THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

THE COMPLEXITY OF PIRACY: A CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING OF ENGLISH AND BRITISH PIRACY 1588-1723

ZOE COLE SPRING 2020

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in history and philosophy with honors in history

Reviewed and approved* by the following:

Christina Snyder McCabe Greer Professor of History Thesis Supervisor

Cathleen Cahill Associate Professor of History Honors Adviser

* Electronic approvals are on file. i

ABSTRACT

British pirates in the Golden Age engendered out of the socioeconomic climate developed in seventeenth century England and later codified in eighteenth century Great Britain.1 The conclusion of the Anglo-Spanish war in 1603 fostered twin hegemonies that structured the development of England in the seventeenth century. Trade became an integral arm of English supremacy and statehood. Merchants commanded the English socioeconomic climate, and expanded England’s colonial reach. Consequent to their desire to maximize their power, English merchant and naval captains exploited shipmates for the perpetuation of capital dominance.

British sailors violently reacted to their oppression by creating political system, founded in egalitarian and communist ideals, that directly opposed merchant supremacy on the seas. The second hegemony was Protestantism. Protestantism developed contingent to anti-Catholicism and buoyed the stability of Protestantism and English personhood. At the time of the Union of

1707, Anti-Catholicism and trade crystallized as a unified identity that furthered British supremacy. In this mist of this complex development, pirates employed Jacobite rhetoric that demystified the stability of Protestantism and illuminated anti-Catholic fears. In this context

British pirates fundamentally confronted the perpetuation of British supremacy in both their active attack against merchant ships and the British social and cultural structure. Their common damnation of their Crown and use of Jacobitism further develops our understanding of their intentions. They are an important and integral aspect to understanding the developments of the

Atlantic World and the establishment of the British Empire.

1 In 1707 the countries of British isles became amalgamated into Great Britain with the Union of 1707. ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... v

Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2 The Creation of a Modern State ...... 9

Eye of the World ...... 10 The Name of Popery ...... 15 The Character of Englishness ...... 22 The Scourge of Pirates ...... 25

Chapter 3 Piracy in the Golden Age ...... 34

They Had Better be Dead Than Live in Misery ...... 34 Revenge on Those Dogs...... 43 As Traitors and Pirates ...... 49 They Would Rather Almost Starve Then Work ...... 56 Pirate Republics of the Bahamas and Jamaica ...... 62

Chapter 4 The British Reaction ...... 71

Enemies to All Man Kind ...... 72

Chapter 5 The Complexity of Piracy ...... 77

Appendix A Section Sources ...... 81

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 82

iii

LIST OF FIGUES

Figure 1 Capitan Coram ...... 23

Figure 2 Bahamas National Seal ...... 70

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This is to my parents who have supported me during the extent of my academic experience, Dr. Snyder, who has helped me find my passion for Atlantic history, Dr. Daniel

Beaver who gave me important insight into the historical development of the early British state,

Dr. Cahill for her guidance throughout this process, and my roommates who were patient enough to hear my talk about pirates for the past two years. 1

Chapter 1

Introduction

Around seven o’clock at night on April 1st 1719, merchant captain William Snelgrave sat eating dinner with his officers, when the officer on watch sent word to Snelgave because he heard “the rowing of boat,” Snelgave went up to the deck to see who was coming upon their boat. Captain Snelgave called out to the small paddle boat for an answer. At first the men in the boat, numbering twelve, responded that they were friends with a captain from Barbados. Unsure of how to take this information, Snelgave ordered twenty of his men to come up to the deck, armed. Snelgave hailed the boat the again and this time the unknown men answered, “America,” and simultaneously fired a volley of shots at the Captain. Unfortunately for Snelgrave, his crew never answered his call to arms. His ship was boarded with no resistance and was subsequently captured by pirate captain Thomas Cocklyn and his crew from the Rising Sun at the mouth of the

Sierra Leone River. That night, Cocklyn’s crew drank and feasted on the goods Snelgrave was enroute to disperse. The pirate crew drank to, not only the health of Captain Snelgrave, but also,

“that of the Pretender, by the name of King James the Third.”2

So why were pirate crew’s like Cocklyn’s using Jacobite rhetoric? While not a wholly collective movement, it was intentional political action. Only recently have historians seriously contemplated piracy as integral to understanding the social context of the British Isles and the

Atlantic world. Of those, E.T. Fox, Joseph Baer, and Steven Hahn are the few who critically

2 William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade 1734, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, accessed November 13, 2018, https://www.gale.com/primary-sources/eighteenth-century- collections-online 2 recognize the intersection of Jacobitism and piracy. Notable pirate historian Marcus Rediker denotes the use of Jacobitism by pirates only nominally. Arne Bialuschewski, in “Jacobite

Pirates?” brushes off the connection to Jacobitism and piracy itself as a “self-justifying façade behind which pirate gangs increasingly alienated themselves from mainstream society.”3

In contrast, other scholars over idealize and glorify pirates in The Golden Age. Talissa J.

Ford’s analysis in Radical Romantics oversimplifies pirate Edward Teach’s (infamously known as Blackbeard) actions as revolutionary and tolerant supporting her arguments with Captain

Charles Johnson’s A General History of Pyrates, which other scholars have described as being more fictious than accurate.4 Ford reveals to readers, and myself, that, “many historians now believe [Teach] was a mulatto,” despite not citing supplemental evidence to support this claim.5

Ford also overlooks Teach’s actions in Johnson’s account that complicate her analysis.6 These problems stem from her background as an English professor and not a historian, despite her essay reading as if it was a monograph of historical critique.

Considering these flaws I want to make clear the critical aim of my discussion: I am not idealizing or trying to find the exact motivations of specific British pirates. Moreover, I am not attempting to argue pirates ontologically resisted the English social and political hierarchy.

Rather their actions, recorded by the English elite, were in opposition to the English royal and merchant class, and sailors turned to piracy because of thier problematic system. Put concisely

3 Arne Bialuschewski. “Jacobite Pirates?” Histoire Sociale/Social History 44, no. 1 (August 26, 2011): 147–64. https://doi.org/10.1353/his.2011.0002. 4 “The Tryals of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Capitan Ogle” Vol 3. Ed. Joseph Baer British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 334 67 5 Talissa J. Ford, "It is Not Amiss to Speak of His Bread" in Radical Romantics. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) 21 6 Johnson writes how Teach, reportedly had his fourteenth wife, whom he just marred and was sixteen years old, raped by, “five or six of his brutal Companions.” Charles Johnson’s General History of the Pyrates, 1724, The Gutenberg Project 70-91, www.gutenberg.org/files/40580/40580-h/40580-h.htm 3 by historian Anne-Pérotin Dumon, “the political will and policies that created merchant empires at the same time produced the piracy of that age.”7 My analysis will build off on Marcus

Rediker’s and E.T. Fox’s analyses to illuminate my main argument: British pirates’ use of

Jacobitism is integral to understanding the complexity of their intentional rebellion against the eighteenth century British Atlantic hegemony.

Starting at the beginning of the Anglo-Spanish War in 1588 British merchants were on a ruthless path for domination that was supported by the English government. During the war, privateering became a main component of England’s assault against the Spanish in the Belearic

Sea and the in Atlantic Ocean. The result of privateering dually emboldened the English government and merchants to dominate trade in the Atlantic World and engendered a hostile environment for lower class sailors already manipulated by the English economy. The end of the

Anglo-Spanish War also instilled Protestantism in English society. However, its stability was furthered by anti-Catholicism which became a unifying component in English society and dominated the political and economic rationale of the parliament, Crown, and merchant class.8

By the time the British Isles coalesced under one nation in 1707 the ostracization of Catholicism became the driving factor to grow trade and empire and was amalgamated in nationalist rhetoric and propaganda as the foundation of British identity.9 The pursuit to affirm British prestige furthered the brutal conditions for British laypeople and, in particular, lower-class men who worked in port towns and took to merchant and naval ships to escape Great Britain’s oppressive

7 Anne-Pérotin Dumon, “The Pirate and the Emperor.” 47-48 In The Golden Age of Piracy, The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Popularity of Pirates (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018) 33 - 45.

8 Jeremy Black, “Introduction” in Culture and Society in Britain, ed. Jeremy Black (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997) 7.

9 Kenneth R. Andrews, “The Sea-War of 1585-1603” in (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630. 223-255. 4 structure. These socioeconomic developments engendered a powerful minority of wealthy

Merchant Parliamentarians who were responsible for the transformation of the legal interpretation of piracy and changed the nation from once supporting its pirate activities to becoming the direct cause for its demise.10

To combat the oppression these British laymen faced at home and on the seas, these men turned to piracy as one of few outlets against this oppression. In this reactionary pursuit, free- booters created a ship structure which opposed the hierarchy of English naval and merchant ships. As Marcus Rediker notes, “By expropriating a merchant ship (after a mutiny or a capture), pirates seized the means of maritime production and declared it to be the common property of those who did its work.”11 Their act of attacking British ships, which at times was not a purely economic pursuit, furthered their opposition to the British economic structure and the success of trade. In addition, British pirates utilized Jacobitism as a form of protest that directly attacked the

Hanoverian regime. As such, British pirates were created out of and in reaction to the economic hegemony and intolerant social structure engendered in the British Isles at the end of the seventeenth century and established in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Importantly, the legal transformation of piracy from the end of sixteenth century to the first years of the eighteenth century denote the importance of the progress of trade and Empire developed over the course of the early modern era.

Before I go any further, I would like to clarify that not every British pirate turned to piracy because they were subject to the British mercantile structure. Edward Teach, Benjamin

Hornigold, and Henry Avery were privateering captains in the War of Spanish Succession (1702-

10 Neufeld, “The Evolution of the Legal Concept of Piracy in Early Modern England.”; Linebaugh and Rediker, “ Hydrarchy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State" in The Many-Headed Hydra. 143-173. 11 Rediker, “The New Government of the Ship” 60-82. 5 13) and turned pirate after the end of the war.12 Moreover, not every pirate utilized their unique position to oppose these larger narratives. Edward Low and Teach were ruthless and, like them, many pirates utilized violence for no good reasons but to cause chaos. Due to these discrepancies in the origins and actions of pirate crews, we should take each as a special case. 13 Despite this, pirate crews maintained diverse and authentic structures, pirates like Teach, Avery, Low and other former privateer captains that rejected British merchants and government itself.14

Fundamental to the pirate ship organization were a set codes and social structure that every pirate ship in the Golden Age prescribed to anarchistic and communistic norms. As such pirates fundamentally opposed the rigid social and political structures and drive for economic expansion that was solidified in the British Isles. And as such, pirates are integral to understanding the historical progression of Britain just as much as any other actor codified in the accepted historical cannon.

My thesis is oriented to note the actions of British pirates and their social, political, and economic position in the first two decades of the eighteenth century. Namely, it establishes the agency of these pirates. A large section of my paper is devoted to the period before the Golden

Age of piracy (determined to be roughly between 1650-1723), starting with the beginning of the

Anglo-Spanish war. The socio-economic and political developments in this period created early

12 Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates ; Marcus Rediker, “To Extrapolate Them from The World,” in Villains of all Nations, (Boston, 2004), 13 This will be fleshed out later but for context now, each pirate ship created Articles that would be followed by the crew and captain. These articles denoted that pirate captains could not have more booty than the rest of the crew and that the captain only had authoritative power during battles. Captain Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pirates. 14 Boston Newsletter, 1718. Vol 1. British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 334; A Copy of Verses Composed by Capt. Every’ (1770) Vol 4. British, 369- 370. 6 modern Great Britain. These developments are integral to understanding why the popularity of piracy among British sailors, and how their actions were political.15 To make my analysis clear, the pirates that I will be referring to in my study are from the British Isles. All lower class free- booters from the British Isles were subject to the same social, economic, and political system as they were created in England and perpetuated throughout the British Isles. Further, England subsumed the rest of the British Isles with the Union of 1707 and created Great Britain.16 As such I will be referring to the British Isles as Great Britain or England when it is contextually correct. And though my essay will take place in the Atlantic World, most of evidence will be taken from actions and events off the coast of the Americas and West Indies.

The definition of Jacobitism varies among early modern historians, due to this discrepancy, it is necessary to define the constraints of the belief and who is codified as Jacobite.17 An overarching definition of Jacobitism is difficult to create because Jacobites varied in degree of loyalty to the cause. A loose definition of a Jacobitie has been codified by historians as someone who had loyalty, or at the very least, preferred the Catholic Stuart King, whose lineage was on the throne prior to the ascension of Protestant William and Mary of Orange in 1689, to what

Jacobities viewed as the illegitimate Hanover successor.18 For the constraints of this essay, I would like to define the parameters more clearly. To sample from Paul Monod’s work,

Jacobitism is defined by both the idea and “the expression of the support for the claims of the exiled King.”19 With this definition in mind, Jacobitism sentiment, (toasting to “the Pretender,”

15 Black, “Introduction” 8. 16 John Miller, “The Growth of Protestantism” in Early Modern Britain 1450-1750, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) 119-124. 17 Karen O’Brien, “Protestantism and The Poetry of Empire.”; Paul Kleber Monod, “Introduction: Defining Jacobitism” in Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788 (Cambridge, 1989), 4-6.

18 Monod, "Laws of Man and God: Jacobite Politic Argument.” 43

7 rioting, and armed unrest) demonstrates that certain pirates (such as Charles Vane and Stede

Bonnet), were considered to be both pirate and Jacobite. Who was most affected by this dual image of the Jacobite and Pirate? Most notably the English government officials; pirates were considered a direct threat to the stability of British trade and their use of Jacobitism struck at the heart of British anti-Catholicism and the legitimacy of the crown. For the perpetuation and stability of their capital merchants and elites who benefited heavily from trade were invested in the demise both pirates and Jacobites.20The English elite subject in my essay are merchants and the English government and, in the eighteenth century, colonial officials. These groups gained the most from a stabilized society structured by a unified religion (Protestantism) and the success of English trade. Thus, seen together the causes of Jacobites and the pirates hit the emerging

British identity at its core. These claims are further by the reactions of British merchant and naval captain to pirates in the eighteenth century and their use of Jacobitism. The rhetoric employed by the merchant class and the extreme violence utilized by the British government transformed the social perception of British pirates as enemies of the state and mankind.21 In context with the socioeconomic and political developments in the British Isles, pirates were not merely rebels without cause, but rather men and women who engendered out of and reacted to the British social and political context. Pirates were intentionally political, and because of this

British piracy should be remembered as aspect of rebellion, just as Jacobitism is remembered.

Finally, it is important to remember that not all English and British citizens approved of the religious intolerance and economic domination seemingly commonplace in the late seventeenth

19 Monod, “Introduction: Defining Jacobitism” 4-6.

20 Ibid, 5; Marcus Rediker, “To Extrapolate Them From The World,” in Villains of all Nations, (Boston, 2004), 144- 145; Linda Colley, “Profits” in Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837. (London, 1999) 76. 21 Marcus Rediker, “To Extrapolate Them From The World,” in Villains of all Nations, (Boston, 2004), 8 and early eighteenth century. In my discussion of Jacocbitism, my historical analysis will be strictly oriented around the idealism of the Jacobite cause in comparison to the prevailing dominance of Protestantism in England and then Great Britain during the beginning of the eighteenth century; my focus on the Jacobite cause will namely be oriented around the marginalization of Catholicism and the expressed desire to have the Stuart lineage reinstated on the throne. Moreover, I am not contending that every pirate who indicated Jacobite sympathy was a true believer in the cause. Piracy in its connection with Jacobitism illuminates a critical development in early modern Britain. British piracy confronted the dominate narratives commonplace in its Golden Age. Narratives that would be responsible not only for its demise, but also for the growth of the British Empire and its domination in the Atlantic World. British piracy in the Golden Age is an integral development in Atlantic World history and lays bare the oppression deployed by merchants and the English government to achieve supremacy in the

Atlantic World.

9 Chapter 2 The Creation of a Modern State

Beginning in the seventeenth century and continuing into the eighteenth century, England promoted trade for the primary benefit of the English elite at the direct cost of the poor, engendering many social, political, and economic problems within the British Isles.

Simultaneously, The English crown and parliament codified Protestantism into the legal and social structure in the British Isles. In combination, these cultural agendas singularly benefited the English elite and marginalized the poor and non-protestant English. The results of these new economic and social standards created tension between the wealthy, explicitly merchant class, and the poor.

This chapter will examine the simultaneous cultural, political, and social shifts in

England and then later Great Britain after the Union of 1707. Due to the vast amount of change during this time period, I begin by going through shifts in trade (and with it the burgeoning mercantile hegemony), Protestantism, and anti-Catholicism from the late sixteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth century. The sections below are divided by these institutional shifts so as to examining the interdependent developments which established the foundations of

Modern Great Britain, and their relation to piracy with clarity.22

22 Kenneth R. Andrews, “The Sea-War of 1585-1603” in (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630. 223-255.; Peter Lake “Anti-popery: The Structure of a Prejudice” in Conflict in Early Stuart England. Ed. Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (London: Longman, 1989), 72-97

10 Eye of the World

The developments of the late sixteenth century fostered new ideas that would later construct the social, political, and economic foundations of the British Empire. Following the Protestant

Reformation, Queen Elizabeth established Protestantism as the dominate religion in England with the codification the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles in 1563.23 However, these initiative were not unquestioned: English Historian Peter Lake notes, “the cultural struggles upon which English Protestants embarked at the Reformation lasted into the seventeenth century.”24

These late sixteenth and early seventeenth century developments fostered the dynamic conflicts in the structure of Protestantism which continued throughout the seventeenth century and developed simultaneous to the use of anti-Catholicism.25 Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen

Elizabeth in 1570 for her implementation of the aforementioned Protestant doctrines.26 In reaction Parliament and Crown banned Christmas, deciding the the holiday was too catholic.

