Canary in the Crow’s Nest: William Kidd’s Trial as an Extension of Henry Avery’s

Abstract

This presentation conducts a close reading of the primary source evidence related to the notorious pirate Captain Kidd to interrogate scholarly arguments linking piracy, the suppression of piracy, and the growth of the British Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Prior to the end of the seventeenth century, English support for piracy was integral to the growth of the wider empire. Colonial American support for piracy was present both on the docks and in the gubernatorial mansions throughout the colonies, leading the victims of piracy, particularly the Mughal Empire in the Indian Subcontinent, to claim that England was a nation of pirates, threatening their burgeoning empire. This support culminated in the 1695 capture of the Ganj-i-Sawai, in which Henry Avery captured a Mughal treasure ship and disappeared, only facing an English trial in absentia. Captain William Kidd’s 1701 trial for piracy is thus often seen in scholarship as a watershed moment in English support of piracy, representing the moment in time the Empire officially turned against such support. However, a close reading of Kidd’s trial record reveals that Kidd’s trial is as much about Henry Avery as it is about William Kidd, linking the two figures in reputation despite their differences in esteem, practice, and success. Thus, though Kidd proves to be an important figure in the history of cultural mythmaking as well as legal theory surrounding piracy, one must contextualize discussions of Kidd with reference to Henry Avery to avoid overemphasizing Kidd’s impact in the historical tradition