Group of seamen who cruised on their own account on the Spanish Main and in the Pacific in the 17th century; similar to pirates but did not prey on ships of their own nation.

from: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Buccaneers "The first recorded use of the French word boucanier, which was borrowed into English, referred to a person on the islands of Hispaniola and Tortuga who hunted wild oxen and boars and smoked the meat in a barbecue frame known in French as a boucan. This French word came from a Tupi word meaning "a rack used for roasting or for storing things, or a racklike platform supporting a house." The original barbecuers seem to have subsequently adopted a more remunerative way of life, piracy, which accounts for the new meaning given to the word. Buccaneer is recorded first in 1661 in its earlier sense in English; the sense we are familiar with is recorded in 1690." On the History Channel episode about Pirate Tech, he said the original pirates "smelled like these smokehouses", and that's how they got the name.

1661, from Fr. boucanier "user of a boucan," a native grill for roasting meat (Haitian var. barbacoa, see barbecue), from Tupi mukem (rendered in Port. as moquem c.1587). Originally used of French settlers working as hunters and woodsmen in the Spanish West Indies, a lawless and piratical set after they were driven from their trade by Spanish authorities in the 1690s. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=buccaneer 1. A pirate, especially one of the freebooters who preyed on Spanish shipping in the West Indies during the 17th century. 2. A ruthless speculator or adventurer. [French boucanier, from boucaner, to cure meat, from boucan, barbecue frame, of Tupian origin; akin to Tupi mukém, rack.] buccaneer buc'ca·neer' v. WORD HISTORY The Errol Flynn–like figure of the buccaneer pillaging the Spanish Main may seem less dashing if we realize that the term buccaneer corresponds to the word barbecuer. The first recorded use of the French word boucanier, which was borrowed into English, referred to a person on the islands of Hispaniola and Tortuga who hunted wild oxen and boars and smoked the meat in a barbecue frame known in French as a boucan. This French word came from a Tupi word meaning “a rack used for roasting or for storing things, or a racklike platform supporting a house.” The original barbecuers seem to have subsequently adopted a more remunerative way of life, piracy, which accounts for the new meaning given to the word. Buccaneer is recorded first in 1661 in its earlier sense in English; the sense we are familiar with is recorded in 1690. Word Origins: buccaneer from Tupí This word originated in Brazil If the word had kept its original meaning, many law-abiding Americans of today would be proud to call themselves buccaneers. That's because buccaneer originally meant nothing more or less than "barbecuer." The word came from Brazil hundreds of years ago. There the invading Portuguese observed Tupí Indians smoking meat on a wooden frame the natives called a mocaém or bocaém. Their reports about this practice carried the word into other European languages. And European adventurers carried the word back to the Caribbean island of Tortuga, near Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), in the 1660s. There they went into the business of selling smoked or barbecued meat to passing Spanish ships, advertising it as cooked on the boucan (as they said in French), a word known in English since 1611. They may not have advertised that they obtained their meat free by raiding the cattle of Hispaniola. Soon these boucaniers became more adventurous, sailing out to capture not just the trade of the passing ships but their cargoes as well. And thus buccaneer came to mean "pirate," recorded in that meaning in English as early as 1690. Tupí is not a single language but an entire family of closely related languages spoken by Indians in Brazil. Tupí, in turn, belongs to the larger Tupí-Guaraní family. Tupí peoples are still to be found in Brazil today, but many of their languages are extinct. Because the Portuguese had extensive dealings with the Tupí in the early days of European exploration, many Tupí names for American flora and fauna have come to us through Portuguese. These include the animals cougar (1774), tapir (1774), and piranha (1869); the birds toucan (1568) and tanager (1688); and the plants cashew (1598), ipecac (1682), tapioca (1707), cayenne (1756), and petunia (1825). Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: buccaneer Any of the British, French, or Dutch sea adventurers who chiefly haunted the Caribbean and the Pacific seaboard of South America during the latter part of the 17th century, preying on Spanish settlements and shipping. Though inspired by such privateers as Englishman Francis Drake, the buccaneers were not legitimate privateers (the commissions they held were seldom valid), but neither were they the outlawed pirates who flourished in the 18th century. Usually escaped servants, former soldiers, or loggers, they ran their ships democratically, divided plunder equitably, and even provided a form of accident insurance. They influenced the founding of the South Sea Co., and stories of their adventures inspired more serious voyages of exploration as well as the tales of writers Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, and Robert Louis Stevenson. US History Encyclopedia: Buccaneers Buccaneers were a distinct group of pirates who operated in the Caribbean from the late sixteenth century until the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The name originally applied to a group of men who occupied the western half of Haiti. They hunted wild cattle and pigs and traded with the Spanish, but the relationship turned bitter after the Spanish attacked them. Either English or French in origin and Protestant in religion, the buccaneers waged terror against all resistance and soon developed a fearful reputation, which they used to their advantage. Sir Henry Morgan (1635–1688) led the buccaneers from their base in Jamaica. They were freebooters—seeking only treasure and freedom from all authority. The promise of wealth and adventure attracted people from all nationalities. The French called them boucaniers, which was later anglicized as "buccaneers." Wikipedia: buccaneer Buccaneer is a term that was used in the later 17th century in the Caribbean Islands to refer to pirates who attacked Spanish shipping. The term "buccaneer" derives from the Arawak word buccan, a wooden frame for smoking meat, hence the French word boucan and the name boucanier for French hunters who used such frames to smoke meat from poached cattle and pigs on the islands that are now Haiti and the Dominican Republic.[1] British colonists Anglicized the word boucanier to "buccaneer." Conflict with Spanish forces from the east of Hispaniola drove many of the buccaneers from the mainland to the island of Tortuga. Here, they turned to piracy against Spanish shipping, generally using small craft to attack galleons in the vicinity of the Windward Passage. English settlers occupying Jamaica began to spread the name with the meaning of pirates or privateers sailing in the Caribbean ports and seas. The name became universally adopted in 1684 when a book, The Buccaneers of America was written by Alexandre Exquemelin and translated from Dutch into English. History The buccaneers were pirates or privateers who attacked Spanish, and later French shipping in the West Indies during the 17th and 18th centuries. The term is now used generally as a synonym for pirate. However, properly speaking only native Caribbean pirates, the original boucaniers or their later allies, are buccaneers. Generally, buccaneer crews were larger, more apt to attack coastal cities, and more localized to the Caribbean than later pirate crews who sailed to the Indian Ocean on the Pirate Round in the late 17th century or who bedeviled the world's shipping in the early 18th century during and after the War of the Spanish Succession.