Feral Spanish livestock on Hispaniola sustained the pirate economy that seeded Saint-Domingue

Evidence

The Spanish had introduced new species there—not only dogs, many of whom escaped into the wild, but also pigs and cattle—which, without human or animal predators, had thrived in the intervening century. The boucaniers hunted the wild cattle, smoked the meat using an indigenous method called the boucan, and sold it to sailors on passing ships. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 68

Categorization

• XREF: Feral species reshaping an ecosystem and enabling a culture echoes the reader’s trees-as-infrastructure article; the name ‘boucanier’ is a satisfying origin for ‘buccaneer.’
• CANDY: Pirates came from hunting feral pigs with an indigenous smoking technique named ‘boucan’ — hence ‘buccaneer.’