Tortuga

Definition

The small island off the northwest coast of Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic) that served as the principal buccaneer haven of the seventeenth-century Caribbean. Tortuga was the base from which the original boucaniers operated against Spanish shipping after their expulsion from the interior of western Hispaniola; it changed hands multiple times among English, French, Spanish, and freelance buccaneer control during the period 1630–1684 and was ultimately incorporated into the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The buccaneer presence shifted progressively to Port Royal on the south coast of Jamaica after the English seizure of that island in 1655.