BUCCANEER, one who dries and smokes flesh or fish after the manner of the Indians. The name was particularly given to the first French settlers on the island of St Domingo or Hayti, whose sole employment consisted in hunting bulls or wild boars, in order to sell their hides and flesh. The name has also been applied to those famous piratical adventurers, chiefly English and French, who joined together to commit depredations on the Spaniards of America. Of both these we shall give an account.

1. The Buccaneers of St Domingo.—The Spaniards had not long been in possession of the West Indies and of the continent of America, when other nations, especially the English and French, began to seek establishments there. But though the Spaniards were unable to people such extensive countries themselves, they were resolved that no others should do it for them, and therefore waged a cruel war on all those of any other nation who attempted to settle in any of the Antilles or Caribbee Islands. The French, however, were at last lucky enough to acquire some footing in the island of St Christophers; but by the time they began to subside into a regular form of government, the Spaniards found means to dislodge them. Upon this the wretched fugitives, considering at how great a distance they were from their mother country, and how near to the island of Hispaniola or St Domingo, the northern parts of which were then uninhabited, and full of swine and black cattle, immediately resolved to take possession of that country, in conjunction with several other adventurers of their own and the English nation; especially as the Dutch, who now began to appear in these seas, promised to supply them plentifully with all kinds of necessaries they might require, in exchange for the hides and tallow they should procure by hunting.

These new settlers obtained the name of buccaneers, from their custom of bucaning their beef and pork in order to keep it for sale or for their own consumption. But some of them soon grew tired of this new way of life, and took to planting; whilst many more chose to turn pirates, trusting to find among those who remained on shore a quick sale for all the plunder they could make at sea. This new body of adventurers were called freebooters, from their making free prey or booty of whatever came in their way.

The colony now began to thrive at a great rate, by the cheap and easy manner in which the freebooters acquired the greatest riches, and the profusion with which they distributed them amongst their old companions, the buccaneers and planters, for the merest trifles. This brought numbers of settlers from France in quality of indentured servants, though they toiled rather like slaves than servants during the three years for which they generally bound themselves. One of these men presuming to represent to his master, who always fixed upon a Sunday for sending him with skins to the port, that God had forbidden such a practice when he had declared that "six days shalt thou labour, and on the seventh day shalt thou rest," the brutal buccaneer replied, "And I say to thee, six days shalt thou kill bulls, and strip them of their skins, and on the seventh day shalt thou carry their hides to the sea shores;" and this command was followed by blows. Thus the colony consisted of four classes: buccaneers, freebooters, planters, and indentured servants who generally remained with the buccaneers or planters. And these four orders composed what they now began to call the body of adventurers, who lived together in perfect harmony; under a kind of democracy; every freeman having a despotic authority over his own family, and every captain being sovereign in his ship, though liable to be discarded at the discretion of the crew.

The planters had settled chiefly in the little island of Tortuga, on the northern coast of Hispaniola; but soon afterwards some of them having gone to the great island to hunt with the buccaneers, the rest were surprised by the Spaniards; and all, even those who had surrendered at discretion in hopes of mercy, were put to the sword or hanged. The next care of the Spaniards was to rid the great island of the buccaneers; and for this purpose they assembled a body of five hundred lance-men, who, by their seldom going fewer than fifty in a company, obtained from their enemies the name of the Fifties. But before detailing the particulars of this attack we shall endeavour to give some account of the manners and customs of the people whom it was proposed to extirpate.

The buccaneers lived in little huts built on some spots of cleared ground, just large enough to dry their skins on, and contain their buccaneering houses. These spots they called bousons, and the huts they dwelt in ajoupas, a word which they borrowed from the Spaniards, and the Spaniards from the natives. Though these ajoupas lay open on all sides, they were very agreeable to the hardy inhabitants, in a climate where wind and air are so very desirable things. As the buccaneers had neither wives nor children, they associated by pairs, and mutually rendered each other all the services a master could reasonably expect from a servant, living together in so perfect a community, that the survivor always succeeded his deceased partner. This kind of union or fellowship they called s'mateletor (insailing), and each other matelet (sailor), whence is derived the custom of giving, at least in some parts of the French Antilles, the name mateletage (sailorage) to any kind of society formed by private persons for their mutual advantage. They behaved to each other with the greatest justice and openness of heart; it was considered as a crime to keep anything under lock and key; but, on the other hand, the least pilfering was unpardonable, and punished with expulsion from the community. And, indeed, there could be no great temptation to steal, seeing it was reckoned a point of honour never to refuse a neighbour what he wanted; and where there was so little property, it was impossible there should be many disputes. If any such happened, the common friends of the parties at variance interposed, and soon put an end to the difference.

