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Piracy in the Caribbean came out of the interplay of larger national trends. The Caribbean was a centre of European trade and colonization from the late 15th Century. In the Treaty of Tordesillas the non-European world was divided between the Spanish and the Portuguese along a north-south line 270 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. This gave Spain control of the Americas, a position they reinforced with a papal bull. The mainland around the Caribbean was called the Spanish Main, the key early settlements were Cartagena, Panama, Santiago , Porto Bello and Santo DomingoSanto Domingo population 2,061,200 ( 2003), is the capital of the Dominican Republic. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River. It is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Western Hemisphere, and was. Economically, the Spanish were mining staggering amounts of silverThis page is about Silver the element. For the color, see Silver Silver is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Ag ( L. Argentum and atomic number 47. A soft white lustrous transition metal, silver has the highest electrical and th bullion from New SpainFlag of New Spain New Spain (in the Spanish language Nueva Espana was the name given to the Spanish colonial territory in North America from c. 1525 to 1821. The Capital of New Spain was Mexico City. New Spain was ruled by a Viceroy appointed by the King and PeruFor other uses, see Peru (disambiguation The Republic of Per ( Spanish: Per Quechua, Aymara: Piruw is a country in western South America, bordering with Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil to the east, Bolivia to the east, south-east and south, Chil. Other trade was largely hides - the Spanish preferred herds to plantations. The huge silver shipments attracted pirates and privateerA privateer is a private ship (or its captain) authorized by a country's government to attack and seize cargo from another country's ships. Prior to the development of international law among European nations, there was no legal recourse for minor grievans both in the Caribbean and across the AtlanticFor other uses, see Atlantic (disambiguation The Atlantic Ocean is Earth's second-largest ocean, covering approximately one-fifth of its surface. The ocean's name, derived from Greek mythology, means the " Sea of Atlas". This ocean occupies an elongated,, all the way to SevilleThis article is about the city in Spain. For the place in the U. state of Ohio see Seville, Ohio and for the automobile see Cadillac Seville. Seville ( Spanish: Sevilla is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain, crossed by the riv. To combat this, from the 1560s the Spanish adopted a convoy system - a treasure fleet (flota) would sail annually from Seville (and later from Cádiz), carrying passengers, troops, and European goods to the colonies of the new world. This cargo was effectively make-weight as the purpose was to transport a year's worth of silver and specie to Europe, that bullion arriving in a major port on the Silver Train. This made the returning fleet a tempting target, although pirates were more likely to shadow the fleet to attack stragglers than try and seize the main vessels. The classic route in the Caribbean was through the Lesser Antilles to the ports along the Spanish Main, then northwards into the Yucatan Channel to catch the westerlies back to Europe.

The United Provinces and England were defiantly anti-Spanish for much of the time from the 1560s, while the French government was seeking to expand its colonial holdings (the French had the first non-Spanish hold in the Caribbean at St. Augustine, although it was short-lived). Aided by their governments English, French and Dutch traders and colonists ignored the treaty to invade Spanish territory — "no peace beyond the line". The Spanish could not afford a sufficient military presence to control the area or enforce their trading laws. This led to constant smuggling and colonization in peacetime and if a war was declared there was widespread piracy and privateering throughout the Caribbean.

The Spanish Caribbean empire was in decline from the 1600s. The silver had been a double-edged sword, its arrival in Europe providing only a temporary and self-destructive boost to Spain. While in The Caribbean the arrival of European diseases had more than decimated the local populations - the native population of New Spain had fallen by 96% between 1500 and 1600. The Spanish presence in the Caribbean was based on slavery, so while their expansion suffered along with the decline in peons the newly empty lands were attractive to the more dynamic European nations like the Dutch and English. Also the restrictive Spanish trading regulations came to be more openly flouted, Trinidad became a significant port for all nations.

In the 1620s and following the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in 1618 the Spanish presence in the Caribbean began to decline at a faster rate, becoming more dependent on African slave labour and with a reduced military presence. Meanwhile, other nations began to become more established — Barbados, the first truly successful English colony, was established as was a colony on Providence Island, which soon became a haven for pirates.

The end of widespread conflict in Europe left most of the nations in a dreadful state, especially Spain which had bankrupted the state. This was reflected in the Caribbean with both a constant influx of European refugees and the shrinking of Spanish power. While the major cities of the region were still Spanish the peripheries were being overrun by other nations' more aggressive expansion. The English had expanded beyond Barbados, with successful colonies on St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, and Bermuda. The French were well established on Guadeloupe, Hispaniola and Martinique and they nominally held Tortuga, a noted pirate base from the 1640s. The Dutch had remained an almost baseless trading presence in the area but following the Spanish decline they became established at Curaçao and St. Eustatius.

The Caribbean continued to reflect European policy shifts. As England, France and Holland became stronger they moved from fighting the Spanish over religion to fighting each other over economics. The English began economic sanctions against the Dutch in the 1650s and the two nations were at war three times in the next two decades. Louis XIV was pursuing an aggressive expansionist policy in France. In the 1660s the Spanish Empire had a brief revival with boosted silver output. Basically everyone was fighting all the other nations present in the Caribbean on-and-off. These vagaries were apparent in the Caribbean - St. Eustatius changes hands ten times between 1664 and 1674 and many other settlements were damaged by repeated conquest and reconquest. With the warring European nations providing almost no military support for the colonies, this was a bonanza for privateers and pirates. Port Royal in Jamaica joined the piracy bases, following the islands capture by the English in 1655.

While European warfare continued towards the end of the 17th century, affairs in the Caribbean became more settled. The colonies were more important and the adverse economic effects of piracy were more apparent. The English were becoming a much more significant presence and stationed a naval squadron at Port Royale from the 1680s. Privateering was becoming rarer and naval pirate-hunting more common, although the Spanish established a Costa Guarda of privateers.