These actions were in tandem with the frequent imprisonment of lay Catholics during times of social crisis. The English government made their sentiment clear; Catholicism and Catholics were the central problem confronting the social stability of England.27

The general anxiety manifested the diplomatic tension that began the Anglo-Spanish War, starting in 1585 and lasted until the succession of James I in 1603. Support for the war resulted in English citizens employing Protestantism as synonymous to nationalism due to their anti-

23 John Miller, “Money and Power: the Growth of the British State 1640-1750” 302-320. 24 Peter Lake “Anti-popery: the Structure of a Prejudice” 72-97 25 Peter Lake “Anti-popery: the Structure of a Prejudice”; John Miller, “The Growth of Protestantism” in Early Modern Britain 1450-1750, 119-124; Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788.; Thomas S. Freeman, “The Myth of Pope Joan in Early Modern England” in Fincham and Lake, Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England. 62-68;

26 Ibid 27 Miller, “The Growth of Protestantism to 1625.”119-124. 11 Catholic and simultaneous anti-Spanish belief. Parallel to the installment of nationalist

Protestantism was the codifications of “exploration, plunder, colonization, and trade,” as the pillars of English success. Due of a lack naval power, Queen Elizabeth relied on merchant privateering to establish English participation in these four arenas. The harsh and strict power utilized by merchant captains like Sir Francis Drake and Captain Frobisher coupled with their desire for capital gain were integral for the success of these exploits. During their privateering expeditions of 1585, Drake and Frobisher would employ drastic measures like setting fire to ships and cities to assert control over his sailors.28 Moreover, propaganda disseminated after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 demonstrated a general bolstered Protestant, Anti-Catholic sentiment, and pro-privateering sentiment. Historian Kenneth R. Andrews writes how the insurgence of lay Englishmen vying to become sailors on privateer ships was bolstered by the growth of nationalistic pamphlets and poems which, “associate[d] English nationalism with militant military Expansion”. The conclusion of the war in 1603 was largely wrought by English privateers and led to an advantageous but not victorious outcome for England.Their pursuits created trading companies like the East India Company England along with the settlement of the first English colony in America. This militant maritime presence made England known to foreign countries as the “nation of pirates.” 29

As such, England established a profitable trading sector, though the county still struggled for

Atlantic supremacy until the mid-sixteenth century.30 It was at this time that trade and mercantile growth created a surplus of goods and retail sector that engendered a ‘consumer revolution’ for

28 Papers Relating to the Navy During the Spanish War. Reg. 7. C. Xvi. Fol. 166 Navy Records Society, 1987 1-27. https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1998031/files/folder/Documents?preview=102316443 29 Andrews, “The Sea War 1585-1603” 223 -250. 30 Miller, “The Growth of Protestantism to 1625.”119-124. 12 elite classes who now had access to an abundance of new foreign luxuries. However, these gains in consumerism were limited to England exclusively. The passage Navigation Acts of 1651 limited Scottish and Irish merchants to trade with English ships or ships that had English crews.

The act was intended to increase trade to extent that it would rival the Dutch but instead caused massive economic problems for both kingdoms.31 However, the Navigation Acts did not only affect the economies Scotland and Ireland. North American colonist negatively impacted by the

Acts turned to pirates to receives goods and luxuries unavailable through legitimized trade and in effect were responsible for the surge in piracy and profit pirates received during the end of the seventeenth century.32

Foreshadowed in the establishment of England’s first colony, the Crown became invested in the stability and growth trade as much as elite merchants profiting off it. In the early seventeenth century, Queen Elizabeth, became so notorious for supporting privateering and plundering, was dubbed the “pirate queen,” by foreign officials.33 Historian Steven C. Pincus notes in the middle of the seventeenth century, “an economic element” was added to the concept of universal monarchy.34 As such, material gain had become embedded within the high culture of

England and later with the entirety of the British Isles after the union of 1707.35 As the seventeenth century developed, success in trade bolstered England’s maritime power and made the country a European economic powerhouse rivaled only by the Dutch.36 This resulted in

31 Miller, “Empire” and, “Prosperity and Poverty,” 267-287; Ormord, The Rise of Commerical Empires, England Andthe Netherlands in the Age of Mercantilism, 1650-1770. 32 Rebecca A. Simon (2016) “The Problem and Potential of Piracy: Legal Changes and Emerging Ideas of Colonial Autonomy in The Early Modern British Atlantic”, 1670–1730, Journal for Maritime Research, 18:2, 123-137, DOI: 10.1080/21533369.2016.1253317 33 Miller, "Empire.” 261 34 Pincus, "Protestantism and Patrotism". 257 35 Linda Colley. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837. “Profits.” 76.

36 Ormord, The Rise of Commercial Empires, England and The Netherlands in the Age of Mercantilism, 1650-1770. 13 British colonists in the Americas relying on English merchant for goods and money. By the late

1680s English shipping and trade in the Atlantic World had grown so abundant it equaled northern European and Baltic trade combined, and tripled its cargo output from 1629.37 By the end of the seventeenth century, England had surpassed rival European countries in imperial power resulting from its new hegemony in overseas trade.38 English elite profiting from the abundance of trade became extremely invested in it, so much so that the appeal to commercial domination was integrated as being about of the Island’s national character. Linda Colley described it as, “a cult of commerce [which] became an increasingly important of being

British.”39 Perhaps one in every five families in Great Britain relied on trade and distribution as their main source of income.40

In contrast to the richness of goods that the wealthy had access to, England’s burgeoning economic hegemony disenfranchised its poor, and engendered unsavory and problematic social conditions. As merchant elites became more become more economically powerfully the

Parliament and crown allocated the abundance of goods to the smalls but powerful elite class. To reach these ends, England’s poor became more economically disenfranchised, by the year 1688, more than half of Kingdom was receiving poor relief.41 Symptomatic of this inequality the period saw a growth in, “poverty, vagabonage, beggary, and crime.”42 The working class became more mobile to escape the abysmal working and living conditions engendered by economic growth.43

37 Ibid, 63; Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, “Hydrachy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State” in The Many-Headed Hydra. (place: time) 145 38 Arne Bialuschewski. “Jacobite Pirates?” 147–164.

39 Bialushewski, “Jacobite Pirates?” 47-164. 40Ibid. 41 Miller, "Prosperity and Poverty, 1660-1720.” 281-282 42 Andrews, "Sea War of 1585-1603" 233-255 43 Ibid; Miller, "Prosperity and Poverty, 1660-1720.” 281-282 14 British sailors were particularly affected by the developments in trade and empire. Lower class sailors were frequently unemployed by the constant warfare for British Atlantic dominance.44

The turn of the eighteenth century brought a new era of wealth disparity that marginalized the poor industrial workers for the benefit of the wealthy.45 Negating its impact on the lower classes, English elite began to employ rhetoric that appealed to trade and Atlantic domination: “Then we upon our Globe last verge shall go/And view the Ocean leaning the sky.”

This is a exert from John Dyrden’s 1688, Annus Mirabilis, named by English historian Karen

O’Brien as being the most influential piece of the period. The poems importance notes how

English elite began to the view the world as their own, abundant for the taking.46

In the new century, Great Britain viewed the success of trade and empire as integral to the success of the nation state. Commercial prosperity equated to success within American colonies England haphazardly acquired in the seventeenth century.47 During this time, the profitability of trade engendered a new power structure of merchants. These group of men more often than not utilized privateering to achieve their success and in doing so developed a stable and viable economy in the Americas.48 These merchants acquired power because the English government determined that the profitably of their aims led to prestige for England and supremacy in the Atlantic world. Importantly, their success and capacity for prestige were fundamental to the exploitation of their sailors.

44 Robert Gosse, The History of Piracy. (New York: Franklin, 1932) 117; Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many- Headed Hydra. 45 Ibid, 297 46 O’Brien, “Protestantism and The Poetry of Empire.” 47 Dumon, “The Pirate and the Emperor.” 48 Ibid; 15 The Name of Popery

As we have seen, English citizens relied on the “othering” of Catholics and with-it anti-

Catholicism to preserve the health of Protestantism. seventeenth century political unrest emboldened English citizens to not only maintain this sentiment but also amalgamate it to

English and British national identity. Bolstered by the Royal government, most notably by

Parliament, Anti-Catholicism transformed to fit any social crisis in order to dually justify the rightness of Protestantism and maintain the English social and political structure.

During and after the Anglo-Spanish war, the double usage of Anti-catholicism as damning the Catholic church and bolstering the rightness of the Protestant church is most clear in the popularization and the transformation of the myth of the Pope Joan. The myth of Pope Joan was first crafted in the 11th century but was popularized in the thirteenth century by Martin of

Troppau with his Chronica de Romanis Pontificibus et Imperatoribus. It denotes that a German woman disguised in male clothing ascent to the Papacy for two years between Pope Leo IV and

Benedicts III Papal rule in the ninth century. Her time as Pope abruptly ended when she became pregnant and died giving childbirth en route to the Lateran palace in Rome. She was buried where she died, and Troppau purports that the Vatican erased any documents account for her time in the Papacy. 49

Despite English and continental Catholics, like Thomas Harding and historian Florimond de Raemond among others, critically explaining the historical discrepancies within the story,

English Protestants popularized and vehemently supported the Myth of Pope Joan following the

49 Thomas S. Freeman, “The Myth of Pope Joan in Early Modern England” ed. Kenneth Fincham and Peter Lake, Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England. (Woodbridge: Suffolk, 2006) 62-68. 16 Reformation.50 Notably the Lord William Burghley, who Queen Elizabeth’s chief advisor for a majority of her reign, received a book about Pope Joan with supplementary pamphlets about catholic priests during the Anglo Spanish War demonstrating Catholics were sent to, “destroy the world.”51

Importantly, English Protestants spent a great deal of text denoting the truth of Pope Joan between the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Among those was Alexander Cooke who authored a particularly influential text titled Pope Joane in 1610. Despite its fundamental historical inaccuracies, Pope Joane, was translated to Latin and reprinted in 1625,1745 and 1809, it’s social relevance extending into the nineteenth century.52 The myth emboldens—explicitly because Pope Joan was a woman—the fundamental Protestant principle that Catholicism was an aversion to the social order and Joan as evidence of the evil that lay within the Catholic church.

Protestant iterations of Pope Joan transformed the myth and sensationalized her deception. In

1625, John Bale retells Troppau’s account and adds, “The Pope being also an harlot… for then it was the Lordes pleasure to bewraye to the whore of Babilon,”53 equating her rein to the prophecy in the book of Revelation stating the world would end by the hands of the whore of Babylon.54

50 Ibid 51 Walter Orme to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Aug. 30 1694, State Papers Online http://go.gale.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/mss/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DA-ASC- SORT&inPS=true&prodId=SPOL&userGroupName=psucic&tabID=T001&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESUL T_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=4&contentSet=GALE%7CMC43043 01790&&docId=GALE|MC4304381790&docType=GALE&viewtype=Calendar 52 Freeman, 60-79; Peter Lake “Anti-popery: the Structure of a Prejudice” 72-97; Alexander Cooke, Pope Joane, (1625). Early English Books Online, date accessed December 15 http://eebo.chadwyck.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/search/full_rec?SOURCE=pgimages.cfg&ACTION=ByID&I D=99844281&FILE=&SEARCHSCREEN=param(SEARCHSCREEN)&VID=9078&PAGENO=2&ZOOM=FIT& VIEWPORT=&SEARCHCONFIG=param(SEARCHCONFIG)&DISPLAY=param(DISPLAY)&HIGHLIGHT_KE YWORD=undefined; 53 John Bale, The Pageant of Popes Contayninge the Lyues of all the Bishops of Rome (1574). 77. Accessed December 15 2019 http://eebo.chadwyck.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/search/fulltext?ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000998364370000& SOURCE=var_spell.cfg&WARN=N&FILE=../session/1576538147_2012 54 Freeman, “The Myth of Pope Joan in Early Modern England” 62-68. 17 Shifts in the popularity and uses of Pope Joan were dependent to its fruitfulness in a social crisis or dynamic in England. To this end the concept of Pope Joan as the whore of Babylon relaxed as the seventeenth century developed. This was not due relaxed anti-Catholic prejudice, but rather a realization among Protestants that discrediting the Catholic structure in this manner could engender a similar commentary about the Anglican Church.55 The myth lost its popularity during the English Civil War, English citizens who favored Parliament perceived the Catholic threat as not from Rome but in England with anti-Catholic sentiment being utilized against Charles I.56

Despite its disappearance in the 1640s, The myth became commonplace in restoration England with the ascension of James II due to the prominence of Catholicism among court member wives.57

Fusing together the various Protestant motivations to employ myth of Pope Joan, notes the dynamism of Anti-Catholicism in English society. Anti-Catholicism is dually a simultaneous projection of prejudice and an affirmation of the Protestantism and the English social structure.

Both Pope Joan’s disappearance from English gossip and rhetoric during the English Civil War but yet consistent popularity in seventeenth century society denote the necessity for Anti-

Catholicism. Prior to and after the English Civil War the threat to English society was outside of

Protestantism and outside the British Isles, as compared to the developments during the war, which we will see momentarily. For now, the Myth of Pope illuminates is the desire and constant need to verify and affirm the goodness and righteousness of their religion, identity, the Protestant

English social structure.58

55 Freeman, 60-79. 56 Lake “Anti: Puritanism,” 81 57 Freeman, 60-79. 58 Lake “Anti-Puritanism: A Structure of Prejudice” 80-85; Peter Lake “Anti-Popery: the Structure of a Prejudice” 89-97 18 English Parliamentarians use of anti-Catholicism in the English Civil War denote not only a further unfounded fear of the Catholic influence (this time projected onto Charles I), but its constant verification for the English religious culture, and perpetuation of it by hegemonic structures. Even though there were Protestant factions that determined their concept of the religion was most true, like Presbyterians in the Scott National Covenant determined that, “This religion is the only true Christian faith and religion.” They all equally opposed, “chiefly all kinds of papistry” and typically named the Pope as the Antichrist. 59 These beliefs denote the manipulation of lay Englishmen by Parliament prior to the outbreak of the war. Parliament mobilized rhetoric insinuating Archbishop Laud and others in Charles’s court were conspiring to instill Catholicism back into the English political system. Parliamentarians reinforced the so- called catholic enemy in England. During the Civil War Sir Edward Dering, a Kent baronet and

PM for the Long Parliament and Hugh Peter, a parliamentarian army Chaplin mobilized Anti-

Catholic rhetoric to justify Parliaments fight against Charles I. In 1644, Dering crafted a declaration explaining his initial alignment with the royalist campaign but subsequent switch to the parliamentarians at the beginning of 1644. In the declaration Dering details how the King was, “led to the contrary way by a secret junto of popishly affected counsels…”60 In 1645, Hugh

Peter described to the Commons the fall of Basting House, a royalist garrison, in Hampshire and insinuated Basting house would be always be loyal to King and his purportedly Catholic counselors. Peter concluded by noting how the fall of Basting House was God’s will and desire ,

“And thus the Lord was please in a few hours to show us, what mortal seed all earthly glow grow

59 The Scottish National Covenant, 1638 in Keith Lindley’s The English Civil War and Revolution: A Sourcebook Routledge Press: London and New York 1998.; Peter Lake “Anti-Popery: the Structure of a Prejudice” 92-95

60 Sir Edward Dering, A Declaration, 1644 in Keith Lindley’s Lindley’s The English Civil War and Revolution: A Sourcebook (Routledge Press: London and New York) 1998. 102 19 upon, and how just and righteous the ways of God are…”61 Both texts note the belief in a

Catholic takeover and that by the defeating the Royalists they were in line with God’s desire.

Propaganda and rhetoric such as this bolstered fear of Catholic domination under Charles I rule and fueled populist Catholic hysteria in religious fractions like the Presbyterians.62

The furthering of anti-Catholicism sentiment by Parliament did not die with the end of the English Civil War. Anti-Catholicism took a up a renewed forced in the 1680s with the, again, unfounded fears of a Popish Plot to kill Charles II. Whigs in Parliament again were at the forefront of this campaign. In 1679, Tory supporter Robert L’ Estrange reveals what is at stake when Whigs bolster the Popish Plot:

“A Legal and Effectual provision against the Danger of Romish Practices and Errours, will never

serve their turn, whose Quarrel is barely to the Name of Popery, without understanding the Thing itself.

And if there were not a Roman Catholick left in the three Kingdoms, they would be never the better

satisfied; for where they cannot find Popery, they will make it: nay and be troubled too that they could

not find it. It is no new thing for a Popular Out-cry, in the matter of Religion, to have a State-Faction in

the belly of it.”63

As insinuated by L’Estrange, Anti-Catholic sentiments deployed by Parliament were not only used against the Crown but also against opposing political regimes, like the Tories and the

Whigs, to bolster contempt in the English people.64 This from of anti-Catholicism continued as the seventeenth century came to a close. Anti-Catholicism deployed during the Glorious

Revolution of 1688-1689 with the ascension of William and Mary of Orange mitigated critique of their legitimacy to the crown. Despite James II being the son of Charles II, and in terms of

61 Hugh Peter, The Full and Last Relation of All Things Concerning Basting House, 1645, Lindley. 110. 62Peter Lake “Anti-Popery: the Structure of a Prejudice” 92-95. 63 Robert L’Estrange, The history of the Plot, or, A brief and historical account of the charge and defence of Edward Coleman, Esq., William Ireland, Thomas Pickering, John Grove : Robert Greene, Henry Berry London: 1679 https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A47868.0001.001/1:2?rgn=div1;view=toc 64 Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788. 43 20 heredity the legitimate successor to the throne, parliament invited William III and Mary Stuart, the latter being James II’s daughter, to become King and Queen of England and ensure the perpetuation of Protestantism. The ascension of William and Mary of Orange threatened legitimate hereditary succession and as such the legitimacy of the English crown was fundamentally uncertain.65 However, political conflict surrounding the revolution did not go quietly. After William and Mary ascend to the throne, ninety Tories in parliament refused to sign the Declaration of Loyalty declaring William III as the true king of England, an act known as nonjuring.66 Jacobitism in the eighteenth century, which outwardly supporting the legitimate

Catholic Stuart claim to the throne, laid bare the insecurities of the crown. Following the ascension of William and Mary, defenders of the Hanoverian regime employed anti-Catholicism to defend the validity of the state.67

The myth of a Catholic threat to English political stability was fundamental to the continued domination of elite objects on the broader English society. Historian Paul Monod in

Jacobitism and the English People, contemplates the extent to which English protestant elite had a ‘cultural hegemony’ on society. Notably, anti-popish sentiment was a shared cultural identity among all English protestants.68 As, we have seen through major shifts and cultural crisis,

(which can be noted as most of the seventeenth century) English Protestants fell back on though trhouhg not only the cause of their problems, but also to justify their rightness of their religion.

