Arabian coins found in US may unlock 17th-century pirate mystery

https://www.theguardian.com/science...-in-us-may-unlock-17th-century-pirate-mystery

 

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Very cool story, and seems quite likely.

I would have thought that during the colonial times in America Indian coinage would have been circulating in one form or another, similar to the Australian Proclamation Coins http://wcorbin.site.net.au/Proclamation Coins.pdf

 

Very cool story, @robinjojo.
With nothing to cite, I dimly recall that around this time, maybe more like the first couple of decades of the 18th century, pirates started shifting their focus to the Indian Ocean, as things started to heat up for them in the Caribbean. Policing, especially by the British (vs., for instance, Spanish) navy, eventually started to work. (Witness Blackbeard's death in a sea battle 1718, and Captain Kidd's capture and hanging in 1722.) Your guy sounds like one of the ones who paved the way for that.

 

I thought this sounded familiar. Sure enough, I bookmarked a similar story in 2019. Fun stuff!
https://www.providencejournal.com/n...e-unearthed-by-amateur-historian-from-warwick

 

I would disagree that it's the oldest coin found in the New World though. I remember the story of the Maine penny, found in 1957, which was likely brought over by the Vikings in the 11th century and somehow made its way to Maine through trade or otherwise: (https://www.reddit.com/r/Unresolved...1957_a_man_found_an_11th_century_viking_coin/)

Although it's hard to find a decent writeup on the "Maine Penny", the theory that Vikings made it to North America well before has some pretty strong evidence backing it up. There have been finds of Viking artifacts on Baffin Island and I'm pretty convinced that the "Vinland" of the Norse sagas was most likely New England. Years ago I traveled to L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, to look at the Viking village there; another possible site was found on the south of the island more recently.

 

That's correct.

There is very firm archeological evidence that the Vikings had small settlements in Newfoundland and south to New England.

 

And of course there's the Mexico mint, established in 1535.

 

Yes, the oldest mint in the Americas.

In 1985 I had the privilege to visit the old mint on a tour sponsored by the Mexico City Coin Club. It covered everything, from the refining process to the coin presses.

 

@rominumist, Yes, Everything you said is resonantly true. The penny found in Maine was of Olaf Kyrre /'the Quiet,' king of Norway 1065-1080. Right, solidly a couple of generations after the original discovery of Vinland, c. 1000.
The best treatment I know of is in print; "A Norse Penny from Maine," by Steven L. Cox, in Fitzhugh and Ward, eds., Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga (Smithsonian, 2000), pp. 206-7; brief mention p. 21).
One cool thing about Vinland is that the L'Anse aux Meadows settlement in Newfoundland was found primarily using geographic hints in the two extant Icelandic sagas on Greenland and Vinland, neither of which were written down earlier than the 13th century. A pretty resonant vindication of the judicious use of primary sources, specifically involving that interval of oral transmission. (226 ff.)
...And, @dltsrq, I got in trouble in a grade-school history unit on the settlement of Kentucky, by answering in class that the first settlers west of the Appalacians were the Spanish ...or, Oops, the Indians. ...Why we all need history at the academic level. Traditionally, the rest of it runs that heavily to unvarnished propoganda.