The Archives SourcesThe Calendar of State Papers, Colonial

The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial

The printed scholarly calendar of the English and British colonial correspondence held at The National Archives, Kew, giving chronological summaries and abstracts rather than full texts of the papers in CO 1 and CO 5, published by the Public Record Office through His or Her Majesty's Stationery Office from the 1860s, a dating carried as probable, into the twentieth century, and the standard route into official evidence on golden-age piracy through the volumes edited by Cecil Headlam.

From1896Totwentieth centuryAlso writtenCalendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies; Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies

The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies is a printed calendar: a chronological run of summaries, abstracts and partial transcripts of the correspondence of English, then British, colonial administration in the Atlantic. It is a finding aid, not an edition of full texts. British History Online, which carries the text, describes the entries as "summaries full enough, for most purposes, to replace the original documents" and as "the primary finding aid for the records that they describe". The manuscripts behind them are the Colonial Office records at The National Archives, Kew, principally CO 1 to 1688 and CO 5 after it.¹

Who made it

The calendar was produced under the Public Record Office and issued through His or Her Majesty's Stationery Office, as part of the long programme of calendaring the state papers. The America and West Indies series was begun by William Noel Sainsbury, an officer of the Record Office, whose work on the colonial papers is placed in the 1860s. The Hon. J. W. Fortescue continued it after Sainsbury's death; the volume for 1677 to 1680, published in 1896, is credited to "the late W. Noel Sainsbury and the Hon. J. W. Fortescue". Arthur Percival Newton is associated with the later volumes. The editors created no records; they described and ordered an archive that already existed.²

What an entry gives

The series spans roughly 1574 to 1739, the National Archives giving 1573 as its opening year. It runs entry by entry, each with its date, its correspondents, a summary of contents and a reference to the manuscript. The correspondents are the ordinary traffic of colonial government: governors and their councils, assemblies, naval officers, customs and admiralty men, merchants, and the Board of Trade from 1696. Coverage runs from New England to the Carolinas and across the West Indies, Jamaica, Barbados, the Leeward Islands and the Bahamas among them.³

Enclosures are calendared beside the covering letters, and for piracy they are often the substance of the entry: depositions and examinations, minutes of council, copies of proclamations and pardons. An item may be the only printed notice that a sworn statement survives.

The golden-age volumes

The operative core here is the run edited by Cecil Headlam, roughly 1714 into the late 1720s, cited by volume number and span. Volume 30, 1717 to 1718, calendars the correspondence of August 1717 to December 1718, taking in the royal pardon proclaimed in 1717. Its London imprint is of 1930.⁴

What it carries on piracy

Through the governors' and Board of Trade letters the calendar carries reports of pirate activity in the Caribbean and off the American coast, the Bahamas as a pirate resort and the campaign to reduce it, the working of the royal pardon, and the trials, examinations and executions of men taken. It carries the machinery too: the governors and councils, the naval stations and the vice-admiralty jurisdiction.⁵

Where to read it

The calendar text is digitised and searchable free on British History Online, which presents the series in forty-one volumes; counts of the run are stated variously and no figure has yet been confirmed. Page images of the printed volumes are open on the Internet Archive and in HathiTrust. A subscription resource, Colonial State Papers, digitises images of the manuscripts alongside the calendar text and is distinct from the free edition. Citations here give volume, span and entry, with the CO piece reference where wording matters.

Reading it against the manuscript

A calendar is a summary, and a summary can compress, paraphrase or silently drop what the original contains. Every document passes through an editor's judgement of what mattered, and the fullness of the abstracts varies across volumes. For exact wording, names, figures and legal formulae the reading has to be done in the CO manuscript, the calendar entry serving to find and date it.⁶

The viewpoint is administrative and metropolitan. Governors had commissions, reputations and local factions to protect, and their accounts of pirate strength, of their planters' loyalty, or of their own measures may be pitched to London rather than measured. Survival and depth of calendaring are uneven besides.

What this source cannot yet give is certainty about its own bibliography: the number of volumes in the series is stated variously and is not pinned here to a library catalogue record, the publication years of the Headlam volumes are not fixed from their title pages, and the placing of Sainsbury's first volume in the 1860s and the attribution of later volumes to Newton rest on the editorial succession rather than on the volumes themselves.

What the evidence does not settle

Number of volumes in the series

The total number of volumes in the series is not settled

Publication dates of the golden age volumes

Volume 30's 1930 imprint date is not fixed from its title pageLikely

Date of Sainsbury's first volume

Sainsbury's first volume date is inferred, not from a title page

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies is a printed calendar of summaries, abstracts and partial transcripts of the correspondence of English and British colonial administration, not an edition of full texts, and functions as the primary finding aid to the manuscripts it describes, which are the Colonial Office records at The National Archives, Kew, principally CO 1 for the period to 1688 and CO 5 thereafter. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Printed calendar and archive research guides: Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, series landing and volume set, British History Online, Institute of Historical Research; The National Archives research guides on the American and West Indian colonies before 1782 and on the Calendar of State Papers Colonial 1573-1739
The series was produced under the authority of the Public Record Office and issued through His or Her Majesty's Stationery Office as part of the programme of calendaring the state papers, begun by William Noel Sainsbury of the Record Office, continued after his death by the Hon. J. W. Fortescue, whose volume for 1677 to 1680 was published in 1896 and credited to the late W. Noel Sainsbury and the Hon. J. W. Fortescue, and carried through the early eighteenth century by Cecil Headlam. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Printed calendar and scholarly review: Review of Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1677-1680, ed. the late W. Noel Sainsbury and the Hon. J. W. Fortescue, London, H. M. Stationery Office, 1896, in The American Historical Review, volume 2 number 3; prefatory matter of the printed volumes, Public Record Office and H. M. Stationery Office; Cecil Headlam (ed.), golden-age volumes of the calendar
The America and West Indies series spans roughly 1574 to 1739, the National Archives giving 1573 as its opening year, and is arranged chronologically entry by entry, each entry giving a date, the correspondents, a summary of contents and a reference to the manuscript source. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archive research guide and printed calendar: The National Archives research guides on the American and West Indian colonies before 1782 and on America and the West Indies in the Calendar of State Papers Colonial 1573-1739; Cecil Headlam (ed.), Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volumes as digitised on British History Online
The volumes edited by Cecil Headlam, covering roughly 1714 into the late 1720s, are the operative core of the calendar for golden-age piracy, and volume 30, 1717 to 1718, of which the London imprint of 1930 is carried as probable, calendars the correspondence of August 1717 to December 1718. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Printed calendar: Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 30, 1717-1718, ed. Cecil Headlam, volume record and digitised calendar text on British History Online
Through the correspondence of colonial governors and the Board of Trade the calendar documents reports of pirate activity in the Caribbean and off the American coast, the condition of the Bahamas at New Providence as a pirate resort and the campaign to reduce it, the operation of the royal pardon or act of grace, and the trials, examinations and executions of captured men, together with the institutional machinery of governors and councils, the naval stations and the vice-admiralty jurisdiction. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archive research guide and printed calendar: The National Archives research guide on the American and West Indian colonies before 1782; Cecil Headlam (ed.), golden-age volumes of the Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies
Because a calendar entry is a summary that can compress, paraphrase or silently omit what the original contains, and because the fullness of the abstracts varies with the editor's judgement, exact wording, names, figures and legal formulae must be read in the CO manuscript itself rather than taken from the calendar. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Printed calendar with editorial statement: Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, series landing and editorial statement, British History Online, Institute of Historical Research