author
A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
b. 1645
Best known for a vivid firsthand account of Caribbean piracy, this 17th-century writer helped shape how later generations imagined buccaneers. His book remains a key source on the world of Henry Morgan and the Spanish Main.
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
Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin, usually listed as A. O. Exquemelin, was born around 1645 and is generally identified as a French writer and barber-surgeon. Sources describe him as having sailed with buccaneers in the Caribbean, experience that gave his writing an unusual immediacy.
He is best known for De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, first published in Amsterdam in 1678 and later translated and expanded in several languages. Often known in English as The Buccaneers of America, the book became one of the most influential early accounts of 17th-century piracy, mixing eyewitness material with lively descriptions of buccaneer customs, raids, and figures such as Henry Morgan.
Some details of Exquemelin's life remain uncertain, including aspects of his nationality and his later years. Even so, his work has had a long afterlife: historians still use it as an important source, and general readers continue to return to it for its dramatic picture of life in the Caribbean age of piracy.