An Analysis of Piratical Figures and Their Roles in Transforming Conceptions of Spatial Sovereignty in the Imperial Empires of the 18th Century
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2015
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Haverford College. Department of History
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only until 2020-01-01, afterwards Tri-College users only.
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Abstract
Pirate communities have forever posed a threat to maritime activity. Prior to the expansion into the Atlantic world, pirates attacked the merchant ships in Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. As technological advancements gradually developed European nations were able to travel further distances, eventually expanding the global economy into the New world during the sixteenth century. Pirates were attracted to this blossoming world due to the amount of riches they could plunder. Piratical figures imposed an immanent threat to imperial powers such as the Dutch, the English, the French, the Portuguese, and the Spanish during the "Golden Age of Piracy," which lasted from 1716 to 1726. This thesis provides evidence that piratical activity thwarted economic activity in the New world, to such a degree that imperial powers were compelled to transform their empires from commercial empires to a militarized state for the purpose of gaining territorial control of spaces, which were imperative to imperial economic success. This paper will specifically examine the imperial transition that occurred in an English Atlantic context during the eighteenth century. Indications of this imperial change will be constructed using evidence from many different historical sources pertaining to the structure of the Atlantic system, West Indies maritime activity, international maritime law, and pirates of the Caribbean.