Read more
"In this fascinating book, Kevin McDonald tells the story of how pirates helped turn one imperial periphery, colonial New York, into a hub of the 'Indo-Atlantic trade world.' With a network that stretched from Manhattan to Madagascar, New York–backed sea rovers helped open the Indian Ocean to the colony’s merchants, carried slaves to North America and the Caribbean, and made spectacular fortunes. Carefully researched, beautifully written, and smartly argued, Pirates, Merchants, Settlers, and Slaves is maritime history at its best." —Eliga Gould, author of Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire
"Beautifully written and well researched, Pirates, Merchants, Settlers, and Slaves promises to make a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of pirate studies. Linking the Atlantic World and the Indian Ocean, McDonald shows how pirates expanded their reach to Madagascar and beyond after they were driven from the Atlantic settlements. This work captures pirates and piracy in their various contexts, complicating the story we all thought we knew so well."—Carla Gardina Pestana, Professor and Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World,
Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles
About the author
Kevin P. McDonald is Assistant Professor of History at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Summary
In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, more than a thousand pirates poured from the Atlantic into the Indian Ocean. This book explores the resulting global trade network located on the peripheries of world empires and shows the illicit ways American colonists met the consumer demand for slaves and East India goods.
Additional text
"A highly readable and important contribution to our understanding of pirates’ role in colonial projects in both the Americas and Madagascar. . . sheds much needed light on the Madagascar slave trade and the subsequent Malagasy diaspora. . . deserves high praise for providing a fresh perspective on Indian Ocean pirates, their settlement of St. Mary’s on Madagascar, and their participation in the Malagasy slave trade."
