41. History of Pyrates, 391. [back]
42. See Dugaw, Warrior Women, 73, 75, 155, and her essay “Female Sailors Bold: Transvestite Heroines and the Markers of Gender and Class,” in Iron Men, Wooden Women, ed. Creighton and Norling, 34–54. The warrior woman ballad declined in England just as cross-dressing declined in the Netherlands. See Dekker and van de Pol, Tradition of Female Transvestism, 102–3. [back]
43. Wheelwright, Amazons and Military Maids, 11, 78, 159; Dugaw, Warrior Women, 1, 3–4. On subsequent editions of History of Pirates, see Gosse, A Bibliography of the Works of Captain Charles Johnson. [back]
44. Natalie Zemon Davis, “Women on Top,” in her Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), 131, 144; Wheelwright, Amazons and Military Maids, 15, 119 (quotation). [back]
45. Daniel Defoe, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (London, 1722; reprint, New York: Penguin, 1978), 28, 33, 228, 208–9. [back]
46. Christopher Hill, A Tinker and a Poor Man: John Bunyan and His Church, 1628–1688 (New York: Knopf, 1989), 362; Linebaugh, London Hanged, 119–20; Dugaw, ed., Female Soldier, 40–41. [back]
47. James R. Sutherland, “‘Polly’ among the Pirates,” Modern Language Review 37 (1942): 291–92; Joan Hildreth Owen, “Polly and the Choice of Virtue,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library 77 (1974): 393. Gay’s play helps to prove that warrior women were a major “imaginative preoccupation of the early modern era,” as suggested by Dugaw in Warrior Women, 1; see also her interesting interpretation of Polly (191–211). [back]
48. John Gay, Polly: An Opera, being the Second Part of the Beggar’s Opera, in John Gay: Dramatic Works, ed. John Fuller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 2:95. The name Morano may refer to the Spanish word moreno, meaning brown, or it may refer to marrano, the term used to describe Jews who converted to Catholicism rather than leave Spain in 1492. The latter meaning would further play on the theme of disguise. [back]
49. Gay, Polly, 2:99, 140. [back]
50. Ibid., 129. [back]
51. On Aeolus, see Rudolf Wittkower, Allegory and the Migration of Symbols (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 94, and Michael Grant and John Hazel, Gods and Mortals in Classical Mythology (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1973), 27–28. It is also possible that the malevolent god Typhon is the source of the winds, which would have made them “the allies of disorder, the powers of chaos.” See Yves Bonnefoy, comp., Mythologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 1:510. [back]
52. Maurice Agulhon has noted how allegorical depictions of anarchy included a dagger and a torch, which signified crimes of destruction. See his Marianne into Battle: Republican Imagery and Symbolism in France, 1789–1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 13. In fashioning this particular image, the unknown artist may have drawn on Pieter Brueghel’s eerily powerful painting Dulle Griet, which features the wild, disorderly, sword-toting virago named Mad Margot striding fearlessly across the mouth of the gates of hell, impervious to the devils, demons, and creatures all around her. See Leo van Puyvelde, Pieter Bruegel’s “Dulle Griet” (London: Percy Lund Humphries, n.d.). [back]
53. The art-historical literature on Delacroix’s Liberty is enormous. Some of the most important works include Lee Johnson, ed., The Paintings of Eugene Delacroix: A Critical Catalogue (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), vol. 1, 1816–1831, 144–51; George Heard Hamilton, “The Iconographical Origins of Delacroix’s ‘Liberty Leading the People,’” in Studies in Art and Literature for Belle Da Costa Greene, ed. Dorothy Miner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954), 55–66; Hélène Adhémar, “La Liberté sur les barricades de Delacroix: Étudiée d’après des documents inédits,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 43 (1954): 83–92; N. Hadjinicolaou, “‘La Liberté guidant le peuple’ de Delacroix devant son premier plan,” Actes de la Recherche en Social Sciences (June 1979): 3–26; Hélène Toussaint, La Liberté guidant le peuple de Delacroix (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1982); T.J. Clark, The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848–1851 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), 17–20, 22, 25–26, 29; Marcia Pointon, “Liberty on the Barricades: Women, Politics, and Sexuality in Delacroix,” in her Naked Authority: The Body in Western Painting, 1830–1908 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 59–82. [back]
