User:Edewolbock/Flibustier

The word flibuster is derived from the old English "flibutor" derived from the Dutch vrijbuiter (it was used also as "freebooter" in English, literally "loot free" or "free spoiler"). Some sources cite the word "flibot" as their origin (some kind of small boat), others prefer free booters, and trace their practices to the traditions of the soldiery in Europe.

Flibuster was also the name of sailors who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, scoured the coast and devastated Spanish possessions in America. With the end of piracy time in the Caribbean, the term fell into disuse in the eighteenth century to resurrect in the middle of the nineteenth century and designate American citizens fomenting insurrections in Latin America. The word derived to filibuster in American English.

From the XVI to the XIX century, the crew were always composed of sailors from France, Portugal, Nederland, England, and some nordic countries. They developed a sort of "common language" in which the terms came from all their origins. For example, "haul away" is in French "hale matelot". This was more easy for a common understanding of the orders.

Nowadays, as the words "flibusters" and buccaneer" are no more used in common laguage, there is a mistake between those two different terms.

At any case the term "flibuster" or "buccaneer" should be assimilated with "pirate". The pirate is an outlaw, commiting acts of robbery or criminal violence. The flibuster or buccaneer is a free sailorman without any engegement.

Domination of the Flibusters

For more than 50 years, the area that is today Port-au-Prince saw its population drop off drastically, when some buccaneers began to use it as a base, and Dutch merchants began to frequent it in search of leather, as there was abundant there. Around 1650, French flibustiers, running out of room on the Île de la Tortue began to arrive on the coast, and established a colony at Trou-Borde. As the colony grew, they set up a hospital not far from the coast, on the Turgeau heights. This led to the region being known as Hôpital.