i

In the Name of the Battle against Piracy

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_001

ii 

European Expansion and

Indigenous Response

Editor-in-Chief

George Bryan Souza (University of Texas, San Antonio)

Editorial Board

Cátia Antunes (Leiden University)

João Paulo Oliveira e Costa (cham, Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Frank Dutra (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Kris Lane (Tulane University)
Pedro Machado (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Ghulam A. Nadri (Georgia State University)
Malyn Newitt (King’s College, London)
Michael Pearson (University of New South Wales)
Ryuto Shimada (The University of Tokyo)

VOLUME 29

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/euro

 iii

In the Name of the

Battle against Piracy
Ideas and Practices in State Monopoly of Maritime
Violence in Europe and Asia in the Period of Transition

Edited by

Ota Atsushi

LEIDEN | BOSTON
 iv 

Cover illustration: Destruction of the pirate squadron commanded by Chui Apoo, in Byas Bay, China, 1st
October, 1849 by Her Majesty’s sloop Columbine, J.C. Dalrymple Hay Esqr. Commr. H.M. steem sloop Fury,
J. Willcox Esqr. Commr. & boats of H.M.S. Hastings / E.H. Cree, del.; Dickinson & Co., lith.
Courtesy of Toyo Bunko (The Oriental Library).

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 Contents
Contents v

Contents

General Series Editor’s Preface vii

George Bryan Souza
Acknowledgments x
List of Illustrations xii
Notes on Contributors xiii

Introduction 1
Ota Atsushi

Part 1
From Co-existence to Prohibition: Maritime Violence in Europe

1 Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean: Violence, Diplomacy and

Commerce in the Maghrib, c. 1600-1830 19
Kudo Akihito and Ota Atsushi

2 Plunder and Free Trade: British Privateering and Its Abolition in 1856 in
Global Perspective 43
Satsuma Shinsuke

Part 2
Contingent Developments in Antipiracy Politics in the Asian Seas

3 The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates: A Relativist Reconsideration of the

Qawāsimi Piracy in the Persian Gulf 69
Hideaki Suzuki

4 Petitions and Predation: The Politics of Representation in Northwest

India at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century 97
Lakshmi Subramanian

5 Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty: Changing Perceptions of Piracy and

Dutch Colonial State-Building in Malay Waters, c. 1780-1830 115
Ota Atsushi
vi Contents

6 In the Name of Sovereignty: Spain’s Tackling of ‘Moro’ Piracy in the Sulu

Zone, 1768-1898 143
James Francis Warren

Part 3
Piracy and State in East Asia

7 Piracy Prohibition Edicts and the Establishment of Maritime Control

System in Japan, c. 1585-1640 171
Fujita Tatsuo (translated by Ota Atsushi)

8 The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas by the Naval Forces of

China, Macao, and Britain (1780-1860) 199
Toyooka Yasufumi and Murakami Ei

Conclusion 232
Ota Atsushi

Bibliography 237
Index 261
General Series Editor’s Preface vii
General Series Editor’s Preface

General Series Editor’s Preface

Over the past half millennium, from c 1450 until the last third or so of the 20th
century, much of the world’s history has been influenced in great part by one
general dynamic and complex historical process known as European expan-
sion. Defined as the opening up, unfolding or increasing the extent, number,
volume or scope of the space, size or participants belonging to a certain people
or group, location or geographical region, Europe’s expansion initially emerged
and emanated physically, intellectually and politically from southern Europe
– specifically from the Iberian peninsula – during the 15th century, expanding
rapidly from that locus to include, first, all of Europe’s maritime, and later,
most of its continental states and peoples. Most commonly associated with
events described as the discovery of America and of a passage to the East
Indies (Asia) by rounding the Cape of Good Hope (Africa) during the early
modern and modern periods, European expansion and encounters with the
rest of the world multiplied and morphed into several ancillary historical pro-
cesses, including colonization, imperialism, capitalism and globalization,
encompassing themes, amongst others, relating to contacts and – to quote the
EURO series’ original mission statement –, “connections and exchanges; peo-
ples, ideas and products, especially through the medium of trading companies;
the exchange of religions and traditions; the transfer of technologies; and the
development of new forms of political, social and economic policy, as well as
identity formation.” Because of its intrinsic importance, extensive research has
been performed and much has been written about the entire period of
European expansion.
With the first volume published in 2009, Brill launched the European
Expansion and Indigenous Response book series at the initiative of a well-
known scholar and respected historian, Glenn J. Ames, who prior to his
untimely passing was the founding editor and guided the first seven volumes
of the series to publication. George Bryan Souza, who was one of the early
members of the series’ editorial board, was appointed the series’ second
General Editor. The series’ founding objectives are to focus on publications
“that understand and deal with the process of European expansion, inter-
change and connectivity in a global context in the early modern and modern
period” and to “provide a forum for a variety of types of scholarly work with a
wider disciplinary approach that moves beyond the traditional isolated and
nation bound historiographical emphases of this field, encouraging whenever
possible non-European perspectives…that seek to understand this indigenous
viii General Series Editor’s Preface

