The Brethren or "Brethren of the Coast", …

Years: 1665 - 1665
December

The Brethren or "Brethren of the Coast", a loose coalition of pirates and privateers commonly known as buccaneers and active in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, are a syndicate of captains with letters of marque and reprisal who regulate their privateering enterprises within the community of privateers and with their outside benefactors.

They are primarily private individual merchant mariners of Protestant background, usually of English and French origin.

During their heyday when the Thirty Years War was devastating the Protestant communities of France, Germany, and the Netherlands and England was engaged in various conflicts, the privateers of these nationalities had been issued letters of marque to raid Catholic French and Spanish shipping and territories.

Based primarily on the island of Tortuga off the coast of Haiti and in the city of Port Royal on the island of Jamaica, the original Brethren were mostly French Huguenot and British Protestants, but their ranks have been joined by other adventurers of various nationalities including Spaniards, and even African sailors, as well as escaped slaves and outlaws of various sovereigns.

In keeping with their Protestant and mostly Common Law heritage the Brethren are governed by codes of conduct that favor legislative decision-making, hierarchical command authority, individual rights, and equitable division of revenues.

Edward Mansfield, or Mansvelt, is at this time the acknowledged informal chieftain of the Brethren.

His background is largely obscure, with conflicting accounts as a Dutchman from Curaçao or an Englishman.

He is first recorded accepting a privateering commission from Governor Edward D'Oyley at Port Royal in 1659.

Based from Jamaica during the early 1660s, he had begun raiding Spanish shipping and coastal settlements traveling overland as far as the Pacific coast of South America.

He had in late 1665 attacked a Cuban village with two hundred buccaneers.

Soon after this raid, he is offered a commission by Modyford at Port Royal to sail against the Dutch at Curaçao.

His men refuse to fight the Dutch however, some themselves being Dutchmen, while others believe it will be far more lucrative to continue their raids against the Spanish.

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West Indies (1665 - 1665)
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Western West Indies (1665 - 1665)

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