54. Marina Warner, Maidens and Monuments: The Allegory of the Female Form (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1985), 272. [back]
55. The four winds under the charge of Aeolus were usually depicted as children or beardless men, which might help to explain Delacroix’s choice of the youth. See J.S. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1978), 192. [back]
56. It is curious that art historians have not explored the maritime meanings of the symbolism in the painting, especially in light of Delacroix’s proximity to the sea in his youth, where he would have seen bare-breasted women as figureheads on a variety of ships. The artist would also have known that many sailors considered these figures to have protective supernatural powers, in particular the capacity to silence the tempests they faced at sea. See Margaret Baker, The Folklore of the Sea (London: David and Charles, 1979), chap. 1; Horace Beck, Folklore and the Sea (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1973), 15–16. [back]
57. Lynda Nead, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity, and Sexuality (London: Routledge, 1992), 2 (quotation), 9, 47. The distinction between the naked and the nude was pressed by Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1953), 3–29. When, a generation later, the new definition of femininity had taken hold, Eduard Manet would scandalize the art establishment afresh by painting women who were naked rather than nude. See T. J. Clark, “Preliminaries to a Possible Treatment of ‘Olympia’ in 1865,” Screen 21 (1980): 18–41. [back]
58. See Warner, Maidens and Monuments, chaps. 6, 8, and 12. [back]
59. There is also the story of the “Maid of Saragossa,” well known for her courage during the defense of her Spanish home against the French in 1808. For discussion of these sources, see Pointon, “Liberty on the Barricades,” 64; Hamilton, “Iconographical Origins,” 63–64; Johnson, Paintings of Delacroix, 147. The influences discussed here do not displace or diminish the widely acknowledged importance of artists such as Géricault, Gros, and Guérin to Delacroix’s painting. [back]
60. The female image of piracy may be seen as the forerunner of a specifically radical image of liberty that emerged during the French Revolution. Lynn Hunt has pointed out that this image—armed, “bare-breasted and fierce of visage,” woman as an active agent of change—existed in tension with a conservative image of a woman “seated, stolid, tranquil, and often without lance of liberty cap,” woman as a passive reflection of stability. See Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 93. On the genesis of liberty as a symbol in France, see Agulhon, Marianne into Battle, chap. 1. The radical image would in turn make its way into the socialist tradition. Eric Hobsbawm, “Man and Woman in Socialist Iconography,” History Workshop Journal 69 (1978): 121–38. See also Maurice Agulhon, “On Political Allegory: A Reply to Eric Hobsbawm,” History Workshop Journal 8 (1979): 167–73. [back]
61. Gosse, A Bibliography of the Works of Captain Charles Johnson. [back]
62. See three articles by George Heard Hamilton: “Eugene Delacroix and Lord Byron,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 23 (1943): 99–110; “Hamlet or Childe Harold? Delacroix and Byron,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 26 (1944): 365–86; and “Iconographical Origins,” 63, where Hamilton notes that Byron was much on Delacroix’s mind during the winter of 1830–31. “The Corsair” can be found in The Works of Lord Byron, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge (New York: Octagon Books, 1966), 3:227–96. [back]
Chapter 7: “To Extirpate Them Out of the World”
1. Cotton Mather, Instructions to the Living, From the Condition of the D
ead: A Brief Relation of Remarkables in the Shipwreck of above One Hundred Pirates (Boston, 1717), 17. [back]
2. The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates (London, 1719), 2, 8; Boston News-Letter, August 15, 1720, July 22 and November 4, 1717; Boston Gazette, August 15, April 18, and October 10, 1720, September 6, 1725; American Weekly Mercury, September 1, 1720; Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy (Boston, 1718), 8; Captain Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pyrates, ed. Manuel Schonhorn (1724, 1728: reprint, Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1972), 228 (hereafter cited as History of Pyrates); New-England Courant, August 21, 1721. [back]
