Résumés
Abstract
A sea voyage in the early modern period came with many inherent risks and often considerable unpleasantness for travellers ranging from storms and shipwreck to seasickness. But not all those who voyaged across water were in the same boat, as it were. Women and young boys faced additional dangers of unwanted sexual attention or rape from predators on their ships or those they encountered, such as pirates or enemy warships. This article examines the experiences and vulnerability of women and young boys as they dealt with the threat of sexual assault when they journeyed by sea.
Keywords:
- Sexual Violence,
- Royal Navy,
- Pirates,
- Sea,
- Ships
Résumé
Au début des temps modernes, un voyage en mer présentait de nombreux risques inhérents et s’accompagnait souvent de désagréments considérables pour les voyageurs, qu’il s’agisse de tempêtes, de naufrages ou du mal de mer. Mais tous ceux qui parcouraient les mers n’étaient pas, pour ainsi dire, dans le même bateau. Les femmes et les jeunes garçons couraient un risque accru de viol ou de harcèlement sexuel de la part des prédateurs présents sur leurs navires ou de ceux qu’ils rencontraient en chemin, tels que les pirates ou les navires de guerre ennemis. Cet article examine les expériences et la vulnérabilité des femmes et des jeunes garçons face à la menace d’agression sexuelle lorsqu’ils voyageaient en mer.
Mots-clés :
- Violence sexuelle,
- Marine royale,
- Pirates,
- Mer,
- Navires
Parties annexes
Bibliography
- Bodleian Library (BL), Oxford
- MS Rawl A295, Samuel Pepys Papers
- British Library, London
- ADD MS 9305
- Carlisle Archive Centre
- D LONS/W/11Q/22, Lowther Family Papers
- The National Archives (NA), London
- ADM 1/5253–54; 1/5259–60, Courts Martial Papers
- ADM 106, Navy Board Records
- HCA 1/51; 1/58, High Court of Admiralty
- National Maritime Museum (NMM), Greenwich
- JOD/6, Diary of the Reverend Henry Teonge
- National Maritime Museum (NMM), London
- CAD/A/16, Admiralty Instructions
- CAD/B/10, Navy Instructions
- An Account of the Behaviour, Dying Speeches, and Execution of Mr. John Murphey, for High-Treason; […] for Robbery, Piracy and Felony; at The Execution-Dock. London, 1696.
- An Act for the Establishing Articles and Orders for the Regulateing and Better Government of His Majesties Navies Ships of Warr & Forces by Sea. London, 1661.
- Anno regni Caroli II. Regis Angliae, Scotiae, Franciae, & Hiberniae decimo tertio. London, 1661.
- A Bill for Amending, Explaining, and Reducing into One Act of Parliament, the Laws Relating to the Government of His Majesty’s Ships, Vessels, and Forces by Sea. London, 1749.
- Bradford, William. History of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford. Edited by Charles Deane. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1856.
- Browne, William H., ed. Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1636–1667. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1965. First published 1885.
- Bryn, John D. Naval Courts Martial, 1793–1815. Woodbridge: Navy Records Society, 2009.
- Büttner, Johann. Narrative of Johann Carl Büettner in the American Revolution. New York: C. F. Heartman, 1915.
- By the Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral: General Instructions. London, 1715.
- Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1670. Edited by Mary Anne Everett Green. London: Stationary Office, 1895.
- Caulfield, Richard, ed. The Council Book of the Corporation of Youghal. Guildford: J. Billings and Sons, 1878.
- Cooke, Frances. Mris. Cooke’s Meditations. London, 1650.
- Corbett, Julian Stafford, ed. Fighting Instructions, 1530–1816. London: Navy Records Society, 1905.
- Coxere, Edward. Adventures by Sea of Edward Coxere. Edited by E. H. W. Meyerstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945.
- Devereux, Robert. Laws and Ordinances of Warre, Established for the Better Conduct of the Army. London: Printed for Luke Fawne, 1643.
