In consequence of this the buccaneers became a formidable body of men, sometimes superior to the Spanish naval and military forces.
It must be remembered that the buccaneers lived in a very peculiar age.
So far as the history of America is concerned, it might be called the age of blood and gold.

In the newly discovered countries there were no laws which European nations or individuals cared to observe.

In the West Indies and the adjacent mainlands there were gold and silver, and there were also valuable products of other kinds, and when the Spaniards sailed to their part of the new world, these treasures were the things for which they came.

The natives were weak and not able to defend themselves.

All the Spaniards had to do was to take what they could find, and when they could not find enough they made the poor Indians find it for them.