transformative process and period in autonomous as well as inter-related cul-

tural, economic, social, and ideological terms.”
The history of European expansion is a challenging field in which interest is
likely to grow, in spite of, or perhaps because of, its polemical nature. Contro­
versy has centered on tropes conceived and written in the past by Europeans,
primarily concerning their early reflections and claims regarding the transcen-
dental historical nature of this process and its emergence and importance in
the creation of an early modern global economy and society. One of the most
persistent objections is that the field has been “Eurocentric.” This complaint
arises because of the difficulty in introducing and balancing different histori-
cal perspectives, when one of the actors in the process is to some degree
neither European nor Europeanized – a conundrum alluded to in the African
proverb: “Until the lion tells his tale the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
Another, and perhaps even more important and growing historiographical
issue, is that with the re-emergence of historical millennial societies (China
and India, for example) and the emergence of other non-Western European
societies successfully competing politically, economically and intellectually on
the global scene vis-à-vis Europe, the seminal nature of European expansion is
being subjected to greater scrutiny, debate, and comparison with other histori-
cal alternatives.
Despite, or perhaps because, of these new directions and stimulating
sources of existing and emerging lines of dispute regarding the history of Euro­
pean expansion, Souza and the editorial board of the series will continue with
the original objectives and mission statement of the series and vigorously “…
seek out studies that employ diverse forms of analysis from all scholarly disci-
plines, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, history, (including the
history of science), linguistics, literature, music, philosophy, and religious stud-
ies.” In addition, we shall seek to stimulate, locate, incorporate, and publish
the most important and exciting scholarship in the field.
Towards that purpose, I am pleased to introduce volume 29 of Brill’s EURO
series, entitled: In the Name of the Battle against Piracy: Ideas and Practices in
State Monopoly of Maritime Violence in Europe and Asia in the Period of Tran­
sition. It is the work of a total of nine diverse and talented contributors, who
were expertly assembled by Ota Atsushi. As its editor, Ota has overseen and
directed the production of a volume that examines and challenges the ques-
tion of the nature of power and the role of violence on and over seas and
oceans in promoting and propagating the expansion of state and non-state
actors over significant swathes of space, different places and lengths of time.
Ota has clearly introduced, organized the original contributions offered in
these eight essays into three parts, and provided the reader with a conclusion
General Series Editor’s Preface ix

that clearly address the phenomenon of piracy and maritime warfare and
­provide a different and challenging perspective on these themes. These con­
tributions shift the focus away from European toward, primarily, Asian states
and their anti-piracy policies and encounters and engagements with Europeans
from the Mediterrean, Indian Ocean, South and East China Seas, and the
Pacific Ocean over the 16th century to the end of the 19th century. Such a shift
and the variety of options that are necessary and employed to accomplish this
feat is stimulating and rewarding. It was also necessary for the authors of these
essays to individually utilize some very different concepts, agents and realities
to successfully expound upon their arguments. The diversity and utilization of
alternative approaches toward the analysis of piracy and privateering is one of
the major attributions that commend these contributions to be read and
engaged. Despite the range of approaches and the complexity of the variables
under analysis, the authors of essays that are found In the Name of the Battle
against Piracy have not, in my opinion, compromised the clarity of and control
over their arguments. The result is a volume that specifically advances our his-
torical evaluation of piracy and privateering in the expansion of Asian state
and non-state actors. In addition, it is a volume that opens research paths that
indirectly provokes and, hopefully, will stimulate additional research and com-
parison of these themes and experience with other expanding European state
systems.

