“Nugget of Knowledge” #4 – Port Royal, Jamaica
Port Royal provided a safe harbour initially for privateers and subsequently for pirates plying the shipping lanes to and from Spain and Panama. Buccaneers…
“Nugget of Knowledge” #3 – The “Golden” Age
“The Golden Age of Piracy” is a period of piracy that lasted from roughly 1680 through 1730 and was centered in the Caribbean. In the previous entry, we talked of the island of Dry Tortuga being the early pirate center of the era. By 1680, Dry Tortuga began to wane as a focal point for piracy. At the beginning of the 1700’s…
“Nugget of Knowledge” #2 – Tortuga
A number of attempts to dislodge the colony by the Spaniards, including an attack in 1664 that destroyed and occupy the colony, failed when the Spaniards were forced…
“Nugget of Knowledge” #1, – Buccaneers
The term buccaneer (French-boucanier) is from the language of an indigenous Caribbean population known as the “Tupi”, and referred to a wooden rack called a “bucan” that they used to smoke the meat they hunted from native cattle and oxen found in the region. By extension, the term came to refer to…