Moreover, contemplating these events and developments simultaneously denote the deployment of anti-popery by both Parliament and elites class to create a social identity that best fit with their

65 Ibid 66 Robert E. Ritchie, “Winners and Losers.” 185; Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788. 43 67 Ibid 68 Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788. 21 agenda.69 Anti-Catholic sentiment united otherwise fractured sects of Protestantism in the middle of the seventeenth century in such a way that, “ it was the shared anti-Catholicism of

[Protestant factions] that enabled them to overcome their difference and to bond together,”70 and moreover engender Protestantism as integral creating a British national identity.71

English citizens who went these parliamentary ideals were seen as outsiders to the broader English, after the union of 1707, British community. In a ballad written after the

Jacobite Rising of ’15, the Protestant writer proclaims, “We shall in plenty live at ease/ In spite of popish envy.”72 Further, in both of the rebellions of the 1715 and 1745, those who favored the Hanoverian Dynasty relied upon an anti-Catholic regime as their way to justify the present order within England.73 The early eighteenth century marked a period where Catholicism and non-jurors, British citizens who refused to swear oath of loyalty for William III ascension, were socially and politically exiled.74 Following the Glorious Revolution, all of the British Isle kingdoms were dominated by “the religious ethos of the ruling elite was Protestantism.” 75 Great

Britain’s Elite was united in populist opposition to Catholicism, Jacobitism, and the notably

Stuart Regime.76 This contempt for non-protestant was found not only in intolerance but also economic fear. Linda Colley notes, in the eyes of British merchants, the use of Jacobitism and

69 Peter Lake “Anti-popery: the Structure of a Prejudice” in Conflict in Early Stuart England 70 Peter S. Freeman, “The Myth of Pope Joan in Early Modern England” in Fincham and Lake, Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England. 60-75 71Linda Colley, Britons Forging the Nation 1707-1837 (New Haven, CT, 1992) 72From Colley: A collection of State Songs, Poems etc. that have been published since the Rebellion (1716), p.137

73 Monod , “Laws of Man and God: Jacobite Political Argument” 15 74 Miller, "Crown and Parliament 1660-1750.” 338-339 75 Miller. “The Fragmentation of Protestantism 1640-1740.” 409 76 Ibid, 339 22 support for James Stuart’s ascent to the throne, benefited the French trading sector and gave them the tools necessary to be a fierce trading competitor in the Atlantic.77

The Character of Englishness

By the beginning of the eighteenth century, further by Parliament, Crown, and an elite merchant class, trade and Protestantism crystallized as the foundations to economic, political, and social success in the British Isles.78 This resulted in the amalgamation of both trade and

Protestantism as the backbone for English superiority. In the 1718 version of The Present State of Great Britain John Chamberlayne, a royal official under Queen Anne writes, “Next to the purity of our religion, we are the most considerable of any nation for the vastness and extensiveness of our trade.” Chamberlayne continues, England’s maritime trade was unlike any other, “But that which makes us most considerable in the Eye of the World, is the greatness of our maritime trade.”79 Prior to the turn of the century, poets and writers like Dresden viewed trade and Protestantism as separate and independent pillars of British identity.80 The rhetoric mass produced during the eighteenth century demonstrated a shift in psyche and public opinion:

“Nature, it seems has contrived [Great Britain for Trade].”81 Despite its popularity among royal officials and wealthy merchants, this mindset was not synonymous with the broader British

77 Colley, “Profits,” 78. 78 Karen, Obrien, “Protestantism and The Poetry of Empire,” in Culture and Society in Britain, ed. Jeremy Black (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 146-163. 79 John Chamberlayne,. Magenae Brittaniae Notitia, or the Present State of Great Britain.1718 Eighteenth Century Collections Online Date accessed, November 6, 2018 http://find.galegroup.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ecco/start.do?prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=psucic 80 Karen, Obrien, “Protestantism and The Poetry of Empire,” 146-163 81 Colley, “Profits,” .76; Miege, Guy. The present state of Great Britain. In two parts. The I. Of South II. Of North Britain ., 1707. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (accessed November, 8 2018) http://find.galegroup.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ecco/start.do?prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=psu

23 community or wealthy class. Historian Paul Monod estimates that one in four British aristocrats had some sort of Jacobite sympathies which countered the supremacy of militant Protestantism perpetuated by the British government and merchant.82 Given the dramatic nature of protestant rhetoric, Jacobite sympathies among British elites seem to be reactionary.83

The duality of trade and Protestantism transcended rhetoric and was employed in British aesthetics to represent British supremacy. British merchants Figure 1 Capitan Coram prided themselves for their religiosity and compared William Hogarth, Captain Coram 1740. Used in Mark Hallett’s Hogarth, courtesy of Thomas Coram Foundation for Children. it to their abundance in trade. This intersection was a staple British aesthetics throughout the eighteenth century. Notable British painter, William

Hogarth’s— known for his social and political commentary—portrait of Thomas Coram demonstrates the dual importance of both religion and trade (see figure1).84 Finished in 1740, the portrait demonstrates how Trade and Protestantism became a cultural paradigm for domination and authority.85 The portrait is, “one of the great landmarks in British portraiture,” and considered a ‘state portrait’, a title that usually reserved to portraits of the nobility and not a

82Monod, “Two faces of Treason,” 11-12.

83 Mark Hallett, “Hogarth’s Variety” in Hogarth. (Tate Members: London, 2006) 150-151 84 Hallet Ibid. 85Ibid. 24 trading tycoon. 86 In the painting, Hogarth names both Coram’s success in trade and devout

Protestantism. Hogarth paints Coram in front of a window showing several ships we are to assume is his own. Despite his lavish coat, Hogarth also symbolizes Puritanism, a conservative sect of Protestantism, in the portrait by painting Coram in Puritan shoes and with a Puritan hat at his feet.87 Naming of both trade and Protestantism in a portrait deemed a state portrait demonstrates these ideals as twin and interdependent hegemonic structures. Art historian Mark

Hallet notes Coram’s paintings is, “The Character of Englishness in a period of acute international conflict and intensive competition from the continent.”88 His rendering of Thomas

Coram demonstrates the most integral ideals to the British elite and their idea of success, the interchangeable dominance of Protestantism and trade. 89

The result of economic and political advancements, and dependent to both, created paradigms shifts in the seventeenth century that resulted engendered a reliance to anti-

Catholicism, the marginalization of the lower classes, that buoyed the success of both trade and

Protestantism. These forces were the foundation of Great Britain’s social structure at the turn of the eighteenth century. British pirates not only witnessed but experienced the application of economic and religious exploitation to further the supremacy of both trade and Protestantism in

British society. Their use of Jacobitism, as we will see momentarily, in context with the religious and economic developments in England and Great Britain during over the course seventeenth and eighteenth century is integral to understanding the motivation of British piracy.

86 Ellis Waterhouse, “Hogarth and the Precursors of the Classical Age,” in Painting in Britain 1530-1790. (Middlesex: Penguin Books) 1953, 174. 87 Lake, “Anti-Puritanism: A Structure of Prejudice” ” 80-85. 88 Hallet, Hogarth, 150-151 89 Colley. “Protestants” P.57-58;, Ellis. “Hogarth and the Pre-Precursors of the Classical Age,” 174. 25 The Scourge of Pirates

Noted in the above sections, the Royal government commissioned merchant privateers to further England’s dominion in the Atlantic World and thus transformed the country into “a nation of pirates.”90 The seventeenth century legal framework concerning piracy was as vague as it was ineffective. However, the English court system drastically changed in the 1690s and early

1700s to fit the political and economic motivation of British elite and combat the popularity of

British piracy in the Atlantic World.

Due to their economic success and responsibility for extending England’s empire, merchants influenced Parliament and the polices they implemented.91 The 1536 Act of Offences at Sea was first law passed to combat piracy. The act moved the legal interpretation of piracy from civil law to common law and allowed judges to adjudicate the crime as a capital offence.92

Despite the harsh legal language, and the passage of subsequent proclamations furthering this stance by the English government, English piracy thrived because of the British government’s complacency to merchant pirates who bolstered the British economy.93 This leniency was reinforced on two fronts. Since piracy cases were held in courts located in port cities, its juries typically consisted of friends and families of pirates reluctant to convict any one on trial for the crime. Simultaneously, privateers who slipped into piracy during peace time were generally accepted because they restricted their pillaging to foreign ships and expanded English trade and

90 Ibid, 1 91 Rediker and Linbaugh, “Hydrachy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State” 172-173. 92 Ibid, 2; Henry VIII “Offences at Sea Act 1536, Article I” in The New Zealand informational institute, http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/imp_act_1881/oasa153628hvc15198/ 93 Rediker and Linbaugh, “Hydrachy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State” 172-173. 26 dominion in the Atlantic world.94 Importantly, there is a clear distinction between piracy, the unlawful seizure of ships and the goods, and the privateering, state sectioned seizure.95

Neither the 1536 Act nor the subsequent legal actions enforced any de jure change to the definition of piracy. Consequently, seventeenth century legal enforcement was ineffective against piracy throughout the century.96 During his reign James I developed the Admiralty Court, a court specifically for the adjudication of maritime law, and implemented it in all the territories of England to end privateering, now deemed an embarrassment to English authority in the

Atlantic.97 Despite this initiative, privateering continued to thrive as the courts lacked the authority to try piracy in the colonies because the 1536 piracy law, still the only substantial piracy law, did not extend to English territories.98 This is contingent to the relatively week naval power England maintained in the middle of the sixteenth century. Both England’s profit from trade and naval dominion came from merchants who privateered their ships to the English government. Under Charles I the English government developed the New Model Navy with money solicited from English ports and advanced their military power on the seas.99 In the following decade England increased its commercial might by enacting the Navigation Act of

1651 and the Articles of War of 1652. Both of these acts passed close in time and emboldened the merchant shipping industry and the Royal Navy and radically expanded the powers of the

English military state. By the late seventeenth The Royal Navy had transformed into the largest

94 Miller, “Money and Power: The Growth of the British State 1640-1750,” 305; Douglas R. Burgess, “Trial and Error, Piracy Trials in England and Its Colonies 1696-1723.” In The Golden Age of Piracy (2018) The University of Georgia Press: Athens 95 Neufeld, “The Evolution of the Legal Concept of Piracy in Early Modern England.” 11

96Ibid. 97 Neufeld.11; Douglas R. Burgess, “Trial and Error, Piracy Trials in England and Its Colonies 1696-1723.” 98 Douglas R. Burgess, “Trial and Error, Piracy Trials in England and Its Colonies 1696-1723.” 77. 99 Miller, “Money and Power: The Growth of the British State 1640-1750,” 305 27 employer of labor and largest consumer of material as well its most prominent industrial enterprise. 100 In spite of England’s new naval supremacy, when the English government implemented policies that gave colonial Admiralty courts more authority in the 1680s, British colonists rejected their new power. North American colonies, both its courts and its people, accepted pirates due to the goods they brought into their economies.101 The 1650s Navigation

Acts depleted colonial trade by adding new and extensive costs to trade in the colonies. New

England governors utilized merchants privateers and independent pirates to solicit illegal goods to once more bolster their economies.102 By mobilizing non-state sponsored forces, colonial governors furthered their colony’s economic wealth—abstracted from the control of the English government.103 In 1704, after England’s government established the legal structure that would ultimately cleanse piracy from the Atlantic World, Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley wrote to the Council of trade and plantations, “it… seeming very harsh to hang people that bring in gold to these Provinces”104

Maritime legality transformed in 1698, when William III enacted An Act for the More

Effectual Suppression of Piracy, which harshened England’s stance on both piracy and colonial leniency. The act ensured governors followed its statutes by threatening, “if any Governours… or Persons in Authority there shall refuse to yield Obedience…is hereby declared to be a

100 “Hydrachy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State” in Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra. 145- 148 101 Robert E. Ritchie, “Revenge of the Company.” in Captain Kidd and the War Against Pirates (1986) Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 145-151. 102 Edward Randolph of Board of Trade, May 30, 1698, John Russell Bartlett, ed., Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England (Orivudence, R.I. Knowles Anthony, 1858), 3: 156.; Douglas R. Burgess, “Trial and Error, Piracy Trials in England and Its Colonies 1696-1723.” 77.; Phillip Goose, The History of Piracy, (New York: Tudor Publishing Company, 1954). 103 Douglas R. Burgess. 8 104 "America and West Indies: July 1704, 11-20," in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 22, 1704-1705, ed. Cecil Headlam (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1916), 211-223. British History Online, accessed February 8, 2020.; Douglas R. Burgess. 77. 28 Forfeiture of all and every Charters granted for the Government.”105 Equally as important in the

1698 Act are the articles against persons accused of aiding pirates and sailors themselves. If on land or at sea, a person accused of attempting to conceal or hide pirates could be convicted to death. If persons were found to aid pirates by purchasing or concealing their goods, they would be tried in accordance with the pirate’s actions. In addition, sailors who deserted British ships would be stripped of their wages and more damning those who attempted to fight ship commanders, mutinied or conspired to mutiny would be executed.106 The explicated and harsh nature of the 1698 Act transformed mainland and colonial admiralty courts. These courts had become the legal affirmation of British domination in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century by combating piracy from both the sailor’s position and the consumer’s positions .107

The development of harsh and broad legal changes concurrent with the creation of Atlantic world system note the shift in the legal of enforcement of piracy that reflected state interests rather than a transformation in ethical adjudication. 108 By the late seventeenth century, England created itself into a modern state; with successful territories overseas and a growing hegemony in

Atlantic trade. Both of which were furthered by an organized political and legal system—the only outliers were pirates.

The shift in the legal conception of piracy is dependent to how British piracy itself transformed in the late seventeenth century. Piracy in the late sixteenth and through the course of

105 "William III, 1698-9: An Act for the more effectuall Suppressions of Piracy. [Chapter VII. Rot. Parl. 11 Gul. III. p. 2. n. 5.]," in Statutes of the Realm: Volume 7, 1695-1701, ed. John Raithby (s.l: Great Britain Record Commission, 1820), 590-594. British History Online, accessed February 8, 2020.; Douglas R. Burgess. 77. 106 "William III, 1698-9: An Act for the more effectuall Suppressions of Piracy. Douglas R. Burgess. 77. 107 Neufeld, “The Evolution of the Legal Concept of Piracy in Early Modern England.” 17; "America and West Indies: July 1704, 11-20," in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 22, 1704-1705, ed. Cecil Headlam (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1916), 211-223. British History Online, accessed February 8, 2020..

108 Neufeld. 18 29 the seventeenth century was restricted to privateers furthered by elite merchants. The trails of merchant privateers Henry Every (1696) and William Kidd (1701) were the most prolific trials of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and marked the beginning of the suppression of pirates. Every and Kidd’s trials denote the transformation of English piracy and its de facto appeal. Both were privateers licensed through the English government but acted on their account once out at sea.

In 1694, Every was one several sailors on a privateered ship off the coast of Spain who demanded they be paid back their wages after authorities refused to release them after they, “had been about eight months out of England… and there was no wages to be got.”109 With Every as the group’s leader, the men successful mutinied against their captain. After taking control of the ship the group subsequently seized two Muslim Mughal treasure ships which led to an embargo placed on the East India Trading Company by the Mughal Empire. The subsequent search for

Every’s crew, driven by the East India Company, was the world’s largest manhunt in early modern history.110 Every dispersed the crew’s seizure equitably among his men and later journeyed to the Bahamas were acting Governor Trott received their goods despite criticism from the crown. After relieving themselves of the prize Every and his 450 member crew parted ways and Every was never found again. Of those only 40 -50 were captured and only 19 were tried for piracy between 1696 -1705.111

Embedded in the developments following Every’s success was the preeminence of the

East India Company, of wealthy English merchants, and the English government in the newly

109 The Tryal of Joseph Dawson (1696) British. 2: 109 110 Burgess “Trial and Error” 76. 111 “The Tryal of Joseph Dawson.” British 2: 110-111.

30 globalized world. Court officials attempted to use Every’s trial as a symbolic case to revolutionize Britain’s stance on piracy and further merchant supremacy in the Atlantic World.

The judges and prosecutors on the case, like Justice Charles Hedges, determined to set a precedent employed extraordinary means, including jury intimidation, to attain convictions.

Following a successful trial against six of Every’s men Hedges wrote the seminal Act of more

Effectual Suppression. Star witnesses John Dan and Phillip Middleton subsequently worked for parliament and the East India Company to further British supremacy in trade and to mobilize parliament’s suppression of piracy.112

Both trials the English government employed English legal authority to demonstrate that

England was no longer complicit to piracy.113 Capitan Kidd’s trial is a commentary on the social transformation of piracy. Kidd was a New York merchant and former privateer who was commissioned by four Whig ministers by the King’s request to attack a heaven of pirates who settled in Madagascar. However, once en route Kidd, under the encouragement of his crew, took several merchant ships including a ship owned by a merchant suffered prior loss at the hands of

Every and influenced the Grand Mughal of India to place an embargo on the East India company. In the previous political and economic climate, the English government would allow colonial official to try Kidd and his men. However, emboldened to maintain England’s eminence in the Atlantic World, English officials had, “taking notice that in New England there was no

Law to punish Piracy with Death, and that in those parts the People were favorable to Pirates.”

