This gave Spain control of the Americas, a position the Spaniards later reiterated with an equally unenforceable papal bull (The Inter caetera). In the 1493 Treaty of Tordesillas the non-European world had been divided between the Spanish and the Portuguese along a north-south line 270 leagues west of the Cape Verde. The Caribbean had become a center of European trade and colonization after Columbus' discovery of the New World for Spain in 1492. From 1520 to 1560, French privateers were alone in their fight against the Crown of Spain and the vast commerce of the Spanish Empire in the New World, but were later joined by the English and Dutch. This officially sanctioned piracy was known as privateering. Piracy was sometimes given legal status by the colonial powers, especially France under King Francis I (r.1515–1547), in the hope of weakening Spain and Portugal's mare clausum trade monopolies in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The following quote by an 18th-century Welsh captain shows the motivations for piracy: ![]() Beginning in the 16th century, pirate captains recruited seamen to loot European merchant ships, especially the Spanish treasure fleets sailing from the Caribbean to Europe. ![]() The buccaneers were later chased off their islands by colonial authorities and had to seek a new life at sea, where they continued their ship raiding. They were called buccaneers, from the French "boucanier" (one who smokes meat on a "boucan" (wooden frame set over a fire.)) By setting up smokey fires and boucans with the prepared meat of marooned cattle, these castaways could lure a ship to draw near for trading, at which time the buccaneers could seize the ship. ![]() Pirates were often former sailors experienced in naval warfare.
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