Crisis and Legitimacy in Atlantic American Narratives of Piracy: 1678-1865 (Maritime Literature and Culture)

This Open Access book, __Crisis and Legitimacy in Atlantic American Narratives of Piracy: 1678-1865__, examines literary and visual representations of piracy beginning with A.O. Exquemelin’s 1678 __Buccaneers of America__ and ending at the onset of the US-American Civil War. Examining both canonical and understudied texts—from Puritan sermons, James Fenimore Cooper’s __The Red Rover__, and Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” to the popular cross-dressing female pirate novelette __Fanny Campbell__, and satirical decorated Union envelopes, this book argues that piracy acted as a trope to negotiate ideas of legitimacy in the contexts of U.S. colonialism, nationalism, and expansionism. The readings demonstrate how pirates were invoked in transatlantic literary production at times when dominant conceptions of legitimacy, built upon categorizations of race, class, and gender, had come into crisis. As popular and mobile maritime outlaw figures, it is suggested, pirates asked questions about might and right at critical moments of Atlantic history. Acknowledgments 7 Contents 10 List of Figures 13 1 Introduction: The Pirate as a Figure of Crisis and Legitimacy 15 Works Cited 34 2 Pirate Narratives and the Colonial Atlantic 40 2.1 The Buccaneer-Pirates: Articulations of Cultural Contact and Crisis, 1678–1699 40 2.1.1 The Caribbean Scenario in the Late Seventeenth Century 40 2.1.2 The Buccaneer in Literature: Points and Counterpoints 44 2.1.3 The Caribbean Buccaneer-Pirate as an Embodiment of Crisis 48 2.1.4 Exquemelin’s Zee-Roovers/Buccaneers of America 54 2.1.5 Attempts at Consolidation: Pirate-Scientists’ Texts 65 2.1.6 The Creole Pirate 77 2.2 Puritans and Pirates: The New England Anti-Piracy Sermon, 1700–1730 78 2.2.1 Piracy in New England 78 2.2.2 Cotton Mather’s Anti-Piracy Sermons 80 2.2.3 “To Direct the Course of Sea-Men” 82 2.2.4 (Re-)Anglicization, Puritan Exceptionalism, Conversion 88 2.2.5 Economies of Salvation 92 2.2.6 “The Complicated Plot of Piracy”: Hybridization, Resistance, Counterpoints70 96 2.2.7 The Gallows Literature of Piracy: “Let Not the Lust of the Eye Poison & Pervert You!” 104 Works Cited 117 3 Pirate Narratives and the Revolutionary Atlantic in the Early Republic and the Antebellum Period 126 3.1 Pirate Narratives and the Romance of the Revolution 126 3.2 Crises of Authority and National Identity in James Fenimore Cooper’s Red Rover (1827) 130 3.2.1 Cooper’s Maritime Nationalism 130 3.2.2 The Invention of Tradition: The Red Rover as Realist Romance 132 3.2.3 Legal Ambivalence and Independence 136 3.2.4 Crises of Authority and the Absent Presence of Slavery 144 3.3 Cross-Dressing and Piracy in Lt. Murray’s Fanny Campbell (1844) 150 3.3.1 “Values and Virtues in Crisis” 150 3.3.2 Popular Novelettes and Piratical Adventure 152 3.3.3 Fanny: A Tale of the Revolution? 154 3.3.4 Female Pirates and Cross-Dressing Women Warriors 161 3.3.5 “Crises Elsewhere”: Class, Citizenship, Ethnicity, and Race 168 3.3.6 Fanny, the Patriot 173 Works Cited 180 4 Cultural Constructions of Piracy During the Crisis Over Slavery 186 4.1 Entanglements: Piracy and Slavery 186 4.1.1 From Exploration to Exploitation 186 4.1.2 Barbary Pirate Narratives and U.S. Slavery 190 4.2 Slavery and Piracy in the First Anglo-Caribbean Novel: M.M. Philip’s Emmanuel Appadocca ([1854] 1997) 198 4.2.1 The Ship and Black Atlantic Literature 198 4.2.2 The First Anglo-Caribbean Novel 200 4.2.3 Slavery, Piracy, Legitimacy 203 4.2.4 “A Literature of Revenge” 207 4.3 Piracy and Crises of Perception and Narration in Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” (1855/1856)27 212 4.3.1 Text and Contexts 212 4.3.2 The Gray Atlantic: Narrating Epistemological Crisis 216 4.3.3 Suspicion, Repression, and the Kaleidoscope of Piracy 223 4.3.4 From the Black Atlantic to the Bleak Atlantic 229 4.4 The Figure of the Pirate at the Onset of the Civil War 231 4.4.1 The (Il)Legitimacy of Secession 231 4.4.2 The “Piracy” Cases of 1860/1861 234 4.4.3 Piracy on Union Envelopes 236 4.4.4 The Iconography of Slavery and Piracy 248 Works Cited 257 Coda 266 Works Cited 269 Secondary Sources 269 Works Cited 271 Index 297 Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi Introduction: The Pirate as a Figure of Crisis and Legitimacy (Alexandra Ganser)....Pages 1-25 Pirate Narratives and the Colonial Atlantic (Alexandra Ganser)....Pages 27-112 Pirate Narratives and the Revolutionary Atlantic in the Early Republic and the Antebellum Period (Alexandra Ganser)....Pages 113-172 Cultural Constructions of Piracy During the Crisis Over Slavery (Alexandra Ganser)....Pages 173-252 Back Matter ....Pages 253-289