The Archives

The ArchivesSourcesExquemelin, The Buccaneers of America

Exquemelin, The Buccaneers of America

The narrative history and part-memoir of the Caribbean buccaneers written by Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, who by his own account spent several years among them, first printed in Dutch as De Americaensche Zee-Roovers at Amsterdam in 1678 by Jan ten Hoorn and thereafter issued in English and French versions that diverge sharply from one another, covering the sea-rovers of the 1660s to the 1680s and above all the campaigns of Henry Morgan.

From1678Also writtenDe Americaensche Zee-Roovers; Bucaniers of America; Exquemelin 1678; Esquemeling, The Buccaneers of America

The Buccaneers of America is the modern English name for a book first published in Dutch as De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, printed at Amsterdam in 1678 by the bookseller Jan ten Hoorn. Its author was Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin.1

The author, by his own account

By his own account Exquemelin went out to the Caribbean, worked at Tortuga as an indentured servant, and then spent several years among the buccaneers, Morgan's followers among them.2

The English edition of 1684

The English Bucaniers of America was published at London in 1684.3

Morgan's action against the English text

The English publication provoked a public controversy over Sir Henry Morgan, by then a knight and a former lieutenant governor of Jamaica. William Crooke, who published the English translation, wrote in his preface to Bucaniers of America, The Second Volume that he had been traduced the previous year by persons "transported with too much passion and partiality" on Morgan's behalf, and he answered their particular charges. They were that Esquemeling had mistaken Morgan's Christian name; that he had misrepresented him "for the Son of a Rich Yeoman in Wales"; and "that Sir Henry Morgan did not burn Panama".4

What the book contains

The ground covered is the western Caribbean, Hispaniola, Tortuga, Jamaica and the Spanish Main. The book opens with the author's passage to the Indies and his observations on Tortuga and Hispaniola: the cow-hunting boucaniers from whom the buccaneers took their name, and the harsh conditions of indenture. It then turns to the rovers: their customs, the articles that governed a voyage, the division of plunder, the compensation paid for wounds, and their weapons and manner of attack. Set-piece narratives follow: the cruelties of Francois l'Olonnais at Maracaibo, the exploits of Rock the Brazilian, and above all the campaigns of Morgan, including Portobelo and the crossing of the isthmus to burn Panama in 1671. The later English and French editions extend this with further buccaneer material, so the contents depend entirely on which edition is in hand.5

What it is good for, and what it is not

For the internal culture of the buccaneers, and for the atmosphere of Tortuga and Port Royal, this is a first-order source. Its weaknesses are equally clear. It was written to sell and it dwells on atrocity, so the cruelties may be heightened. The author was not present at every event he narrates, and battle numbers, casualty figures and reported speech are unreliable, as in all such seventeenth-century narratives. The gravest caution remains the textual one: the editions differ so far that a statement true of one may be false or absent in another. The book documents the buccaneers of the 1660s to the 1680s and not the pirates of the 1710s and 1720s, and using it as direct evidence for the golden age proper is a category error.6

How the Archive uses it

It is read here as the bridge into the world that shaped the later trade, and used as context and contrast. It supplies the fullest early portrait of Morgan and of the raiding economy centred on Tortuga, Port Royal and the Spanish Main. It documents practices that recur, in altered form, in the golden age: the sea-going articles and the shares system, the compensation scale for lost limbs, the elective and contractual character of a rover company, and the symbiosis between the rovers and a colonial port willing to harbour them. It also records the sack of Panama and the Portobelo raid, which fixed the image of the buccaneer in European print culture.

Copies and editions in use

The Dutch first edition is rare. The Library of Congress holds a copy in its Rare Book and Special Collections Division at Washington, DC, under the call number F2161 .E71 (Copy 2), from the Jay I. Kislak Foundation gift, described as roughly 186 pages in quarto with folded plates, maps and portraits. A digitised copy of a 1678 Dutch text is available through the Internet Archive. The 1684 English Bucaniers of America, in the Crooke and Malthus imprints, survives in numerous research libraries, the Folger Shakespeare Library among them, and is also available digitised.7

What the sources cannot yet give is the book's own paperwork. The author's nationality, birthplace, birth year and death year are unresolved, and would need parish, guild and notarial records to settle. The relationship between the two London imprints of 1684 is not fixed here, and neither is what became of Morgan's action against the English text, the court records themselves having still to be read. And how much of the added matter in the English and French versions goes back to Exquemelin himself, rather than to translators and publishers, can only be settled edition by edition against the Dutch text of 1678.

What the evidence does not settle

Exquemelin's identity

  • Exquemelin's nationality is contested: French, Dutch or Flemish

The 1684 London imprints and Morgan's libel action

  • The two 1684 London imprints relate to Morgan's libel actionConfirmed

Authorship of added editorial material

  • How much added material across editions is Exquemelin's own is unresolvedUnverified

