Abstract

Why did pirates attack ships on the Middle Passage carrying enslaved people when pirates did not have the infrastructure, market, or use for their labor? This thesis argues that the most likely fate of enslaved people who encountered pirates on the Middle Passage was voluntary or coerced recruitment, sold to a trader on the African Coast, or subjected to brutality as a method of spreading terror among merchants. In the Post-Spanish Succession Period of the Golden Age of Piracy (c. 1715-1726), pirates frequently attacked European ships bound for Africa carrying goods to trade for enslaved people or from the Americas back to Europe with their profits. However, pirates also, on occasion, attacked ships carrying enslaved people on the Middle Passage (Africa to the Americas). What is strange about this is that pirates had little use for enslaved people as the pirates did not have a safe Caribbean market, nor the infrastructure to transport enslaved people. To decipher the reasoning behind pirate attacks against ships sailing the Middle Passage, this thesis examines published and archival sources to explore the possible fates of enslaved people on the ships attacked by pirates. It also uses secondary sources such as articles and books to provide supporting evidence regarding common pirate behavior, beliefs, and social structures to explain the pirates’ recruitment, sale, and brutalization of enslaved people, illustrating how class and race often overlapped in the Atlantic World and outlining limitations in the current theory that pirates have a revolutionary consciousness.

How to Cite:

Paulsen, Z., (2026) “Villains in the Trade: Piracy in the British Middle Passage”, Iowa Historical Review 12(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.17077/2373-1842.33944