George Bryan Souza

x Acknowledgments Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

The idea of this volume first came out under the research project “Eurasia in
the Modern Period: Toward a New World History,” organized by Prof. Masashi
Haneda at the University of Tokyo (the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S), 2009-14). Upon hearing of
Prof. Haneda’s invitation for project members to organize sub-projects related
to historical exchanges and interactions between different parts of early-mod-
ern Eurasia under the umbrella of his project, I hit upon the idea of launching
a project on piracy. State antipiracy politics in the transition period from the
early-modern to the modern era seemed a very Euro-Asian interaction, rather
than European suppression of Asian “pre-modern” actions, as some of previ-
ous studies had assumed. I began a piracy project with other scholars, many of
whom are contributors to this volume, in order to deal with piracy issues from
a global perspective.
We managed the piracy project on the basis of study meetings in Tokyo in
every few months, and e-mail communication, in which we continued discus-
sions after the meetings. Apart from our presentations in the study meetings,
we also invited experts in this field in and outside Japan, including James
Francis Warren, Lakshmi Subramanian, and Fujita Tatsuo, to the international
workshops that we organized in December 2011 and September 2012 in Tokyo.
The result is their chapters in this volume.
Our discussions during and after the meetings were always exhilarating, but
we always faced the problem of how we could discuss piracy and antipiracy
politics in very diverse locations under different social and political environ-
ments in one and the same project. The Japanese suppression of piracy around
1600, that happened much earlier than similar measures in other regions, was
always a topic of heated discussions. Finally we reached an agreement that the
Japanese piracy and antipiracy politics were comparable and discussable with
other similar events in the world, in one perspective. I shall be very glad if the
readers enjoy this issue that Fujita and I discussed in Chapter 7 and the
Introduction respectively, because this is a unique point raised in this volume,
not much discussed in other studies in this field.
I would like to convey our gratitude to many people who have kindly coop-
erated to make this research and publication possible. First of all, Prof. Haneda
Masashi has generously supported our research from the beginning, within the
abovementioned Eurasia Project and his follow-up project “Global History
Collaborative” (the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Core-to-Core
Program, 2014-19). I would specifically like to mention Dr. Ukai Atsuko, the
Acknowledgments xi

secretary of the Eurasia Project, for her assistance at our study meetings and
workshops. I have also received other funds to support my own research that
have contributed to this publication in various ways. Institutions that have
supported me include the Taiwan National Science Council general research
project “Seen from Maritime Stateless People: An Alternative History of
Karimata Sea, c. 1780-1840” (2010-12); the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity (start-up), “Malay Waters in
Transition: Migration, Trade, and Modernity, 1760-1840” (2012-14); the Keio
Gijuku Academic Development Funds (2017-18); and the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) “The Hydrosphere
and Socioeconomics in Modern Asia – Exploring a New Regional History Using
a Database and Spatial Analysis” (2017-22). Scholars who have inspired our dis-
cussions in meetings and workshops are numerous, including, to name a few,
Simon Layton, Gwyn Campbell, Eric Tagliacozzo, Ishikawa Noboru, Shimizu
Hiromu, and Nagatsu Kazufumi. George Souza and Wendel Scholma have
encouraged me to publish the result of our project in the form of an edited
volume in their series of Brill, and gave useful comments from the viewpoint of
the series editor. Rosemary Robson not only edited our English, but also cor-
rected a number of errors. Iioka Naoko has worked on standardizing the style
of all the contributions to this volume with great attentiveness and patience. I
would like to convey our sincere gratitude to all these people, and also to those
who have kindly offered us various facilities in universities, libraries, archives,
and other research locations, although I do not mention them individually.
Last but not the least, I would like to show my thanks to my wife Sawaka and
my daughter Erin, for their understanding of and cooperation for my work.
xii List of Illustrations List Of Illustrations

List of Illustrations

Figures

8.1 Revenue of Fujian customs 1736-1841 (tael) 205

8.2 Total transaction amount of the EIC’s Canton Trade (tael) 212
8.3 Opium import to China (chest) 212

Maps

3.1 The Persian Gulf with major place names and ports of the Joasmee in 1819 82
4.1 Gujarat 99
5.1 Malay waters 116
5.2 Sketch of the interior of the Island of Borneo, 1835 137
6.1  The Sulu and Celebes Seas 144
6.2 Iranun-Balangingi maritime raiding and the Malay archipelago in the first half
of the nineteenth century 146
6.3 Spanish colonial and community coastal fortifications in the Philippines 152
7.1 Japan around 1600 173
7.2 The Western part of the Seto Inland Sea  176
8.1 Coastal areas of China 201

Tables

3.1 List of the ports under the Qawāsimi authority in 1819 82

7.1 Those hired by other feudal lords among the family members and the retainers
of the Murakamis 192
7.2 Maritime control system in Iyo in 1667 195
 Notes
Notes on on Contributors
Contributors xiii

Notes on Contributors

Ota Atsushi
is Associate Professor of the Faculty of Economics at Keio University, Japan. He
has published books and articles on socio-economic history of Southeast Asia,
including Changes of Regime and Social Dynamics in West Java: Society, State,
and the Outer World of Banten, 1750-1830 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), and “Pirates or
Entrepreneurs? Migration and Trade of Sea People in Southwest Kalimantan,
c. 1770-1820” Indonesia 90 (2010): 67-96.

