PIRATES Throughout the late seventeenth century, New York was a little seaport town. It was without manufacturers. It was dependent upon ocean industries for its well-being. There was little inland commerce. Everything was done by shipping along the waterways. The merchants were engaged in the river trade with Albany and the interior, in the coast trade with the neighboring colonies, in the fisheries, and in the sea trade with England, Africa, and the East and West Indies.
Every few years there occurred a prolonged maritime war with either France or Spain, and sometimes with both. Then the seas were scourged and the coasts vexed by the warships and privateers of the hostile powers. The intervals of peace were troubled by the ravages of pirates. Commerce was not a merely peaceful calling.
The seafaring folk, or those whose business was connected with theirs, formed the bulk of New York’s population. The poor man went to sea in the vessel the richer man built or owned or commanded. Where the one risked life and limb, the other at least risked his fortune and future. Many of the ventures were attended with great danger even in times of peace. Besides the common risks of storm and wreck, other and peculiar perils were braved by the ships that sailed for the Guinea Coast. They went to take part in the profitable, but hideously brutal and revolting, trade for slaves. The traffic with the strange coast cities of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean likewise had dangers all its own. Pirate and sultan and savage chief had all to be guarded against, and sometimes outwitted, and sometimes outfought.
Moreover, the New York merchants and seamen were themselves ready enough to risk their lives and money in legal warfare or illegal plundering. In every war the people plunged into the business of privateering with immense zest and eagerness. New York as a province dreaded the Canadians and Indians. New York City feared only the fleets of France. Her citizens warred, as well as traded, chiefly on the ocean. Privateering was a species of gambling that combined the certainty of exciting adventure with the chance of enormous profit. Many of the merchants who fitted out privateers lost heavily. Many others made prizes so rich that the profits of ordinary voyages sank into insignificance by comparison.
Spanish treasure ships and French vessels laden with costly stuffs from the West Indies or the Orient were brought into New York harbor again and again. When the prize was very rich and the crew of the privateer large, the homecoming of the latter meant a riot. In such a case the flushed privateersmen celebrated their victory with wild orgies and outrages, and finally had to be put down by actual battle in the streets. The landowners were often merchants as well. More than one of them was able to flank the gateway of his manor-house with the carved prows and figureheads of the vessels his own privateers had captured.
There were plenty of adventurous young New Yorkers, of good blood, who were themselves privateersmen, Red-Sea men, or slavers. To the life of the growing town on Manhattan Island, their presence added an air of dash and adventure. There was a suggestion of the Orient and of hazardous fortunes, ill made and lightly lost, in the costly goods with which the rich burghers and manorial lords decked their roomy houses, and clothed themselves
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and their wives. The dress of the time was picturesque. The small social world of New York looked leniently on the men whose deeds had made it possible to go clad in rich raiment. More than one sea-chief of doubtful antecedents held his head high among the New York people of position, on the infrequent occasions when he landed. While he celebrated and lived at ease his black-hulled, rakish craft was discharging her cargo at the wharves, or refitting for another mysterious voyage. The grim-visaged pirate captain, in his laced cap, rich jacket, and short white knee-trunks, with heavy gold chains round his neck, and jewel- hilted dagger in belt, was a striking and characteristic feature of New York life at the close of the seventeenth century.
1. In the late seventeenth century, on which of the following industries was New York most dependent?
a. manufacturing
b. trade and shipping
c. farming
d. entertainment
2. One of the common risks faced by New York’s seafaring folk was
a. sea monsters.
b. shipwreck.
c. unemployment.
d. bankruptcy.
3. Privateering was all of the following except
a. exciting.
b. potentially profitable.
c. risky.
d. a reliable source of income.
4. When privateers returned to New York with treasure they often
a. went to church.
b. went home and slept.
c. caused riots.
d. went to the bank.
5. New Yorkers viewed pirates with
a. acceptance. b. caution.
c. jealousy.
d. anger.

6. What career or profession of today do you think is most similar to that of the pirates or privateers of 17th-century New York. Why?