- Exquemelin, A. O. Bucaniers of America. London: William Whitwood, 1684.
- Fanshawe, Anne. Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, Wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, Bart., Ambassador from Charles the Second to the Courts of Portugal and Madrid. Edited by Charles Fanshawe. London: Henry Colburn, 1830.
- Henrietta Maria. Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria: Including Her Private Correspondence with Charles the First. Edited by Mary Anne Everett Green. London: Richard Bentley, 1857.
- Johnson, Charles A General History of the Pyrates, from Their First Rise and Settlement in the Island of Providence, to the Present Time. London: T. Warner, 1725.
- Jones, Rebecca. Memorials of Rebecca Jones. Edited by William Allinson. Philadelphia, PA: Henry Longstreth, 1849.
- Parry, John H., and Robert G. Keith, eds. New Iberian World: A Documentary History of the Discovery and Settlement of Latin America to the Early 17th Century. 5 vols. New York: Times Books, 1984.
- Pepys, Samuel. Letters and the Second Diary of Samuel Pepys. Edited by R. G. Howarth. London: Dent, 1932.
- Pepys, Samuel. The Tangier Papers of Samuel Pepys. Edited by Edwin Chappel. London: Navy Records Society, 1935.
- Regulations and Instructions Relating to His Majesty’s Service at Sea. London, 1731.
- Regulations and Instructions Relating to His Majesty’s Service at Sea, Established by His Majesty in Council. London, 1757.
- Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. The Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth. 3 vols. London: Stationary Office, 1887–96.
- Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont. Vol. 1, Pt. 1. London: Stationary Office, 1905.
- Schaw, Janet. Journal of a Lady of Quality: Being the Narrative of a Journey from Scotland to the West Indies. Edited by Evangeline Andrews. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1921.
- Severall Proceedings of State Affairs, no. 255. London, 1654.
- Symonds, Richard. Diary of the Marches of the Royal Army during the Great Civil War Kept by Richard Symonds. Edited by Charles Edward Long. London: Camden Society, 1859.
- Thornton, Alice. The Autobiography of Mrs. Alice Thornton, of East Newton, Co. York. Edited by Charles Jackson. Durham: Surtees Society, 1875.
- Tuchet, James. Lawes and Orders of Vvarre, M. DC. XLIII Established for the Conduct of the Armie Designed for the Expedition of Vlster. Waterford: Thomas Bourke, 1643.
- Worth, R. N. Calendar of the Plymouth Municipal Records. Plymouth, 1893.
- Younge, James. The Journal of James Younge [1647–1721]: Plymouth Surgeon. Edited by F. N. L. Poynter. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1963.
- Secondary Sources
- Ailes, Mary Elizabeth. Courage and Grief: Women and Sweden’s Thirty Years’ War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ws7vqq.
- Appleby, John. Women and English Piracy, 1540–1720: Partners and Victims of Crime. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2013. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt31nh6t.
- Berry, Stephen R. A Path in the Mighty Waters: Shipboard Life and Atlantic Crossings to the New World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300210255.
- Blakemore, Richard J., and Elaine Murphy. The British Civil Wars at Sea, 1638–1653. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt22zmbkn.
- Brayshay, Mark. Land Travel and Communications in Tudor and Stuart England: Achieving a Joined-Up Realm. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2014.
- Burg, B. R. Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson’s Navy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230590700.
- Canny, Nicholas. Making Ireland British, 1580–1650. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198200918.001.0001.
- Capp, Bernard. British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs, 1580–1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192857378.001.0001.
- Capp, Bernard. Cromwell’s Navy: The Fleet and the English Revolution, 1648–1660. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
- Capp, Bernard. When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighbourhood in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255986.001.0001.