Kudo Akihito
is Associate Professsor at Gakushuin Women’s College. His research focuses on
the social, cultural, and political history of Algeria and France. His publications
include “Recognized Legal Disorder: French Colonial Rule in Algeria, c. 1840-
1900,” in Comparative Imperiology, ed. Matsuzato Kimitaka (Sapporo: Slavic
Research Center, 2010), 21-35; Chichukai Teikoku no hen’ei: Fuansu-ryo Arugeria
no 19-seiki 地中海帝国の片影: フランス領アルジェリアの 19 世紀 [The mirage
of Mediterranean Empire: French colonial Algeria during the nineteenth cen-
tury] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 2013).

Satsuma Shinsuke
is Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences
at Hiroshima University. His main research interests are in the maritime his-
tory in the early modern British Atlantic world and early modern British politi-
cal history. He has published a book and several articles on these topics,
including Britain and Colonial Maritime War in the Early Eighteenth Century:
Silver, Sea­power and the Atlantic (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2013).

Suzuki Hideaki
is Associate Professor, Nagasaki University. He is the author of Slave Trade Pro­
fiteers in the Western Indian Ocean: Suppression and Resistance in the Nineteenth
Century (New York: Palgrave, 2017) and the editor of Abolitions as a Global
Experience (Singapore: NUS Press, 2016). His journal articles and chapter con-
tributions include “Baluchi Experiences under Slavery and the Slave Trade of
the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, 1921-1950,” The Journal of the Middle
East and Africa 4 (2013): 205-23.
xiv Notes On Contributors

Lakshmi Subramanian
Professor of History, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, has had a
long and distinguished teaching and research career. She has taught in a num-
ber of universities in India and abroad and has held several prestigious fellow­
ships. She was recently elected Associate fellow of the Institute of Advanced
Studies, Nantes. Her publications include: The Sovereign and the Pirate
Ordering Maritime Subjects in India’s Western Littoral (Delhi: Oxford Uni­versity
Press, 2016); Three Merchants of Bombay (Gurgaon: Penguin India, 2012); and A
History of India 1707-1857 (Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2010).

James Francis Warren

is Emeritus Professor of Southeast Asian Modern History at Murdoch Uni­
versity, Perth, Western Australia. He is an award-winning historian who has
published numerous monographs, journal articles, and book chapters. His
books include Iranun and Balan­gingi: Globalization, Maritime Raiding and the
Birth of Ethnicity (Singapore: NUS Press, 2002); The Sulu Zone 1768-1898: The
Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery and Ethnicity in the Transfor­mation of a
Southeast Asian Maritime State (2nd edition, Singapore: NUS Press, 2007); and
Pirates, Prostitutes and Pullers: Explorations in the Ethno- and Social History of
Southeast Asia (Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2008).

Fujita Tatsuo
is Professor of the Faculty of Education at Mie University, Japan. His research
has focused on the formation of the early-modern state in Japan, especially on
the changing relationships between unifiers like Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi
Hideyoshi, and warlords and pirates. His publication includes: Nihon kinsei
kokka seiritsushi no kenkyu 日本近世国家成立史の研究 [A history of the state
formation in early-modern Japan] (Tokyo: Azekura Shobo, 2001); and Hideyoshi
to kaizoku daimyo: umi kara mita sengoku shuen 秀吉と海賊大名：海から見た戦
国終焉 [Hideyoshi and pirate daimyos: the end of the Sengoku Period in a
maritime perspective] (Tokyo: Chuo Koron Shinsha, 2012).

Toyooka Yasufumi
is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts at Shinshu University, Japan.
His main academic interests are the political and socio-economic history of
Qing China, and the history of international relations in East Asia during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He is the author of Kaizoku kara mita
Shincho 海賊から見た清朝 [Pirates on the South China Sea and the “decline”
of the Qing dynasty] (Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten, 2016).
Notes on Contributors xv

Murakami Ei
is Associate Professor of Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University,
Japan. His main academic interests are the socio-economic history of China
during the late Qing and early Repub­lican periods, the maritime history of
the East China Sea and the South China Sea from the seventeenth century to
the present, and the history of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. He is
the author of Umi no kindai Chūgoku: Fukkenjin no katsudō to Igirisu/Shinchō
海の近代中国：福建人の活動とイギリス・清朝 [Mari­time history of Modern
China: Local Fujian actors and British and Chinese Empires] (Nagoya: Nagoya
Daigaku Shuppankai, 2013).
xvi Notes On Contributors
 Introduction
Introduction 1