As to laws, the buccaneers acknowledged none but an odd jumble of conventions made between themselves, which, however, they regarded as the sovereign rule. They silenced all objections by cooly answering, that it was not the custom of the coast; and grounded their right of acting in this manner on their baptism under the tropic, which freed them, in their opinion, from all obligations antecedent to that marine ceremony. The governor of Tortuga, when that island was again settled, though appointed by the French court, had very little authority over them; and they contented themselves with rendering him from time to time some slight homage. They had in a manner entirely shaken off the yoke of religion, and thought they did a great deal in not wholly forgetting the God of their fathers. We are surprised to meet with nations among whom it is a difficult matter to discover any trace of a religious worship; and yet it is certain, that had the buccaneers of St Domingo been perpetuated on the same footing on which they subsisted at the time we are speaking of, the third or fourth generation of them would have possessed as little religion as the Caffres and Hottentots of Africa, or the Cannibals of the South Sea Islands.

They even laid aside their surnames, and assumed nicknames or martial names, most of which afterwards continued in their families. Many, however, on their marrying, which seldom happened till they turned planters, took care to have their real surnames inserted in the French contract; and this practice gave occasion to a proverb, which long remained current in the French Antilles, that a man is not to be known till he takes a wife.

Their dress consisted of a filthy greasy shirt, dyed with the blood of the animals they killed; a pair of trousers still more nasty; a thong of leather by way of belt, to which they hung a case containing some Dutch knives, and a kind of short sabre called manchette; a hat without any brim, except a little flap in the front; and shoes of Bucaner hogs' skin, all of a piece. Their guns were four feet and a half in the barrel, and of a calibre sufficient to admit balls of an ounce. Every man had his contract servants, more or fewer according to his abilities; besides a pack of twenty or thirty dogs, among which there was always a couple of beagles. Their chief employment at first was ox-hunting; and if at any time they chased a wild hog, it was rather for pastime, or to make provision for a feast, than for any other advantage. But in process of time some of them betook themselves entirely to the hunting of hogs, whose flesh they buccaneered in the following manner: first, they cut the flesh into long pieces, an inch and a half thick, and sprinkled them with salt, which they rubbed off after twenty-four hours; then they dried these pieces in stoves, over a fire made of the skin and bones of the beast, till they grew as hard as a board, and assumed a deep brown colour. Pork prepared in this manner might be kept in casks a twelvemonth and longer; and when steeped a little while in lukewarm water, it became plump and rosy, yielding, either broiled, boiled, or otherwise dressed, a grateful smell, sufficient to tempt the most languid appetite and please the most delicate palate.

In hunting, they set out at day-break, preceded by the beagles, and followed by their servants with the rest of the dogs; and as they made it a point never to baulk their beagles, they were often led by them over the most frightful precipices, and through places which any other mortal would have deemed absolutely impassable. As soon as the beagles had roused the game, the rest of the dogs struck up and surrounded the beast, stopping it, and keeping a constant barking till the buccaneer could get near enough to shoot it, in doing which he commonly aimed at the pit of the breast; and when the beast fell he hamstring it, to prevent its rising again. But it has sometimes happened that the creature, not wounded enough to tumble to the ground, has run furiously at his pursuer, and ripped him open. In general, however, the buccaneer seldom missed his aim; and when he did, he was nimble enough to get up the tree behind which he usually had the precaution to place himself; whilst some of them have been seen to overtake the beast in chase, and hamstring it without any further ceremony.

As soon as the prey was half skinned, the master cut out a large bone, and sucked the marrow for breakfast; leaving the rest to his servants, one of whom always remained behind to finish the skinning, and bring the skin, with a choice piece of meat for the huntsman's dinner. They then continued the chase till they had killed as many beasts as there were heads in the company. The master was the last to return to the boat, loaded like the rest with a skin and a piece of meat. Here the buccaneers found their tables ready; for every one had his separate table, which was the first thing, any way fit for the purpose, that came in their way, a stone, the trunk of a tree, and the like. No table-cloth, no napkin, no bread or wine, graced their board; not even potatoes, or bananas, unless they found them ready to their hand. When this did not happen, the fat and lean of the game, taken alternately, served to supply the place. A little pimento, and the juice of an orange, formed their only sauce; contentment, peace of mind, a good appetite, and abundance of mirth, made everything agreeable. Thus they lived and spent their time, till they had completed the number of hides for which they had agreed with the merchants; which done, they carried them to Tortuga, or some port of the great island.

As the buccaneers used much exercise, and fed only on flesh, they generally enjoyed a good state of health. They were indeed subject to fevers; but these were either such Bucaneer, as lasted only a day, and left no sensible impression the day following, or slight slow fevers, which did not hinder them from action, and were of course so little regarded, that it was usual with the patient, when asked how he did, to answer, "Very well; nothing ails me but the fever." It was impossible, however, that they should not suffer considerably by such fatigues, under a climate to the heat of which few of them had been early enough inured. Hence the most considerate among them, after they had got money enough for that purpose, turned planters;—the rest soon spent the fruits of their labour in taverns and tippling-houses; and many had so habituated themselves to this kind of life, as to become incapable of any other. Nay, there have been instances of young men, who having early embarked through necessity in this painful and dangerous profession, persisted in it afterwards, merely through a principle of libertinism, rather than return to France and take possession of the most plentiful fortunes.

