Yo Ho! (It's a Pirate's Life for Me)

I'm keeping pretty busy of late, but I need a break from research and figured I ought to keep my loyal readership abreast of recent developments in my academic life. For those who haven't already heard, I've taken up buccaneers as the subject for my master's paper. The buccaneers were a band of land-based, seafaring pig thieves who haunted the Spanish in the 17th century Caribbean. They were much more, of course, but that's become my one sentence reply to inquiring family and friends. The buccaneers take their name from the French term boucaniers, from boucan, which was in turn derived from the indigenous word bukan, alternately used to refer both to the spit over which they roasted their pilfered pork and the wooden sticks on which the meat was skewered. A fairly literal translation would be to dub them the barbecuers, spit-roasters, or shishkabobbers (my personal favorite).

The word buccaneer actually has a very interesting history of its own, but one that I'm saving to tell another time. It entered the English vocabulary via the 1684 translation of Alexander Exquemelin's 1678 De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, a wildly popular account of Henry Morgan (above left), Francis L'Ollonais (right), and a few other lesser-known figures. The book has hardly been out of print since its first press run, and a 2000 edition is available new for less than $10 on Amazon. I managed to pick up a copy of the highly recommended (for reasons I don't yet understand, not having read the others) Classics of Naval Literature edition, with an introduction by Robert Ritchie. All this talk about books makes me anxious to get back to work, though, so I'll leave you with a list of what I've been reading and be on my way.

Published Primary Sources

Ayres, Philip. 1684. The voyages and adventures of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and others in the South Sea: : Being a Journal of the Same. Also, Capt Van Horn with his Buccanieres Surprising of la Vera Cruz. To Which Is Added the True Relation of Sir Henry Morgan his Expedition against the Spaniards in the West-Indies, and his Taking Panama. London: Printed for B.W., R.H., and S.T. [read online]*

Dampier, William. 1697. A new voyage round the world describing particularly the isthmus of America, several coasts and islands in the West Indies, the isles of Cape Verd, the passage by Terra del Fuego, the South Sea coasts of Chili, Peru and Mexico, the isle of Guam one of the Ladrones, Mindanao, and other Philippine and East-India islands near Cambodia, China, Formosa, Luconia, Celebes, &c., New Holland, Sumatra, Nicobar Isles, the Cape of Good Hope, and Santa Hellena : their soil, rivers, harbours, plants, fruits, animals, and inhabitants : their customs, religion, government, trade, &c.; illustrated with particular maps and draughts. London: Printed for James Knapton. [read online]*

Exquemelin, Alexander O. 1684. The buccaneers of America. London: Printed for William Crooke. Reprint: Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, 1994. [read online]*

Harlow, Vincent T., ed. 1923. "The Voyages of Captain William Jackson, 1642-1645" in Camden miscellany, vol. xiii. London: Royal Historical Society.¹

de Lussan, Raveneau. 1695. Les flibustiers de la mer du Sud: Journal d'un voyage fait à la mer du Sud avec les flibustiers de l'Amérique, depuis le 22 novembre 1684 jusqu'en janvier 1688. Reprint: Paris: France-Empire, 1992.²

Ringrose, Basil. 1685. Bucaniers of America the second volume : containing the dangerous voyage and bold attempts of Captain Bartholomew Sharp, and others, performed upon the coasts of the South Sea, for the space of two years, &c. : from the original journal of the said voyage. London : Printed for William Crooke. [read online]*

Wafer, Lionel. 1699. A new voyage and description of the Isthmus of America, giving an account of the author's abode there the form and make of the country, the coasts, hills, rivers, &c. woods, soil, weather, &c. trees, fruit, beasts, birds, fish, &c : the Indian inhabitants, their features, complexion, &c. their manners, customs, employments, marriages, feasts, hunting, computation, language, etc. : with remarkable occurrences in the South Sea and elsewhere. London: Printed for James Knapton. [read online]*

Secondary Source

Haring, C. H. 1910. The buccaneers in the West Indies in the xvii century. London: Methuen. Reprint: Hamden, Connecticut: Archon, 1966.

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* These texts are only available on a network with access to the Early English Books Online collection. They will work with a single click from anywhere on the Pitt campus, or any other campus with access to the collection. From off campus you can login with your Pitt account by clicking once, entering your email username and password, and then returning to this page and clicking the link again. If you know of free versions of any of these texts online let me know and I'll post them here. To be honest I put these up as much for my own reference as anyone else's.

1 This text was mentioned in Robert Ritchie's Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates (248, n. 47) but it wasn't properly sourced and thus I scarcely believed it existed until now. In the process of writing this post I felt obliged to come up with a full citation and tracked it down in the Royal Historical Society's published collection. I haven't put my hands on it yet (my library appears to have an incomplete set of the Camden Miscellany series, and of course they're missing vol. xiii), but I'm a tad perplexed as to why it doesn't show up in the Early English Books Online, and further still by the publication date. The reason I footnoted it, however, was because I would have postponed this search if it hadn't been for this post. In fact, I've spent almost the whole time at the computer this last hour combing through the books I've read or searching for sources online. I remain thoroughly convinced that for every two minutes I waste on here there's a minute I save in work someplace else (with the possible exception of that penguin tangent).

2 This is the only other source which I haven't actually browsed yet, but I deserve some slack because I couldn't find a single copy in the western hemisphere. I had the good fortune of finding a copy in France for $10 + shipping, which is more than I usually spend on books but a steal under the circumstances. Of all the skills I've developed in my first year of graduate school, one of the most prized is my uncanny knack for tracking down cheap books online.