Introduction
Ota Atsushi

In 1874, William Edward Hall, a British lawyer who published several influen-
tial works on international law, noted that, “most acts of war which become
piratical through being done without due authority are acts of war when done
under the authority of a state.”1 This sentence clearly indicates the very thin
line between piracy and war. When Hall made this observation, he appar-
ently presumed that only a state should have the due authority to determine
whether certain acts were piratical or those of war. However, as the political
scientist Janice E. Thomson has illustrated, in European history it was not self-
evident whether states had this authority before the nineteenth century. State
use of non-state violence was very common in Europe from the thirteenth
century, when privateering (state-sanctioned attacks on the ships of enemy
states in wartime by private vessels) was invented,2 and states continued to use
non-state violence in the forms of mercenaries, privateering, and mercantile
companies until the mid-nineteenth century.3 States also often turned a blind
eye to piracy. The prevalent idea, first proposed by Max Weber, that the state
should monopolize violence is, as Thomson has argued, in fact very modern.
If the idea of a state monopoly of maritime violence emerged fairly late,
when and how did states change their attitudes toward piracy? Although the
development of the antipiracy politics in Europe has been relatively well stud-
ied in the context of the formation of modern nation-states,4 not many works

1 Quoted in Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns: State-building and Extra­
territorial Violence in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 22.
2 For the etymology of the word privateering and its historical routes, see the chapters of Kudo
and Ota, and of Satsuma in this volume.
3 Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns.
4 Sovereignty here refers to a government’s absolute, autonomous authority over the territories
and populations it governs, with the emphasis of the exclusivity of the state’s juridical author-
ity. This does not necessarily require its recognition by others as an independent legal entity,
the most important recognition in the definition of nation-state sovereignty. For more de-
tailed legal discussions about sovereignty, see Robert Elliot Mills, “The Pirate and the Sovereign:
Negative Identification and the Constitutive Rhetoric of the Nation-State,” Rhetoric & Public
Affairs 17-1 (2014): 105-35; Stephen D. Krasner, “Sovereignty and Its Discontents,” in his Power,
the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (London: Routledge, 2009);
Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1999).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_002

2 Ota

have dealt with the antipiracy politics in Asia, and still fewer works have dis-
cussed them from a global perspective.
This volume discusses the antipiracy politics in Europe and Asia, from a glo-
bal perspective.5 We focus on these regions because Euro-Asian interactions in
antipiracy campaigns were one of the major reasons that states developed
ideas about the state monopoly of violence and state sovereignty in Europe
and Asia. For this reason, antipiracy campaigns waged by the US and on other
continents do not fall within the scope of this volume. All over the world for a
very long time, probably for thousands of years, states have been attempting to
suppress piracy,6 but the idea of antipiracy placed in juxtaposition to a state
monopoly on violence and state sovereignty only took distinctive shape in the
particular period of transition with which this volume deals, that is, in Japan in
the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century, and in Europe from the
early-eighteenth to the early-nineteenth century. In Japan, as Fujita Tatsuo dis-
cusses in this volume, as early as the late-sixteenth century state rulers had the
explicit perception that they should monopolize maritime violence in order to
claim sovereignty over their territories; very different from the ideas in other
early-modern Asian states, such as the Ming and the Qing, that occasionally
appointed private actors to the state navy with an official status, precisely to
suppress piracy. Sixteenth-century Japan therefore fully deserves to take its
place in any analysis of the global history of antipiracy politics.7

5 Recent scholarship on the historical relationship between piracy and sovereignty in the world
includes Anne Pérotin-Dumon, “The Pirate and the Emperor: Power and the Law on the Seas,
1450-1850,” in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, ed. James D. Tracy (Cambridge etc.):
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 196-227; Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns;
Alejandro Colás and Bryan Mabee, ed., Mercenaries, Pirates, Bandits, and Empires: Private
Violence in Historical Context (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); Stefan Eklöf Amirell
and Leos Müller, ed., Persistent Piracy: Maritime Violence and State-Formation in Global
Historical Perspective (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Apart from
Brenton’s book, that principally discusses the Atlantic World, I shall come back to the other
works later, in order to discuss their scope in relation to those of the present volume.
6 The recent volume edited by Stefan Eklöf Amirell and Leos Müller discusses the long history
of piracy, nearly for 3,000 years from the Greek Archaic period to the present. Amirell and
Müller, Persistent Piracy.
7 Among the recent works on medieval and early-modern Japanese piracy, Peter D. Shapinsky’s
work is most relevant to the argument of this volume, as I refer to later. Peter D. Shapinsky,
Lords of the Sea: Pirates, Violence, and Commerce in Late Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: Center
for Japan Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2014). Other works include Adam Clulow,
“The Pirate and the Warlord,” Journal of Early Modern History 16 (2012): 523-42; Adam Clulow,
The Company and the Shogun: the Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2014); Tonio Andrade and Xing Hang, ed., Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai:
Introduction 3