Held in England, the defense against Kidd was stacked with prominent Judges and Maritime

112 “The Tryal of Joseph Dawson” British, 2:111-112 113 Burgess “Trial and Error” 76.; Baer, “Introduction” Vol.1 xii-xiii; Joel Baer “A Full Account of the Proceedings in Relation to Capt. Kidd. .” , British Piracy in the Golden Age British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006). 2: 227.; “The Tryal of Joseph Dawson.” British Piracy. 2: 109.

31 officials who ultimately insured a guilty verdict against Kidd and crystallized England’s tone against piracy. The trials note that by the end of the seventeenth century England experienced a de facto shift in the legal enforcement of piracy which, put succinctly by historian Joseph Baer,

“monopolize[d] the use of violence and impose[d] effective control over the empire.”114

The anonymous author, mostly likely a court official, of A Discourse of the Laws

Relating to Pirates and Piracies in 1701 symbolizes the elite de facto influence on the judicial system directly following Kidd’s trial. The text exudes animosity and contempt towards piracy, but paradoxically praises the crusades of privateers of Sir Francis Drake. This hypocrisy notes the integral role of piracy in shaping the modern British state and the shift in capital drive by the

British government and its merchants:

English spirits have done, to their immortal Honour, the vast increase of the Treasure

and Power of the Nation, and security of that Religion… We all at this day so peaceably and

Happily enjoy under his Majesty’s most wise and prudent Administration. 115

The pursuit and solidification of these ideals, furthered by the crown and Royalist supporters, was not lost on the pirates. In beginning of the eighteenth century, British piracy was broaching it’s third wave. At its helms was lower class sailors who usurped merchant control and created the own structure and existed without a government, fostered upon ideals that met their ends rather than unknown higher ends. In this reactionary structure, British piracy had become the diametric opposite to protestant bourgeois ideals dominate on the island.116

114 Baer, “introduction” British 1:xii-xiii.; Robert E. Ritchie, “Winners and Losers.” 185; 115 A Discourse of the Laws Relating to Pirates and Piracies Vol. 3 Piracy in the Golden Age, (London: 277 116 Linebaugh and Rediker, “ Hydrarchy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State" in The Many-Headed Hydra. 143- 173. 32 The eighteenth century marked a new phase of national identity in Great Britain.

Spearheaded by English and British elites, Protestantism became the foundation for their pursuits in trade and empire. Trade was the engine the fostered empire and reaffirmed national prestige.

These aims and the relationship between trade and empire in the Atlantic world was synonymous among all European superpowers. England and then Great Britain, however, developed a political, economic, and social system that would triumph in the eighteenth century, determine the course of Atlantic history, and develop the isles into a modern state.117 Economic and territorial gains, founded in protestant nationalism and bolstered by privateers inadvertently created a simultaneous system that exploited their workers for these aims. These ideals were subsequently solidified as the structure of merchant and naval shipping in the century followed.

In reaction, pirates created a structure that diametrically opposed merchant subjugation and the aims of the British elite. British officials response to piracy at this time is noted by historian Joel

Baer, “When piracy become no longer beneficial to the English state, the loopholes were closed and a stricter interpretation of the law was adopted.”118 As England dominated the Atlantic world economy and slowly massed more territories, piracy became an escape for the exploited sailor.

English and British officials recognized the consequences of allowing a counterculture movement to exist in their prime economic center and engendered a shift in the defacto and legal understanding of piracy. The socio-political climate in England and their reach was furthered for the benefit of the bourgeois and the mercantile few.119 However, fundamental to the construction

117 Rediker. “To Extirpate Them out of the World,” 128.; and Dumon, “The Pirate and the Emperor.” 47-48 In The Golden Age of Piracy, The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Popularity of Pirates (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018) 33-45 118 Neufeld, “The Evolution of the Legal Concept of Piracy in Early Modern England.” The Atlas: UBC Undergraduate Journal of World History, 2011. 119 Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000. 33 of this climate was mobilization of sanctioned pirate pursuits.120 Eighteenth century British pirated rejected the aims of British privateers before them and knew they were, “Condemn[ed] only upon Circumstance.”121 Importantly, in this chaotic and influential time period, British piracy developed into a independent organization systemically reacting against British institutional motivations and was mobilized by lower class pirates who became, “an Enemy to all

Man Kind.”122

120 Kevin P. McDonald, “‘Sailors from the Woods,’ Logwood Cutting and The Spectrum of Piracy.” In The Golden Age of Piracy, The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Popularity of Pirates (2018) Athens: University of Georgia Press. 121 An Account of the Behavior and Last Dying Speeches of the Six Pirates, (1704) , Vol. 4, British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 91-92. 122 McDonald, “‘Sailors from the Woods,’” Golden Age of Piracy. 66-67. 34 Chapter 3

Piracy in the Golden Age

In 1718, Howell Davis, a mariner born in Milford, England, came to Nassau, an island in the Bahamas known as a pirate heaven in the West Indies, seeking to go upon the account.

Unfortunately for Davis, he arrived at Nassau now subdued and under the control of governor

Woodes Rogers, former privateer. Fortunately, Rogers was short of, “inhabitants of better principles”123 and commissioned Davis along with several former pirates to man the Buck and the Mumvil Trader, two sloops fitted for trade. Once out at sea, both ships mutinied and joined to form their own pirate crew. To begin Davis’ pirating career and reinvigorate others, the crew held a “Council of War” conducted over rum and sugar known as “Bowls of Punch,” common practice to initiate piracy. During this time the newly minted pirate crew elected Davis as their captain and he gave a short speech, “the sum of which, was, a Declaration of War against the whole World”124

They Had Better be Dead Than Live in Misery

On the June 30th 1719, Joseph Bicknor, sailor on the merchant slave ship Abington, was ordered to mend the main top sail. Once there, he was met by fellow mariners John Whitcomb and Robert Sparks. After contemplating how the ship could be transformed to be “fit for business,” Whitcomb and Sparkes asked if Bicknor could keep a secret. Whitcomb and Sparks,

123 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 29, 1719, CO 23/11 124 Capitan Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates, 175. 35 along with 12 other crew members wanted to over through the ship’s captain, the boatswain and the carpenter and make the ship a pirate ship because, “they had better be dead than live in misery.” Whitcomb and Spark informed Bicknor that they had appointed him captain and said the crew had not mutinied because they were waiting for his consent.125

Bicknor told the captain the next day about the plan. Captain Smith put Whitcomb,

Sparkes, fellow conspirator William Mething, and other mariners who consented to the plan in chains for several days until they reached land, an extreme and brutal punishment by the captain.

Once docked, after months of voyage, the captain kept the prisoners on board for fourteen more days to do work on the ship. Though no indicates Mething and Whitcomb were executed, both sailors were convicted to piracy and sentenced to be hanged. Captain Smith was reprimanded for the extreme punishment of the crew by the court.126

Was his treatment of the crew uncommon? Or did it reflect a larger cultural of superiority and dehumanization by British merchants and naval captains?127 The nature of British naval and merchant captaincy allowed for merchant and naval captains to execute power independent of oversight and regulation. The events that unfolded on the Abington reflect how these merchant and naval crews were subjected to severe and brutal treatment from their captain, driven by desire for capital and nationalist gain. In reaction to this brutality, shipmates viewed piracy as an attractive alternative such conditions.128

125 The Tryals of Capitan Jack Rackam , British. 3:40-44. 126 Ibid, 3:40-44 127 Ibid

128 Rediker, “Who Will Go ‘A Pyrating.’” 57; Piracy destroy'd, Vol. 3, British Piracy in The Golden Age: History and Interpretation, 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 343-379. 36 Mutinies by British crews was not uncommon. In fact, most pirates came from the British

Isles. Marcus Rediker in Villians of all Nations illuminates that almost half of all pirates in the

Golden Age came from Britain.129 British Naval Captain Vincent Pearse noted on his arrival to the pirate heaven in the West Indies—Nassau, Bahamas—how, “the number of Pirates that was on the island…was about 500, all subjects of Great Britain.”130 Moreover, On September 23rd

1721, the Weekly Journal reported that the pirate haven constructed on small island adjacent to the main island of Madagascar was, “very much infest with pirates from different Nations, but more particularly our own.”131 Rediker’s finding demonstrate 91 of 96 known backgrounds of

British pirates were from the lower-class, which is emblematic of all the origins of British pirates in the Atlantic World.132 These lower-class British sailors did not immediately turn to piracy.

Their decision to become pirate was mediated by the circumstances of English society and of

British naval and merchant ships. In 1701, an anonymous author penned Piracy Destroy’d, a pamphlet containing, most likely, accounts from captured pirates. As such, the pamphlete details the hardships pirates face prior to “going upon the account,” “They would have never been guilty of such Crimes, had the not been destitute to for an Opportunity of getting out of that

Country.”133

What were the circumstances of the Royal Navy and what conditions engendered crew members to take up piracy? Most Royal Navy shipmates did not willingly volunteer. Lower-class men were forced into service and, “haled from their Families like Dogs.”134 Those who did

129Rediker, "Who Will Go 'A Pyrating". 51. 130 United Kingdom, National Archives (TNA/PRO), Admiralty (ADM) 112282, Vincent Pearse to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 4 March and 3 June 171 131The Weekly Journal, (1720), Vol 1. British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation, 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 297. 132 Rediker, “Who Will Go ‘A Pyrating’” 30-31. 133 Piracy Destroy’d, British, 3: 389.

37 volunteer only did so believing their time on board would be filled with battle and excitement.

However, the reality was far from this illustration, “but when at Sea, they met not with their desir’d success.”135 Naval captains had little restrictions from the government and were able to control their ship in any manner they desired. The result allowed Royal Navy officers to treat their crew as a means used to establish their ends, “then for little or no faults cruelly beaten and abused by their officers,” creating a work environment even, “barbarous Foreigners” would not experience. Former navy shipmates would complain of the months of confinement spent on the ship, extremely low wages, and lack of food and water. 136

Unsurprisingly, the brutalities on navy ships were synonymous with the hardship’s shipmates encountered on merchant ships. Merchant captains manipulated low wage Englishmen to join their crew by enticing them with 20 to 30 months’ pay of work. This prospect for monetary gain did not equate to the difficulties the men would face on board. Merchant shipmates were subjected to poor nourishment, unpredictable voyages and mistreatment from captains. Crew members complained “of the barbarity of their Commanders,” and insinuated merchant captains flogged their crew as a form of gruesome punishment.137 This is reflected in the extreme punishment conspirators on the Abington crew faced before and after their attempted mutiny. James Oglesby, a crew member who supported the plan for mutiny, he was subjected to physical violence for a minor offense he committed on board prior to Whitcomb and Sparks discussed the mutiny plot with Bicknor.138 The author of , Piracy Destroy’d , laments the actions

134 Ibid, 3:390 135 Piracy Desroy’d, British, 3: 390 136 Daivs Wilson, “Protecting Trade by Suppressing Pirates, British Colonial and Metropolitan Responses to Atlantic Piracy, 1716-1726.” 89-104. 137 Piracy Destroy’d, British, 3:390-396 138 Piracy Destroy’d, 3; Bear, British Piracy in the Golden Age. Vol 1 and Vol 3. 38 of merchant captains asking, “How much then does it behove Merchants and Owners to provide their Ships with Commanders that are courteous and condescending…”139

The abuse of merchant and naval was an unnecessary cost for the race for Atlantic trade domination. Merchant and naval captains swept up and manipulated by the mainland government and merchant class’ desire for domination, dehumanized illiterate, low-income, proletariats for the success of Atlantic trade supremacy. This unchecked brutality of lay shipmen had consequences, a reaction diametrically opposed to English and then British social, political, and economic order.140

This economic exploitation by the Royal navy and merchant ships forced crew members to look for and support other lucrative forms of employment. James Oglesby, member of the

Abington crew, denotes how the men would, “spend the dearest blood, for each other,” in order to exact, “Revenge on those Dogs [the boatswain and captain Smith].”141 These feelings were constant and universal among merchant and naval crews. William Snelgrave’s crew not only refused to take up arms against Captain Cocklyn and his pirate crew but they welcomed them when they boarded his ship, “’For the people were generally glad of an opportunity of entering with them.”142 This reaction was not uncommon for Cocklyn, all the crews that Cocklyn encountered defied their master’s orders and rejected the call to arms.143

Between March and May in 1719, pirate captain Edward England took nine English ships on the Gamboa River, present day Panama. The total number of men on each ship accumulated

139 Piracy, Destroy’d, British, 3:393 140 Rediker, "Who Will Go "A Pyrating?". 48-49.; Linebaugh and Rediker, “ Hydrarchy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State" in The Many-Headed Hydra. 143-173. 141Piracy Destroy’d British 3:394. 142Snelgrave, A New Account, 202.

143 Ibid 39 to 148 shipmates, of those 55 went “upon the account.” Meaning, about 37% of the men turned pirate because of the conditions on the ship. It is important to note the culture British ship captains created determined the likelihood of a crew’s willingness to take pirating. The Sarah, led by Captain Scant, had only three of its eighteen men turn pirate. However, ships like the Buck sloop—under the command of Captain Sylvester—had two sailors, his only crew members, turn pirate, and thirteen of the eighteen men abroad the Charlotte turned pirate. Every ship Edward

England seized had at least two shipmates turn pirates. 144 The results of England’s capture demonstrate that in some shape or form, the cultures of the English negatively impacted its crew.

The desire to take up piracy did not form over-night. At the end of the seventeenth century, more crews deserted, striked or mutinied than in decades prior. The treatment of the shipmates even inspired ballads that scrutinized the abuses by the merchant and naval ships.145

Between 1709 and 1729 over thirty merchant ships mutinied and turned pirate because of these conditions.146 As shown through Oglesby’s words and actions of sea-farers in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the problematic conditions of British maritime shipping were unsuitable for lay sailors. Mariners turned pirates created a progressive ship culture, which is illuminated later in the paper, to contrast the management of the merchant ships and Royal Navy. Piracy was rooted and created in a fraternal bond that was reactionary to the brutal treatments suffered under of English and British captains.

Once turned pirate, these freebooters would exact their revenge on the British captains and the overall British maritime structure. At base, crews were commonly hesitant to allow

144 We have this Week two Mails from Holland, two from France, and one from Flanders." Weekly Packet, October 24, 1719. 17th and 18th Century Nichols Newspapers Collection (accessed September 11, 2019).; Rediker, "chapter" Villains of All Nations. [pagee 145 British Piracy in the Golden Age. Vol 1 [site] 146 Rediker,"chapter Villains of All Nations. [Page] 40 naval crews members to join their pirate ships for fear of betrayal.147Merchant crews and captains witnessed similar cautionary actions by pirates. After taking merchant ships, pirates would ask the crew about the kindness of the captain. Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts allowed a merchant captain onto his ship because one of his company swore that he was a good and honest man.148 If the crew reported the captain had abused his power, they would enact their form of rogue justice. When Thomas Cocklyn’s crew boarded Snelgrave’s ship, The Bird,

Cocklyn’s quartermaster, shot and viscously beat Snelgrave until his crew cried, “don’t kill our

Captain, for we never were with a better man.” The quartermaster stopped and informed

Senlgrave he would be kept alive, “provided none of [his] people complained against [him].”149

This point is reiterated by Cocklyn himself when Snelgrave is taking back to Cocklyn’s boat, “If you tell the truth and your men make no Complaints against you, you shall be kindly used.”

Afterwards, Cocklyn reprimanded his crew for the mistreatment of Captain Snelgrave reminding them that, “Their reasons for going a pirating were to revenge themselves on the base Merchants and cruel commanders of Ships.”150

Merchant Capitan Richard Hawkins experienced a similar situation with pirate Capitan

Cole. After taken by Cole’s crew, Hawkins was in line for a punishment, called the Sweat, that consisted of a violin playing a, “merry jig” and the pirates moving in a circle and plunging their sword into the guilty prisoner. Just before he was called to, “go in the Ring,” Captain and several others stepped in and said, “that [Hawkins] never did any Man any ill; that [Hawking] had done no Injustice; and that they had already ruined [him].” The crew then called and voted against

147 The Tryal of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Captain Ogle, (1723). Vol 3 , British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) . 37; The Boston News Letter, August 22, 1720. Vol. 1 British, 296. 148 Ibid; Rediker “To Do Justice to the Sailors,” 96. 149 Snelgrave, William A New Account, 202. 150 Snelgrave, William A New Account, 202; Rediker, “To Do Justice to Sailors,” 88. 41 performing the ritual, what was called the Diversion, on Hawkins.151 Roberts’ willingness to exact justice against brutal of ships was translated into the creation of the “Dispenser of Justice.”

The chosen crew member would investigate the honesty and goodness of the masters’ of the ship.152 Historian Marcus Rediker notes, the practice of questioning the honesty and goodness of merchant and naval captains was common and a “Custom” among pirates.153

Pirate kindness was conditional, not only based on British captains but also on pirate crews as well. Their leniency with merchant captains existed on the same case-by-case plane.