Such were the buccaneers of St Domingo, and such was their situation when the Spaniards undertook to extirpate them. And at first the assailants met with great success; for as the buccaneers hunted separately, every one attended by his servants, they were easily surprised. Hence the Spaniards killed numbers, and took many more, whom they condemned to a most cruel slavery. But whenever the buccaneers had time to put themselves into a state of defence, they fought like lions, to avoid falling into the hands of a nation from whom they were sure to receive no quarter; and by this means they often escaped; nay, there are many instances of single men fighting their way through numbers. These dangers, however, and the success of the Spaniards in discovering their boucans, where they used to surprise and cut the throats of the buccaneers and their servants in their sleep, engaged them to cohabit in greater numbers, and even to act offensively, in hopes that by so doing they might at last induce the Spaniards to let them live in peace. But the fury with which they behaved whenever they met any Spaniards served only to make their enemies more intent on their destruction; and assistance coming to both parties, the whole island was turned into a slaughter-house, and so much blood spilt on both sides, that many places, on account of the carnage of which they had been the scenes, were described as the hill of the massacre, the plain of the massacre, the valley of the massacre, and so forth.

At length the Spaniards grew tired of this mode of proceeding, and had recourse to their old method of surprise, which, against enemies of more courage than vigilance, was likely to succeed better. This placed the buccaneers under a necessity of never hunting except in large parties, and fixing their boucans in the little islands on the coast, where they retired every evening; an expedient which succeeded very well; and the boucans, by being more fixed, soon acquired the air and consistency of little towns. When the buccaneers had once established themselves, as here related, each boucan sent out scouts every morning to the highest part of the island, in order to reconnoitre the coast, and see if any Spanish parties were abroad. If no enemy appeared, they appointed a place and hour of rendezvous in the evening, and were never absent if not killed or made prisoners. When, therefore, any one of the company was missing, it was not lawful for the rest to hunt again till they had got intelligence of him if taken, or avenged his death if killed. Things continued in this situation for a long time, till the Spaniards made a general hunt over the whole island, and, by destroying the game, forced the buccaneers to betake themselves to another course of life. Some of them turned planters, and thus increased the French settlements on the coast, or formed others; whilst the rest, not relishing so confined and regular a life, entered among the freebooters, who there became a very powerful body. France, which had hitherto disclaimed for her subjects these ruffians, whose successes were only temporary, acknowledged them, however, as soon as they formed themselves into settlements, and took proper measures for their government and defense.

II. Buccaneers, the Pirates.—Before the English had effected any settlement in Jamaica, and the French in St Domingo, some pirates of both nations, who were afterwards so much distinguished by the name of Buccaneers, had driven the Spaniards out of the small island of Tortuga; and, fortifying themselves there, had with an amazing intrepidity made excursions against the common enemy. They formed themselves into small companies consisting of fifty, a hundred, or a hundred and fifty men each. A boat, of greater or smaller size, was their only armament. Here they were exposed night and day to all the inclemencies of the weather, having scarce room enough to lie down. A love of absolute independence rendered them averse from those mutual restraints which the members of society impose upon themselves for the common good; and as the authority they had conferred on their captain was confined to his giving orders in battle, they lived in the greatest confusion. Like the savages, having no apprehension of want, nor any care to preserve the necessaries of life, they were constantly exposed to the severest extremities of hunger and thirst; but deriving from their very distresses a courage superior to every danger, the sight of a ship transported them to a degree bordering on frenzy. They never deliberated on the attack, but it was their custom to board the ship as soon as possible. The smallness of their vessels, and the skill they showed in the management of them, screened them from the fire of the larger class of ships; and they presented only the fore part of their little vessels filled with fusiliers, who fired at the port-holes with so much exactness that it entirely confounded the most experienced gunners. As soon as they threw out the grappling, the largest vessels seldom escaped them.

In cases of extreme necessity they attacked the people of every nation, but fell upon the Spaniards at all times. They thought that the cruelties which the latter had exercised on the inhabitants of the new world justified the implacable aversion they had sworn against them. But this was heightened by the mortification they felt in seeing themselves debarred from the privileges of hunting and fishing, which they considered as natural rights. Their principles of justice and religion in no degree interfered with their predatory habits; for whenever they embarked on any expedition, they used to pray to heaven for the success of it; and they never came back from plundering without returning thanks to God for their victory.

The ships which sailed from Europe to America seldom tempted their avidity, since the merchandise which these contained could not have been easily sold, nor indeed very profitable to those barbarians. They always waited for them on their return, when they were certain they were laden with gold, silver, jewels, and all the valuable productions of the new world. If they met with a single ship they never failed to attack her. As to the fleets, they followed them till they sailed out of the Gulf of Bahama; and as soon as any one of the vessels was separated by accident from the rest, it was taken. The Spaniards, who trembled at the approach of the buccaneers, whom they called devils, immediately surrendered. Quarter was granted if the cargo proved to be a rich one; if not, all the prisoners were thrown into the sea.

The buccaneers, when they had got a considerable booty, at first held their rendezvous at the island of Tortuga, in