Steve Hindle, Mark G. Hanna, and Kevin P. McDonald welcome participants and attendees to the “Illicit Atlantic Worlds” conference, held at the Huntington Library in January 2015. Hindle is the W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at The Huntington. Hanna is Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. McDonald is Professor of History at Loyola Marymount University.