Few periods in history have become so intertwined with legend as the era of the buccaneers, or “pirates” as they later became known. Originally privateers commissioned by the French, and later by the English and Dutch crowns, to hunt Spanish ships in the Caribbean Sea during the 17th century, the innate lawlessness of the profession inevitably spiraled out of control. The buccaneers eventually became pirates—and had to be forcibly suppressed by the governments which had initially commissioned them.

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