To the previous poster, I suggest you listen to the show today- privateering was a state sanctioned and state regulated business enterprise which worked within the norms of international law and centuries of precedent during times of maritime conflict.

Privateers not only had to pay an expesnive bond for thier offical liscense (letter of marque) to ensure good and lawful conduct while on the high seas, but were required to submit each ship capture and all the goods of said capture to a regulating body to determine if the capture was indeed lawful.

No nation sent out more privateers than the English, if any English thought that American privateers were “pirates” during the Revolution it would be due to the fact they did not recognize the US as legitimate state, thus making American privateersmen “renegades.”

To suggest that America’s long tradition of privateering makes our state a “nation of pirates” is absurd.

My ancestors were privateers out of Salem during the Revolution. At one point Captain Samuel Reed’s ship was captured by the British. They regained control by getting the British prize crew drunk, manuevering them into the cabin, and jamming the barrel into the companionway to keep them below.

He was a partner is several ships–not necessarily privateers–with Sir William Phipps, governor of Maine.

As a kid reading GONE WITH THE WIND, it was never clear
to me exactly what Rhett Butler did that made him so fabulously wealthy. Was he a Privateer?

For a great song about privateering, check out Stan Rogers’ “Barrett’s Privateers”. There are several versions on YouTube. Stan Rogers’ own version is the classic…also found a good version by the Bard of Cornwall.

What a FANTASTIC interview!! Thank you! Apropos of several things that were mentioned:

1) Here is the link for the Brown University Slavery and Justice Report requested by Brown President Ruth Simmons to investigate any origins of the Brown endowment in monies from the slave trade. The report follows issues far broader than those solely about Brown. The final suggestions by the report committee also seek to serve a broader audience than Brown alone. Here is the link:

http://www.brown.edu/Research/Slavery_Justice/

2) The Providence Journal, RI’s largest daily newspaper, did an excellent investigative reporting series into the history of the slave trade in RI. Here is the link for their fantastic website:

http://www.projo.com/extra/2006/slavery/nav.htm

3) Katrina Brown is a descendant of the DeWolf family, the largest single family in US history to be involved in the slave trade (larger than the Brown family). She made a wonderful documentary film, Traces of the Trade, wherein she and other contemporary family members seek to find out about their family’s history and the wider RI history in which that trade played out. One of her cousins wrote an excellent accompanying book. The film has been shown at Sundance and on PBS. Here is the link to the film:

http://www.tracesofthetrade.org/

Thank you so much for that wonderful hour! I am so interested in how American history played out, beyond the jingoism that often divides people and sometimes credits people with purity of motives that is not deserved while under-representing the contributions and heroism of peoples excluded in the childhood history books of many of us, even in the Baby Boomer generation. I’m not creditting the privateers here with heroism, but rather commending this KIND of history-reporting and comparing it to jingoism. Also, the ENERGY of that interview was such a JOLT!!!!! Thank you!!

Keith rightly points out that the slave trade is a vital theme running through this history. Christina, for her part, brings up the DeWolf family of Rhode Island, who were the most successful slave traders in the nation’s history.

It just so happens that James D’Wolf, the patriarch of the DeWolf slave traders, was also a legendary privateer.

At the outbreak of the War of 1812, D’Wolf alone owned more ships than were found in the entire U.S. Navy, and he sent seven of them to sea as authorized privateers. In the end, D’Wolf’s 18-gun brig, the Yankee, was the most successful privateer in the War of 1812, capturing 41 enemy ships and British property worth over $5 million.

James D’Wolf eventually became the second-richest man in the nation, and while slave trading provided an essential foundation for his fortune, his privateering generated staggering profits as well.