British Pirates And Society 1680 1730

This book shows how pirates were portrayed in their own time, in trial reports, popular prints, novels, legal documents, sermons, ballads and newspaper accounts. It examines how attitudes towards them changed with Britain’s growing imperial power, exploring the interface between political ambition and personal greed, between civil liberties and the power of the state. It throws light on contemporary ideals of leadership and masculinity - some pirate voyages qualifying as feats of seamanship and endurance. Unusually, it also gives insights into the domestic life of pirates and investigates the experiences of women whose husbands turned pirate or were captured for piracy. Pirate voyages contributed to British understanding of trans-oceanic navigation, patterns of trade and different peoples in remote parts of the world. This knowledge advanced imperial expansion and British control of trade routes, which helps to explain why contemporary attitudes towards piracy were often ambivalent. This is an engaging study of vested interests and conflicting ideologies. It offers comparisons with our experience of piracy today and shows how the historic representation of pirate behaviour can illuminate other modern preoccupations, including gang culture.

With surprising tales of vicious mutineers, imperial riches, and high-seas intrigue, Black Flags, Blue Waters is “rumbustious enough for the adventure-hungry” (Peter Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle). Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age” - spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s - when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. “Deftly blending scholarship and drama” (Richard Zacks), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Through engrossing episodes of roguish glamour and extreme brutality, Dolin depicts the star pirates of this period, among them the towering Blackbeard, the ill-fated Captain Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Black Flags, Blue Waters is a “tour de force history” (Michael Pierce, Midwestern Rewind) of the seafaring outlaws whose raids reflect the precarious nature of American colonial life.

A historian presents “an excellent guide to how pirates became the outlaw celebrities of the high seas” (Greg Jenner, host of the You’re Dead to Me podcast). During his life and even after his death, Captain William Kidd’s name was well known in England and the American colonies. He was infamous for the very crime for which he was hanged, piracy. In this book, historian Rebecca Simon dives into the details of the two-year manhunt for Captain Kidd and the events that ensued. Captain Kidd was hanged in 1701, followed by a massive British-led hunt for all pirates during a period known as the Golden Age of Piracy. Ironically, public executions only increased the popularity of pirates. And, because the American colonies relied on pirates for smuggled goods such as spices, wines, and silks, pirates tended to be protected from capture. This is the story of how pirates became popularly viewed as “Robin Hoods of the Sea”—and how these historical events were pivotal in creating the portrayal of pirates as we know them today. “Only someone who has lived in the shadows chasing faded pirates for an age, and is blessed with creativity, can pull off a book of this high caliber.” —Wreck Watch Magazine

Based on hitherto unused sources in English and Spanish in British and American archives, in this book naval historian Barry Gough and legal authority Charles Borras investigate a secret Anglo-American coercive war against Spain, 1815-1835. Described as a war against piracy at the time, the authors explore how British and American interests – diplomatic and military – aligned to contain Spanish power to the critically influential islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, facilitating the forging of an enduring but unproclaimed Anglo-American alliance which endures to this day. Due attention is given to United States Navy actions under Commodore David Porter, to this day a subject of controversy. More significantly though, through the juxtaposition of British, American and Spanish sources, this book uncovers the roots of piracy – and suppression– that laid the foundation for the tortured decline of the Spanish empire in the Americas and the subsequent rise of British and American empires, instrumental in stamping out Caribbean piracy for good.

This book has been nominated for The Mountbatten Award for Best Book in the Maritime Media Awards 2021. The Routledge Companion to Marine and Maritime Worlds, 1400‒1800 explores early modern maritime history, culture, and the current state of the research and approaches taken by experts in the field. Ranging from cartography to poetry and decorative design to naval warfare, the book shows how once-traditional and often Euro-chauvinistic depictions of oceanic ‘mastery’ during the early modern period have been replaced by newer global ideas. This comprehensive volume challenges underlying assumptions by balancing its assessment of the consequences and accomplishments of European navigators in the era of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan, with an awareness of the sophistication and maritime expertise in Asia, the Arab world, and the Americas. By imparting riveting new stories and global perceptions of maritime history and culture, the contributors provide readers with fresh insights concerning early modern entanglements between humans and the vast, unpredictable ocean. With maritime studies growing and the ocean’s health in decline, this volume is essential reading for academics and students interested in the historicization of the ocean and the ways early modern cultures both conceptualized and utilized seas.

Charts the history of execution laws and practices in the 'Bloody Code' era and its extraordinary transformation by 1900.

The dramatic and deliciously swashbuckling story of Sarah Kidd, the wife of the famous pirate Captain Kidd, charting her transformation from New York socialite to international outlaw during the Golden Age of Piracy Captain Kidd was one of the most notorious pirates to ever prowl the seas. But few know that Kidd had an accomplice, a behind-the-scenes player who enabled his plundering and helped him outpace his enemies. That accomplice was his wife, Sarah Kidd, a well-to-do woman whose extraordinary life is a lesson in reinvention and resourcefulness. Twice widowed by twenty-one and operating within the strictures of polite society in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New York, Sarah secretly aided and abetted her husband, fighting alongside him against his accusers. More remarkable still was that Sarah not only survived the tragedy wrought by her infamous husband’s deeds, but went on to live a successful and productive life as one of New York’s most prominent citizens. Marshaling in newly discovered primary-source documents from archives in London, New York and Boston, historian and journalist Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos reconstructs the extraordinary life of Sarah Kidd, uncovering a rare example of the kind of life that pirate wives lived during the Golden Age of Piracy. A compelling tale of love, treasure, motherhood and survival, this landmark work of narrative nonfiction weaves together the personal and the epic in a sweeping historical story of romance and adventure.

Fall captive to the code—the real-life buccaneer bylaws that shaped every aspect of a pirate’s life. Pirates have long captured our imaginations with images of cutlass-wielding swashbucklers, eye patches, and buried treasure. But what was life really like on a pirate ship? Piracy was a risky, sometimes deadly occupation, and strict orders were essential for everyone’s survival. These “Laws” were sets of rules that determined everything from how much each pirate earned from their plunder to compensation for injuries, punishments, and even the entertainment allowed on ships. These rules became known as the “Pirates’ Code,” which all pirates had to publicly swear by. Using primary sources like eyewitness accounts, trial proceedings, and maritime logs, this book explains how each one of the pirate codes was the key to pirates’ success in battle, on sea, and on land.