The name is derived from the arrangements which the Caribs made to cook their prisoners of war. After being dismembered, their pieces were placed upon wooden gridirons, which were called in Carib, _barbacoa_. It will please our Southern brethren to recognize a congenial origin for their favorite barbecue. The place where these grilling hurdles were set up was called boucan, and the method of roasting and smoking, _boucaner_. The Buccaneers were men of many nations, who hunted the wild cattle, which had increased prodigiously from the original Spanish stock; after taking off the hide, they served the flesh as the Caribs served their captives. There appears to have been a division of employment among them; for some hunted beeves merely for the hide, and others hunted the wild hogs to salt and sell their flesh. But their habits and appearance were the same. The beef-hunters had many dogs, of the old mastiff-breed imported from Spain, to assist in running down their game, with one or two hounds in each pack, who were taught to announce and follow up a trail.
The origin of these men, called Buccaneers, can be traced to a few Norman-French who were driven out of St. Christophe, in 1630, by the Spaniards. This island was settled jointly, but by an accidental coincidence, by French and English, in 1625. They lived tranquilly together for five years: the hunting of Caribs, who disputed their title to the soil, being a bond of union between them which was stronger than national prejudice. But the Spanish power became jealous of this encroachment among the islands, which it affected to own by virtue of Papal dispensation. Though Spain did not care to occupy it, Cuba and the Main being too engrossing, she determined that no other power should do so. She therefore took advantage of disturbances which arose there, in consequence, the French writers affirm, of the perfidious ambition of Albion, and chased both parties out of the island. The French soon recovered possession of it, which they solely held in future; but many exiles never returned, preferring to woo Fortune in company with the French and English adventurers who swarmed in those seas, having withdrawn, for sufficient reasons, from civilized society before a graceful retreat became impossible. This medley of people settled at first upon the northern and western coasts of San Domingo,--the latter being as yet unoccupied. A few settlements of Spaniards upon the northern coast, which suffered from their national antipathies and had endeavored to root them out, were quickly broken up by them. The Dutch, of course, were friendly, and promised to supply them with necessaries in payment for hides, lard, and meat, _boucané_.