Colonial New England Maritime
Celebrated, Northeast Culture, Businesses, Ports and Legends
Mar 28, 2008
Perpetual tides and beating waves carved picturesque harbors and coves along the rocky, New England coastline. The cold, blue-green waters of the Atlantic, warmed by the Gulf Stream, teamed with cod, haddock, whales, and shellfish.
Port Culture
Some colonists turned to ocean commerce when agriculture proved to be a tough existence given the rocky, poor soil, or they employed themselves in both arenas. Money and adventure called men and a few infamous women to the sea.
Harbors at Boston, Salem (Naumkeag, meaning, eel land), Beverly, Marblehead, Newburyport, Gloucester to Canada, and south to Rhode Island/Connecticut, attracted an array of sea-worthy merchants. Graceful, billowing sails of their tall ships--frigates, and other models dotted the coastline. Ultimately, major trade routes were established with China, the West Indies, France, England and Spain.
Additionally, the rich, dense forests of New England provided ship builders with enough lumber to catapult ship building into a thriving business.
Merchant businesses crowded the ports, and stately homes of sea captains often built in the Georgian Colonial and Federal styles, still stand and retain their period charm. Families who made their fortunes at sea, like Salem (Massachusetts) Captain, Thomas Davis, managed his sea business ... across the N. River in Beverly. He owned ...three schooners that he employed in the offshore fisheries and coastal trade to Virginia.
Richard Derby was probably the wealthiest of the sea merchants of Salem, Massachusetts (Derby Wharf). He owned sloops, schooners and brigantines. He traded cod to S. Europe and the W. Indies.
Letters of Marque
Revolution, separation from English rule bcame the spirit of the day. Unfortunately, the colonies had no substantial Navy to boast of. A practice which began in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth took root in the colonies.
Letters of Marque were issued to any able bodied seaman who owned a ship worthy of war. The mission was to destroy and plunder enemy vessels. Booty was divided amongst the crew. Thus, the profession of privateering within the colonies was established.
The legal privateer was commissioned during a period of war. However, the distinction between privateering and abject piracy was often muddied. Privateering, for some, was a colonial, "get rich quick scheme."
Displaying his ship's armaments, perhaps for enticing privateering crews, an excerpt from a Boston paper, submitted by Elisha Hinman, Esquire:
The DEANE mounts thirty carriage guns, and is excellently well calculated for Attacks, Defense and Pursuit...
A commissioned group of privateers mandated by Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, was formed to catch the first New England pirate, Dixie Bull.
Dixie Bull First New England Pirate
Legend states he was born in England from a respectable English family. Perhaps, he possessed an adventurous spirit which beckoned him to the New World (early 1600's).
He traded beaver pelts with English settlements and the indigenous tribes of New England. Ambushed at sea by a French vessel pretending to be an English vessel in distress, Dixie's ship was boarded and plundered. Hostages were taken. Dixie vowed revenge.
He acquired another vessel and searched the Maine-Massachusetts coastline for the culprit, French vessel. This vessel eluded him. To worsen his situation, the government failed to assist him to regain his losses. Frustration, perhaps, motivated him to plunder a vulnerable English post on the Piscataqua in New Hampshire. He plundered additional vessels and outposts, then disappeared. Supposedly, he sailed back to England, maybe...
Source
Angus Konstam, Scourge of the Seas, Osprey Publishing, 2007, Great Britain, pgs. 164-175.
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