Tiie Horrors of San Domingo

1862.] The Horrors of San Domingo. 347 And the soul of our comrade shall sweeten the air, And the flowers and the grass-blades his memory upbear; While the breath of his genius, like music in leaves, With the corn-tassels whispers, and sings in the sheaves, —- “ Column ! Forward ! TIIE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO. CHAPTER XV. bayonet, went round the waist. These individuals, if the term is applicable to THE BUCCANEERS ---- FLIBTJSTIEI5S — the phenomena in question, were Buc TORTUGA — SETTLEMENT OF THE caneers.* WESTERN PART OF SAN DOMINGO The name is derived from the arrange BY THE FRENCH. ments which the Caribs made to cook tbeir P e a c e a b l e voyagers in the West In prisoners of war. After being dismember dies were much astonished at their first ed, their pieces were placed upon wooden sight of certain men, who might have been gridirons, which were called in Carib, bar- a new species of native, generated with bacoa. It will please our Southern breth slight advances upon the old stock by ren to recognize a congenial origin for the principle of selection, or spontaneous their favorite barbecue. The place where growths of a soil well guanoed by feroci these grilling hurdles were set up was call ty. They sported the scarlet suit of the ed toucan, and the method of roasting and Carib, but of a dye less innocent, as if the smoking, boucaner. The Buccaneers were fated islands imparted this color to the men of many nations, who hunted the wild men who preyed upon them. A cotton cattle, which had increased prodigiously shirt hung on their shoulders, and a pair from the original Spanish stock ; after of cotton drawers struggled vainly to cov taking off the hide, they served the flesh er their thighs: you had to look very close * Histoire des Avanturiers FUbusliers, avec la ly to pronounce upon the material, it was Vie, les Mazurs, el les Couliimcs des Boucaniers, so stained with blood and fat. Their par A. 0 . Oexmelin, who went out to the bronzed faces and thick necks were hir V est Indies as a poor Engage, and became a sute, as if overgrown with moss, tangled Buccaneer. Four Volumes. New Edition,print or crispy. Their feet were tied up in the ed in 1741: Vol. III., containing the Journal raw hides of hogs or beeves just slaugh of a Voyage made with Flibustiers in the South Sea in 1685, by I.e Sieur Kavenau de Lussan; tered, from which they also Frequently and Vol. IV., containing a History of English extemporized drawers, cut while reeking, pirates, with tiie Lives of two Female Pirates, and left to stiffen to the shape of the legs. Mary Read and Ann Bonny, and Extracts A heavy-stocked musket, made at Dieppe from Pi rate. Codes: translated from the Eng or Nantes, with a barrel four and a half lish of Captain Charles Johnson.—Charlevoix, Histoire de St. Dumingue, Vols. Ill- and IV.— feet long, and carrying sixteen balls to The History o f the Bucaniers of America, from the pound* lay over the shoulder, a the First Original down to this Time ; written calabash full of powder, with a wax stop in Several Languages, and now collected into per, was slung behind, and a belt of One Volume. Third Edition, London, 1704: crocodile s skin, with four knives and a containing Portraits of all the Celebrated Fit- bustiers, and Plans of some of their Land-At * This musket was afterwards called fu sil tacks.—Nouveaux Voyages (tux Isles Francoises boucanier. /' usil demi-boucanier was the same de I'Ameeique, par le Pere Labat, 1724, Tom. V. kind, with a shorter barrel. pp. 228-230. See also Archenholtz. 34S The Horrors of San Domingo. [September, as the Caribs served their captives. There cessaries in payment for hides, lard, and appears to have been a division of em meat, boucane. ployment among them; for some hunted Their favorite haunt was the little isl beeves merely for the hide, and others and Tortuga,* so named, some say, from hunted the wild hogs to salt and sell their its resemblance to a turtle afloat, and oth flesh. But their habits and appearance ers, from the abundance of that “ green were the same. The beef-hunters had and glutinous ” delight of aldermen. It. is many dogs, of the old mastiff-breed im only two or three leagues distant from ported from Spain, to assist in running the northern coast of San Domingo, off down their game, with one or two hounds the mouth of Trois Rivieres. Its north in each pack, who were taught to an ern side is inaccessible: a boat cannot nounce and follow up a trail. find a nook or cove into which it may slip The origin of these men, called Buc for landing or shelter. But there is one caneers, can be traced to a few Norman- harbor