Newport, Rhode Island

Pirates bring to mind the Caribbean, where they prospered by attacking Spanish ships laden with gold and other treasures plundered from the New World en route to Europe. It's not hard to also imagine buccaneers raiding Spanish fortresses in South America where the loot had been gathered for shipping.

You may be surprised to learn that in the 1600's, many pirates called Newport, Rhode Island, home.

One king's pirate is another king's privateer, so if you were sanctioned by government, you were performing a military service by attacking foreign ships, as long as you shared the take with your king.

Pirates could be popular in their home towns, as was Newport's Thomas Tew, because they would spread the wealth around buying goods and services from locals.

By the 1720s, thievery on the high seas had proven to be too destabilizing to burgeoning commerce, so under pressure from the British crown, many pirates were hung in Newport, bringing an end to the pirate era but not the seafaring traditions of Newport.

By the time of the Revolutionary War, Newport had become second only to New York City as a center of trade in the American colonies.

In the fall of 1776, the British, who had already conquered New York, captured Newport.  The population had been split between loyalists and patriots, but the patriots abandoned their homes as military use of harbors crowded out commerce.  The Brits abandoned Newport in 1779 to focus attention elsewhere.

One of the most profitable routes for Newport mariners in the 1700s was the "triangle trade," which brought sugar cane from the Caribbean to Newport, where numerous distilleries produced rum.  They then transported rum to other ports, including in West Africa, where it was traded for unfortunate captives of native wars who had been damned to live as slaves.  The slaves were transported to the Caribbean, where they were traded for sugar cane, which of course was brought back to Rhode Island to be distilled into rum.

In 1787, two years before George Washington became the first President of the United States, Rhode Island banned slave trading voyages, but the business was too lucrative to abandon entirely, so it continued as a "black market."

Early in President Washington's second term (1794), a federal statute prohibited Americans from carrying slaves to ports outside the United States, and transatlantic slave trade was abolished by Congress in 1807.

Newport again adapted.  Plantation owners began summering in the cooler temperatures of Newport, building cottages for their brief stays.  Soon, wealthy New England industrialists, railroad tycoons, furriers and traders joined the holiday craze, building "cottages" which were actually stately mansions.

These huge, lavish estates, used for only a few weeks of the year, remain as testaments to the opulence of the 19th Century Gilded Age.

Tourists flock to ooh and aah at the excess of another era, taking guided tours of the area or purchasing tickets for individual mansions like The Breakers.

We took a public trolley out to Newport Cliff Walk, 3 1/2 mile trail to appreciate the gorgeous coastal views enjoyed by the Vanderbilts, Astors and other multi-millionaires from an era when $15 a week was a pretty good salary.

The weather could not have been more perfect for our stroll.

We sauntered past many beautiful mansions but didn't pay for admission this time.  We could have easily hiked back to town, but we took the rather crowded ride back to the quaint downtown, which is a charming place to spend an afternoon.  We headed back to the ship for lunch.

Newport, Rhode Island, made a relaxing, gorgeous first stop for our Caribbean Princess cruise.