Buccaneer Pirate Legend Cross Knives Doormat

Buccaneer Pirate Legend Cross Knives Doormat Buccaneers were a group of mostly French sailors who had settled around Hispaniola (and not Tampa Bay) in the 1630s. When the English took Jamaica from Spain in 1655, governors began granting buccaneers letters of marque – contracts that turned the amateur bandits into commissioned, professional privateers. The job of a privateer is to capture the ships and supplies of his master’s enemies. Really, it’s straight-up piracy, as we think of the term, but “legal.” As one might imagine, plenty of privateers abused their job title all over the place. As the number of privateering contracts grew in the Caribbean region, locales like Tortuga and Port Royal became hotspots of activity for French and English pirates, alike.