Resumen

CABRERA, Geniber. An approach toward a historiographic revision of the theme of pirate activity in the province of Venezuela and at its principal city/port of Borburata (16th century). Tiempo y Espacio [online]. 2014, vol.24, n.61, pp.171-192. ISSN 1315-9496.

Pirate activity as a reality originating approximately from the end of the 3rd decade of the 16th century in the Province of Venezuela, has been a theme treated as having little relevance. There is a limited quantity of articles and books that refer to concrete actions or to the biography of one or other notable pirates/corsairs that reflect this important fact throughout the New World. Literature, in a certain way, has taken the responsibility of filling the vacancy that historians and researchers have ignored, because they thought and still think, that piracy and pirates did not really exist, and all that made up a part of fictitious ideas created as children’s tales that make of the ragged outlaws of the sea, a bellyful of honest heroes as models that should be copied. Reality, in the end, is much more than fiction; because piracy, the Great Piracy, had its beginning almost at the same time as the beginning of navigation, and impelled though out time by maritime commercial traffic has been the object of a type of “literary fanaticism” that has tended to convert it in simple mythology, separating it from historical fact and what it has really signified for History. Due to that, with this article we intend to explore the idea of piracy as a theme for historical research in Venezuela, without losing sight, of course, of its Mediterranean origins and its Caribbean actions. The problem is a bit difficult, and supposes the use of shrewdness, because it is not easy for reality to take precedence over fi ction. However, we take responsibility for that in what we write.

Palabras clave : Province of Venezuela; Caribbean; New Word; piracy.

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