Buccaneers

buk-ka-nerz,' Central American freebooters. The name is applied to various lawless bands of English and French pirates who haunted the islands of the Caribbean Sea. Their exact number cannot be stated for any particular time. They possessed ships and were well armed. They raided and plundered settlements, pillaged cities, captured merchantmen, and took treasure ships. Their depredations began about 1525 and continued until the beginning of the eighteenth century. They appear to have originated in the desire of the French and English to drive the Spanish shipping out of the Caribbean. English ports were open to them for the sale of Spanish prizes and later they grew so bold and so strong that even the English flag offered a ship no protection from their lawless acts of piracy. At their height they were organized into a sort of piratical republic with a code of laws. They roamed the seas in large bands, dividing their plunder according to fixed rules. The fierce Frenchman. Montbars, and the Welshman, Henry Morgan, were among their famous leaders. The cities of Vera Cruz and Cartagena were among the cities plundered. San Domingo was the center of the French buccaneers; Jamaica of the English.