Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin was a French, Dutch, or Flemish writer best known as the author of one of the most important sourcebooks of 17th-century piracy, first published in Dutch as De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, in Amsterdam, by Jan ten Hoorn, in 1678.
Frontispiece to 1st edition of Buccaneers of America, 1678
Buccaneers were a kind of privateer or free sailors particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 until about 1688, during a time when governments in the Caribbean area were not strong enough to suppress them.
"Buccaneer of the Caribbean" from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates.
Howard Pyle – Buccaneers attacking a much larger Spanish galleon
Howard Pyle – Buccaneers extorting tribute from the citizens of a captured city.