upon the southern side, and the French who were driven out of St. Chris- Buccaneers took possession of this, and tophe, in 1630, by the Spaniards. This gradually fortified it to make a place ten island was settled jointly, but by an acci able against the anticipated assaults of dental coincidence, by French and Eng the Spaniards. The soil was thin, but it lish, in 16 25. They lived tranquilly togeth nourished great trees which seemed to er for five years: the hunting of Caribs, grow from the rocks; water was scarce; who disputed their title to the soil, being the hogs were numerous, smaller and a bond of union between them which was more delicate than those of San Domin stronger than national prejudice. But the go; the sugar-cane flourished; and to Spanish power became jealous of this en bacco of superior quality could be raised. croachment among the islands, which it About five-and-twenty Spaniards held affected to own by virtue of Papal dispen the harbor when these adventurers ap sation. Though Spain did not care to proached to take possession. There were, occupy it, Cuba and the Main being too besides, a few other rovers like them engrossing, she determined that no other selves, whom the new community adopt power should do so. She therefore took ed. The Spaniards made no resistance, advantage of disturbances which arose and were suffered to retire. there, in consequence, the French writers There was cordial fellowship between affirm, of the perfidious ambition of Al the Flitmstiers and Buccaneers, for they bion, and chased both parties out of the were all outlaws, without a country, with island. The French soon recovered pos few national predilections, — men who session of it, which they solely held in fu could not live at home except at the risk ture ; but many exiles never returned, of apprehension for vagrancy or crime,— preferring to woo Fortune in company men who ran away in search of adventure with the French and English adventurers when the public ear was ringing with the who swarmed in those seas, having with marvels and riches ofthe Indies, and when drawn, for sufficient reasons, from civiliz a multitude of sins could be covered by ed society before a graceful retreat be judicious preying. The Spaniards were came impossible. This medley of people the victims of this floating and roving St. settled at first upon the northern and west Giles ofthe seventeenth century. If Eng ern coasts of San Domingo, — the lat land or France went to war with Spain, ter being as yet unoccupied. A few set these freebooters obtained commissions, tlements of Spaniards upon the northern and their pillaging grew honorable; but coast, which suffered from their national it did not subside with the conclusion of antipathies and had endeavored to root a peace. They followed their own policy them out, were quickly broken up by # Not to be confounded with the Tortitgas, them. The Dutch, of course, were friend the westernmost islands of the Florida Keys ly, and promised to supply them with ne- ( Ctiyos, Spanish for rocks, shoals, or islets). 1862.] The Horrors of San Domingo. 349 of lust an<l avarice, over regions too far the Buccaneer sometimes went to sea, and from the main history of the times to be the Flibustier, in times of marine scarcity, controlled. would don the hog-skin breeches, and run The word Flibustier is derived from the down cows or hunt fugitive negroes with Dutch Vlieboot, fly-boat, swift boat, a kind packs of dogs. The Buccaneers, however, of small craft whose sailing qualities were slowly acquired a tendency to settle, while superior to those of the other vessels then the Flibustiers preferred to keep the seas, in vogue. It is possible that the English till Europe began to look them up too made freebooter * out of the French adap sharply; so that the former became, event tation. The fly-boat was originally on ually, the agricultural nucleus of the west ly a long, light pinnace f or cutter with ern part of San Domingo, when the sup oars, fitted also to carry sail; we often ply of wild cattle began to fail. This fail find the word used by the French writers ure happened partly in consequence of to designate vessels which brought im their own extravagant hunting-habits, and portant intelligence. They were favorite partly through the agency of the Span craft with the Flibustiers, not from their iards of the eastern colony, who thought swiftness alone, but from their ease of that by slaughtering the cattle their French management, and capacity to run up neighbors would be driven, for lack of the creeks and river-openings, and to employment, from the soil.

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