Piracy and Sovereignty

Piracy is here taken as the unauthorized use or threat of violence, perpetrated

on the sea by any individuals, groups, or organizations, in order to plunder
another party of its property or people. The obvious problem is who held the
authority to determine whether certain cases of violence should be judged to
be either piracy or legitimate acts of war. Because piracy is invariably linked to
this sort of problem, it is fundamentally political if resorted to in pursuit of
immediate economic gain, although we do not deal with political piracy in its
narrower sense, in the form of resistance or protest against the exploitation of
state and any other authorities, or a rejection of the class system.8 As will be
discussed in the following chapters, it was always the political authorities who
condemned a group of people as pirates and thereby created piracy for their
political purposes. This means that piracy was always politically defined, and
therefore an analysis of the political purposes and ideas behind antipiracy
policies will contribute to an understanding of the historical dynamics of the
practice, rather than giving legal definitions by tracing the changing concept of
the (il)legality of maritime violence.
A historical study of antipiracy politics therefore offers insights into the
issues of power and sovereignty in global history. When a political power con-
demns a certain group as pirates, it claims that it has the legitimate authority to
do so. When it claimed the absolute, autonomous authority over the territories
or populations it governs, that is, sovereignty, piracy, violence that states were
not able to fully control, transformed into anti-sovereignty. Therefore piracy
was a matter of sovereignty, and the existence of pirates was a sign of a lack
of efficient state control, that might give other states an excuse to intervene.
Although there were several sorts of violence like banditry and mercenary
activities, that states were not able to control fully, piracy deserves to be paid
special attention because it was conducted outside the territories of the state
on land. States did not turn their attention to claims of their sovereignty of the
oceans before the mid-nineteenth century. If a crime was committed outside

Maritime East Asia in Global History, 1550-1700 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016).
Robert Hellyer argues how a feudal lord stopped his retainers from resorting to piracy in
Tokugawa Japan. Robert Hellyer, “Poor but Not Pirates: The Tsushima Domain and Foreign
Relations in Early Modern Japan,” in Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers: Historical Perspectives
on Violence and Clandestine Trade in the Greater China Seas, ed. Robert Antony (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 115-26.
8 Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns, 46, 48. These types of political dimensions of
piracy have been well studied in the Atlantic piracy. See, among them, Marcus Rediker, Villains
of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston: Beacon, 2004).
4 Ota

their territories, who should take responsibility for stopping it and for arresting
and punishing the criminals? Violence at sea was an especially complicating
element in matters of burgeoning international law and state sovereignty.
Therefore, another type of legitimated violence on the sea, privateering, is dis-
cussed in this volume, in as far as it was related to the issues of piracy and state
sovereignty.9
This volume focuses not only on ideas but also the practices of antipiracy
politics, because ideas about how to determine what sorts of acts were piracy,
who were pirates, and what should be done against them were often formed
and expanded as a consequence of concrete steps taken to deal with piracy. In
other words, ideas did not always decide practices, instead practices contin-
gently formed ideas.
In Mediterranean and Asian waters during the period of European colonial
expansion, conflicts over piracy and sovereignty between Europeans and
Asians were in fact quite common. Therefore there is a tendency to consider
that this sort of conflict derived from Euro-Asian differences in the notion of
state and sovereignty, assuming that only Europeans created the norm that
states have to eradicate pirates. This volume challenges this pervasive assump-
tion. Apart from state rulers and the pirates themselves, antipiracy politics
involved a wide range of agents, including merchants, diplomats, naval com-
manders, local rulers, local officials, and ordinary local people who now and
then turned to or supported pirates. The positions of these agents were not
necessarily limited to either Europeans or Asians, but in fact could be taken by
both or by mixed groups of people. Discussing the intermingling of agents
involved in antipiracy politics, this volume questions the assumed immense
disparity between European and Asian factors. In this way, I believe, this vol-
ume gives new insights into the European and non-European relationship in
the early modern period, that the volumes in this publication series of Brill
have already discussed in various ways. Also, in order to question the border
between state and non-state agents, the authors in this volume pay special
attention to the practices of antipiracy politics, like the confrontations, nego-
tiations, and compromises between state and non-state agents, whether
European or Asian. From this perspective, this volume argues that the Euro-
Asian and state-non-state interactions in antipiracy politics played a crucial
part in the crystallization of the ideas of the state monopoly of maritime vio-
lence and state sovereignty.

