One commander among several
The expedition that reached Darién brought together parties associated with Coxon, Sawkins, Sharp and other captains. Crossing the isthmus did not erase those earlier attachments. Burney describes disagreement before the company had even reached its Pacific opportunities. [1]
That structure matters when reading a phrase such as “the buccaneers decided.” The statement can conceal negotiation between groups whose leaders and preferred destinations differed.
Authority was used to keep the voyage moving
After the disappointment at Santa María, continuing toward Panama required another decision. The narratives describe Coxon being chosen to command in chief. Burney presents the choice as an inducement to secure his continued participation. [1][2]
A title could therefore help hold a coalition together. It was not necessarily proof that one person had possessed uncontested authority from the expedition’s beginning.
A battle did not settle the argument
The company fought Spanish vessels near Panama in April 1680. Ringrose’s narrative gives prominent credit to Sawkins in that encounter and later reports criticism of Coxon’s conduct. Those judgments are part of the participant’s telling, rather than a complete record of each commander’s intentions. [2]
The disagreement affected what happened next. An armed success at sea did not settle whether to remain in the Pacific, how to choose another target or which leader deserved obedience.
Departure changed the company
Coxon returned toward the Caribbean with a party that the accounts put at about seventy men. Local allies also departed. Sawkins was then chosen chief of the remaining force. The continuing Pacific cruise was therefore not carried out by an unchanged body under the same commander. [1][2]
For the men who left, a return across the isthmus was an active choice with logistical risks. For those who stayed, the departure removed people, skills and relationships that had helped make the original crossing possible.
Why a short episode deserves attention
Coxon’s place in this voyage explains something a longer list of captures might miss: coalitions could break after success as well as after defeat. The company had to keep deciding whether its common project was still worth pursuing.
Read the crossing, the Bay of Panama encounter and Sharp’s changing command in sequence. This account does not turn the limited evidence into a complete private biography.
Questions, answered.
Did Coxon command the entire Pacific voyage?
No. The narratives describe several changes of leadership and his departure early in the Pacific phase.
Was his return a return by sea around South America?
The accounts describe a party going back toward the Caribbean by the isthmus, distinct from Sharp’s later long ocean return.
Sources & reading notes
Source checks distinguish an artifact, a reported account and a modern interpretation. They do not constitute independent historian review.
- History of the Buccaneers of America (1816)James Burney; Project Gutenberg transcription · Nineteenth-century historical compilation; public domain in the USA
The 1680 crossing and Panama chapters, including Coxon’s dispute with Harris, selection after Santa María and return with a reported seventy men. Later than the events. Burney selects and compares earlier voyage narratives; his reconstruction is not an eyewitness record of every episode. Period ethnographic and colonial judgments require critical reading.
- Bucaniers of America, the second volume (1685)Open the keyboarded source transcriptionBasil Ringrose; printed for William Crooke; EEBO–TCP transcription · Participant voyage narrative, published 1685; CC0 keyboarded transcription
Chapters III and VIII for Coxon’s selection, the subsequent dispute and departure. The narrator is a participant with judgments about the commanders. The published journal is a mediated participant account. Its nationalist praise, judgments about peoples and claims about motives are not adopted as neutral fact. The XML marks damaged and missing text; page images are not the CC0 transcription.
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