The Problem of Piracy in the Early Modern World: Maritime Predation, Empire, and the Construction of Authority at Sea (Maritime Humanities, 1400-1800)

In the early modern period, both legal and illegal maritime predation was a common occurrence, but the expansion of European maritime empires exacerbated existing and created new problems of piracy across the globe. This collection of original case studies addresses these early modern problems in three sections: first, states’ attempts to exercise jurisdiction over seafarers and their actions; second, the multiple predatory marine practices considered ‘piracy’; and finally, the many representations made about piracy by states or the seafarers themselves. Across nine chapters covering regions including southeast Asia, the Atlantic archipelago, the North African states, and the Caribbean Sea, the complexities of defining and criminalizing maritime predation is explored, raising questions surrounding subjecthood, interpolity law, and the impacts of colonization on the legal and social construction of ocean, port, and coastal spaces. Seeking the meanings and motivations behind piracy, this book reveals that while European states attempted to fashion piracy into a global and homogenous phenomenon, it was largely a local and often idiosyncratic issue. Cover Table of Contents List of Abbreviations Commonly Used in Notes Introduction John Coakley, C. Nathan Kwan, David Wilson Section I: Jurisdiction 1. Local Maritime Jurisdiction in the Early English Caribbean John Coakley 2. Primitive, Peregrinate, Piratical: Framing Southeast Asian Sea-Nomads in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Discourse and Imperial Practice Martin Müller Section II: Practices 3. Scots, Castilians, and Other Enemies: Piracy in the Late Medieval Irish Sea World Simon Egan 4. Boston, Logwood, and the Rise and Decline of the Pirates, 1713 to 1728 Steven J. Pitt 5. Pirate Encounters and Perceptions of Southern-Netherlandish Sailors on the North Sea and the Indian Ocean, 1704–1781 Wim de Winter Section III: Representations 6. “A Fellow! I think, in all Respects, worthy your Esteem and Favour”: Fellowship and treachery in A General History of the Pyrates, 1724–1734 Rebecca James 7. Henry Glasby: Atypical Pirate or a Typical Pirate? James Rankine 8. “Our Affairs with the Pyratical States”: The United States and the Barbary Crisis, 1784–1797 Anna Diamantouli Afterword Claire Jowitt Bibilography Index List of Illustrations Tables Table 1: North American Ports, the Logwood Trade, and Employment, 1714 to 1727 Table 2. Editions of A General History of the Pyrates, 1724–1734 Maps Map 1. Jamaica and the Caribbean Sea Map 2. Insular Southeast Asia Map 3. Ireland and the Surrounding Seas Map 4. Boston Logwood Trade Map 5. Ostend and the Indian Ocean Map 6. Henry Glasby’s Voyage Map 7. North African Ottoman States