Buccaneers and Privateers: The Story of the English Sea Rover, 1675-1725

In the late seventeenth century, Spain dominated the Caribbean and Central and South America, establishing colonies, mining gold and silver, and gathering riches from Asia for transportation back to Europe. Seeking to disrupt Spain’s nearly unchecked empire-building and siphon off some of their wealth, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British adventurers—both legitimate and illegitimate—led numerous expeditions into the Caribbean and the Pacific. Many voyagers wrote accounts of their exp...