- Christopher, Emma. Slave Ship Sailors and the Captive Cargoes, 1730–1807. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
- Conley, Mary. “The Admiralty’s Gaze: Disciplining Indecency and Sodomy in the Edwardian Fleet.” In A New Naval History, edited by Quintin Colville and James Davey, 70–88. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526113825.00010.
- Cordingly, David. Heroines and Harlots: Women at Sea in the Great Age of Sail. London: Macmillan, 2001.
- Crabtree, Sarah. “Navigating Mobility: Gender, Class, and Space at Sea, 1760–1810.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 48, no. 1 (2014): 89–106. https://doi.org/10.1353/ecs.2014.0048.
- Davies, J. D. Gentlemen and Tarpaulins: The Officers and Men of the Restoration Navy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198202639.001.0001.
- Davies, J. D. Pepys’s Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1649–89. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2008.
- Daybell, James. Women Letter-Writers in Tudor England. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199259915.001.0001.
- Donagan, Barbara. War in England, 1642–1649. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199285181.001.0001.
- Earle, Peter. Sailors: English Merchant Seamen, 1650–1775. London: Methuen, 1998.
- Esra, Jo. “‘[H]eer will be noe fishing’: 17th Century Barbary Piracy and the West Country Fisheries.” Troze 7, no. 1 (March 2016): 3–19. https://nmmc.co.uk/publication/17th-century-barbary-piracy-and-the-west-countries-fisheries.
- Flather, Amanda. Gender and Space in Early Modern England. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2007.
- Fury, Cheryl. Tides in the Affairs of Men: The Social History of Elizabethan Seamen, 1580–1603. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.
- Fury, Cheryl. “‘To Sett Downe All the Villanie’: Accounts of the Sodomy Trial on the Fourth East India Company Voyage (1609).” Mariner’s Mirror 102, no. 1 (2016): 74–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/00253359.2016.1138623.
- Hanna, Mark. Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
- Herbert, Amanda E. Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.12987/yale/9780300177404.001.0001.
- Holmberg, Eva Johanna. “Writing the Travelling Self: Travel and Life-Writing in Peter Mundy’s (1597–1667) Itinerarium Mundii.” Renaissance Studies 31, no. 4 (September 2016): 608–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/rest.12250.
- Hubbard, Eleanor. City Women: Money, Sex and the Social Order in Early Modern London. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609345.001.0001.
- Hufton, Olwen. The Prospect before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500–1800. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1996.
- Hughes, Ann. Gender and the English Revolution. London: Routledge, 2012. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203804704.
- Jones, Elin. “Masculinity, Materiality and Space Onboard the Royal Naval Ship, 1756–1815.” PhD diss., Queen Mary University of London, 2016.
- Land, Isaac. War, Nationalism, and the British Sailor, 1750–1850. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101067.
- LeJacq, Seth Stein. “Buggery’s Travels: Royal Navy Sodomy on Ship and Shore in the Long Eighteenth Century.” Journal for Maritime Research 17, no. 2 (2015): 103–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/21533369.2015.1094980.
- LeJacq, Seth Stein. “Escaping Court Martial for Sodomy: Prosecution and Its Alternatives in the Royal Navy, 1690-1840.” International Journal of Maritime History 33, no. 1 (2021): 16–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/0843871421991169.
- LeJacq, Seth Stein. “‘Some Sly Corner’: Privacy and Sodomitical Space in the Georgian Royal Navy.” In Privacy at Sea: Practices, Spaces and Communications in Maritime History, edited by Natacha Klein Kafer, 131–54. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35847-0_6.
- Lincoln, Margarette. Naval Wives and Mistresses. London: National Maritime Museum, 2007.
- Lynn, John A., II. Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
- Mack, John. The Sea: A Cultural History. London: Reaktion Books, 2011.
- Maczak, Antoni. Travel in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995.
- Malcolm, Noel. Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relation, 1400–1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198886334.001.0001.
- Mansell, Charmian. Female Servants in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197267585.001.0001.
