Abstract
This essay contrasts scholarship on printed authority within buccaneer ethnographies, contemporary apologetics for colonial enterprise, and the role of publicity in the delineation of piracy within print to ask: ‘when is a pirate not a pirate?’. Beginning with the ethnographies relating to the buccaneers’ crossing of the Isthmus of Darien during the ‘Pacific Adventure’ (1679–1682), this paper describes how the buccaneers escaped prosecution through their literary materials and became socially rehabilitated as credible explorers. Drawing on materials which highlight the diverse readings of piracy within the different ‘news-cultures’ and maritime traditions which existed in the Atlantic archipelago, this paper develops an argument for a ‘popular’ conception and interpretation of piracy within publicity and periodical print which reflects its utility within competing political and maritime enterprises. Using contrasting examples of the negotiation and renegotiation of what constituted ‘piracy’ within the promotion of the attempted colonisation of the Isthmus of Darien by the Company of Scotland (1696–1700), and the literary campaign which surrounded the trial of the crew of the Worcester for piracy in 1705, this essay argues for the role of ‘public opinion’ and popular print culture in the making and unmaking of pirates in early modern anglophone print.
Highlights
The study of pirates and piracy invites contradictions
In the competitive realm of early modern maritime trade and empires, the definition of a pirate often appears as a transient state of being
Scheme (1698–1700) and the trial and execution of Captain Thomas Green for piracy in April 1705, I will argue that Scotland offers up an alternative interpretation of the perception of pirates and piracy in print publicity and the public sphere, which sheds light on a field otherwise dominated by English accounts of piracy and print
Summary
The study of pirates and piracy invites contradictions. In the competitive realm of early modern maritime trade and empires, the definition of a pirate often appears as a transient state of being. The ‘brethren of the coast’, ‘freebooters’ and ‘buccaneers’ which predominantly cruised the waters of the Spanish Americas and the Caribbean in small fleets in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century often blurred the line between privateering and piracy While these sea rovers relied on the tacit support of colonial ports as safe havens Adventure’ (1679–1682), a series of raids on the Atlantic and Pacific coastline of the Isthmus of Panama by a group of South Sea buccaneers This group of primarily English and Welsh maritime raiders included many of the most famous names of the period: Bartholomew Sharpe, John Cox, Basil Ringrose, William Dampier, Richard Sawkins, and Lionel Wafer. I will argue that Scotland offers up an alternative interpretation of the perception of pirates and piracy in print publicity and the public sphere, which sheds light on a field otherwise dominated by English accounts of piracy and print
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