Between 1716 and 1726, there was a surge in piracy in the Caribbean Sea, NorthAmerica, Africa, and the Indian Ocean. British state, colonial, and local responses toincreased reports of piracy differed across these colonial and geographical divides.British mercantile groups with stakes in the Caribbean sugar, Virginian tobacco, andAfrican slave trade lobbied when these markets were impacted by piracy. Likewise, theEast India Company exerted extensive influence when piratical operations spread to theIndian Ocean. The British state, moved by these groups, responded with multipleinitiatives to stem the impact of piracy on important commercial areas. At the sametime, colonial agents both supplied pirates and subsidised local campaigns against piracy.This project explores the multifaceted nature of the suppression of piracy withincolonial and metropolitan contexts to explain that multiple participants operating indistant but connected theatres influenced and shaped anti-piracy campaigns. Such anexamination challenges current understanding of the war against piracy, while providingnovel insight into imperial authority, state-empire relations, and the multilateral Atlanticeconomy. In this way, both pirate ships and the ships that hunted them are the lensthrough which to observe and understand the British Atlantic world in the earlyeighteenth century.
| Date of Award | 15 Feb 2018 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Awarding Institution | - University Of Strathclyde
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| Supervisor | Alison Cathcart (Supervisor) & Allan MacInnes (Supervisor) |
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