Charles Vane and his crew cruelly beat merchant Capitan Joseph Borsea and his crew simply because they could. However, Vane’s violence seemed to be directed towards the commanders of the ship and less towards its crew members. Vane informed Borsea, prior to the seizure of

Borsea’s ship Vane forced merchant captains, Daniel Styles, James Barden, Edward North, John

Tibby and William Hall, but none of their crews, to become his prisoners. All the prisoners informed Borsea they suffered “inhumanities” at the hands of Vane and his crew.154 As shown above, pirates used a degree of violence, and at times discretion, to secure goods and ships. The severity of violence would be conditional to both the character of merchant captains and of pirates crews. Though violence and chaos did not justify the cruelties they suffered on board merchant and naval ships, their localized ultraviolence against the commanders of English ships is causal to the brutality’s pirates suffered on these ships. One of Vane’s prisoners, Edward

North noted Vane and his crew damned the British government and “cursed [the] King and all the Higher Powers.”155

151 British Journal, 1714. Vol. 1, British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 311-314 152 Ibid. 153 Rediker “To Do Justice to Sailors” 88. 154 TNA/PRO, CO 37110, f. 37, deposition of Joseph Borsea and Edward North 155 TNA/PRO, CO 37110, f. 37, deposition of Edward North 42 The universal conditions of merchant and naval ships, their recruitment, and subsequent abuse reveal the problematic economic framework burgeoning in the eighteenth century. The captains of British ships, emboldened by the limitlessly power they were given, dehumanized and manipulate lower class workers for, in the case of the merchant ships, their own capital gain and in the case of Navy ships, nationalistic and imperial gain. As demonstrated before the political and economic environment in Britain favored domination through and for these avenues over and above the perceived value of its most vulnerable citizens.156 Pirates violently retaliated against the problematic nature of British maritime and naval shipping, emblematic of broader

British exploitation, and exacted extreme violence against these commanders. In this capacity and with this pursuit pirates created a type of defacto justice system that rewarded good captains and punished the bad. Responsible for pirate adjudication was the creation their own social, economic, and hierarchical that radically rejected the oppressive structure of the English merchant and naval ships. Piracy was created as a reaction to the oppressive British political and social order. The totality of British pirate pursuits will be illuminated more thoroughly below, as pirates not only exacted social revenge but also, and most infamously known, economic revenge.

156 Ibid 43 Revenge on Those Dogs

Eighteenth century pirates employed various confrontational economic and social tactics that jeopardized the hierarchical structure fundamental. These sailors originated from British merchant and naval ships. The frequency and intentional nature of their attacks to British ships instilled fears in the English government officials and merchant elites. Though economic gain was a fundamental element to British piracy, their actions on board merchant and naval ships reveal a deeper motivation for their actions. Evidence recorded during the peak of piracy in the

Atlantic World reveal how British pirates organized their attacks to exact a form of quasi-justice for the brutal treatment subjected onto them by British Captains.

In 1717 pirate captains Major Stede Bonnet and Edward Teach worked together to blockade the ports of Charleston, South Carolina in order to secure medicine for Teach’s men.

Teach and Bonnet had between them three and four hundred “fighting” men and a large ship called the The Queen Anne’s Revenge. In spite of the blockade the Governor of South Carolina refused to concede to the demands of the pirates, most likely because Teach had pillaged the eastern coast of the American Colonies prior Bonnet’s and his blockade. In hearing of the governor’s refusal, the pirates threatened to murder all the prisoners that they had on board and burn their goods. Realizing the shear force and motivation of the pirates, “being too strong to cope with at the time” the governor dispatched a chest of medicine to the pirates. Richard Allen, 44 South Carolina Attorney General, later termed the event as being extremely, “destructive to

Trade and Commerce,” in Charleston.157

Teach and Bonnet were not the only pirates who created problems for British exports.

Pirates obstructed trade in the entire Atlantic World. Whether pirates understood the importance of trade to British identity, their actions panicked English merchants, governors, and George I himself.158 Along with Bonnet and Teach’s successful blockade, crews like Howell Davis’ completely took over an English fort in Gambia. Bartholomew Roberts, the most successful pirate in the Golden Age, successfully disrupted trade for the entire West Indies.159 For Allen, and other colonial officials like him piracy’s impact on south Carolina’s trade economy was massive, “[Trade] which otherwise must have been inevitably ruined [by pirates],” and more broadly “proved destructive to all trade and commerce in general”160 Off of the coast of Africa, the Caribbean and in the American South, pirates put the economic vitality of British colonialism in jeopardy, “our trade no better protected…but all the English plantations in America will be totally ruined in a very short time”161

Piracy’s existence in the Atlantic world put in crisis the entirety of British mercantilism.

Freebooters’ rejection of tyranny and acceptance of majoritarian rule convinced many sailors that piracy was better than the legal security of merchant and naval ships. “going upon the account” as an avenue to escape exploitation that simultaneously laid the problematic structure of English

157 The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates, (1719) ed. Joseph Baer, British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation, 1660-1770. 2:325-380 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 158 On June 24th 1715 King George I ordered A Proclamation for Suppressing of Pyrates, which allowed pirates to be pardoned from their crimes if they took up the King’s Grace; A General Hisrtory of Pyrates 159 Johnson, A General Hisrtory of Pyrates; Rediker, “To Extrapolate Them out of the World,” 143/ 160 Ibid 161 Redikers, Villains of All Nations; William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade 1734, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, accessed November 13, 2018, https://www.gale.com/primary- sources/eighteenth-century-collections-online; A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors . (1816). 45 trade. Pirates were warranted as, “the Terror of the trading Part of the World,” and a noteworthy enemy against the progress of eighteenth century British trade. 162 Pirate activities during “the golden age” largely existed on the Atlantic plane, the most profitable area for English trade. An order from King George I headed this warning, “the whole trade from Great Britain to [the

Atlantic], will not only be obstructed, but in imminent Danger of being lost.”163

Piracy had major, and largely positive, effects on the economies in British colonies. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, pirates would distribute not only high value goods, but also everyday items to colonial market places at discounted rates.164 To acquire these goods pirates had to literally stop English trade in its tracks by plundering and seizing ships.165 Those these activities benefited the Colonial subjects officials opposed their activities and its attack on the British government. The King’s attorney noted the chaos pirates employed had caused,

“destructions to the utmost parts of our Territories.”166 The destruction pirates caused to English trade, as we will see, was not exactly driven by profit, “From New England, Carolina, Jamaica,

Barbados… Pyrates still increase… and behave themselves with unparalleled violence and continue to do incredible Damage to Trade by taking, plundering burning, of what Nationsoever, which came in their Way.”167 These claims were not wholly unwarranted as mainland Britain experienced a considerable decline in fright rates in the eighteenth century responsible to the government’s reallocation of state finances to cover insurance costs to suppress piracy.168

162 Capitan Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates 17. 163 Ibid, 31. 164 Bialusckewski, Arne. “Pirates, Markets and imperial authority: economic aspects of the Maritime depredations in the Atlantic World, 1716-1726,” Global Crime (November, 2009)p. 52-65. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid; Rediker. “To Extirpate Them out of the World,” 128. 167 The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates, (1719) Vol. 2, British. 325-380. 168 J. L. Anderson, “Piracy and World History: An Economic Perspective on Maritime Predation.” Journal of World History 6, No. 2 (1995) 175-99. 46 Pirates disruption of British trade was not exclusively economic gain. Due to Snelgrave’s fine character the Howell Davis’s and Cocklyn’s crew (who were at this point working together off the coast of Africa) voted to give Snelgrave an entire ship full of slaves so that he, “might return with a sum of money to London.”169 Davis stopped the plan before it came to fruition.

However, if it did, there is no doubt these pirates would have willingly lost a great deal of money to a merchant captain because Snelgrave proved to that pirates that he was honest and just.170 On

March 17th Captain Knot was taken by a pirate ship of “148 bold fellows” who only took “some provisions, but restored him his ship and his cargo.”171 For his troubles the pirates also gave

Captain not and his crew “10 chest of sugar, 10 rolls of Brasil Tobacco, 30 Moiders and some

Gold dust… his crew… had also some other Presents given to them by the pirates.”172 As

Marcus Rediker notes, Governor Spotswood of South Carolina illuminates that pirates would,

“make presents of other Commodity’s of Masters as they take a fancy to in Lieu of that they have plundered them.”173 To pirates, merriment and pirate social standards existed on the same plane as material and economic gain.

In tandem with their willingness to give goods away Pirates also took enjoyment in causing chaos on merchant ships in ways that would limit their own economic success. Stede

Bonnet in his trial was not accused of plundering and taking cargo for his own profit but rather of enacting complete and total chaos on merchant crews. Bonnet and his crew were accused of,

“throw[ing] [Merchant] goods overboard, burn[ing] their ships and sometimes bereaveing [the

169 Rediker, “’To Do Justice to the Sailors,” 99. ; William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade 1734, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, accessed November 13, 2018, https://www.gale.com/primary-sources/eighteenth-century-collections-online 170 Snelgrave, A New Account, 213. 171 British Journal, 1714. Vol. 1, British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 311-314 172 Ibid 173 Rediker, "To Do Justice to the Sailors," 102. 47 crew] of their lives for their pastime.”174 On January, 13 1722, another pirate crew took a merchant ship carrying, “600 Barrels of Beef, and Pork” but the pirates only took, “20-30 Barrels or Beefs… and then sunk the Ship with the rest of her Cargo on board.”175 On June, 28 1720, the

American Weekly reported that in Tripoli one pirate was upset he was not “Ma[de] welcome at his Entrance,” and, “destroy’d 30 [Ship] French and English” in the Harbor.”176 Captain Hawkins encounter with pirates was just as destructive, “Everything that pleased them not they threw overboard… Every individual thing they destroy’d, broke all my windows. Knock’d down the

Cabin, seized all of my arms and Ammunition… then deliver’d me my ship in a despicable condition.”177 In 1720, Bartholomew Roberts and his crew took merchant commander Samuel

Cary’s ship and went through the cargo with, “Madness and Rage” and “Ludicrously [strung sausages] about their necks for a time, and then throwing them away.” After which one crew member, “with his cutlass spoiled and hacked everything he thought was not worth removing.”178 The politics of these actions was denoted by Teach when he captured Merchant

Captain Wyers ships, “[Teach informed Wyers he] would burn his Ship because she belonged to

Boston, adding that he would burn all Vessels belonging to New England for Executing the Six pirates of Boston.”179 Teach subsequently burned another sloop belonging to the party because the captain would not employ former pirates who had taken up the kings pardon. However, he let

174 A Complete Collection of State Trialsand Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors ...;

175 “A Collection of Arms, and an Historical Account of Several British Families.” 176 British Journal, 1714. Vol. 1, British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 311-314 177Ibid 178 The Tryal of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Captain Ogle, Vol 3 , British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) . 37; The Boston NewsLetter, August 22, 1720. Vol. 1 British, 296. 179 Boston Newsletter, 1718. Vol 1. British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) [page] 48 the rest of the ships go supposedly because they were not an affront to piracy.180 Teach’s vendetta against Boston ships did not subside. During his time pirating with Stede Bonnet and pirate captain Richards, Teach reprimanded Richards for taking instead burning a Boston merchant ship they crew had captured.181

These accounts note the pervasive nature of pirate destruction to merchant shipping, not for economic reasons, but also for the social and political culture they represented. Their attacks were conditional and depended on the rationality of the crew and merchant Capitan seized. Pirate violence to British ships was on a spectrum; from giving forced prisoners ships to rejoin society, to giving merchant crews goods seized from other ships, to destroying merchant ships and their commodities. These actions confronted not only British mercantile supremacy and British labor paradigms. Therefore, British pirate actions diametrically opposed and confronted the social and economic motivations of not only merchant ships but also the British identity.

Economic attacks were not the only way tool pirates employed to attack the British government and their pursuit for nation-state prestige. Pirates directly criticized the political developments in Great Britain, simultaneous to their economic attacks. Revealing these understood their place in history and their position against the British framework for Atlantic supremacy. After pillaging merchant commander Samuel Cary’s ship in 1720 off the coast of

Newfoundland, Bartholomew Roberts explicitly declared on return to British maintained his crew would not dock at “Hope point.” “Hope point” as Marcus Rediker notes, was a euphemism for Wapping dock, an infamous exaction dock where hundreds of pirates were hanged.182

180 The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet (1718), Vol 2. British, 321-280.

181 Ibid 182 Boston Newsletter, August 22, 1720. Vol 1. British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660- 1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 296; Rediker, “Defiance to Death Itself.” 147-148. 49 Eighteenth century British piracy was fundamentally motivated against and in reaction to the oppression they faced on British merchant and naval ships, and more broadly, British society itself.

As Traitors and Pirates

Pirates utilized various of forms of Jacobite expression to intentionally affront the economic and political hegemony denominate in Great Britain. These expressions were mobilized through, ship names, songs, and toasts, among others and done intentionally in front of

British merchant and naval crews. The intentional and bald use of Jacobitism adds another layer to the complex protest British pirates employed to criticize the early British state.

One form of Jacobite protest was the utilization of Jacobite sayings and rhetoric to name their boats. Former British citizens turned pirate captains Stede Bonnet, Edward England,

Howell Davis and former privateering captain Edward Teach all changed the name of British ships taken to The Royal James as a nod to the exiled Stuart dynasty vying for the British

Throne.183 Other less obvious names illuminated a pirate connection to the Jacobite cause. At the same time England secured 55 new pirates, he also took three ships and renamed two of them the

Queen Anne’s Revenge and the Flying King.184 In 1717, Teach, working alongside Bonnet and captain Richards, named their sloops The Queen Anne’s Revenge and Revenge. The latter would be changed to the Royal James, assumingly to directly name their resistance of, dare I say,

183 Johnson, A General Hisrtory of Pyrates 320.; A Complete Collection of State Trialsand Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors ...; [5th ed.] (London: printed by T.C. Hansard for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown [etc.], 1816-1828.) 184“We Have This Week Two Mails from Holland, Two from France, and One from Flanders.” 50 Revenge.185 The Queen Anne’s Revenge refers to the last Stuart who sat on the English throne and was directed as insult to the Hanoverian King, George I.186 Moreover, the utilization of

Queen Anne fit almost exclusively into the definition of Jacobitism that Monod creates and I utilize.187 It is specifically naming support for James III (as she was his sister) and not for

Catholicism (as she was raised Anglican). The name Queen Anne’s Revenge is at base an attack against the crown but more broadly criticizing the Anti-Catholic sentiment employed against the

Stuart regime and its supports. The Flying King was a more illusory way of showing support for the Jacobite cause and an opposition to English hegemony. I will analyze its importance thoroughly.

Historian E.T. Fox’s developments in “Jacobitism and Piracy in the ‘Golden Age’” thoroughly demonstrate the link between Jacobitism and the social and political construction of the pirate heaven Nassau, Bahamas. The governor of Jamaica from 1711-1716, Archibald

Hamilton was one of the major actors in British history who created strong ties between the

Jacobite cause and Pirates. As we will see in later sections, Jamaica was infamous for expressions of Jacobitism, pirates’ disorders, and a place a general chaos.188

During the war of Spanish Succession 1701, Hamilton employed privateers, such as

Henry Jennings and Edward Teach, to act as protection for Jamaican trade against the Spanish.

However, in 1715 after their employment as privateers in the war of was terminated, these unemployed privateers contained to pillage without state sanctions and Hamilton continued to

185 The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet, (1718). Vol 2, British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 375. 186 Bialuschewski, “Jacobite Pirates?” 300 ;Fox, “Jacobitism and the ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy, 1715–1725.” 278. 187 Paul Kleber Monod, “Introduction: Defining Jacobitism” in Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788 (Cambridge, 1989), 4-6. 188 Fox, “Jacobitism and the ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy, 1715–1725.” 279; Bialuschewski, “Jacobite Pirates?”; Jamaica Council Minutes, August 12, 1718, CO 140/15, pp. 77–78, TNA 51 accrue profit. As the Urca De Lima (a Spanish Vessel) wrecked off the coast of Florida in the same year, its cargo, “richly laden the Gold, Silver, Goods and Merchandizes of a very considerable Value,” Hamilton told his Jamaican subjects to go to the wreck and, “if stronger than the Spaniards, to beat them off, and take what Money they could get.”189 Interestingly, this event was it concealed by a false sense of protection. The English and Spanish believed

Hamilton was sending ships, “under the pretence of looking for Pirates, but in reality, have committed the highest act of Piracy upon said Catholic Majesty’s subjects.” His actions, damaging to Atlantic trade subsequently, faced not only with the Spanish government but with the British government as well.190 In 1718, Hamilton was accused of, “Receiving and partaking of the Booty,” plundered by pirates. A number of the privateers, including Edward Teach, Henry

Jennings, and British citizen Charles Vane, Hamilton employed in the pursuit maintained their pirate actions after the pillaging the Urca de Lima coalesced into the Flying Gang on Nassau an

Island in the Bahamas. Nassau would become their home and pirate heaven until 1718.191 The use of the Flying King is both a nod to the origins of these notorious pirates and as E.T. Fox indicates, “the King in question was ‘King’ James.”192

However, naming ships was a secondary Jacobite protest to the Hanoverian regime. More directly, pirates commonly toasted to James I or II with merchant crews as their intentional audience. Similar to what Captain Snelgrave experienced with Capitan Cocklyn, Merchant crew

189 Hamilton, Archibald. Articles exhibited against Lord Archibald Hamilton,1718 Eighteenth Century Collections Online (accessed November 17, 2018). http://find.galegroup.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ecco/start.do?prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=psucic

190 Ibid, 10. 191 Fox, “Jacobitism and the ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy, 1715–1725.” 284; Rediker, "The Political Arithmetic of Piracy" 30-31. 192 Fox, “Jacobitism and the ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy, 1715–1725.” 285 52 member James Killing witnessed how Stede Bonnet and his crew, “made bowls of punch and went drinking to the Pretender’s health and hoped see him King of the English Nation”193 These actions were done baldly in front of the British captains to represent their opposition to the constraints of British social and economic institutions they were once subjected. The use of

Jacobitism elevated their protest to an intentional resistance to the economic, political, and religious paradigms consuming the island. Once Snelgrave heard Cocklyn’s toast to James III and himself, he immediately contemplated the graveness of the is action, “I found they were doubly on the side of the Gallows, both as Traitors and Pirates.”194

Notably, images of Jacobitism, such as toasting to the health of James III and shooting ship cannons on his birthday continued to be commonplace in Jamaican society following

Hamilton’s time as governor.195 Historians describe Jamaica from 1716 and the early years of the

1720s as being filled with Jacobite sentiments, most likely emboldened by the failure of the 1715

Jacobite uprising.196 One account notes how Jamaican citizen, Thomas Cardiffe burst out of a tavern with, “several disassorted persons,” toasting to James III’s health on his birthday which subsequently all singing, “The King Shall Enjoy his Own Again.”197 Those these actions were treasonous the witnesses who were called against Cardiffe were unwilling to criminalize him.198

In Nassau, Bahamas, the heaven constructed by the “Flying King” pirates, Jacobite tendencies transcended songs and rhetoric. On March 4th 1717, naval Captain Vincent Pearse arrived in New Providence, to read the King George I Proclamation for Suppressing the Pirates,

193 The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pyrates, (1718) Vol.2 British, 321-381. 194 Snelgrave, William A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade (London 1734), 216-217. 195Jamaica Council Minutes, August 12, 1718, CO 140/15, pp. 77–78, TNA. ;Hahn, “The Atlantic Odyssey of Richard Tookerman.” 541. 196 Hahn, “The Atlantic Odyssey.” 541.; Fox, “Jacobite Pirates.” 277-303. 197 Jamaica Council Minutes, August 12, 1718, CO 140/15, pp. 77–78, TNA. ;Hahn, “The Atlantic Odyssey of Richard Tookerman.” 541 198 Ibid. 53 which pardoned pirates and allowed them to enter back into English society.199 OF the 500 men on the island, 209 took up the “King’s Grace,” and 9 percent of these men returned to piracy.200

Pearse left the island shortly after the reading Proclamation.201 During that time, presumably under the leadership of Charles Vane, pirates who rejected the pardon or accepted but returned to piracy crafted a letter to Jacobite naval captain George Camocke.202 These pirates informed the captain they secured four ships and sixteen sloops and possession of Nassau with (mostly likely an exaggerated number) of 5,000 men prepared to take Bermuda at the command of the James

III. They indicated to Camocke their rejection of the pardon was politically motivated and, “did with one hear and voice proclaim James III for their King.” Camocke notes in taking such action, in relation to their already demonstrated contempt for the crown, these pirates, “are resolved to prosper or parish in their bold and brave undertaking.”203 At all costs and by any means necessary pirates wanted to continue living freely independent from British rule.

