Piratas de América

In 1666 Exquemeling left for America from the port of Le Havre onboard a ship of the French Company of the West Indies. The ship was captured by pirates and Exquemeling was sold into slavery on the island of Tortuga. During his captivity he learned from his master how to perform surgery. He served under the distinguished pirates L'Olonnais, Morgan, and Bertrand d'Oregon until the failed landing on the west coast of Puerto Rico, in 1674. He also participated in sieges on land: he fought in the two Maracaibo assaults on the island of Santa Catalina and in the devastation of Panama. Los piratas de Am rica is the exciting chronicle, narrated in first person, of adventures of pirates in the 17th century. The work was published in Amsterdam in 1678, and only three years later this Spanish version surfaced.