NDTD integrates maritime archaeology, history, geophysical survey and anthropology to investigate illicit trade between the Caribbean islands St. Eustatius, Saba, St. Thomas, St. Bartholomew and St. Maarten (5S) from 1816 to around 1840 with the aim of understanding why and how these islands were drawn into an illicit trade network, what archaeological evidence remains of these activities, and why this is relevant to current ‘theories of piracy’ and modern illicit trade in the region.
NDTD will seek to understand this through the following five research objectives:
- Understanding the interrelationships between international, regional and local factors that drove these islands to engage in illicit trade.
- How these islands functioned together as a network for illicit trade, smuggling and laundering, the processes involved, and how long it occurred.
- Understanding the interdependencies between the acquisition of these illicit goods, consumption of these goods, and race, class, and gender; as a means to understand who purchased illicit goods, why they took these legal risks and how it scaled according to race/class/gender, and who fulfilled these demands as pirates, privateers, smugglers, and illegal slave traders.
- Determining the Archaeological evidence of these activities.
- How illicit trade from this period informs the ‘theories of piracy’ proposed by scholars in the 21st century, and how this compares to the 21st century smuggling in the region.
The processes involved in the five research objectives consist of:
1. new research on previously unconsulted documents in international archives;
2. analysing legal and illicit regional trade in the early nineteenth century north-eastern Caribbean through network analysis of digitized harbour master records;
3. maritime geophysical surveys in previously unmapped waters to locate, identify and map wrecks that were intentionally sunk during the early 19th century period of piracy between St. Eustatius and Saba;
4. interviews with local residents of the 5S islands concerning collective memories of piracy and illicit trade; both as means to triangulate oral histories with the documentary record, and to assess its relevance to local identity and culture relative to its promotion in local tourist industries.
5. drawing on NDTD’s data to understand the dialectics of race, class and gender relative to recruiting pirate cruises, composition of pirate ship crews, the smuggling and laundering process, and the subsequent consumption of these goods on 5S.
6. drawing NDTD’s data and results to inform and understand current “theories of piracy”.
7. producing maritime cultural heritage (MCH) maps for use in MCH management programs on the 5S islands.
8. producing a documentary of the results for international audiences.
