instead of bringing trouble upon his infant colony
by seizing possession of it.
When Jamaica was taken in 1655, the Spanish
residents had their choice of submitting to English
rule or leaving the island, and a considerable part of
them fled to Cuba, while most of the negroes took
to the mountains. “ English co lon is ts” were sent
out the next year, and they were mostly a picturesque
lot of reprobates from the coasts of Scotland
and Ireland, and offscourings of the land, mingled
with some adventurous Jews, bent upon exploiting
the wealth of the new domain. T h e Lord Protector
gave encouragement by proclaiming that all goods
sent to Jamaica should be landed free of duty for
seven years, and that the products of the colony
should be subject to no tax for ten years. Things
started with a veritable “ boom,” but the interesting
results belong more properly to a separate account
of Jamaica later in our volume.
What are called the Danish West Indies were
never colonised in any proper sense of the word.
St. Thomas was one of the early resorts of the rovers
and pirates, and came into the possession of a trading
company of which the Elector of Brandenburg was
the director. He was succeeded b y the K in g of
Denmark, and this was long a neutral trading point
and grew rich out of the plunder of the other islands.
Santa Cruz and St. John, which latter was never of
much importance, were acquired by purchase.
C H A P T E R V I I I
BUCCANEERS, FREEBOOTERS, AND MAROONS
FO R a century and more the Spanish colony on
Hispaniola was confined to the eastern part of
the island about Santo Domingo; and scattered
remnants of the natives hunted wild cattle and hogs
near the coasts in the western part. These hunters
had a mode of preserving flesh peculiar to themselves,
by drying and smoking it over a fire of green
branches and leaves. Some writers say that the
beef so prepared by fire was called “ boucan” ;
others say that the places used for drying and smoking
the flesh were “ boucans.” Père Labat, a
French priest, who lived for some time in the Carib-
bees at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
and wrote a big book about them, says that “ boucan
” was the Carib word for the cashew nut, which
had to be roasted before it was edible. I f this is so,
the word was probably first applied to the edible
product of the flesh-smoking process, though it may
have been extended to the open-air smoke-houses
afterwards. However that may be, when the trade
was taken up by vagrant sailors and adventurers of
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