- Matar, Nabil. British Captives from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1563–1760. Leiden: Brill, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004264502.
- Mendelson, Sara Heller. “Stuart Women’s Diaries and Occasional Memoirs.” In Women in English Society, 1500–1800, edited by Mary Prior, 181–210. London: Routledge, 1985. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203985342.
- Murphy, Elaine. “Atrocities at Sea and the Treatment of Prisoners of War by the Parliamentary Navy in Ireland, 1641–1649.” Historical Journal 53, no. 1 (March 2010): 21–37. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X09990501.
- Murphy, Elaine. Ireland and the War at Sea, 1641–1653. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2012. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt1r2gt9.
- Murphy, Elaine “‘A water bawdy house’: Women and the Navy in the British Civil Wars.” In The Maritime World of Early Modern Britain, edited by Richard J. Blakemore and James Davey, 173–92. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv18gfzcf.12.
- Mustakeem, Sowande’ M. Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.5406/illinois/9780252040559.001.0001.
- Ohlmeyer, Jane. “Eastward Enterprises: Colonial Ireland, Colonial India.” Past & Present 240, no. 1 (August 2018): 83–118. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gty017.
- Owens, Sarah. Nuns Navigating the Spanish Empire. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017.
- Oxford English Dictionary Online. December 2023. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com.
- Parker, Geoffrey. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt32bksk.
- Pietsch, Tamson. “Bodies at Sea: Travelling to Australia in the Age of Sail.” Journal of Global History 11, no. 2 (July 2016): 209–28. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022816000061.
- Redding, Benjamin W. D. “The Western Design Revised: Death, Dissent, and Discontent on the Gloucester, 1654–1656.” Historical Journal 66, no. 5 (December 2023): 945–70. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X23000262.
- Rediker, Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
- Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship: A Human History. London: John Murray, 2008.
- Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.
- Rodger, N. A. M. The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649–1815. London: Penguin, 2004.
- Rublack, Ulrinka. The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208860.001.0001.
- Sen, Amrita. “Sailing to India: Women, Travel, and Crisis in the Seventeenth Century.” In Travel and Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and the Wider World, edited by Patrica Akhimie and Bernadette Andrea, 64–80. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv8xnh57.8.
- Stanley, Jo. A History of the Royal Navy: Women and the Royal Navy. London: I. B. Tauris, 2018.
- Stark, Suzanne J. Female Tars: Women aboard Ship in the Age of Sail. London: Pimlico, 1996.
- Stoyle, Mark. Soldiers and Strangers: An Ethnic History of the English Civil War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
- Suranyi, Anna. “‘Be sure thou stay at home’: Indentured Women in the British Atlantic during the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries.” In Women in Exile in Early Modern Europe and the Americas, edited by Linda Levy Peck and Adrianna Bakos, 101–26. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2024. https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.15507129.13.
- Suranyi, Anna. Indentured Servitude: Unfree Labour and Citizenship in the British Colonies. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1vtz7g5.
- Van der Pol, Lotte. The Burgher and the Whore: Prostitution in Early Modern Amsterdam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199211401.001.0001.
- Van Netten, Djoeke. “Spaces on Ships: Secrecy and Privacy in the Dutch East India Companies.” TSEG: The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History 18 (2021): 107–24. https://doi.org/10.52024/tseg.11044.
- Walker, Garthine. Crime, Gender and Social Order in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511496110.
- Walker, Garthine. “Rape, Acquittal and Culpability in Popular Crime Reports in England, c. 1670–c. 1750.” Past & Present 220, no. 1 (August 2013): 115–42. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gts063.
- Walker, Garthine. “Rereading Rape and Sexual Violence in Early Modern England.” Gender and History 10, no. 1 (April 1998): 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.00087.
- Wareing, John. Indentured Migration and the Servant Trade from London to America, 1618–1718: “There is Great Want of Servants.” Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198788904.001.0001.