We have a bonus podcast episode out this week! This is the second installment of our “Plundering the Past” series, reviewing books related to Blood & Plunder. In this episode, Garrett and Joseph review Raiders & Natives: Cross-Cultural Relations in the Age of Buccaneers by Arne Bialuschewski.
Plundering the Past Episode 2
This book focuses on how the Native populations in Central America interacted with the Buccaneers during the mid to late 17th century. Their aid was crucial in many of the most famous buccaneer raids.
Book Description
From the publisher:
The first history of indigenous participation in seventeenth-century Caribbean raiding
Throughout the seventeenth century Dutch, French, and English freebooters launched numerous assaults on Spanish targets all over Central America. Many people have heard of Henry Morgan and François L’Olonnais, who led a series of successful raids, but few know that the famous buccaneers often operated in regions inhabited and controlled by Native Americans rather than Spaniards.
Arne Bialuschewski explores the cross-cultural relations that emerged when greedy marauders encountered local populations in various parts of the Spanish empire. Natives, as it turned out, played a crucial role in the outcome of many of those raids. Depending on their own needs and assessment of the situation, indigenous people sometimes chose to support the colonial authorities and sometimes aided the intruders instead. Freebooters used native guides, relied on expertise and supplies obtained from local communities, and captured and enslaved many natives they encountered on their way. This book tells the fascinating story of how indigenous groups or individuals participated in the often-romanticized history of buccaneering.
Building on extensive archival research, Bialuschewski untangles the wide variety of forms that cross-cultural relations took. By placing these encounters at the center of Raiders and Natives, the author changes our understanding of the early modern Atlantic World and the role that native populations played in the international conflicts of the seventeenth century.
Source for The Rise of the Buccaneers: Jamaica Content
This book has an extensive chapter focusing on the 1665 Buccaneer cruise culminating in the raid on Granada at the north end of Lake Nicaragua. This raid is presented as a 6-scenario campaign in The Rise of the Buccaneers book that is scheduled to deliver near the end of 2026.
You can check out more on the Granada Campaign on our YouTube channel as we publish a full playthrough of the campaign.
Final Thoughts
We try to be brief in our discussion, but we both love the history and it’s a great book!
If this book intrigues you, you can buy it from Amazon here, or directly from University of Georgia Press here.
You can also listen to the podcast on YouTube with no ads.