Locations > Tortuga > Tortuga Legacy
Tortuga Legacy
Background
The closure of Tortuga and the destruction of Port Royal was really the signal of the end of the Buccaneering Era in general. Pirates cannot exist without their havens and ports and whenever one of these goes away the pirates disappear shortly afterwards. The legacy Tortuga left behind was immense though and the buccaneers were not shortly forgotten in the region. In fact, if it was not for the efforts of the buccaneers the Spanish would have retained full control over the West Indies and the Spanish Main. The buccaneers were the tip of the spear for the imperial elite who chose to claim territories they saw on maps and in reality never once saw in person.
The king of Spain claimed all of the West Indies but he never once got to see the tropical beauty of it. All of the colonial powers at the time only had one thing on their minds, exploitation and profit. The buccaneers were just in it for themselves, they were self made men spanning several decades that gruelingly fought the Spanish for their place in the world. Tortuga was their home, they fought and died for it many times. Most of them came to the West Indies with nothing, as indentured servants or penniless religious refugees hoping to make a new life and in the end were able to strike a blow against the most powerful imperial entity at the time.
Despite their cultural prominence and wealth accumulated the pirates of the Post Spanish Succession Period never achieved the type of victories the buccaneers achieved. In the fact of colonial military and navies the pirates often ran and did not band together to preserve their republic. The Brethren of the Coast was a much more cohesive and strong social and political government that enabled the buccaneers to band together in the thousands and siege Spanish settlements. The outlaw pirates of the Flying Gang never achieved that.
Tortuga
- Fort de Rocher
- Third Spanish Invasion
- Second Spanish Invasion
- Life in Tortuga
- Tortuga Economy
- Tortuga Decline
- Tortuga Legacy
