author
A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
b. 1645
A firsthand witness to the world of 17th-century buccaneers, he left behind one of the most vivid early accounts of piracy in the Caribbean. His writing helped shape how later generations imagined pirates—not as legends, but as rough, dangerous, and very real people.
2 Audiobooks
The Pirates of Panama or, The Buccaneers of America; a True Account of the Famous Adventures and Daring Deeds of Sir Henry Morgan and Other Notorious Freebooters of the Spanish Main
by A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
The buccaneers and marooners of America : Being an account of the famous adventures and daring deeds of certain notorious freebooters of the Spanish Main
by A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin, Daniel Defoe
About the author
Born around 1645, Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin is remembered as a writer and barber-surgeon who spent time among buccaneers in the Caribbean. Sources differ on whether he was French, Dutch, or Flemish, but they agree that his experiences at sea gave him unusual access to the lives of pirates and privateers.
He is best known for De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, first published in Amsterdam in 1678 and later translated and expanded in several languages. The book became one of the most important early sources on 17th-century piracy, mixing eyewitness detail with dramatic storytelling and helping preserve accounts of figures such as Henry Morgan.
Because so much about his life remains uncertain, Exquemelin stands a little in the shadows of his own famous book. Even so, his work remains central to the history of piracy, valued both for its adventure and for the rare window it offers into the brutal everyday world of the Spanish Main.