by Zac Clemens
The Buccaneers of the Spanish Main captured the imagination of generations, freebooters who lived by the sword and gun, sailing the Caribbean in search of fortunes in gold and silver. They also captured and burned several cities in colonial Nicaragua, adding a colorful page to the nations’ early history.
In 1519 the conquistador Cortes looted and butchered his way through the Mayan Empire of Mexico and sent back to Spain ship loads of gold and silver, spreading tales of untold riches more. Conquistadors, professional soldiers spawned in the incessant European warfare of the era, would respond in waves. Men like Cordoba, Alvarado, and Pizarro would wreak havoc on centuries-old new world native civilizations. The accumulated riches of the Indian nations were plundered and their populations decimated. In Nicaragua, the four indigenous tribes -the Chorotega, Nahua, Maribios and Chontlal- numbered 700,000 at the time of Spanish contact in 1522. Twenty six years later, only 35,000 remained. Survivors were enslaved in gold and silver mines or plantations to provide a steady stream of wealth. Within a hundred years of Columbus’ 1492 voyage, an empire larger than Europe, called the Spanish Main, would span a crescent from Florida to Peru.
The Spanish conquerors settled into a life of plantation lords, growing sugar cane and tobacco, mining gold and silver. But the tranquil life would elude them. European enemies had been eyeing jealously the riches looted from the Spanish Main and incessant European religious and political rivalries would provide the context for Spain’s rivals to prey on the predators.
Commissioned by their home government, English privateers such as Francis Drake and John Hawkins would raid and harass Spanish colonies and ships around the Empire in the late 1500’s, joined by like-minded French and Dutch raiders. The early 1600’s, however, would give rise to a new and unique breed, plunderers who lived on the Spanish Main.
As the Spanish settled or explored the islands and coasts, livestock were released or escaped. Without natural predators, cattle and pigs established wild populations that thrived on the tropical vegetation. Small groups of castaway privateers took advantage of the opportunity, hunting the animals to supply meat and hides to the ships of Spain’s enemies. They grilled the meat and dried the hides on platforms made of green wood, called buccans in French, and hence the name Buccaneers.
They were later joined by deported criminals, escaped indentured servants and simply the poor of Northern Europe; men seeking an escape from the social inequalities and brutal working conditions prevalent on the Continent. They formed rough democracies and became commando tough; lean outdoors men expert with sword and musket, freelance infantry and sailors who would serve under a host of British, French and Dutch privateer captains. Buccaneers lived on the fringes of the Spanish settlements inhabiting the same islands, they took to warring with their historic foes. As Buccaneer numbers grew, they were able to mount full scale seaborne assaults around the Spanish Empire.
In May 1655 the British sailed into Kingston Harbor, Jamaica and swept aside the few Spanish defenders. The Spaniards had long ignored Jamaica, using Cuba and Hispaniola as their base of operations at the mouth of the Caribbean basin. But they would soon regret their complacency. Jamaica lay between and to the south of the Spanish island strongholds; a force sailing from Kingston could strike at Spanish possessions at any point on the compass. The British fortified Kingston and garrisoned it with thousands of “the most profane, debauched persons we ever saw, cheats, thieves, cutpurses and such like lewd persons,” as described by their commander, Sir Robert Venables. Among these worthies was a 20-year-old Welshman who brought buccaneering to its pinnacle, Henry Morgan.
Morgan fought under Commander Christopher Mings, the original conqueror of Jamaica. The Spanish did not give up the island without a fight, maintaining a guerilla army supplied from Cuba. In suppressing these opponents Morgan learned the tactics of hit and run, the seaborne landing and the surprise attack form an unexpected direction. Morgan served under Mings in assaults on Coro, on Venezuela’s northern coast, and Santiago, Cuba netting huge riches. After Mings was recalled to England and killed in action in a war against the Dutch, Morgan would emerge as the leader of what he called “the brotherhood.”
In 1663 Morgan set out from Jamaica with five small ships and about 200 buccaneers. Their target was the town of Villahermosa on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. They sacked Villahermosa, after a 300 mile round trip march, but returned to find their ships at the mouth of the Grijalva River had been discovered by a Spanish scouting party and captured. But fate intervened. Four seaworthy canoes, 40 feet long, came up the river and were captured by the buccaneers. With these Morgan would set out on the adventure that would make his name, the sack of Granada.
The buccaneers paddled around the Yucatan Peninsula and across the Gulf of Honduras, then 111 miles up the Rio San Juan. Morgan and his men finally came to Lake Nicaragua “a fair laguna, or lake of sweet water, full of excellent fish, with its banks full of brave pastures and savannahs, covered with horses and cattle, where they had as good beef and mutton as any in England,” Morgan wrote in his report. “Hiding in cays and islands and rowing all night, by advice of the Indian guides, landed near the city of Gran Granada. This town is bigger than Portsmouth with seven churches and a very fair cathedral besides diver’s colleges and monasteries, all built of free stone, as also most of the houses.”
Morgan’s men “fired a volley, overturned 18 great guns in the Parade Place, took the sergeant-majors house wherein all the arms and ammunition, secured in the Great Church 300 of the best men prisoners, abundance of which were churchmen, plundered for 16 hours, discharged the prisoners, sunk all the boats and so came away,” Morgan wrote.
The Granada raid made Morgan a rich and famous man in Jamaica, the acknowledged leader of the buccaneers. By 1670 he would assemble forces as large as 36 vessels and 2,000 men, all independent entrepreneurs serving under a leader with a commission from the British Crown.
Morgan and his men would sack Portobelo on Panama’s Carribean coast and came away with a fortune. Panama City was looted and burned to the ground in 1671. Not all the hostages taken were as fortunate as at Granada; when Morgan found English prisoners mistreated at a Spanish Fort in Panama, he locked some 55 hostages in a central room “set fire to the gunpowder and blew up the whole castle in the air, with all the Spaniards that was within.” Maracaibo, Venezuela and Santiago, Cuba also fell to Morgan’s raiders.
Nicaragua continued to be plagued by the buccaneers. Then one of Nicaragua’s major cities, Antigua, in Nueva Segovia, was sacked and looted by buccaneers who came up the Rio Coco in 1676. You can still see pieces of the smashed baptismal font at the rebuilt church there; local sources attribute the raid to Morgan, others to a Captain Wright. Granada would be raided several more times until the fort at El Castillo was built in 1675 on the Rio San Juan to block entry from the Atlantic side. Not to be dissuaded, buccaneers sacked Masachapa on the Pacific coast then went inland to burn the church at Jinotepe in 1685.
Morgan became the toast of England for his exploits, he was knighted by the king in1674 and returned to Jamaica as Lieutenant Governor. He was rich, a plantation lord now, holding 6,000 acres. He spent his time in Port Royal taverns engaging in the favorite recreation of the buccaneers, heavy drinking. He was ousted from his governing position in 1683; the once terror of the Spanish Main died a bloated alcoholic in 1688. His name lives on today, fittingly, as a popular rum brand.
The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 would end the age of buccaneering. England, Spain, France and Holland recognized each other’s possessions in the New World and ended official sanctioning of the privateer captains the buccaneers served under. This did not automatically bring peace to the Spanish Main; some buccaneers would drift into outright piracy, attacking ships of any flag, criminals even in their home nations. The rise of large national navies, especially Britain’s, would suppress piracy by the 1740’s, but peace still eluded the Spanish Main. During Europe’s incessant warfare of the 1700’s Spanish ports would still hear the roar of cannon fire, most often from the ships of the British Royal Navy. Peace would finally come by the early 1800’s with the independence of Latin American countries and the severing of entanglement in European politics.
