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My final project will focus on Atlantic Piracy and their methods of acquiring profit. When we think of pirates, we often think of Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, but do these swashbuckling adventures have anything to do with what actually happened in the Atlantic around the 1600-1700s? Maybe, but for the most part, it`s fantasy. During the 1500s, when Atlantic trade was growing substantially with the Columbian Exchange and Spanish conquests, the Spanish got rich off of minerals like gold and their rivals, like the English and the Dutch, wanted a piece of their wealth. As a result, they turned to piracy. Most pirates were not just greedy cutthroat raiders of the high seas, but were licensed thieves backed by European powers like the Dutch and the English as mentioned in Chapter 4 of The Atlantic World by Egerton et al. What I find most interesting about my topic is the fact that Atlantic piracy originally started as a revolt on Spanish domination and how it escalated into a lucrative profession that left trading ships damaged and dead sailors in their wake. Surprisingly, it created intricate trade networks in the Caribbean and the Americas as well as the rest of the Atlantic. What I want to write about is how Atlantic piracy and their tactics played an integral role in building the Atlantic economy and its relations with other countries. Though it sounds like a very broad topic, I want to focus mostly on piracy in the Caribbean during in the 1600-1700s and how it affected North and South America.