• About
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   Institutional Repository Home
    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Institutional Repository Home
    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of Institutional RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    “Infested with piratts”: piracy and the Atlantic slave trade

    Sutton, Angela Christine
    : https://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/etd-03302009-113455
    http://hdl.handle.net/1803/11744
    : 2015-10-14

    Abstract

    Drawing on the extensive records of the Royal Africa Company as well as eyewitness reports by important actors in the slave trade, this paper addresses current assumptions held about piracy and the Atlantic slave trade. The quantitative data in David Eltis’ Slave Voyages Database suggests that despite the lucrative nature of the Slave Trade, pirates and privateers did not go after human slave cargo as often as material goods. From the works of the main historians of piracy or the slave trade, we know that the difference between pirate attacks on slave ships and merchant ships is staggering: for every slave ship taken by pirates, twenty merchant ships were attacked, and yet historians have only speculated as to the reasons why. The records of the voyages of the Royal Africa Company, (the company that held the Atlantic slave monopoly in the 17th and 18th centuries), and the account of Captain Snellgrave, whose slave ship was taken by pirates off of Africa’s slave coast, show a very different story: the allure of the precious cargos of slaves packed alongside planks of exotic hardwoods, barrels of fragrant beeswax and tusks of ivory worth as much as those of the Spanish silver galleons were such that few pirates could ignore. The company’s ships were inundated with pirate attacks, and this paper explores these incidents in greater detail to illustrate that piracy had a significant effect on the Atlantic Slave Trade.
    Show full item record

    Files in this item

    Icon
    Name:
    SuttonPiratts.pdf
    Size:
    283.7Kb
    Format:
    PDF
    View/Open

    This item appears in the following collection(s):

    • Electronic Theses and Dissertations

    Connect with Vanderbilt Libraries

    Your Vanderbilt

    • Alumni
    • Current Students
    • Faculty & Staff
    • International Students
    • Media
    • Parents & Family
    • Prospective Students
    • Researchers
    • Sports Fans
    • Visitors & Neighbors

    Support the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries

    Support the Library...Give Now

    Gifts to the Libraries support the learning and research needs of the entire Vanderbilt community. Learn more about giving to the Libraries.

    Become a Friend of the Libraries

    Quick Links

    • Hours
    • About
    • Employment
    • Staff Directory
    • Accessibility Services
    • Contact
    • Vanderbilt Home
    • Privacy Policy