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The Buccaneers of America is the modern English name for the book by Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin first published in Dutch as De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, printed at Amsterdam in 1678 by the bookseller Jan ten Hoorn. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period narrative: Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, "De Americaensche Zee-Roovers" (Amsterdam: Jan ten Hoorn, 1678), Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, F2161.E71 (Copy 2), catalogue record loc.gov/item/02017955, for the title, place, date and publisher of the first edition (Confirmed)
  2. Exquemelin states that he went to the Caribbean, worked at Tortuga as an indentured servant and then spent several years among the buccaneers, Morgan's followers among them. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period narrative: Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, "De Americaensche Zee-Roovers" (Amsterdam, 1678), for the author's own account of his passage to the Indies, his indenture at Tortuga and his service among the buccaneers (Probable)
  3. The English Bucaniers of America was published at London in 1684. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period imprint: "Bucaniers of America" (London, 1684), Folger Shakespeare Library catalogue record 36134, catalog.folger.edu/record/36134, for the London publication of the first English edition in 1684 (Confirmed)
  4. The English publication of Exquemelin provoked a public controversy over Sir Henry Morgan. William Crooke, who published the English translation, wrote in his preface to Bucaniers of America, The Second Volume that he had been traduced the previous year by persons transported with too much passion and partiality on Morgan's behalf, and answered their particular charges: that Esquemeling had mistaken Morgan's Christian name; that he had misrepresented him for the son of a rich yeoman in Wales; and that Sir Henry Morgan did not burn Panama. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Publisher's preface in a printed book: William Crooke's preface "To the Reader" in Bucaniers of America, The Second Volume, Containing the Dangerous Voyage and Bold Attempts of Captain Bartholomew Sharp... written by Mr. Basil Ringrose (London, printed for William Crooke, at the Sign of the Green Dragon without Temple-bar), read in the Internet Archive copy of the Early English Books scan catalogued under 1684: "being traduced, the last year, by some persons, who being transported with too much passion and partiality, would have no body else to be an admirer of the person and valorous Actions of Sir Henry Morgan"; "what dishonour can it be reputed, unto the merits of Sir Henry Morgan to be misrepresented by John Esquemeling, for the Son of a Rich Yeoman in Wales"; "But then Sir Henry Morgan did not burn Panama. And what disgrace were it, to that worthy person, if he had set fire unto it"
  5. The book covers the western Caribbean, Hispaniola, Tortuga, Jamaica and the Spanish Main, opening with the author's passage to the Indies and his observations on the cow-hunting boucaniers from whom the buccaneers took their name and on the conditions of indenture, continuing with the rovers' customs, the articles that governed a voyage, the division of plunder, the compensation paid for wounds and their weapons and manner of attack, and then giving a series of set-piece narratives of Francois l'Olonnais at Maracaibo, of Rock the Brazilian and other captains, and above all of Morgan's campaigns including Portobelo and the crossing of the isthmus to burn Panama in 1671; the later English and French editions extend the coverage, so the contents depend entirely on which edition is in hand. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period narrative: Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, "De Americaensche Zee-Roovers" (Amsterdam, 1678), and "Bucaniers of America" (London, 1684), Folger Shakespeare Library catalogue record 36134, for the set-piece narratives of l'Olonnais, Rock the Brazilian and Morgan, for Portobelo and the burning of Panama in 1671, and for the edition-dependence of the contents (Confirmed); "De Americaensche Zee-Roovers (1678)," Golden Age of Piracy project, for the opening matter on Tortuga, Hispaniola, the boucaniers and indenture, and for the chapters on buccaneer customs, articles, shares and compensation for wounds (Probable)
  6. The book is a first-order source for the internal culture of the buccaneers and for the atmosphere of Tortuga and Port Royal, but it was written to sell and dwells on atrocity so that the cruelties may be heightened, its author was not present at every event he narrates and its battle numbers, casualty figures and reported speech are unreliable; the gravest caution is textual, since the editions differ so far that a claim true of one may be false or absent in another, so that every citation on this site names the specific edition and, where possible, checks it against the Dutch text of 1678; and because the book documents the buccaneers of the 1660s to the 1680s rather than the pirates of the 1710s and 1720s, using it as direct evidence for the golden age proper is a category error. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period narrative and modern scholarship: Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, "De Americaensche Zee-Roovers" (Amsterdam, 1678), against "Bucaniers of America" (London, 1684), Folger Shakespeare Library catalogue record 36134, for the divergence between editions, the resulting citation rule and the buccaneering period the book actually documents (Confirmed); Joseph Gibbs, "A certain false, malicious, scandalous and famous libel," International Journal of Maritime History (2018), DOI 10.1177/0843871417742270, for the demonstrated unreliability of the English text (Confirmed); "De Americaensche Zee-Roovers (1678)," Golden Age of Piracy project, for the book's eyewitness strength on buccaneer culture and for its sensationalism and unreliable numbers (Probable)
  7. The 1678 Dutch first edition is rare, the Library of Congress holding a copy in its Rare Book and Special Collections Division at Washington, DC, under the call number F2161 .E71 (Copy 2) from the Jay I. Kislak Foundation gift, described as roughly 186 pages in quarto with folded plates, maps and portraits; a digitised 1678 Dutch text is available through the Internet Archive, and the 1684 English Bucaniers of America in the Crooke and Malthus imprints survives in numerous research libraries including the Folger Shakespeare Library and is likewise digitised. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Library catalogue records: Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, catalogue record for "De Americaensche Zee-Roovers" (Amsterdam: Jan ten Hoorn, 1678), loc.gov/item/02017955, call number F2161.E71 (Copy 2), Kislak 1995.022.00.0003, for the holding, the call number, the Kislak provenance and the physical description (Confirmed); Folger Shakespeare Library catalogue record 36134, catalog.folger.edu/record/36134, for the 1684 English edition as a research-library holding (Confirmed); Internet Archive, for digitised copies of the 1678 Dutch and 1684 English texts (Probable)