A War against Pirates? Suppressing piracy in Atlantic localities, 1716-1726

Dr David Wilson

This talk discusses the suppression in piracy in the early eighteenth century (the so-called “Golden Age” of piracy), exploring the ways in which pirates encountered, obstructed, and antagonised the diverse participants of the British empire in the Caribbean, North America, Africa, and the Indian Ocean. In particular, Dr Wilson examines how anti-piracy campaigns were constructed as a result of the negotiations, conflicts, and individual undertakings of different imperial actors operating in the commercial and imperial hub of London; maritime communities throughout the British Atlantic; and slaving forts in West Africa.

Dr Wilson argues that Britain and its empire was not a strong centralised imperial state; that the British imperial administration and its navy did not itself have the resources to mount a state-led, empire-wide war against piracy following the sharp increase in piratical attacks after 1716; and that it was only through manifold activities taking place in different colonial centres with varied colonial arrangements, economic strengths, and access to resources for maritime defence – which were often shaped by competing and contradictory interests - that Atlantic piracy was gradually discouraged, although not eradicated, by the mid-1720s.

Dr David Wilson is lecturer in Early Modern Maritime and Scottish History at the University of Strathclyde and author of 'Suppressing Piracy in the Early Eighteenth Century: Pirates, Merchants and British Imperial Authority in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans'.

This talk took place on Thursday 25 March 2021. You can watch a recording below:

 Image from A General History of the Pyrates - Captain Bartholomew Roberts with two Ships