The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-11-07
PIRATE TREASURE.
Pierre LIE Grand and the Spanish
TreaSurysbip.
BY HOWARD PYLE.
FTP ST PAPER

Pierre lie Grand, buccaneer and pirate.
Such was the name and title of the
first of the great freebooters of the West
Indies.
There were others who came after him
as famous, and even more famous in
their time than he-Mansvelt, Bartholo-
NEW Portuguese, Roch Brazilianous,
Lolonoise, and finally, the great and
always to be remembered Sir Henry Nor
gan, the conqueror of Panama and the
King of the buocaneer pirates.
But just now it is to be told of Pierre
lie Gran nd, or Peter the Great, as we
he. captured the great Spanish treasure
ship, the Vice Admiral of the Spanish
Iota, off Cape Tiburon, down in the hot
West Indies, somewhere about the year
The word "buccaneer'' does not itself
mean pirate" The buccaneers were re-
ally curers of meat by a process of
CRYING IN the SUM- called "buccanning, -
invented this process of preserving meat
was a Scotch Englishman, by name Bu-
chanan; hence the name "bucaneer, -
or "buccaneer"
These men-the buccaneers-chiefy CEN
tered in the neighborhood of the north
west coast Of the Island Hispaniola
afterwards called San Domingo), and in
the neighboring island of Tortuga, or
Tortoise, SO called because of it's shape,
winch was like a sea tortoise f1oa ting
upon the water
In this part of the West Indies there
had been brongaf over ~ to tG GaH Ta6n
during the previous century by the
Spaniards, and which now roamed at
large over the pampas and through the
tropical forests of these two islands.
These the buccaneers hunted and killed,
cutting up their flesh, drying it in the
sun and selling it to the Spanish ship
captains who sailed in and out along
great oh mol on 1,oi,,
to America or home again.
The West Indies were at that time the
vast treasure house from which Spain
drew all her wealth. Ever since the
bus, Spain had laid claim TO all that
immense part of the world-to all those
thousand beautiful islands scattered over
the wonderful Caribbean Sea; to all the
northern coast of South America and
the Isthmus of Darien and Panama. and
to all of the west coast of the continent
bordering the, wide, Pacific. Ocean.
America are, perhaps, the richest spots
for gold and silver in all the world.
There in the fathomless and tangled for
ests are rivers whose sands sparkle with
particles of the precious metaI-rocks
scanned and honey-combed with yellow
veins of treasure. Everywhere Spain
had her agents gathering and gather
of the precious metals which were car
ried across the ocean in those queer old
high-pooped ships and poured a golden
stream, into the Golfers of the Spanish
king.
Of course, all this enormous treasure
emptied out from the new world into
Spain made the other nations of Europe
very envious of her. Nobody felt that
all that great western world really be-
longed to one people and to one king.
Other nations felt that they had just as
much right to bring away from the
Americas some of that native silver and
gold or>t
stiving to keep everything for herself,
sent thither great war ships to keep
other nations from taking from the
great mother earth that which the Span
ish people claimed belonged all to them
selves.
So Spain, trying to keep all the rest
of the world out of the West Indies,
and all the rest of the world striving
to get gold and silver for ITSELF it came
about that for two centuries even when
the nations of the earth were nominally
Indies, ceaseless war, bloody and cruel.
Now, when the buccaneers first came to
the Spanish main, as it was called, they
came there, as was said not to rob Spain
in another way. Ship captains that came
to the Americas had no means of obtain
ing provisions to victual their ships for
the return voyage There was no flour
there had been meat there was no salt
wheTesith to cure it. A ship capain had
either to yictual a ship. for the round voy-
age to the West Indies and return, or
else run the risk of falling short of pro-
visions. Sometimes a ships crew would
almost starve before they got back to
invented his process of curing meat, and
when ship captains began to supply them
selves Herewith, he made an enormous
fortune in a little while-such a great for
tune that nearly everyone that had moth
ing else better to do began to turn his
attention to the curing of meat as Blu
chanan had done
These buccaneer curers of meat were
nearly all English. French and Dutch.
But, as was said, Spain did not allow any
OF the other nations to come into hel
parts of America So she tried to drive
IN cne due buccaneers a, out OF Iortuga The bue-
er into a little army and fought the Span
iards. So began the war; first favorable
to the Spariards, then to the buccaneers
which did not cease for over twenty
years, and only terminated finally when
the buccaneers took possession of the isl