These fixtures, thus adjusted, were called _buccans_, and the
process of curing the meat _buccaning_. The hunters, having adopted this
process from the savages, were like them called _buccaneers_. In process
of time the name was applied to the sea robbers as well as to the
hunters; and when piracy became the general profession as a substitute
for planting and the chase, all were called buccaneers indiscriminately.
Previously to the great and sudden augmentation of their forces, by the
immigration from St. Christopher's about the year 1660, the buccaneers
had taken possession of Tortuga, the geographical position and character
of which island was well suited to their commercial and piratical
purposes. This little island had been occupied by a few Spaniards as
early as 1591; but their numbers were so small as not to interfere with
the object of the buccaneers, while its rocky conformation afforded
peculiar facilities for defence in the event of attack.
The greatly increasing numbers of the buccaneers at length aroused the
colonial voluptuaries of Spain to a sense of their danger. It was
perceived that while the colonists were dwindling away, the outlaws were
becoming so formidable in their numbers that they soon might be enabled
to contest for the mastery of the island of Hispaniola itself. They
therefore commenced a war upon them, and not being able to prosecute it
with sufficient vigor themselves, they called to their aid troops from
the other Spanish islands, and also from the continent.
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