3. Boston News-Letter, April 16, 1722, December 2 and 16, 1717, January 16–24, 1724; The Trials of Five Persons for Piracy, Felony, and Robbery (Boston, 1726), 7; Tryals of Bonnet, 3, 4; Trials of Eight Persons, 6, 7; American Weekly Mercury, April 7, 1720; Boston Gazette, September 23, 1723; Tryals of Thirty-Six Persons for Piracy (Boston, 1723), 3; History of Pyrates, 26, 38. [back]
4. Tryals of Thirty-Six, 3; Trials of Eight Persons, 6; Cotton Mather, Useful Remarks: An Essay upon Remarkables in the Way of Wicked Men: A Sermon on the Tragical End, unto which the Way of Twenty-Six Pirates Brought Them; At New Port on Rhode-Island, July 19, 1723 (New London, Conn., 1723), 40, 27, 39; Tryals of Bonnet, 3, 8, 11; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 38; Boston News-Letter, July 25–August 1, 1723, April 2–9, 1724; Cotton Mather, The Vial Poured Out upon the Sea: A Remarkable Relation of Certain Pirates ... (Boston, 1726), 46; History of Pyrates, 287. [back]
5. Trials of Eight Persons, 7, 6, 2; Tryals of Bonnet, 10, 7, 8; Boston News-Letter, March 29, 1714, February 9, 1719, August 15, 1723, September 24, 1724; Boston Gazette, October 10. 1720; Benjamin Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing to Fall into the Hands of the Living God ... (Boston, 1726), 36; American Weekly Mercury, April 7, 1720, August 17, 1721; Trials of Five Persons, 11, 16; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 5; History of Pyrates, 79, 264; American Weekly Mercury, June 13, 1723; H.R. McIlwaine, ed., Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia (Richmond, 1928), 3:612. [back]
6. Trials of Eight, 6, 2, 7; Tryals of Thirty-Six, 3; Arthur L. Hayward, ed., Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals (London, 1735; reprint, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927), 3:474, 580; Mather, Vial Poured Out, 8; American Weekly Mercury, April 7, 1720, February 20, 1722; Boston Gazette, April 18, 1720, August 19 and September 23, 1723; Tryals of Bonnet, 3–10; Boston News-Letter, April 13–20, 1719, August 15–22, 1723; History of Pyrates, 264; Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 25; Tryals of Thirty-Six, 3; Trials of Eight, 2, 6, 7; American Weekly Mercury, September 19, 1723; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 17 ; Boston News-Letter, September 12–19, 1723; History of Pyrates, 46, 79, 331. [back]
7. Tryals of Bonnet, 8. [back]
8. John Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial: An History of the Strange Adventures, and Signal Deliverances of Mr. Philip Ashton (Boston, 1725), 62; Boston News-Letter, July 15, 1717, April 4, 1723, June 20, 1723; American Weekly Mercury, June 20 and September 26, 1723, January 11, 1726, November 29, 1725; Tryals of Thirty-Six, 3; Cotton Mather, Tryals of Sixteen Persons for Piracy, & c. (Boston, 1726), 14; Tryals of Bonnet, iii, 5. [back]
9. Mather, Useful Remarks, 10; Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, 2, 62, 35, 63, 13; History of Pyrates, 210, 216, 219, 224; Mather, Vial Poured Out, 34, 20; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 60, 38, 49; Hayward, ed., Remarkable Criminals, 129, 576; Boston News-Letter, August 15, 1722. [back]
10. Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, 38, 62, 3, 6, 35, 64; Hayward, ed., Remarkable Criminals, 35, 125, 586; History of Pyrates, 85, 149, 164, 217; Boston News-Letter, August 15, 1722; Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 35; American Weekly Mercury, November 29, 1725; Mather, Vial Poured Out, 47. [back]
11. Trials of Eight, 6; Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, 62, 5, 64; Tryals of Bonnet, 3; Mather, Vial Poured Out, 8, 45. [back]
12. Mather, Useful Remarks, 13, 8, 33; History of Pyrates, 129, 135, 209, 312; Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, 62; Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 17; Boston News-Letter, December 19, 1720; Hayward, ed., Remarkable Criminals, 128; Mather, Vial Poured Out, 26; Flavel, Pathetical and Serious Disswasive ... (Boston, 1725), 134; Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 17; Cotton Mather, The Lord-High-Admiral of all the Seas, Adored (Boston, 1723), 20. [back]
13. Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 15; Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, 4, ii, 7, 62; Tryals of Sixteen, 14; Trials of Eight, 8; American Weekly Mercury, June 13 and September 26, 1723, January 11, 1726; Hayward, ed., Remarkable Criminals, 128; Boston News-Letter, August 12, 1717, September 24, 1724, December 23, 1718, July 18, 1723; Tryals of Thirty-Six, 3; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 19; Boston Gazette, March 21, 1726. [back]
