The Pirate Nest: The impact of piracy on Newport, Rhode Island and Charles Town, South Carolina, 1670--1730

This dissertation analyzes the rise and subsequent fall of global piracy from the perspective of English colonial maritime communities. Piracy flourished in the late seventeenth century in New Spain, the South Sea, and the East Indies because of the active support it received from members of the merchant elite in North American ports, particularly Newport and Charles Town. Far from a hindrance to trade, these fledgling maritime communities thrived from the active and open support of piracy and unregulated privateering. In times of economic distress, these men represented a real as well as symbolic challenge to the legal commercial policies formulated by distant and ineffectual administrative bodies across the Atlantic that hindered financial prosperity and defense of the colonies. These two communities earned an international reputation as "pirate nests," a pejorative term commonly used by royalists and customs officials. Many of the most notorious pirates began their careers in these ports while others settled down in these communities where they became respected members of the local gentry.; The first part of this dissertation explores the religious, economic, legal, and political factors that gave rise to the pirate nest historically rooted in the traditions of Elizabethan England's West Country. Like previous pirate nests, Newport and Charles Town shared a similar currency drain, rarely brought pirates to trial, and were led by powerful local factions who benefited from the economic riches and naval protection provided by pirates. The second part of the dissertation analyzes the remarkable and rapid transformation of Newport and Charles Town into pirate hunting communities. After a dramatic transformation of the English empire on either side of the Atlantic, Charles Town and Newport held the two largest mass executions, excluding slave revolts, in early American history.; The final part of the dissertation focuses specifically on the relationship of print culture to the rise and fall of piracy. Popular pirate narratives at the end of the seventeenth century were generally produced by the pirates themselves and fostered an image of piracy that was inherently nationalist, socially traditional, and militaristically Protestant. In the early eighteenth century, Daniel Defoe and Cotton Mather explicitly challenged this image on either side of the Atlantic. The dissertation concludes by analyzing the direct correlation between the rise of colonial newspapers with the fall of piracy.