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Navigating the Atlantic World: Piracy, Illicit Trade, and the Construction of Commercial Networks, 1650-1791

Goodall, Jamie LeAnne
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8802-8363
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1452157113

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, History.
This dissertation seeks to move pirates and their economic relationships from the social and legal margins of the Atlantic world to the center of it and integrate them into the broader history of early modern colonization and commerce. In doing so, I examine piracy and illicit activities such as smuggling and shipwrecking through a new lens. They act as a form of economic engagement that could not only be used by empires and colonies as tools of competitive international trade, but also as activities that served to fuel the developing Caribbean-Atlantic economy, in many ways allowing the plantation economy of several Caribbean-Atlantic islands to flourish. Ultimately, in places like Jamaica and Barbados, the success of the plantation economy would eventually displace the opportunistic market of piracy and related activities. Plantations rarely eradicated these economies of opportunity, though, as these islands still served as important commercial hubs: ports loaded, unloaded, and repaired ships, taverns attracted a variety of visitors, and shipwrecking became a regulated form of employment. In places like Tortuga and the Bahamas where agricultural production was not as successful, illicit activities managed to maintain a foothold much longer. Historians have begun to challenge plantation economy model that has served as the dominant paradigm in Caribbean-Atlantic history. A growing awareness that Caribbean-Atlantic socioeconomic history needs to be reproblematized with an emphasis on diversity and economic diversification has shed new light on slavery in the region. My work contributes to the new historiography on Caribbean-Atlantic diversification by illustrating how piracy itself not only encompassed a diverse range of socioeconomic activities, but widely contributed to the Caribbean-Atlantic economy in understudied ways—including the slave trade of the region.
Margaret Newell (Advisor)
John Brooke (Committee Member)
David Staley (Committee Member)
249 p.
American History; Caribbean Studies; Economic History; History; Regional Studies
piracy; pirates; privateers; Atlantic World; Caribbean; Caribbean-Atlantic; economy; economic history; maritime

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Goodall, J. L. (2016). Navigating the Atlantic World: Piracy, Illicit Trade, and the Construction of Commercial Networks, 1650-1791 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1452157113

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Goodall, Jamie. Navigating the Atlantic World: Piracy, Illicit Trade, and the Construction of Commercial Networks, 1650-1791. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1452157113.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Goodall, Jamie. "Navigating the Atlantic World: Piracy, Illicit Trade, and the Construction of Commercial Networks, 1650-1791." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1452157113

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.