9 For an overview of the scholarly literature on piracy and privateering, see David Starkey,
“Voluntaries and Sea Robbers: A Review of the Academic Literature on Privateering, Corsairing,
Buccaneering and Piracy,” Mariner’s Mirror 97, no. 1 (2011): 127-47.
Introduction 5

States and Non-state Maritime Violence, in Historical Context

Janice E. Thomson, who has just been mentioned, has put forward the most
influential argument about the historical relationship between states and non-
state maritime violence. In recent years a number of works have also dealt with
a wide range of issues in non-state maritime violence in broad chronological
and geographical frameworks. In this part, I briefly sketch the historical back-
ground of state attitudes toward non-state maritime violence and examine
recent important arguments.
Because of the economic benefits that the latter brought the former, their
symbiosis had a long history. Thomson argues that an important reason for the
state use of privateering was a ruler’s lack of the revenue needed to maintain a
state navy. Both privateers and pirates furnished not only the sovereign but
also public officials and private investors with revenue. They weakened ene-
mies by attacking their shipping and settlements. They supplied European
markets with scare commodities at affordable prices. They broke the trade
monopolies of competitor states. States even knighted some pirates, after they
had successfully attacked and weakened rival states.10 Similar developments
were also common in Asia. The Ming government, for example, made use of
the naval power of the leaders of wealthy local merchants like Zheng Zhilong,
and rewarded them with privileges and official positions. States were loath to
abandon the benefits to be obtained from non-state maritime violence, while
privateers and pirates made use of such state attitudes to remain in business.
In Japan, however, as early as the 1580s, the state ruler, who was in the pro­
cess of unifying the state, issued edicts to prohibit piracy. As Fujita explains in
his chapter in this volume, as this ruler, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, strengthened his
control over the feudal lords, the piracy prohibition also became increasingly
more effective. Whereas Peter D. Shapinsky emphasizes Hideyoshi’s land- and
agriculture-centric ideologies that lay behind his piracy prohibition,11 Fujita
argues that ex-pirates were assigned new places in the national maritime secu-
rity system of the Toyotomi and Tokugawa regimes. By the early-seventeenth

10 Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns, 21, 47, 107-108.

11 Shapinsky, Lords of the Sea, 229-56. Andrade and Hang explain that piracy reduced in late-
sixteenth-century Japan for two main reasons. Firstly, as warlike feudal lords lost their
autonomy during the political unification process, pirates lost their patrons. Secondly, the
government policy to provide licenses for authorized merchant ships removed the need
for armed smuggling. Tonio Andrade and Xing Hang, “Introduction: The East Asian Mari-
time Realm in Global History, 1500-1700,” in Andrade and Hang, Sea Rovers, Silver, and
Samurai, 9.
6 Ota

century, pirates had virtually disappeared from territorial waters in Japan, a

very exceptional happening in world history.
In Europe, Thomson argues, states only began to consider privateering as
problem toward the end of the eighteenth century, but complicated interstate
politics still made it difficult for them to carry out concerted actions against
Barbary rulers for several decades. Privateering was “the weapon of the weaker
naval Power,” and as such it was the only real threat to British naval supremacy
in the nineteenth century. However, other states wanted to end the British prac-
tice of interdicting neutral ships in search of enemy contraband. The ban on
privateering was apparently a price worth paying for Britain’s abandoning its
right to interdict neutral ships. As a result of these political deals, in 1856 major
European states signed the Declaration of Paris that banned privateering.12
In her discussion of European attempts to eradicate piracy, Thomson
empha­­sizes the development of the norms against piracy. Her argument is
that, by the early-nineteenth century, the norm shared among influential Euro­
pean states was that a state was responsible for quashing piracy within its own
territorial waters, in which it claimed sovereignty.13 States had to claim sover-
eignty in the arena of international politics, and to corroborate this claim a
state monopoly of violence in their territories was a crucial instrument. In
order to validate this norm, European states had to abolish privateering com-
pletely. As in the case of privateering, the norm against piracy was universalized
and transmitted to areas beyond the European system. To be recognized as
sovereign, a state had to be able control piracy within its jurisdiction.14
While Thomson claims that the antipiracy norm developed “in conjunction
with the practical resolution of problems” associated with piracy issues out-
side Europe, especially in Asia,15 Stefan Eklöf Amirell and Leos Müller have
emphasized the development of international maritime law as a watershed in
the state attitude toward piracy. European concepts of international law, that
emphasized the freedom of navigation on the high seas, acquired global pre-
dominance in the second half of the nineteenth century in the wake of colonial
domination and expansion. As a result, they argue, the suppression of piracy
became a matter of urgent importance, even survival, for many non-European
states, “because those that were unable or unwilling to do so were frequently
colonized.”16 Although the arguments of Thomson and Amirell and Müller dif-