The pirate way of life emboldened common British subjects on the mainland who created ballads that note the emancipatory potential of both Jacobitism and piracy against British religious and political structure. In 1696 a ballad called ‘A Copy of Verses Composed by Capt.

199 There is some discrepancy between when Pearse wrote his first letter and his second letter with my secondary sources. However, I have copies of both the letters and I construed that the first was written in 1717 and the second was written in 1718, three month before the arrival of Woodes Rogers. Fox, “Jacobitism and the ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy, 1715–1725.”; Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Calendar of the Stuart Papers Belonging to His Majesty the King, Preserved at Windsor Castle. 213; Great Britain, National Archives (TNA/PRO), Admiralty (ADM) 112282, Vincent Pearse to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 4 March 1717 and 3 June 1718; and "A List of the Names of such Pirates as Surrendered themselves at Providence.” 200TNA/PRO, ADM 1/2282, Pearse to the Admiralty, 3 June 1718 201 Ibid 202 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 29, 1719, CO 23/11; TNA/PRO, ADM 112282, Pearse to the Admiralty, 4 March 1717 and 3 June 1718; and "A List of the Names of such Pirates as Surrendered themselves at Providence.” Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Calendar of the Stuart Papers Belonging to His Majesty the King, Preserved at Windsor Castle. 213; Fox, “Jacobite Pirates.” 298. 203 Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Calendar of the Stuart Papers Belonging to His Majesty the King, Preserved at Windsor Castle. 213; 54 Every’ circulated throughout London after Every’s mutiny five years before.204 The Ballad details Every’s rejection of Britain’s social hierarchy and declares a war against the world that has been responsible for his suffering. “farewell to Plymouth, Calwater be d—nd’/For once I was owner of part of this land/But since disown’d, Adieu I will take/ my person from England, my fortune to take…”205 Moreover, the land seizure named in the Ballad is nod to the legal suppression of Jacobite sympathizers.206 Historian Douglas R. Burgess also notes the indication of class ascension was a threat to the English social and political order in the late sixteenth century.207

Another nod to Jacobitism utilized further down in the ballad. Every names England as being a “false hearted nation” naming the abdication of James II and the denounces the succession of William and Mary, “a proud [Dutch] man.”208 Every ends with a decision to continuing pirates because of the problematic social, political and economic structure in England

(as this Ballad was written before the union of 1707) “Now this is the course that intend to steer/My false-hearted nation to you I declare/ I have done nothing wrong so you may wrong, so you may forgive me/For my sword shall maintain me as long as I shall live”209

In context with other crime Ballads written at the time, ‘Verses Composed by Capt.

Every’ demonstrate the social complexities of the island. And moreover, demonstrate that this appeal to trade and domination was further by the crown and elite and wholly accepted by the public. Most early eighteenth century crime ballads ended with the capture of the criminal. In

204 Jospeh Baer “Popular Ballads," British Piracy in the Golden Age British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006). 4: 365. 205 ‘A Copy of Verses Composed by Capt. Every’ (1770) Vol 4. British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 369-370. 206 Baer, “Popular Ballads,” British, 4:365 207 Douglas R. Burgess, “Trial and Error, Piracy Trials in England and Its Colonies 1696-1723.” 78 208 Baer, “Popular Ballads,” British, 4:365; ‘A Copy of Verses,’ British, 4:369. 209 ‘A Copy of Verses Composed by Capt. Every,’ British, 4:369-370. 55 this instance, as with ballads of Robin Hood and Rob Roy, Every is glorified as an opposition to the British identity perpetuated in the eighteenth century.210 These commentaries broaden our understanding of England at the time, demonstrate the complexities of paradigms.211

The proliferation of Jacobitism rhetoric, utilized to scare British merchants and government officers but at points turned overtly political as illuminated, demonstrates the justified contempt pirates felt for the social, political, and economic structure which they left. Historian Murray

Pittock notes Jacobitism linked Anglo-Saxon marginalized and dispossessed communities under

British rule in common.212 By naming Jacobitism as a part of the pirate cause, they created themselves as diametrically opposite to the stability of the British nation as propped by

Parliament, Crown and elite class. Understanding the totality of the cultural and political shifts in the sixteenth and seventeenth century reveals the pirate deployment of Jacobite rhetoric as an attack on the social, political, and economical the stability of Great Britain.

Importantly, these actions do not demonstrate pirate support for Catholicism but rather support for opposing the British. Jacobitism was one of many avenues that pirates used to directly protest and oppose British political and social paradigms. Pirates created a ship organization that was inherently communistic and anachronistic. Aspects of this structure will be illuminated below.

210 Interesting to note that the former is a man stealing from the rich and royalty and the other is about a Scottish Jacobite Highlander. Both actors objected to hierarchical exploitation embodied in pirate protest through Jacobitism; A Copy of Verses Composed by Capt. Every,’ British, 4:369-370. 211 Ibid, 4:369-370. 212 Murray Pittock, “The Culture of Jacobitism” in Culture and Society in Britain, 1660-1800. (New York and Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997) 143-144

56 They Would Rather Almost Starve Then Work

British pirate Walter Kennedy’s account recorded in Remarkable Criminals A pamphlet printed in [date] reveals the majoritarian rule dependent to every pirate ship in the Atlantic

World. Every pirate on these ships was valued and responsible for the vitality of the crew. Only during combat did the Capitan have authoritarian rule.213 The political orientation of piracy was in reaction to the harsh treatment pirates received on merchant or Royal Navy ships. Unburdened by institutionalized tyranny pirates had set up a limited government which, “avoid[ed] putting too much power in the hands of one Man.”214 This type of non-hierarchical directly and intentionally opposed the tyrannical bureaucracy merchant and Naval captains utilized.215 The first foundation to every pirate ship had already been named, majoritarian. The second was a proto communism, in that each sailor’s use value was actualized through an equivalent economic exchange for their work. When Roberts crew plundered ships, after the quartermaster had finished, “taking what he thinks fit for the Company use,” the crew members who helped seize the ship, “then serve[d] themselves.”216 After taking a British ship with two to three thousand pounds on broad, Sam Bellamy’s quartermaster, “declared to the Company, that if any Man wanted the Money, he might have it.”217 Quartermasters commonly seized and disbursed goods from taken ship evenly among crew, with the captain and quartermaster receiving a small portion more.218

213 Capitan Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates, 262. 214 Remarkable Criminals, 57; Rediker, “The New Government of the Ship” 60-82. 215 Rediker, “Defiance of Death Itself” 155 216 The tryals of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Captain Ogle. (1723) Vol. 3, British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 117. 217 The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy (1718) , British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 318. 218 Tryals of all the Pyrates, (1723). British, 117.; Rediker, “The New Government of the Ship” 60-82. 57 Equitable disbursement of wealth among crew members confused British officials conditioned by the island’s exploitative economic structure. During the trials of Every’s men court officials questioned crew member, Joseph Dawson, “Did John Sparks share with you too?

[Joseph Dawson replied] ‘Yes my Lord, as far as the Company thought fit to give him,’ ‘When you say, as the Company thought fit, what did you mean? How did they share it.’”219 British shipping and overall economic structure was controlled from top down. Abstracted from this hierarchical structure, pirate economic base monetarily actualized every sailors work value.

Captains gained their position through an election by the crew with the rule, “they permit him to be Captain, on Condition, that they be Captain over him.” Pirate captains had, “no manner of Command” with the exception of, “time[s] of chase or engaging, then he is absolute.”220 Pirate crews readily and frequently exercised their power of their Captain. Both

Vane and Hornigold were disposed of by their crews. Vane’s crew believed he was a coward

(despite many accounts revealing intimidating power)221 and Hornigold’s crew voted against him because he refused to board English ships.222 Voting decided all problems confronting the crew during peacetime. On Captain Spriggs ship, the crew members voted on who was the most drunk to determine who mended the main mast.223 Likewise, pirate crews would vote to burn ships,

219 The Tryal of Joseph Dawson (1696). British, 2:133. 220 British Journal, (1714). British 1:311-314; Rediker, “The New government of the Ship,” 65.

221 There are many accounts of Vane, particularly after Pearse arrived in Nassau, cruelly beating merchant Captains, “barbarously beat [Edward North] with all his company by beating them and using their cruelties. Particularly to one, who they bound, hands and feet and tied (upon his back) down to the bowsprit [a wooden piece on a sloop that extends over the water] with matches to his eyes burning and pistol loaded. with the muzzle to his mouth.” TNA/PRO, CO 37110, f. 37, deposition of Edward North

222 The Tryals of Capitan Jack Rackam (1720). 3: 1-67; Capitan Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates, 262. 223 British Journal, August 22, 1714. British, 3:313, 58 assign carpenters, and name recently acquired ships.224 British pamphlets commented that in this structure, “there is so little Government or Subordination among them, that they are, on

Occasion, all Captains, all Leaders.”225

The hierarchy of pirates ship not only opposed the social order on British ships but also the culture as well. It pirate crew functioned as an independent organization so cultural norms, rules, values are largely on a spectrum (aside from the base functions of voting and equitable disbursement of wealth).Under pirate captain John Phillips’ articles, crew members who took a woman to bed, “Without her consent,” and were punished to, “suffer present Death.”226 As noted by Rediker, Edward England utilized the African coast to acquire slave ships (which freebooters saw as the best ships for pirating) and recruit crew members. England’s crew freed over 250 slaves and enlisted them as pirates. Roberts, one the most successful pirates in the Golden Age, amassing almost 15 million pounds and commanding roughly 20-30 ships under him. Of those ships one of had a majority of free Africans on it and if these pirates decided to run away with the ship, one crew member noted (who spoke Angolan), “Should they the Negros do it… other pirates would not be hurt.”227 In comparison to the motivations of British merchant ships, which were at this point ramping the slave trade, certain pirate ships engendered a culture actualized formerly enslaved Africans.228 However, this does not mean, as with Jacobitism, all pirates were of this critical emancipatory tendency. From the contradictory nature of piracy, it is problematic to associate pirates themselves as more progressive than they were. Emblematic is this piracy is

224 Ibid; Tryals of all the Pyrates, (1723).British, 3: 140.; British Journal, August 22, 1714. British, 3:313, 225 Daniel Defoe, The history and lives of all the most notorious pirates, and their crews, from Capt. Avery, who first settled at Madagascar, to Capt. John Gow, and James Williams, his lieutenant, (London : Printed for Edward Midwinter, at the Looking-Glass on London-Bridge) Eighteenth Century Collections Online 226 Captain Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pirates, 398. 227 The tryals of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Captain Ogle. (1723), British 3:114 228 Rediker, "To Extrapoliate Them out of the World.” 128-129. 59 Edward Teach who, though having a black crew member, actively participated in the slave trade.229 Prior to England’s requirement of enslaved African men, he let his crew have their way with the enslaved women on board. Robert Spriggs, a former sailor under pirate captain Edward

Low left the crew after Low refused to hang a murderous crew member, a created his own crew that consisted of a freed African who was a part of the ship but a not a pirate himself.230 The base social organization of piracy rejected artificial class barriers and allowed for diverse pirates crews. Importantly, these views were dependent on the culture of the ship and the capacity for tolerance by pirate crews as whole rather than an objective critical acceptance of diverse people.231As such, the image of piracy convinced the English royalty and merchants that piracy in the Atlantic World was a fundamental threat to their perpetuation and domination.232

Pirates would sometimes force men to join their ships, but undoubtedly the most common way to acquire more men was through volunteerism.233 Court trials are riddled with accounts of pirates taking large swaths of forced men, but there some discrepancy as to how many men were forced. Willing pirates typically pleaded they were forced to escape the gallows.234 Pirate captains also pretended to show force against willing crew members so as to safeguard their innocence against incase the were captured by the British.235 Simultaneously, captains made

229 Captain Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pirates, 398. Ford, Radical Romantics.; Fox, “Jacobitism and the ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy, 1715–1725.” 230 British Journal, (1714). British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 311-314 Fox, “Jacobite Pirates.” 291. 231 It was equally common for pirates crews to be cruel and tolerant, as such there willingness to accept other depended on the captain and the culture of the ship, Rediker, "The New Government of the Ship," 60 -82.; William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade 1734, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, accessed November 13, 2018, https://www.gale.com/primary-sources/eighteenth-century-collections-online; TNA/PRO, CO 37110, f. 37, deposition of Edward North.; The tryals of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Captain Ogle (1723) ed. Joseph Baer, British Piracy in the Golden Age. Vol 3, 114 232 this point will be illuminated further in the thesis. 233 Ibid. 234 Ibid; Rediker, "Who Will Go "A Pyrating?". 48-49. 235 Tryals of all the Pyrates, (1723).British, 3:89, 128. 60 declarations for willing men when seizing vessels. Anytime Roberts took a ship he told the seized crew, “he would force no body, the Man was at his Liberty”236 Volunteerism extended farther than just joining pirate crews. When pirates engaged with merchant and naval ships, larger crews would like crew members to volunteer to plunder ships rather than forcing men and would ensure, “no new-comer amongst the Company were suffered to go plundering for any prize.” However, crew members would typically fight each other in order to take part in seizing ships. 237

Pirates crews were an amalgamation of different races and nationalities. Noted by Joseph

Baer, the nature and environment of the ship British pirates accepted and fraternized with men and at times women, “of diverse races, nations and personalities; some qualsome, violent, flamboyant…” Roberts crew was notable for its multicultural atmosphere, his crew would sing

Spanish songs at supper and French songs out of a Dutch prayer book.238 Jack Rackham crew consisted of the infamous female pirates Anna Bonny and Mary Read, who were active on the in every capacity.239 Pirates were known for their actions as contrary to polite restricted nature of

British norms. In court cases pirate actions were associated with terms of free-spiritedness. John

Clemmons of Bartholomew Robert’s crew, as found guilty of, “a lively, brisk, young Fellow on all Piratical occasions.” Thomas How was indicted similarly, “he was finely dressed as a fool, and was employed mostly in mending and making the colors.” In as much these claims of self- expression demonstrate pirates were united in, “fearless idea of authority and determination to live by his owns rules”240

236 Ibid, 141-142, 145, 149 237 Ibid, 115 238 Tryals of all the Pyrates, (1723) British, 3:142, 128. 239 The Tryals of Captain Jack Rackam and other pirates… Who Were All Condemn'd for Piracy, Vol. 3, British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 40-44. 240 Ibid; Rediker, “The Political Arithmetic of Piracy” 38. 61 Undoubtably, drinking and merriment was embedded the culture of pirate crews. In his statement against Stede Bonnets crew, James Killing notes Bonnet’s crew inquired about his well-being, if he wanted food, and, “What liquor the had on board?” It was at this point that the crew toasted to James Stuart with their bowls of punch and continued to sing, “a song or two.”241

On Roberts crew, any man who was sober or moderately drank was considered suspicious and a possible agent against the vitality of the ship.242 After pillaging merchant captain Cary’s ship

Roberts men, “made themselves very merry on board Capt. Cary’s ship with some Hampers of fine Wines…each man took his bottle and with his Cutlash cut off the neck and put to their

Mouths and drank it out.”243 The exceptionally level of drinking on Roberts’ ships is noted further in the trials against his men, one pirate, “fired a gun against the Man of War, no body but him being at it, and he believes that he was almost drunk for he fell down after he fired.”244 On

Spriggs ship, the men would, “hawl up Hot Punch, which is a liquor every man drinks in the

Morning.”245 Though excessive drinking was common, indulging too much threatened the stability of the ship, accounts of men receiving cuts from the wages, whipped, and hoisted from tackle were common consequences to problematic drunkenness.246

The structure and culture of pirate’s ships was a commentary on not only the British naval and merchant ship structures but what these systems represented. British ships were emblematic of the culture on the British Isles and the hegemonies that constructed it. As such, pirates were not merely defiant to the British ship system of but also the political developments

241 The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet. Vol. 2. British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660- 1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 375,; Rediker ,"The New Government of the Ship.” 73. 242 Captain Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pirates, 398. 243 The Boston NewsLetter, (August 22, 1720). British, 1: 296. 244 The Tryal of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Captain Ogle. (1723) British 3: 61 245 British Journal, August 22, 1714. British, 3:313, 246 The Tryal of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Captain Ogle, (1723). 3: 128, 139, 152.

