The Pirates of Panama by John Esquemeling - Sign on with Captain Morgan and divvy the booty of the Spanish
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"They took also another ship going from New Spain to Maracaibo, laden with divers sorts of merchandise and pieces of eight, designed to buy cocoa-nuts for their lading home: all these they carried to Jamaica, where they safely arrived, and, according to custom, wasted all in a few days in taverns, giving themselves to all manner of debauchery. Such of these pirates will spend two or three thousand pieces of eight in a night, not leaving themselves a good shirt to wear in the morning." From The Pirates of
Panama
Come ashore onto the pirate stronghold of
Tortuga
in the 1660s and find out what it was really like to be a pirate like Captain Morgan or the perilously brutal Francis Lolonois. This fascinating true account of the pirate life written by John Esquemeling reveals in rich detail the bounty of the Spanish Empire in the
Americas
and the ruthless enthusiasm of the pirates who pillaged it. Piracy was exceedingly common in the
Caribbean
in the 1600s, and Esquemeling joined the ranks of the seafaring outlaws after earning his freedom from indentured servitude. He had originally gone to
Tortuga
as a servant of the French West India Company, but when it failed, he was sold off along with the other servants. A cruel master reduced him to near death and then sold him to a kindly surgeon who nursed him back to health. After the revived Esquemeling performed one year's service, the surgeon set him free. Becoming a pirate was a natural thing to do in that environment, and Esquemeling worked on various pirate crews as a barber-surgeon until 1672.
His account of his years as a pirate was first published in
Amsterdam
in 1678, and it became immediately popular and was translated into other European languages. The Pirates of Panama is free of the playful romanticism that is often applied to pirates in works of fiction, but Esquemeling's account remains a gripping read due to its honesty and unique character. This work provides a rare firsthand view from within the world of pirates. It explains the rules by which pirates distributed the spoils among themselves. For example, the profits were collective and distributed fairly among the pirates. Maimed pirates were allotted extra shares and those who died still earned their shares, which were then given to their heirs. Hiding booty from the collective was strictly prohibited and severely punished. Despite the surprisingly fair method for distributing the wealth, the brutality of the pirates is not whitewashed by the author. Usually with a disapproving tone, he describes the pillaging and torturing performed by various pirate leaders and recounts the often gruesome and intractable hatred some bore toward the Spanish.
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