Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period Illustrative Documents

About this book

This volume is a scholarly compilation of primary sources that illuminate the intertwined worlds of privateering and piracy in America’s colonial era, spanning roughly 1600‑1763. Edited under the auspices of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America and introduced by John Franklin Jameson, the book opens with a detailed preface that explains the Society’s mission to publish previously unprinted documents, then argues that maritime affairs have been under‑represented in colonial historiography. The editor’s note explains the preservation of original spelling, punctuation, and multilingual texts, while the subsequent pages present a chronological assortment of letters of marque, prize‑court records, ship’s accounts, and trial depositions, each identified by document numbers. The collection is deliberately eclectic, offering everything from a Portuguese letter of marque to a privateer’s journal, all intended to illustrate the legal and economic mechanisms that governed sanctioned warfare and outlawed piracy.

The text reflects early‑20th‑century academic prose, marked by formal diction, extensive footnotes, and a meticulous attention to documentary detail. Its voice is that of a historian‑editor who balances reverence for colonial ancestors with a critical eye toward the blurred boundaries between lawful privateering and criminal piracy. Readers who relish original legal papers, maritime historians, and students of colonial American law will find the work especially rewarding, as it provides authentic material for research and a vivid glimpse into the administrative and judicial processes that shaped the Atlantic world before the Revolution.