(Panama Digest) Mare clausum, Mare liberum: Piracy in Spanish America is on exhibit at Panama’s Interoceanic Canal Museum through November 27.
It is a journey through three centuries of pirate attacks against the Spanish fleet carrying gold and silver from the New World to the Spanish crown.
“The exhibition is the scientific and historical analysis of piracy, far from the romanticism that we have seen the movies and books,” said Angel Ramos, director of the Museum Interoceanic Canal. “Piracy was extremely crude and violent and did tremendous damage.”
On loan from the General Archive of the Indies of Seville, Spain, the exhibit includes over 170 documents, maps and weapons from pirate times.