History 594AP - S-AmericnPrivateering1756-1815

A privateer is a vessel licensed by a government to attack and plunder enemy ships within a set of prescribed behaviors. Most works on the American Revolution spend little time on privateering and much time on the Continental Army. In truth, privateering was an equal part of the American bid for Independence. Nevertheless, since it was largely a private enterprise, historians have ignored it in order to establish their various myths of republican virtue at work.

The course will focus on the world of privateering including shore issues like financiers and their lives and politics, and the lives and politics of the men who actually went to sea with their families.

This writing course will acquaint students with the sources and research techniques, including marshaling qualitative and quantitative evidence, needed to study privateering and will stress the rhetoric needed to convey historical arguments effectively. This course is about swashbuckling: but like real-life privateering, this course requires discipline and hard work from participants to make a profit, much less a treasure.

Open to Seniors and Juniors in History, Middle East and Judaic majors only.