Tortuga Island

Tortuga lies off the northwestern coast of Hispaniola, separated from the larger island by a channel. In the seventeenth century it became a refuge and trading base for buccaneers, who exchanged hides and cured meat as well as goods taken at sea. Spain captured the island more than once, but in the 1640s the French governor François Levasseur strengthened its defences, and Tortuga remained a centre of activity against Spanish shipping.