Sea Rover

The term was used in Alexander Exquemelin’s De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, published in 1678, and published as The Buccaneers of America in London in 1684. Exquemelin went to Tortuga in 1666 as an indentured servant, but joined Morgan’s buccaneers as a barber-surgeon in 1669, sailing for five years until he settled in Holland. The book was amazingly popular, no doubt because it was rewritten to suit nationalities. In the Spanish version, Henry Morgan was a torturing ogre, but the English and Dutch editions ask the reader to consider how “God permitted the unrighteousness of the buccaneers to flourish, for the chastisement of the Spaniards.” Germans referred to a pirate as a Seerauber (sea robber). (Breverton, Sea Rovers)