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Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands

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I suppose that it is mostly the fault of the movies, but we tend to think of pirates as being either British (Blackbeard) or French (Lafitte). It turns out thought that the Dutch, who were building an overseas empire that would rival that of the British also issued letters of marque (Dutch - commissie van retorsie) that gave their ships the right to act as privateers to attack the ships of eneny countries. And as was the custom with the British and French privateers, some of them found that their weren't enough enemy ships so they broadened their range to become outright pirates.

In this book, Virginia Lunsford, a professor of history at the United States Naval Acadamy describes the story of Dutch piracy and privateering in an excellent bit of original research.

One strange aspect of Dutch pirates is that a surprising number of them retired back to Holland after their career as a pirate and lived with a certain esteem and respect. This was in spite of the existence of laws that specifically outlawed piracy and prescribed hanging as the penalty.

This book not only gives the history of Dutch piracy in narrative form, but has several appendicies that give specific detailed information on individual ships and the results of their cruises.

This is a pioneering work covering a subject I've not seen covered before.