Abstract
The idea of the ‘Jamaica discipline’ suggests that all Anglo-American privateering and pirate groups operating between 1660 and 1726 were linked via a common set of ideas, such as democracy and an aversion to Caribbean elites. The idea has been influential in shaping both scholarly and popular perceptions of seventeenth-century privateers and eighteenth-century pirates. This article argues that the Jamaica discipline is not applicable to seventeenth-century privateers, but rather creates a fundamental misunderstanding of them. Seventeenth-century privateers were not as unified as the idea of them having a discipline suggests. They were not nearly as radical as the discipline posits, yet they did have a set of social norms that developed over the period. The article suggests that the notion of a ‘discipline’ that united pirates and privateers across the 1660–1726 period should be jettisoned, as it oversimplifies the complexities that dictated the presence of different social norms in the period.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-16 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | International Journal of Maritime History |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3 Mar 2023 |
Keywords
- Atlantic
- Caribbean
- Jamaica discipline
- piracy
- privateering