14. Mather, Vial Poured Out, 9; Trials of Five Persons, 5; Tryals of Sixteen, 9; Mather, Lord-High-Admiral, 20; Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, 62, 7; History of Pyrates, 312, 332, 24, 6; Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 36; Boston News-Letter, August 15, 1722; Mather, Useful Remarks, 42. It is likely that some of these confessions were written by ministers or governmental officials. [back]
15. Mather, Useful Remarks, 13; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 37; Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, 7, 15; Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 5, 22, 38; Mather, Useful Remarks, 15, 26, 37, 39, 41, 42; Tryals of Sixteen, 14; Bernard Mandeville, An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn (1725; reprint, Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1964), 22, 34; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 37, 49; Boston News-Letter, August 15, 1722, July 25, 1723, May 28, 1724; John Flavel, Navigation Spiritualized; or, a New Compass for SeaMen (Boston, 1726), i, and Pathetical and Serious Disswasive, 55, 154; Mather, Vial Poured Out, 5, 43, 47, 48; History of Pyrates, 246, 312. [back]
16. Mather, Useful Remarks, 25, 13, 37; Hayward, ed., Remarkable Criminals, 125; Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 17, 22; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 23, 50; Boston News-Letter, July 25, 1723; Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, 15; Flavel, Navigation Spiritualized, i; Flavel, Pathetical and Serious Disswasives, 172; Mather, Vial Poured Out, 49; See also Arthur N. Gilbert, “Buggery and the British Royal Navy, 1700–1861,” Journal of Social History 10 (1976): 72–98, and particularly his discussion of homosexuality and order (87–88). [back]
17. Mather, Useful Remarks, 13, 15, 23, 24, 31, 36, 37, 40–42; Tryals of Bonnet, 11; Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 36; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 16, 38; Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, 2, 3, 6, 22, 64; Boston News-Letter, July 25, 1723, May 28, 1724; History of Pyrates, 264, 350–51, 659–60. History of Pyrates, 350–51, 659–60; Mather, Vial Poured Out, 48. [back]
18. On maritime labor conditions, see chapters 2 and 3 and A.G. Course, The Merchant Navy: A Social History (London: F. Muller, 1963); Ralph Davis, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: Macmillan, 1962); C.D. Merriman, ed., Queen Anne’s Navy Documents Concerning the Administration of the Navy of Queen Anne, 1702–1714 (London: Navy Records Society, 1961); Capt. Alfred Dewar, ed., The Voyages and Travels of Captain Nathaniel Uring (1726; reprint, London: Cassell, 1928). Mather, Vial Poured Out, 15; Mather, Useful Remarks, 3; The Mariner’s Divine Mate, or, Spiritual Navigation Improved (Boston, 1715), 34; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 42. [back]
19. Boston News-Letter, May 27, 1717; Mather, Lord-High-Admiral, 9; Flavel, Navigation Spiritualized, 11, 14, 1, 63; Mariner’s Divine Mate, 2, 11; Trials of Eight Persons, 6; Mather, Instructions to the Living, 4; Mather, Vial Poured Out, 33. [back]
20. Trials of Eight Persons, 6, 7; “Tryals of the Pirates” (1722), in History of Pyrates, 263; Mather, Lord-High-Admiral, 4. [back]
21. Mandeville, An Enquiry into the Causes, 48. [back]
22. Tryals of Bonnet, 11; Colman, It Is a Fearful Thing, 9; Mariner’s Divine Mate, i, 1; Mather, Lord-High-Admiral, 6, 22; Barnard, Ashton’s Memorial, i; Mather, Useful Remarks, 4; Trials of Eight Persons, 6; Trials of Thirty-Six, 3. [back]
23. American Weekly Mercury, December 13, 1720; Tryals of Sixteen, 14. The rhetorical tactics of exclus
ion used against pirates (animality, disorder, and so on) are similar to those the English used against Africans, African Americans, and Native Americans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [back]
24. Deposition of Henry Bostock, 1717, Colonial Office Papers (CO) 152/12, Public Record Office, London; William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade (London, 1734; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1971), 253; History of Pyrates, 217; Alexander Spotswood to Board of Trade, May 31, 1717, CO 5/1318; John Franklin Jameson, ed., Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents (New York: Macmillan, 1923), 315. [back]
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