It constitutes the commune of Île de la Tortue in the Port-de-Paix arrondissement of the Nord-Ouest department of Haiti.

In 1625, French and English colonists from Saint Kitts arrived on the island of Tortuga after initially planning to settle on mainland Hispaniola.

[7] They were attacked in 1629 by Spanish forces commanded by Don Fadrique de Toledo, who expelled them before building a fort on the island and garrisoning it.

The slaves were said to be out of control on the island, while at the same time there had been continuous disagreements and fighting between French and English colonists on Tortuga.

In 1638, the Spanish returned for a third time to secure their claim to the island and expel the French and Dutch settlers on Tortuga.

[9] In the same year, 400 French colonists came to Tortuga from Anjou, and they established Hispaniola's first sugar plantations since the first wave of European colonization.

[7] By 1670, the buccaneer era was in decline, and many of the pirates turned to log cutting and wood trading as a new income source.

At this time, Welsh privateer Henry Morgan started to promote himself and invited the pirates on the island of Tortuga to set sail under him.

This 17th century geography is known largely from Alexandre-Olivier Exquemelin's detailed description in his book Zeerovers,[12] where he describes a 1666 journey to the island.

Blood receives a Letter of Marque from Tortuga's governor, D'Ogeron, and the island becomes his main base for the next four years.

Sabatini used Exquemelin's History of the Bouccaneers of America as a main source for his description of Tortuga, and therefore the island is portrayed as a place where many buccaneers, prostitutes, and other dubious professions operate, but the French West India Company, which rules Tortuga, makes profit off of those affairs.