By Manushag N. Powell, Purdue University
English buccaneer and privateer, Bartholomew Sharp, and the accomplished navigator and author, Basil Ringrose, were dedicated journal writers and keen observers who made real contributions to the literature of exploration, providing observations on everything from people to flora. They also supplied charts of their own making, as well as others captured from their prizes.
Bartholomew Sharp’s Attack on Panama
A large force of 300-odd buccaneers had set out in 1680 to cross Darien on foot and attack Panama. Heading them as captains were Bartholomew Sharp along with John Coxon, Richard Sawkins, Peter Harris, and Edmund Cook.
After crossing the Isthmus, but finding no gold, the group used surprise and canoes to attack a Spanish fleet, and they seized several warships. Coxon was deposed, Sawkins was killed. A number of men left the group entirely. And Sharp ended up commanding the remaining sea forces of about 140.
The bucaneers eventually headed southwards, along the coastline of Costa Rica, making their way down to Cape Horn in a largely, unlucky search for new prizes. After a disastrous attempt to raid Arica, a city at the Northern tip of Chile’s western coastline, about 50 of the men grew unhappy with the voyage and split off. They sailed back to Panama and marched across the land to head back to Europe.
The Buccaneers of America
The bucaneers’ journey home by sea and over land yielded important journals which would eventually become essential travel reading for anyone who wanted to know about South America.
From the group, the journal of Basil Ringrose, who was also an accomplished navigator, remained with Sharp. His account of the voyage was later published as a second volume of the Buccaneers of America.
This article comes directly from content in the video series The Real History of Pirates. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Bartholomew Sharp’s Lucky Break
In 1681, while cruising around in the Pacific, Sharp fought and subdued a Spanish ship called El Santo Rosario, near the coast of Ecuador. In haste, or for some other reason, the crew of the Rosario somehow neglected the important step of seizing their important papers and tossing them overboard. It was a standard procedure that was typically accomplished using a sailcloth bundle weighted with shot.
As a consequence, Sharp got hold of the ship’s derrotero, that is, a book full of Spanish sea charts of the Pacific. This was an extremely lucky stroke, as the Spanish guarded such information closely. Needless to say, Sharp conveyed it with great care back to England.
Till this point, Sharp had not had a great deal of success in his raiding. He had already suffered and recovered from one mutiny and numerous desertions. Foolishly, he also missed the large quantity of silver hidden aboard the Santo Rosario.
South Sea Waggoner
Fortunately, Sharp turned out to be a more noteworthy explorer, than a buccaneer. In fact, finding the derrotero may have been Sharp’s best moment so far.
Ringrose, who was also present at the attack on the Rosario, made a careful copy of his own of the derrotero’s contents. Officially, though, it was the cartographer, William Hack, who translated the maps into what became known as the ‘South Sea Waggoner’.
‘Waggoner’ was a colloquial term for a sea atlas, after the 16th century Dutch hydrographer, Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer.
Sharp’s Lucky Escape
On the way home around Cape Horn, Sharp sailed further south than probably any European had before. Skirting glaciers and making extraordinary time in the frigid and fast currents, Sharp eventually made his way back to England.
Upon landing in Plymouth, however, the buccaneer was seized, and tried for piracy and murder, both of which he absolutely had committed. The charges were instigated by the angry Spanish ambassador. But the tide was in Sharp’s favor.
The value of the maps he carried turned both public and governmental opinion in his favor and he was acquitted. The credit went to his Majesty, Charles II, whose intervention persuaded the jury to discover a happy technicality.
Basil Ringrose’s Account
The Waggoner nonetheless, seemed to open the South seas to Britain as they had never been opened before. This became the root of the chain of events that would end in the disastrous South Sea Bubble, an immense stock exchange crash in 1720.
Basil Ringrose’s journals, meanwhile, were published as Volume II of the English language version of The Buccaneers of America in 1685. His intelligence was as keen as that of the buccaneer, William Dampier.
Emotionally, however, Ringrose seemed sometimes a bit more disturbed by the events he partook of and witnessed. In several spots, for example, he was upset by, but unable to stop the abuse of prisoners. Ringrose recorded the shooting of an elderly Spaniard, which also so upset Sharp, that, he literally found some water and washed his hands off the affair.
Britain Looses Interest in Buccaneering
Following his own return to England, Ringrose returned to buccaneering, having no other way to support himself. He sailed along with Dampier, in the Cygnet captained by Charles Swan. Ringrose would ultimately meet his death, killed in a botched raid near Santiago in 1686.
Over a period of time however, the British populist was less willing to wink at the legality of buccaneering. They were very happy to read about it, but there was little doubt as to its criminality.
And yet, these later buccaneer tales were less about the lifestyle, and triumphs of the brethren, than about the wonders they encountered. They always implied, in such detail, an ever-rising British interest in empire building. Understandably, when the imperial corporations grew strong, they no longer needed the pirates.
Common Questions about the Buccaneer Tales of Bartholomew Sharp and Basil Ringrose
The buccaneers‘ journey home, by sea and over land, yielded important journals which would eventually become essential travel reading for anyone who wanted to know about South America.
‘Waggoner’ was a colloquial term for a sea atlas, after the 16th century Dutch hydrographer, Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer.
Bartholomew Sharp got hold of a Spanish ship’s derrotero, that is, a book full of sea charts of the Pacific. This was an extremely lucky stroke, as the Spanish guarded such information closely.
