abstract: Privateers and pirates were instrumental in the development of English and British colonies and territories through military support and economic enrichment. British policy was to use privateers to help break into the New World when it was dominated by Spain, and Britain’s navy was no match for Spain’s navy. The privateers were used to protect the colonies, like Jamaica, from Spanish invasion and to militarily weaken Spain, Portugal, and others by taking or destroying their ships. Plundering brought in substantial wealth to the colonies and the crown while working for British governors. Eventually, Britain’s policy changed when it became more established in the Caribbean and the New World, and because some of its pro-Catholic monarchs made peace with Spain. Sugar production increased and there was less need for privateers. Most privateers moved to new bases in the North American colonies and Madagascar where they continued to be paid to work on behalf of others, in this case mostly for merchants and local politicians. Besides enriching the North American colonies economies through plunder, the privateers also helped protect them from the Native Americans. As pirates from Madagascar, they raided Mughal merchant fleets, bringing loot and exotic goods to the North American colonies in the seventeenth century, which also helped boost trade with Asia because colonists desired Asian goods. The pirates brought massive numbers of slaves from Madagascar to the colonies to sell. Pirates also operated in the Caribbean. There, they were beneficial to the colonies by bringing in money, yet problematic because they would sometimes raid British ships. When Britain became a global power, privateers and pirates became more of a nuisance than a help to the empire and it stopped using them. Still, in the 1800s, a privateer resurgence occurred in the United States and these individuals and their ships served the same function as they had with Britain, helping a new power break into areas across the sea when it lacked a strong navy. Though somewhat problematic to Britain these privateers did benefit the empire by helping Spain’s colonies gain their independence. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis History 2020

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[pt] Desde o momento em que Cristóvão Colombo colocou seus pés pela primeira vez nas Américas, o espectro da violência privada no mar esteve por perto, fosse ela empreendida pelas mãos dos próprios espanhóis, fosse por aqueles que disputavam com eles o direito de explorar as riquezas recém-descobertas. Nesta tese argumentamos que os relatos de navegação deixados por corsários, piratas e bucaneiros nos séculos XVII e XVII foram parte fundamental para a criação do imaginário europeu acerca do Novo Mundo e de seus habitantes. Procuramos explorar uma diversidade de relatos que, cada qual à seu modo, representaram os dilemas políticos que vieram a desembocar na criação do Estado e do sujeito político modernos. Este processo, contudo, não foi linear, como em uma escala de progresso em direção à civilidade. Pelo contrário, a leitura dos relatos de navegação nos revela uma experiência diversa e frequentemente contraditória. O escopo desta tese abarca os séculos XVI e XVII. Neste período as instituições sociais herdadas da idade média tardia que ordenaram a relação entre indivíduos e sociedade estavam em franco declínio, processo este que somente se aprofundou com a reimaginação da geografia planetária após os descobrimentos. Argumentamos nesta tese que a figura do pirata foi um ator central nesta reimaginação do mundo a partir de suas margens, de suas áreas limítrofes. Ao longo do trabalho, abordamos os relatos de André Thevet e Jean de Léry, Francis Drake, Anthony Knivet, Alexander Exquemeling e, por fim, o romance Rosbinson Crusoé, de Daniel Defoe. Cada um destes trabalhos trouxe algo de novo para a complexa equação que teve lugar nos dois séculos em questão. / [en] Since when Christopher Columbus first came into the Americas, the specter of private violence stood nearby. This thesis argues that the accounts of navigations left by the privateers, pirates and buccaneers of the XVI and XVII centuries were crucial parts for the making of the European imaginary about the New World, its inhabitants, and the European place in it. We explore the diversity of accounts that, each in its own way, represents the political dilemmas that came to a close at the Modern Estate and the Modern political subjects. This process, thought, should not be represented as an unambiguous tale of progressive civilization. On the contrary, the reading of the accounts of navigation reveals a much more ambiguous and frequently contradictory experience. The scope of this thesis encompass the XVI and XVII centuries. During this time, the late medieval social and political institutions that mediated the relations between society and individuals were at a steady decline. The discoveries made by the Spanish and the Portuguese and the following re-imagination of global geography only aggravated the problem, and from the ashes of the late medieval system modernity arose. We argue that the pirate figure was a central actor in this process acting from the margins. During this thesis we explore the accounts of Andre Thevet and Jean de Léry, Francis drake, Anthony Knivet, Alexander Exquemeling and the novel Robinson Crusoé, from Daniel Defoe. Each one of these accounts brought something new to the complex operations that were taking place in those transitional centuries.

This research examines the career of Robert Searle, an English privateer, that conducted state-sponsored attacks against the Spanish and Dutch in the Caribbean from 1655 to 1671. Set within the Buccaneering Period of the Golden Age of Piracy (1650-1680), Robert Searle’s personal actions contributed to the rise of the English in the Caribbean to a position of dominance over Spain, which dominated the region from 1492 until the 1670s. Searle serves as a window into the contributions of thousands of nameless men who journeyed to the Caribbean as a member of Oliver Cromwell’s Western Design Fleet. These men failed in their endeavor to take Hispaniola from the Spanish, successfully invaded Jamaica, and spent the next fifteen years securing England’s largest possession in the region, transitioning Jamaica from a military outpost to a successful plantation colony. These men, including Searle himself, have been overshadowed in the history of English Jamaica by more well-known figures such as Sir Henry Morgan, the famed “Admiral of the Buccaneers.” Searle and his compatriots pursued the objectives of the core in London throughout the contested periphery of the Caribbean region. These goals were first framed as the complete destruction of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and later as achieving trade between Jamaica and Spain’s American colonies. The examination of Robert Searle through the core-periphery relationship between the metropole and the Caribbean illustrates how the totality of his actions contributed to the rising English position in the Caribbean. Ultimately, Searle and his fellow privateers proved vital to Spain conceding to England the rights of trade and formal recognition of their colonies in the region with a series of succeeding Treaties of Madrid.

An international maritime labour market study, the thesis focuses on the Dutch naval labour market, analysing wartime Zeeland admiralty crews. The research is based primarily on unique naval pay sources. Analysis of crew compositions has not been made on this scale in the period before. The 1667 Dutch Medway Raid is the starting point, where a few British played a leading role – amongst many others reported on the Dutch side. Pepys and Marvell primarily blamed their joining the enemy on the lure of superior Dutch payment. The thesis asks how many British there were really, how they came to be in Dutch service, and whether this involvement occurred, as indicated, at other times too. Part One is thematic and explores the background mechanisms of the maritime environment in detail, determining causation. First, the two naval recruitment systems are compared and completely reassessed in the light of state intervention in the trade sphere. Two new sets of ‘control’ data – naval wages and foreign shipping – are amongst the incentives and routes determined. British expatriate communities are examined as conduits for the supply of naval labour and civilian support. British personnel are compared and contrasted with other foreigners, against the background of Anglo-Dutch interlinkage and political transition from neutrality through conflict to alliance. Part Two is chronological, covering four major wars in three chapters. Micro-case studies assembled from the scattered record streams enable analysis of the crews of particular officers and ships. Seamen were an occupation that made them a very little known group: the thesis examines the different career types of British personnel of many different ranks, shedding light on their everyday lives. The thesis shows that British personnel were an integral part of Dutch crews throughout the period, even when the two nations were fighting each other. The basic need of subsistence labour for employment took precedence over allegiance to nation/ideology, demonstrating limitations in state power and the continual interdependence forced on the maritime powers through the realities of the labour market.