The Seafarers - The Spanish Main (History Sea Travel Ebook) pdf torrent

Pdf / English / 1979 Time Life The Seafarers Series / 176 pages / 43.4 MB

Essay: The Ruthless conquest of a golden Aztec Empire
1 The First Challenges to the lords of the Main
Essay: Carrying the King's wealth to the coffers of Seville
2 The merchant who enflamed Spain's New World
3 The fire and fury of El Dragon
Essay: The heretics who humbled the might of Spain
4 The rise of a bloodthirsty brotherhood
5 A sea-roving devil named henry Morgan
6 The sacking of Cartagena: a last, bold stroke
Essay: A new era of naval warfare on the embattled Main

This is an eminently readable account of European history on the Spanish Main, including the coast & islands.

Like other books in this venerable Time-Life Seafarer series, it really filled in some gaps in my knowledge & understanding, illuminating the politics & philosophies that created the conditions which allowed piracy to develop & flourish.

For example, the buccaneers who became pirates are famous for their hunting & trading in meat & hides but--having seen how few wild animals exist on many Caribbean islands--I never fully understood where those animals were coming from [feral livestock from homesteads in the Spanish Caribbean abandoned in favor of treasure hunting on the mainland], or who the men were [a mixture of former indentured-servants, sailors, slaves & settlers displaced by belated enforcement of Spanish land claims in the outlying islands].

It was also interesting to learn about efforts to eradicate the pirates through means ranging from political treaties forbidding letters of marque, to the more effective efforts of D'Ogeron, who filled a ship with Parisian prostitutes & sold the ladies to the Tortuga buccaneers as wives, settling them right down.

Felix, Amazon