Pirates and Publicity
The Making and Unmaking of Early Modern Pirates in English and Scottish Popular Print
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20249269 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C Alasdair Macfarlane (0000-0001-9179-3576, Independent Scholar, Glasgow G73, UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 14 |
| Publication date | 2020-02-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2076-0787 • E-ISSN: 2076-0787 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/h9010014 |
| OpenAlex | W3005104471 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 22 |
This essay contrasts scholarship on printed authority within buccaneer ethnographies, contemporary apologetics for colonial enterprise, and the role of publicity in the delineation of piracy within print to ask: ‘when is a pirate not a pirate?’. Beginning with the ethnographies relating to the buccaneers’ crossing of the Isthmus of Darien during the ‘Pacific Adventure’ (1679–1682), this paper describes how the buccaneers escaped prosecution through their literary materials and became socially rehabilitated as credible explorers. Drawing on materials which highlight the diverse readings of piracy within the different ‘news-cultures’ and maritime traditions which existed in the Atlantic archipelago, this paper develops an argument for a ‘popular’ conception and interpretation of piracy within publicity and periodical print which reflects its utility within competing political and maritime enterprises. Using contrasting examples of the negotiation and renegotiation of what constituted ‘piracy’ within the promotion of the attempted colonisation of the Isthmus of Darien by the Company of Scotland (1696–1700), and the literary campaign which surrounded the trial of the crew of the Worcester for piracy in 1705, this essay argues for the role of ‘public opinion’ and popular print culture in the making and unmaking of pirates in early modern anglophone print
Adventure · Art history · Colonialism · Media studies · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Print culture · Publicity · Scholarship · Sociology · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Travel Writing and Literature
Pirates? The Politics of Plunder, 1550–1650
Travel Writing
The Ideological Origins of the British Empire
‘The Bold Adventurers’
The Scottish Parliament and the politics of empire
Measuring the Marvelous
Exquemelin's Buccaneers
Publics and Participation in the Three Kingdoms
Pirates, Merchants, Settlers, and Slaves
William Dampier’s “Mixt Relation”
Pirates, markets and imperial authority
Buccaneer Ethnography
Más allá de la línea de demarcación
Propaganda, Religious Controversy and the Williamite Revolution in Scotland
The best and most practical philosophers
Making the Empire British
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |