royal with their plunder, making the city the most prosperous in the Caribbean.

Colonial Cuba was a frequent target of buccaneers, pirates and French corsairs seeking Spain's New World riches.

French and English buccaneers took advantage of Spain's retreat into a corner of Hispaniola to settle the island of Tortuga, off the northwest coast of Hispaniola, in 1629.

Although the Spanish destroyed the buccaneers ' settlements in 1629, 1635, 1638 and 1654, on each occasion they returned.

By that time, planters outnumbered buccaneers and, with the encouragement of Louis XIV, they had begun to grow tobacco, indigo, cotton, and cacao on the fertile northern plain, thus prompting the importation of African slaves.

Under early English rule Jamaica became a haven of privateers, buccaneers, and occasionally outright pirates: Christopher Myngs, Edward Mansvelt, and most famously, Henry Morgan.

At various times these remains have been speculatively attributed to " wrecked seamen ", " buccaneers ", " South American Incas ", " early Chinese navigators ", etc.

Anderson notes that " either the encounter with Fortinbras ' army nor Hamlet's brush with buccaneers appears in any of the play's sources – to the puzzlement of numerous literary critics.

English settlers occupying Jamaica began to spread the name buccaneers with the meaning of pirates.

So, the English crown licensed buccaneers with letters of marque, legalizing their operations in return for a share of their profits.

The status of buccaneers as pirates or privateers was ambiguous.