62 in early eighteenth century Great Britain. The defiant men and women creature a political and economic structure Eighteenth century British sailors recognized in contrast to the manipulative structure developing in the British, echoed in British ships, it was indeed, “better to live among the pirates.”247

Pirate Republics of the Bahamas and Jamaica

Both Jamaica and the Bahamas were epicenters for pirate actions and nonconformity. It is unsurprising that both were an arena that was either started by piracy or heavily supported by piracy. Madagascar was an equally important hide away for pirates, however the development of the colony is not as readily linked to the de facto and de jure transformation in both British piracy and British institutional responses. The colonial government of Jamaica came out of privateering pursuits. This in turn became its cultural foundation in the eighteenth century and influenced the establishment of Nassau.248

Jamaica first became a pirate heaven for British sailors in 1655 when Oliver Cromwell seized the island from the Spanish with the newly developed English Navy.249 Jamaica then established itself as a colony consisting of small navy and large quantity of English privateers

(including Henry Morgan who acted as the colony’s governor), when piracy was still heavily

247 The Tryal of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Captain Ogle, (1723) British, 3:151.; Rediker, “The New Government of the Ship” 60-82 248 John A. Coakley, “Jamaica’s Private Seafarers, Politics and Violence in a Seventeenth Century English Colony.” and Dumon, “The Pirate and the Emperor.” 47-48 In The Golden Age of Piracy, The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Popularity of Pirates (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018) 33-45. 249 “Introduction” Vol.1 ed. Jospeh Baer British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation, 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) xii-xiii. 63 supported by state sanctioned pursuits.250 Colonial governors frequently reaffirmed English privateers’ stronghold on the island but frequently employing these mariners in the absence of a large English naval presence. These sailors controlled the economic security of the island and crafted the Jamaican Discipline or the Laws of Privateers which established their own norms and customs, separate from England and other English colonial systems. These laws became this basis pirate articles, or ship rules, in the eighteenth century. Namely, “Jamaica Discipline” determined the distribution of goods and fostered the system of solidarity prominent on English pirate ships. Subsequently Jamaica became the Caribbean base for privateers and, by the eighteenth century, developed into a heaven for non-institutionalized piracy.

England largely ignored the happenings in its colonies. Jamaican governors and their colonial subjects profited heavily from goods and resources brought in by privateers. The colony funded several extremely profitable pirating expeditions under the guise of political authority.251

During the war of Spanish Succession, Jamaican governors maintained their base and employed privateers to fight against the Spanish. Following the end of the war with the Treaty of Urecht, the island suffered economic hardships from a decline in demand for privateering crews.252

British seamen in general, including those from Jamaica, turned to piracy due to the loss of employment following the war.253 As noted above, Governor Archibald Hamilton solicited several privateers including Teach, Jennings, Hornigold and Vane, to continue their pirate actions without state sanctions and procure gold from the wrecked Spanish treasure ship, the

250 John A. Coakley, “Jamaica’s Private Seafarers, Politics and Violence in a Seventeenth Century English Colony.” In The Golden Age of Piracy, The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Popularity of Pirates (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018) 33-45.; Baer, “introduction”, 1: xii-xiii. 251 Coakley, ”Jamaica’s Private Seafarers” 33.; Dumon, “The Pirate and the Emperor.” 47-48; Baer, “Introduction 1:xii-xiii 252 Coakley, “Jamaica’s Private Seafarers” 33. 253 253 A Discourse of the Laws Relating to Pirates and Piracies (1701), Vol. 3, British. 319. 64 Urca De Lima. Following their plunder these men joined together on the island of Nassau, with

Horingold and Jennings, as the primary leaders to create the infamous pirate base.254 Jamacia’s government was not the only actor responsible for the proliferation of pirates following the war.

Along with frequent expression of Jacobitism, Jamaican colonial subjects also were, “concerned in those wicked pirates.”255 Jamaican colonial officials and their subjects were particularly responsible for the mobilization of pirates in 1715 as colonists continued support for and profit it off of piracy, despite it not being state sanctioned.256

Notably, under the authority of Hamilton, Jamaica diametrically opposed the rigidity of the British Isles. The cultural norms of Jamaica intentionally contrasted the rigid structure developed on the mainland.257 Jamaican towns like Kingston and Port Royal were known as the debasement of English and British society, notably for the associations with pirates.258 The maritime associations in Jamaica were known to be riotous and antiauthoritative.259 The contrary customs commonplace in Jamaica at the turn of the eighteenth century echoed the norms of

British privateering ships that led to the establishment of the colony. Jamaica society was as chaotic and disruptive as it was expressive and lively. During the first decades of the eighteenth century, accounts from Jamaica note the extent to which pirate and pirate sympathizer activities

254 Rediker, "Who Will Go "A Pyrating" 56-57. Fox, “Jacobitism and the ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy, 1715–1725.”; Bialuschewski, “Jacobite Pirates?”; Jamaica Council Minutes, August 12, 1718, CO 140/15, pp. 77–78, TNA;

255 Jamaica Council Minutes, August 12, 1718, Colonial Office 140/15, pp. 77–78, The National Archives; Hahn, “The Atlantic Odyssey of Richard Tookerman.” 541 256 Hamilton, Archibald. Articles exhibited against Lord Archibald Hamilton,1718 Eighteenth Century Collections Online (accessed November 17, 2018). http://find.galegroup.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ecco/start.do?prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=psucic; Coakley,”Jamaica’s Private Seafarers” 33 257 Rediker, "Who Will Go "A Pyrating" 56-57. 258 B.R. Burg, “The Buccaneer Community.” In Bandits at Sea 211-243. 259 Hahn, “The Atlantic Odyssey of Richard Tookerman.” 541. 65 confronted the political and social development on the British Isles. Pirates were extremely prevalent in Kingston, and mariners frequently wreaked havoc in the island’s towns.260 After the end of Hamilton’s time as Governor, Richard Allen noted in his argument against Stede Bonnet in 1718, “Jamaica is ruined by pirates already.”261 Jamaica continued its extralegal activities into the second decade of the eighteenth century. In 1723, Henry Bentinck, Duke of Portland indicated how pirates in Jamacia continued to obstruct British trade, “The Merchants in General are most of them discouraged.” Despite this, Jamaicans themselves still supported piracy and many of the sailors from the island, “by their desperate condition leave the Island and a great number of them join the Pirates.” Bentinck concludes by indicating the agency of eradicating the popularity of piracy in the colony, “if not prevented, must be the total undoing of the Colony.”262

In as much, pirate codes and customs were commonplace in Jamaica. Colonial governors and

British merchants saw the perpetuation of such structure as the undoing of British hegemonies in the Atlantic world and a possible threat to British protestant supremacy in the region.

By September 15, 1717, the pirates in their quasi-state Nassau, Bahamas had, “grown so numerous,” and destructive to British trade Charles I, “by great Numbers of Merchant, Masters of ships, and others…” crafted A Proclamation for Suppressing Pirates—which will be examined more closely momentarily—which pardoned pirates and allowed them to return to civilian life.

Charles enlisted several colonial navy officers to overtake the pirates and read the pardon.

260 Jamaica Council Minutes, August 12, 1718, CO 140/15, pp. 36–59, TNA. 261 The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and other Pirates Vol. 2 British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation, 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 321-380. 262 Jamaica Council Minutes, August 12, 1718, CO 140/15, pp. 77–78, TNA. ;Hahn, “The Atlantic Odyssey of Richard Tookerman.” 541 66 Included in the Proclamation is a description of the state of the Bahamas, “the usual retreat and general Receptacle for Pirates is at Providence, the Principle of those Islands.” most likely solicited from naval captain Vincent Pearse, who first visited the island several months before.263

Between 1715-1718, prior to Colonial Governor Woodes Rogers seizure of the Bahamas, the island existed without a government under the pirates.264 Colonial officers noted the “ill state” of Nassau under pirate rule.265 The islands socioeconomic and political culture echoed

Jamaica’s sincethe heaven was developed by pirates Capitan Jennings and Hornigold.266 Nassau developed into a pirate base in 1715, after the problematic end to the War of Spanish Succession and the fortuitous wreck of the Urca de Lima.267 The Jacobite tendencies in Nassau were reminiscent of those in Jamaica. However, the socioeconomic structure of Nassau was fundamentally pirate based and without an colonial authority, as such it is reflective of the culture and economic status pirates lived by more so than Jamaica.268

As we have seen previously, British pirates on Nassau were exceptionally well versed in the political climate of the Atlantic world. In 1718, with the island only recently under the control of Rogers, British pirates vying to take back the island threatened to conduct trade with the Spanish, emboldening fears the island, “be in the power of either the pirates or the

263 Great Britain, National Archives (TNA/PRO), Admiralty (ADM) 112282, Vincent Pearse to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 4 March 1717 and 3 June 1718; and "A List of the Names of such Pirates as Surrendered themselves at Providence.; The Boston Newsletter, December 16 1717. British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation, 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 1:335. The Boston Newsletter, December 16 1717. British 335. 264 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 29, 1719, CO 23/11 265 Mr. Gale to Colonel Thomas Pitt, June November 4, 1718 Calendar of Colonial State Papers Colonial, item 31 I, vol. 31 (1719-20), 10. The National Archives. 266 Fox, “Jacobitism and the ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy, 1715–1725.” 267 Ibid; TNA/PRO, ADM 112282, Vincent Pearse to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 4 March 1717 and 3 June 1718; and "A List of the Names of such Pirates as Surrendered themselves at Providence.; The Boston Newsletter, December 16 1717. 268 Marcus Rediker, “To Extrapolate Them From The World,” in Villains of all Nations, (Boston, 2004); Hahn, “The Atlantic Odyssey of Richard Tookerman.” 541. 67 Spanish.”269 One colonial official reflected on the disastrous results this would have on British trade, “its consequences it seems to be not only the general Destruction of trade to the West

Indies and the trade in America.” Concluding Nassau in 1718 transformed into, “settling a nest of pirates, who already esteem themselves a Community and to have a common Interest, and in time may become, and make the Island another, Sally but much more formidable.” The capital

“I” in interest represented a common ideology linking pirates together in conflict with the early

British state. The capacity for its formidable nature to the British government’s pursuit is embedded in its Caribbean location, the hotbed for the British plantation regime.270

Rogers was a successful privateer before George I rogers appointed Governor the

Bahamas in 1718 motivated by the pleas of wealthy English Merchants.271 As indicated above between 1717-1718, Nassau was rife with protest from pirates. When Pearse arrived in Nassau months before Rogers, 209 of the 500 men Captain Pearse accounted for refused to take up the

King’s Pardon when he arrived in Nassau. Of those who took up the pardon 19 went back to pirating.272 However, the culture of the Bahamas did not change despite most British pirates taking up the pardon. Woodes Rogers finally arrived the island on July 20, 1718 he was met with little acceptance and the island continued to be dominated by pirates.273 When Rogers sailed into the Harbor of New Providence, pirate Charles Vane surprised Rogers by sending a burning sloop at the Governor fleet.274 While over 200 pirates, including Vane and Teach fled, by the time

269 Mr. Gale to Colonel Thomas Pitt, June, November 4, 1718 Calendar of Colonial State Papers Colonial, item 31 I, vol. 31 (1719-20), 10. 270 Ibid; Rediker, “A Tale of Two Terrors” 9. 271 Rediker, “The Political Arithmetic of Piracy” 30-31.; “Mather’s Instructions to the Living” Vol. 4 British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation, 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 125. 272TNA/PRO, ADM 112282, Vincent Pearse to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 4 March 1717 and 3 June 1718; and "A List of the Names of such Pirates as Surrendered themselves at Providence.” 273 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 29, 1719, CO 23/11 274 Ibid. 68 Rogers assumed control in October 1718, several of these escaped pirates, “promised to possessed of Providence.” The consequences of which colonial officers assumed, “seems not only to be the general destruction of trade in the West Indies and North America.”275

Accepting the King’s Grace and cosigning to British colonial rule meant living securing a longer life, while continuing to go pirating meant certain death if caught by the Crown (which was extremely likely).276 In the face of these stakes, the pirates who ruled and subsequently left

Nassau in 1718 chose to affirm themselves as individuals . A British pirate was a “figure freed from the tyrannies at home, tuned to the sea’s passions of primal demands of nature.”277 This commentary is reflected in Rogers account, half of the pirates remaining on the island when

Rogers arrived fled to other parts of the Caribbean and North America because “they soon became weary of living under restraint.”278 As such and in consideration with the previous accounts, piracy was as an intentional decision to negate rigidity for pure expression.279

Rogers also commented on the culture of the Bahamas upon his arrival. The residents of

Nassau, pirates and non-pirates, were, “addicted to indulgences,” with most of them materially poor.280 Not only did residents, “would choose rather to almost starve then work” but were also,

“a people who will make no land improvement.”281 Bahama colonial residents unaffected by the pursuit for capital gain dominating the British socioeconomic structure. 282 Pirate heavens did not abide by the economic system burgeoning in other British colonies. Rogers mission in Nassau

275 Mr. Gale to Colonel Thomas Pitt, June November 4, 1718 Calendar of Colonial State Papers Colonial, item 31 I, vol. 31 (1719-20), 10. 276 Rediker," Defiance of Death Itself," 148-169. 277 Baer, "Introduction" British. 1: i. 278 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 29, 1719, CO 23/11 279 Ibid 280 Ibid 281 Ibid 282 Ibid 69 was to reintroduce the island to a structured government and economic system.283 Rogers makes this clear by what he terms as “land improvement.” Several weeks after his arrival, Rogers noted how the island, “affords an agreeable view of what industry may make,” and was hopefully the island would make a good “memorial” for George I, his lordships and the British Government.284

Rogers subsequently sent out a request for the, “families and slaves” of Antiqua to inhabit

Nassau because, “their conventions will very much reform the contrary manners of the men and women now.”285

Rogers expedition to Nassau effectively ended pirate reign in the Bahamas and was the first event to the eventual end of British piracy in the Golden Age. Rogers was sent by the government to orchestrate the development of a legitimate government by the elimination of the pirate norms established on the island.286 After Rogers developed a council and gained control of the island, more than half of the pirates disbursed to North American colonies and other islands in the Caribbean.287 Rogers instituted a dehumanizing plantation regime foundational to the colonial economic structure in the Americas unknown to Nassau before his arrival. This systems was developed at the cost of Nassau egalitarian pirate heaven.288 However the colonization by both pirates and British colonial subjects that led to the depopulation of Nassau’s indigenous people should not go unnoticed when understanding the egalitarian political structure under pirate control. The erasure of these people and British sailors’ defection from society are both dependent to the western systems that developed the modern Atlantic world. Exploitation had

283 Ibid. 284 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 29, 1719, CO 23/11 285 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 29, 1719, CO 23/11 286 Rediker, “ To Extrapolate Them From the World” in Villains of All Nations. 137. 287 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 29, 1719, CO 23/11; Rediker and , "The Political Arithmetic of Piracy " in Villains of All Nations. 37.

