Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-07-21
About American Pirates.



Wide Awake.
AS the archipelago east of Greece had
sheltered the hordes of the Turkish cor
sairs. so the many islands, crooked
channels, reefs hidden from all but the
! local pilots, small harbors and abundant
food of the Antilles, made the West
Indies the safest place in the world for
pirates to pursue their work. To these
new and wild regions, in the sixteenth
century, had fiocked bad men and adj
venturers from all over the world.
When the wars and their chances of
plumber died out after the campaigns
led by COrtez, Pizarro, Balboa and the
rest of the Spanish cOnquiStdolOreS, many
ruffians seized upon vessels by force, or
stole them, and turned into robbers of
the sea. As rule, they had farms and
families on some island, and only went
freebooting a portion of the year, at
first. The large island of Hayti, or st.
Domingo, was then settled by colonists
who were of three distinct classes
farmers, hunters and cattle-men. The
last class of men spent their time in
the wild interior of the island, captur-
ing, herding or killing wild cattle
! They came to the settlements only
now and then to get supplies, and then
returned to- the wilderness for several
months of absence again. Finally, a
war having arisen between this and
other islands, the trade of the cattle
men was destroyed, and large numbers
of them joined the FreebOoters, who
then became numerous and formidable;
and so largely was this due to their
new friends that they lost their old
name, and were known by the name of
the cattle-hunters-Buc
They had two methods of work
One was to patrol the sea in the track
of vessels bound to and from Europe
and Brazil or Spanish America, and
seize them. Very often the crews were
willing, or were compelled, to join the
pirates; but sometimes all were killed
or carried into slavery. Merchant
ships, therefore, all went heavily armed
in those waters, and many were the
bloody battles fought.
This work, however, employed only
a portion of the Buccaneers, and was
too uncertain n means of wealth to suit
them. They would, therefore, equip a
great fleet, enlist men under certain
strict rules rs to sharing the spoils, and
sail away to pillage some coast. There
was hardly an Island in the West Indies
from which, in this way they did not
eXtort immense sums of money under
threat of destruction of the people. The
mainland also suffered from the ma
rauders. Great cities, like Cartagena
in Venezuela; Panama on the Isthmus,
Merida in Yucatan, and Havana, Cuba,
were attacked by armies of Buccaneers
numbering tens of thousands of men.
Sometimes their Notifications held good
and the enemy were beaten back; but
sooner or later all these cities, and others,
smaller, were captured, burned or par
tally burned, and robbed of everything
valuable that they contained.
"Why did the citizens not hide their
wealth. They did; but the Buccaneers
put to the most dreadful tortures men.
women, children, laves-everybodv-
until they would tell where their mon
ey and jewelry were buried. 1t is sick
ening to read of the crimes and suffer
ing committed by these wickedest OF
men. For years and years they were
the terror of the whole Caribbean re-
gion. Nor did their enormous riches
do them particle of good, for they
wasted 1T all, the moment they got
home, in wild rioting, so that the spoil>
earned by months of hardship, and ex.
posture, and wounds, and danger OF
death, would be spent in week of ca
rOusing. Before the end of the centu.
ry, however, the combined naval forces
of all the nations interested in the com.
merce of the new world broke the pow
er of the Buccaneers, and their depre-
dations ceased. The story is one of the
widest, most romantic, but most terri
bic pictures in the history of the world