The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630-1730

A century of maritime outlaws along the rugged New England shoreline, where the line between pirate, smuggler, and honest merchant dissolved like morning fog. George Francis Dow reconstructs the shadowy world of coastal predation during the colonial era, revealing how the British Navigation Acts inadvertently birthed a generation of sea rovers who preyed on merchant vessels with unsettling impunity. This is not the Caribbean romance of gold and Jolly Rogers, but something grittier: men driven to extremity by economic hardship, punitive trade laws, and the brutal demands of survival in a harsh maritime frontier. The author grounds his account in court records, colonial papers, and contemporary accounts, separating the documented reality from the legend that grew up around these figures. What emerges is a disturbing picture of early American commerce, where the same merchants who condemned piracy often profited from it, and where colonial authorities looked the other way when outlaws served economic interests.