288 Miller, “Money and Power: The Growth of the British State 1640-1750,” 305 70 multifaceted effects on all people not profiting from the structure.289 The resistance to British

culture notes how pirates in the second decade of the eighteenth century realized that returning to

British society meant it was a return to economic and

social hierarchy of oppression. Though their process of

liberation was not total (since it did not account for groups

like first nation’s people) pirates determined economic and

social freedom, with the possibility of death, was a better

option than subjecting to colonial rule. The refusal to

Rogers rule but Nassau’s pirates is reinforced by the

Figure 2 Bahamas National Seal economic framework Rogers established on the Island. Bahamas National seal, 1959. Courtesy of the Bahamas National Archives Once seizing control of Nassau in 1718, Rogers

established its first motto as a British colony, “Explusis, Piratis, Restituta Commercia,” pirates

expelled, commerce restored (see Figure 2).290

289 Linebaugh and Rediker, “ Hydrarchy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State" in The Many-Headed Hydra. 143- 173. 290 “Woodes Rogers” The Bahamas National Archives accessed February 12 2020 http://www.bahamasnationalarchives.bs/journal.html 71 Chapter 4

The British Reaction

British government officials and elite merchants’ destruction of British piracy in the

1720s was dependent to all three factors commented on above: the legal shift in piracy, the new wave of British piracy from below and the development of British commercial hegemony. In the eighteenth century more pirates were executed on Wapping Dock, infamous gallows outside of

London known to be the demise of pirates, and in British colonial territories than any other time

Early modern history.291 In addition to the physical persecution of pirates, British elites used rhetoric to overcome British piracy. Well to do church officials, colonial governors and many more utilized rhetoric to vilify the final groups of pirates and further the economic vitality of

British trade in the Atlantic World system.292 The deployment and popularity of anti-pirate rhetoric in the eighteenth century demystified British bourgeois pursuits for Atlantic dominion via exploitation. All the actions, violent or not, implemented by the British government to suppress pirates were motivated by monetary supremacy. Great Britain successful suppressed

Atlantic piracy in 1750, the de facto and de jure dehumanization of pirates reveals the human cost sacrificed for British global prestige.293

291 Rediker “To Extrapolate Them From the World” 127-14; Douglas R. Burgess, “Trial and Error, Piracy Trials in England and Its Colonies 1696-1723.” 78 292 Dumon, “The Pirate and the Emperor.” 27-28 293 Ibid; Rediker “To Extrapolate Them From the World” 127-14. 72 Enemies to All Man Kind

The evolution of British tactics to combat piracy demonstrate the threat piracy had become to both British economic success and social stability. To quell the growing numbers of pirates in the eighteenth century, George I crafted two pardons. The first being, “Proclamation for the Suppression of Pirates” issued on September 5th, 1717 George II gave amnesty to willing pirates. Despite this British piracy continued to dominate the Atlantic system and George the I issued second Proclamation in December of that year. Undoubtedly, George I deployed both pardons intentioning to subsume pirates back into the merchant structure they dramatically left.294 However, the pardons had a discrepancy of several month between the time pirates accepted the King’s Grace and when the pardons became active. The result left many pirates during in limbo subsequently returned to piracy.295

These appeasements tactics were first synonymous to and but then overpowered pirate trials in the first two decades of the eighteenth century, “Death either in one Shape or another had been the Fate of almost every Man that had every committed Piracy on the High seas.”296

Trials were bolstered by three axes of suppression mobilized by the British government: a more active naval presence, colonial mobilization of private ships to suppress pirates, and new legislation which gave British courts the authority to convict pirates more effectively.297

Historian Marcus Rediker speculates more than 418 men were hanged for piracy between 1716-

1726, with a ratio of one out of every ten men being hanged.298 Trails and hanging were coupled

294 London Gazette, (1717) Vol. 1. British, 312; Boston Newsletter, (1717) Vol. 1, British, 334.; David Wilson, “Protecting Trade by Suppressing Pirates, British Colonial and Metropolitan Responses to Atlantic Piracy, 1716-1726.” 89-104.; 295 Rediker,”To Extrapolate Them Out of the World.” 127-14. 296 A Discourse of the Laws Relating to Pirates and Piracies Vol. 3 British, 277. 297 Wilson, “Protecting Trade” Golden Age, 99. 298 Rediker, “Defiance of Death itself.” 163. 73 with extravagant arguments by prosecuting attorneys and preachers that othered pirates, mystified pirate culture, and obscured their reasons for taking up piracy.299

Problematic rhetoric deployed by British and Colonial elite in tandem with the insurgence of piracy trials shifted public sentiment against piracy. This rhetoric of terror was always mobilized against the pirates.300 British colonial officials, elite preachers and pamphleteers situated their writings and speeches against pirates and leveled their actions to unchecked renegades. Eighteenth century piracy trials reflect British merchants and colonial elites disdain for pirates stemming from of their desire to further commercial exploitation.301 South Carolina

Attorney Richard Allen used terms like "enemies of mankind,” "inhuman," "pirates prey upon all mankind, their own species and fellow creatures.," against Stede Bonnet’s crew for the purpose of dehumanizing these sailors for the jury. Allen’s words are a testament to how anti- piracy rhetoric was an attack against the sailor and intended to sway public sympathy against them.302

In 1718, Eight pirates from Sam Bellamy’s infamous crew were brough to trial in Boston for their lucrative seizure of a British merchant ship. In the year prior, Bellamy overtook the

Whydah, a ship used for the slave trade homebound filled with high priced luxury goods. The crew was unable to celebrate the riches for long as only a few months later their ship rode into a

299 A Complete Collection of State Trial sand Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors ...; Cotton Mather’s Useful Remarks, (1723). Vol 2. Piracy in the Golden Age, Vol 4. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2007) 185.; A Discourse of the Laws Relating to Pirates and Piracies Vol. 3 Piracy in the Golden Age, (London: 277 300 Rediker, “To Extrapoliate Them out of The World.” 147. 301 Douglas R. Burgess, “Trial and Error, Piracy Trials in England and Its Colonies 1696-1723.” 78 302 A Complete Collection of State Trial sand Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors ... 74 hurricane and wrecked off the coast of New England, only nine of the 155 men survived.303 In the proceedings against the remaining survivors, King’s advocate John Smith perpetuated the now common narrative pirates were, “enemies to all mankind.”304 Smith furthered his claim, emboldened by the natural catastrophe of the incident articulated pirates were, “denied common humanity, and the very rights of Nature, with whom no Faith, Promise, nor Oath is be observed, and is he to be otherwise dealt then a savage beast.” Smith’s lengthy attack also includes an

Anglo-Protestant perception of pirates, “who have… declared themselves in opposition to the rules of Equity and Reason…”305 These attacks against pirates are extreme and construed pirates as less human. Both Allen and Smith’s commentary against pirates is notable considering their perception of mankind is limited to white western males and in this effect, pirates are indeed to enemies to all mankind. Their upheaval of British order that furthered male bourgeois British economic superiority affirmed an alternative contradictory lifestyle and the possibility of a new reformed social and political institutional framework.306

Elite preachers like Massachusetts preacher Cotton Mather frequently gave damning sermons during executions of condemned pirates which added another layer to the vilification of pirates. Mathers terms pirates as, “impure, Filthy, Unchaste” and denotes their actions as,

“Irregular Desires.”307 Mathers in Useful Remarks, an essay written after the trials of ruthless pirate Edward Low’s crew, proclaims the end to piracy as a divine cause: “How many Sea-

303 Joseph Baer, “The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy.” British 2:289-290. 304 John Smith, The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy (Boston: 1718) British Piracy in the Golden Age, Vol 3. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2007) 2: 289-290. 305 Ibid. 306 Rediker, “To Extrapoliate Them Out of the World” 137-143. 307 Cotton Mather’s Useful Remarks, (1723). Vol 2. Piracy in the Golden Age, Vol 4. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2007) 185.

75 Monsters, who have been the terror of them that haunt the Sea, have been Smitly cut off and

Strangely Exterminated…”308 Embedded in Mather’s ecclesiastical argument is dually the mystification of pirates and assertion of the Great Britain divine providence. Mathers argument echoed the anti-Catholic rhetorical structure utilized by protestants in the century prior. Systems of othering were employed against all groups that contradicted British hegemonies to benefit what would become the early modern British state.309

Pamphleteers sympathetic to merchants furthered the contempt toward piracy even after the effective suppression of piracy in the 1720s. British author, Daniel Defoe wrote about the

“Villainous Designs,” and their wicked adventures in his 1725 pamphlet on pirate John Glow.310

Defoe furthered the narrative a year later with his, The History and lives of all the Most

Notorious Pirates, spanning from formerly praised Captain Henry Every to Glow. Defoe, though recognizing the capacity for sailors to turn pirates is dependent, “The Merchant what Perils the poor Sailors daily undergo to make them Rich and Great,” he ultimately urges the, “Mariner against the temptations he may meet with at Sea,” most importantly from, “the Cruelty and inhuman Treatment of Savage and unrelenting Pirates.”311 Pamphlets and sermons against piracy were facilitated directly to the public, unlike statements from attorneys whose rhetoric reached only those in the court room. In this capacity pamphleteers and preachers acted as vehicle to

308 Ibid, 182. 309 Peter Lake “Anti-Puritanism: A Structure of Prejudice” in Fincham and Lake, Religious Politics in Post- Reformation England. 80-85; Peter Lake “Anti-popery: the Structure of a Prejudice” in Conflict in Early Stuart England 310Daniel Defoe, An Account of the conduct and proceedings of the late John Gow alias Smith, captain of the late pirates (17250) London: Printed and sold by John Applebee, in Black-Fryers, 1-71 Eighteenth Century Collections Online 127-147. 311 Daniel Defoe, The history and lives of all the most notorious pirates, and their crews, from Capt. Avery, who first settled at Madagascar, to Capt. John Gow, and James Williams, his lieutenant, (London : Printed for Edward Midwinter, at the Looking-Glass on London-Bridge) Eighteenth Century Collections Online 76 reinforce the motivations British trading empires and the British government by influencing the public support against piracy.312

The use of rhetoric is notable because it not only vilifies pirates but also declares the rightness of the British state and mystifies insecurities within its own systems. This process is an echo anti-Catholic in England. As such the dual image of Jacobite and pirate reflect to British elite the ideals that run counter to the hegemonic structures established in early modern Britain.

As such these images reflect the antithesis what is perceived as British excellences by authors like, Guy Meige, John Chamberlayne, Richard Allen, Daniel Defoe, John Smith and all elite

British protestants.313

Early eighteenth century British reaction to piracy though pardons, executions and rhetoric, reflects the island’s political, social, and economic motivations. Pirate legal and social debasement was a justification for the correctness of the British socioreligious structure. By condemning individual pirates for their contradictory but liberating actions, British elites were able to maintain their supremacy in the early modern state. This reasoning is reflected by the prominence of Mather in both piracy and witch trials in seventeenth and eighteenth century

Colonial England, rebellious labors and nonconforming women were pigeon-hold by Mathers and British states as a threat to the British social and political order, and for this reason must be eliminated.314

312 Rediker, “To Extrapolate Them out of the World.” 137. 313 Daivs Wilson, “Protecting Trade by Suppressing Pirates, British Colonial and Metropolitan Responses to Atlantic Piracy, 1716-1726.” 89-104.; Douglas R. Burgess, “Trial and Error, Piracy Trials in England and Its Colonies 1696- 1723.” 78-87.; Marcus Rediker, “To Extrapolate Them from The World,” in Villains of all Nations, (Boston, 2004), 127-147. 314 Rediker, “Introduction” 1-2.; 77 Chapter 5

The Complexity of Piracy

Along with the accounts listed above is the common pirate declaration of killing themselves before being taken by the British. After losing their battle with the British, Roger Pye of Robert’s crew, “was down with a light to Match to blow the Ship up, swearing very profanely, let’s all go to hell together.” Spriggs’ crew agreed, “if ever they should find themselves overpowered, they would immediately blow their Ship up rather than do the Jolly Roger the Disgrace of to be struck or to suffer themselves to be hang’d like Dogs.”315

Eighteenth century British Atlantic domination was unforeseen in consideration to the events in proceeding centuries. Sixteenth and seventeenth century social, political, and economic, developments instituted Protestantism in the political state and bolstered modern systems of trade and empire which complimented and reinforced each other. Following the Civil War England emerging global trade presence and profitable colonization was furthered and supported by

Protestant ideals. The interdependent nature of these systems structured the English government and crystallized the main objectives of the English political and economic state. These systems transformed into the foundation of the Great Britain by the turn of the eighteenth century.316

Importantly, these systems were created to benefit the rich few at the direct social and economic cost of British lay people. Engendered primarily out of English trade was the commodification of English and British sailors and dependent to this manipulation was their

315 British Journal, 1714. Vol. 1, British Piracy in the Golden Age History and Interpretation: 1660-1730. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 311-314; The Tryal of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Captain Ogle, Vol 3 , British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 148. 316 John Miller, “The Growth of Protestantism” 119-124; Miller, “Money and Power: the Growth of the British State 1640-1750” 302-320.

78 decision to take up piracy. In this capacity, Britain’s pirates confronted systems of political, religious, and economic domination that they experienced in the early modern British state. Their historical relevance is exemplified in their three axes of resistance: the pirate’s violent upheaval of the British economic hierarchy, their confrontation to the political developments in British

Isles, and the creation of a culture that actualized the worker and self-expression. Importantly, sailors became pirates for their own sake while the government and elite merchant class expanding trade for the sake of acquiring wealth and capital.317

British pirate culture transcended common English norms and symbolized a rejection of these oppressive structure commonplace in Britain. Embedded in British piracy’s nature of accepting women, men of different nationalities, African slaves, and flamboyancy demonstrates the bond between race, class, and gender oppression integral to development of the Atlantic world system and the Early modern world. British men and women pirates, and those that took up pirating with them, these actors attacked British merchant, naval ships, and more broadly British hegemonies, employing their multiple identities as worker, as female, as religiously persecuted among others.

Ultimately underscoring who was the winner and the loser of the complex modern state.318

Through these forms of resistance, early modern English and British piracy was a commentary on the systems that created western economic and social institutions. The suppression of piracy was for, “the sake of Trade in general and for the true interest of the

Honorable the East-India Company.”319 Whose role on the Atlantic World and British government was unmatched by any other political and economic organization at the time.

317 Daivs Wilson, “Protecting Trade by Suppressing Pirates, British Colonial and Metropolitan Responses to Atlantic Piracy, 1716-1726.” 89-104; Rediker,” To Extrapolate Them Out of the World.” 127-14. 318 Rediker, “Defiance of Death Itself.” Villains. 168. 319 A Discourse of the Laws Relating to Pirates and Piracies, (1701) Vol 3, British. 276 79 Engendered out of English and British society was a liberating resistance, albeit conditioned to a great extent by western norms, that affirmed the complexity of the period. I am not trying to argue that pirates were complete counterculture revolutionists. The nuance of each ship was conditional to that ship and could be on a spectrum from villainous to progressive.320 Rather, we should remember pirates are on aspect of Atlantic history fostered out of and in reaction to the complex oppressive systems developing in the seventeenth and eighteenth century Atlantic

World. British pirates’ revolt against the British and economic system did not at its base equal the emancipatory capacity as enslaved African slaves’ resistance the Atlantic World System.

British piracy’s phase in Atlantic history reflected how exploited sailors tried to combat

European merchant oppression whose Atlantic supremacy included the total oppression of enslaved Africans and indigenous people for commerce and colonization.321

These actors demonstrate the complexity of the development English and Atlantic society and denotes how much more we can learn if we recognize the various obscured and ignored parts of history, not only in society but with ourselves. Pirate reactions to British economic and political system fostered in the eighteenth century demonstrate the economic manipulation of workers for capital gain. There is a key aspect to understanding the foundations of capitalism and how these foundations are still present and integral to the American economic structure.

Moreover, situated as we are in a society dominated Western norms, we must understand the complexity of how British piracy took root in the development of these norms and why, a modern state founded in these ideals, violently cleansed the world of these sailors. Importantly, this paper is a commentary on the structures that developed the modern Atlantic, Christendom,

320 Joseph Baer, “General Introduction,” 1: ix-xxiv.; Rediker, “Who Will Go A Pyrating,” 38-59. 321 Linebaugh and Rediker, “ Hydrarchy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State" in The Many-Headed Hydra. 143- 173. 80 empire, and trade. Embedded in all systems listed above is a structure of domination foundational the current structure of modern westernized states. We will obviously never understand the exact motivations of each pirate. However, what we can learn from their shared actions is the problematic nature of the structures that fostered the Atlantic world and how, in the face of such domination, these men saw the vastness of the ocean as a possibility for a liberating way of life.322

322 Linebaugh and Rediker, “ Hydrarchy: Sailors, Pirates, and the Maritime State" in The Many-Headed Hydra. 143- 173. 81 Appendix A

Section Sources

Chapter 2

“Eye of the World”323

“The Name of Popery”324

“The Scourge of Pirates”325

Chapter 3

“They Had Better be Dead Than Live in Misery”326

“Revenge on Those Dogs”327

“As Traitors and Pirates”328

“They Would Rather Almost Starve Then Work”329

Chapter 4

“Enemies to All Man Kind”330

323 John Chamberlayne,. Magenae Brittaniae Notitia, or the Present State of Great Britain.1718 Eighteenth Century Collections Online Date accessed, November 6, 2018 http://find.galegroup.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ecco/start.do?prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=psucic 324 Robert L’Estrange, The history of the Plot, or, A brief and historical account of the charge and defence of Edward Coleman, Esq., William Ireland, Thomas Pickering, John Grove : Robert Greene, Henry Berry London: 1679 https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A47868.0001.001/1:2?rgn=div1;view=toc 325 Neufeld, “The Evolution of the Legal Concept of Piracy in Early Modern England.” 13 326 The Tryals of Captain Jack Rackam and other pirates… Who Were All Condemn'd for Piracy, (1720) ed. Joseph Baer, British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006) 40-44. 327 The Tryals of Capitan Jack Rackam (1721) 3: 41-45. 328 Snelgrave, William A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade (London 1734), 216-217. 329 Woodes Rogers to Council of Trade and Plantations, May 29, 1719, CO 23/11 330 A Discourse of the Laws Relating to Pirates and Piracies, (1701) Vol 3, Piracy in the Golden Age. 276 82

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ACADEMIC VITA

Zoe Cole (270) 535-5431 | [email protected]

EDUCATION The Pennsylvania State University | College of the Liberal Arts University Park, PA Barcelona, Spain Universitat de Barcelona Bachelor of Arts in History Expected Graduation: May 2020 Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy Schreyer Honor Scholar and Paterno Fellow • During the spring semester of my junior year, I studied abroad in Barcelona, Spain, a language intensive program.

INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE Penn State Schreyer Honors College University Park, PA Career Development Intern May 2018 – Present

• Created 20+ detailed infographs and marketing posts, via Photoshop for various career development programs Matched over 50 students with prospective alumni based on majors/careers and personal attributes • Marketed and programmed two career development organizations as well as created and facilitated over 10 events through these programs, including events held on Zoom • Crafted a press release that was printed in our university wide news wire for an event I created

Divico Consultores Barcelona, Spain Intern January 2019 – April 2019 • Conducted interviews in English with possible candidates to see how well they fit with interested companies • Researched all the hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics in Germany in order to find possible job candidates • Translated 20+ reports and job offers from Spanish to English

SKILLS

• Advanced beginner in Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Filemaker, and Office 365 • I also travelled internationally to collect qualitative historical research for my senior thesis