Hispaniola: Did you mean...?

The buccaneers who roamed the Spanish Main and the pirates who plundered the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) needed a place of refuge where they could share out and enjoy their loot. Pirate havens...

The Spanish Main refers, in its widest sense, to the Spanish Empire in the Americas from Florida in the north to the northern coast of Brazil in the south, including the Caribbean. The term was initially more limited and referred only to...

From a humble beginning as a sweet treat grown in gardens, sugar cane cultivation became an economic powerhouse, and the growing demand for sugar stimulated the colonization of the New World by European powers, brought slavery to the forefront...

Piracy has involved many nationalities over the centuries, but one of the prominent groups in the medieval and early modern periods was the French pirates, who terrorised the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean. French writers often...

A 17th-century illustration of the buccaneer and pirate base of Tortuga, located on the northwest coast of Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic).

A 17th-century illustration showing the massacre of the Spanish community at Cumaná on Hispaniola in 1515. The community was an attempt at a more peaceful rule over indigenous peoples.

The fortress built by Jean Le Vasseur from 1642 on the island of Tortuga (Ile de la Tortue), located in northwest Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Tortuga became a major haven for the buccaneers like François L'Olonias...

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) was a Spanish conquistador who led the conquest of the Aztec Empire in Mexico from 1519. Taking the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521, Cortés plundered Mesoamerica as he became the first ruler of the new colony...

Francisco Pizarro (c. 1478-1541) was a conquistador who led the Spanish conquest of the Inca civilization from 1532. With only a small group of men, Pizarro took advantage of his superior weapons and the fact that the Incas were weakened...

The Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) refers to a period when robbery on the high seas and at colonial ports reached an unprecedented level. Although not all historians agree on the precise time frame, it is generally applied to those pirates...