The Buccaneer’s Realm: Pirate Life on the Spanish Main, 1674–1688 (review)

The Peace Treaty of 1674 ended the Third Anglo-Dutch War, brought peace between Spain and England, and turned privateers, legalized pirates operating with a letter of marque, into buccaneers. The name buccaneer has its origins with the boucaniers, originally cattle and pig hunters on the island of Hispaniola, former soldiers who survived the failed English attempt in 1655 to conquer Hispaniola. The name boucanier refers to the boucan, the grate on which meat was cured over a fire. The first boucaniers were essentially men who hunted pigs and cattle to barbecue the meat for immediate consumption or for drying in the sun to make jerky.

Should you wish to prepare an authentic Boucanier barbecue, Appendix E in this book gives a detailed account, including the recipe for the rum punch required to accompany the barbecue. Indeed, there is little about the buccaneer’s life that is not covered in this detailed and informative book. The buccaneer’s activities, diet, dress, sex life, health, wealth, and society on the Spanish Main are explained with enthusiasm and excitement. The author reveals the buccaneer’s world through numerous first-person accounts and explains the buccaneer’s social life both on land and sea.

The Buccaneer’s Realm is also a naval history, recreating numerous small sea battles between the buccaneers and the primarily Spanish ships, from treasure galleons to sloops, they attacked. Piracy proved far more rewarding than making and selling jerky!

The author concurs with the debunkers of pirate myths such as buried treasure and treasure maps (buccaneers had neither time to nor interest in saving any wealth they stole). Little understands and explains the realities of life aboard a buccaneer sailing vessel where crews battled odors, vermin, poor rations, as well as the tempests of the sea and enemy men of war.

The buccaneers sailed the Spanish Main, referred to simply as the Main, which in 1674 ranged from Florida southward along the Central and South American coast until it was interrupted by the bulge of the Portuguese colony of Brazil. In a modern sense, the Main, Benerson points out, refers to the Caribbean, both sea and islands. The book’s geography encompasses both and readers are assisted by eight useful maps.

Little claims that the return of war between the great powers in 1688 postponed the rise of unrestrained piracy. When the so-called “Golden Age of Piracy” did take place in the early 1700s the infamous Anglo American pirates like Blackbeard “preyed almost entirely on weak merchantmen at sea” and, unlike the buccaneers of the 1670s and 1680s, avoided attacking cities and men-of-war (p. 220).

Benerson Little’s earlier book, The Sea Rover’s Practice: Pirate Tactics and Techniques, 1630–1730, displayed his masterful knowledge of the subject and he brings that perspective to the sea actions of the buccaneers. As a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer and an analyst for the Naval Special Warfare Center Strategy and Tactics Group, he understands maritime life and effectively recreates buccaneer chases and captures. Little relies on published sources, particularly Alexandre Exquemelin’s History of the Bouccaneers of America, first published in Amsterdam in 1678 and still the standard work, and the English buccaneer William Dampier’s three accounts of voyages published in 1697 and 1729, for much of his material. He does not cite in text or bibliography the most readable and authoritative book on pirates, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly.

Though the writing and organization could be more reader friendly, The Buccaneer’s Realm: Pirate Life on the Spanish Main, 1674–1688 is a valuable source for understanding the buccaneer’s life on land and at sea.