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Sailing Illicit Voyages: Colonial Smuggling Operations Between North America and the West Indies, 1714-1776

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Sailing Illicit Voyages: Colonial Smuggling Operations Between North America and the West Indies, 1714-1776 University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses December 2020 Sailing Illicit Voyages: Colonial Smuggling Operations between North America and the West Indies, 1714-1776 Carl A. Herzog University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Other History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Herzog, Carl A., "Sailing Illicit Voyages: Colonial Smuggling Operations between North America and the West Indies, 1714-1776" (2020). Doctoral Dissertations. 2026. https://doi.org/10.7275/18003509 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2026 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SAILING ILLICIT VOYAGES: COLONIAL SMUGGLING OPERATIONS BETWEEN NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES, 1714-1776 A Dissertation Presented by CARL A. HERZOG Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2020 History © Copyright by Carl A. Herzog 2020 All Rights Reserved SAILING ILLICIT VOYAGES: COLONIAL SMUGGLING OPERATIONS BETWEEN NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES, 1714-1776 A Dissertation Presented by CARL A. HERZOG Approved as to style and content by: ____________________________________ Barry J. Levy, Chair ____________________________________ Marla R. Miller, Member ____________________________________ Daniel Gordon, Member ____________________________________ Dane Morrison, Member ____________________________________ Audrey L. Altstadt, Chair Department of History DEDICATION To Laurie, whose love, support, and perpetual encouragement made this possible. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not have been completed without the support and influence of a broad community of resources. I could not have asked for a better committee for this project. Each of the members contributed in ways I could not have foreseen at the outset, and I am grateful for their patience, insight, and guidance. My advisor, Barry Levy pointed me in the initial direction of this topic and encouraged my contribution to this historiography. Throughout the process he continued to provide much needed direction and nuance. Marla Miller’s detailed editing and organizational guidance were particularly invaluable at a pivotal moment. I am grateful to the many ships and crews I have sailed with who gave me the firsthand knowledge and the underway experience that deeply informs this work. I am also deeply honored by the long friendship, encouragement and keen analysis of Professors Matthew MacKenzie and Timothy Walker. Their insights over long discussions of this and associated topics as well as shared experiences at sea gave me new ways of assessing this story and my contribution to it. My parents, Phil and Marge Herzog, both passed away during this degree process, but their enthusiasm and pride that I was pursuing this was all a son could ask for. Lastly, but most importantly, this project and its associated mid-life career shift would not have started, nor ever finished, without the love, support, and long sacrifice of my wife, Laurie Weitzen. v ABSTRACT SAILING ILLICIT VOYAGES: COLONIAL SMUGGLING OPERATIONS BETWEEN NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES, 1714-1776 SEPTEMBER 2020 CARL A. HERZOG, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA M.A., UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Barry Levy This dissertation examines colonial smuggling in the mid-eighteenth century between British North America and the Caribbean from the operational perspective of the captains and crews of the coastwise merchant vessels engaged in that trade. In doing so, this work seeks to recast these particular smuggling mariners as agents of a unique professional maritime skillset, whose expertise created paths for upward mobility in their communities and careers. Returning the mariners’ skills and core occupation to their historical identity refines and corrects arguments about mariners’ perceived attitudes toward the Navigation Acts, smuggling, and the American Revolution. Focusing on operational skills differentiates the coastwise mariners engaged in the trade between British North America and the West Indies trade from trans-oceanic mariners, navy crews and other shoreside maritime professions during this period. The success of the coastwise smuggling trade further situates these smuggling mariners in the eighteenth-century historiography of advances in navigation, ship construction, and rigging design. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION: THE SMUGGLERS’ PURSUIT .........................................................1 CHAPTER 1: WHY SMUGGLING? ...................................................................................................32 Economy of North America ...................................................................................32 The Volatile Caribbean ..........................................................................................37 Who Were the Smugglers? ....................................................................................43 Mariners’ Accounts ....................................................................................45 Coastwise Characteristics ..........................................................................49 Merchant, Mariner Relationships...............................................................59 Perceptions of Criminality .....................................................................................62 2: SKILLS AND TOOLS OF THE SMUGGLING MARINER .......................................69 Navigational Methods: Coastal Piloting and Ocean Navigation ...........................73 The Chart and Pilot Book ..........................................................................83 The Smugglers’ Use of the Combined Approach ......................................87 Shipbuilding and Rigging Design ..........................................................................93 Vessel Supply.............................................................................................95 Vessel Improvements .................................................................................96 Outfitting and Economy .............................................................................99 Ships as Trade Items ................................................................................100 3: CONDUCT OF SMUGGLING ...................................................................................103 Routing and Deception .......................................................................................108 Neutral Stops ......................................................................................................118 Flags of Truce .....................................................................................................121 Arrivals and the Complicit Actors Ashore .........................................................127 4: CAREER TRAJECTORIES ........................................................................................135 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................148 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................152 vii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1. Excerpt of “A New and Correct Map of the Trading Part of the West Indies” .............38 2. Modern nautical charts, Long Island Sound to Delaware Bay ......................................92 3. Izaak Tirion, Algemeene Kaart van de Westindische Eilanden ..................................104 4. Sailing ship course to the West Indies .........................................................................105 5. George Foster, "The Seat of War in the West Indies" .................................................112 viii INTRODUCTION THE SMUGGLERS’ PURSUIT On January 21, 1764, Capt. George Hopkins received a package of papers from the Providence merchant Nicholas Brown. Hopkins was a long-time crew aboard Brown's trading vessels, and earlier in the month had officially signed on as captain of Brown's sloop, Nancy -- then sitting in Providence harbor and preparing to depart for the West Indies. Among the papers were two nearly identical bills of lading, listing the cargo to be carried on the voyage, and two different sets of orders.1 The only difference between the two bills of lading was the destination. One indicated that the Nancy was bound for the British island of Barbados, and the other said the ship was going to the Dutch colony of Surinam in South America. Although Hopkins would not have been at all confused by this, any question he may have had was clearly spelled out in the two sets of orders. One set directed Hopkins to
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