12 Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns, 72-73.

13 Ibid., 115-16.
14 Ibid., 116, 18.
15 Ibid., 115-16.
16 Amirell and Müller, “Introduction,” 19-20.
Introduction 7

fer in ascribing the origin of the norm of state responsibility to quash piracy,
they agree on the point that the antipiracy norm was created in Europe and it
affected Asia. I shall return to this point later.
Analysis of the reasons states came to consider piracy suppression to be
their responsibility has emerged as an important issue in recent works. Anne
Pérotin-Dumon connects the suppression of piracy with the launching of a
new commercial policy by the emerging nation-states. She argues that large-
scale commerce and colonies had become national objectives for some
Euro­pean states. In England, a new class of merchants who dealt in long-dis-
tance trade outside of the framework of chartered commercial companies
required that the state protect their convoys of merchant ships from pirates.
Now suppression of non-European piracy became the equivalent to the “civi-
lizing mission,” and the nation-state had to stand out as an all-powerful body,
equipped with a navy serving the glory of the nation by suppressing pirates,
despite the fact that nation-states in the process of formation were in fact not
immediately capable of achieving this.17 Robert Elliot Mills has contributed an
insightful discussion to the creation of a negative idea about piracy in relation
to the formation of nation-state. Sovereignty requires negative identification,
that is, the simultaneous existence of its opposite or the anti-sovereign, for the
consolidation of national identity. The pirate became the typical anti-sover-
eign in the nineteenth-century US. Because pirates rejected not only the laws
of a particular state but also of the sovereign order itself, piracy was considered
to challenge the common right of every nation.18
While the classical “piracy almanacs” have attempted to chronicle compre-
hensively the rise and demise of piracy in various parts of the world, recent
works on global piracy tend to focus on particular dimensions.19 Nicholas
Tarling has thoroughly detailed antipiracy military campaigns in Malay
waters.20 James Francis Warren has tended to focus on the economic dimen-
sion and on situating Southeast Asian piracy in the global trade, and has
therefore impacted a number of following works.21 J.L. Anderson has expanded

17 Pérotin-Dumon, “The pirate and the emperor,” 200-21, 214-16.

18 Mills, “The Pirate and the Sovereign,” 114, 122-23.
19 “Piracy almanacs” include, just to name a few, Philip Goss, The History of Piracy (New
York: Tudor, 1932); Jacek Machowski, Pod Czarna Bandera (Warszawa: Iskry, 1970); David
Cordingly, ed., Pirates: Terror on the High Seas – From the Caribbean to the South China Sea
(Atlanta, Turner Publishing, 1996).
20 Nicholas Tarling, Piracy and Politics in the Malay World (Melbourne etc.: Cheshire, 1963).
21 James Francis Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery,
and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State (Singapore: NUS
Press, 1981); Eric Tagliacozzo, “A Necklace of Fins: Marine Goods Trading in Maritime
8 Ota

his focus on the economic dimensions of historical piracy to the world, and
classified the practice into the parasitic, episodic, and intrinsic strains of pira-
cy.22 The volume edited by Alejandro Colás and Bryan Mabee has concentrated
on the relationship between state and non-state violence in the world from the
early-modern to the contemporary era. Although their volume does not in­­-
clude a chapter discussing early-modern Mediterranean or Asian piracy
equivalent to the chapters in the present volume, their focus on “practices and
process rather than rule or structures” has impacted on our discussions in
many ways. The postulations of Patricia Owens in the same volume that, “there
is no such thing as public and private violence” and “there is only violence that
is made ‘public’ and violence that is made ‘private’ are particularly insightful.23
Patricia Russo has begun an influential discussion about the conflicting per-
ception of piracy from a cross-cultural perspective. She suggests that, although
Arabic and other languages did not have words or concepts equivalent to
English “piracy,” the British incorporated the concept into their colonial

Southeast Asia, 1780-1860,” International Journal of Asian Studies 1, no.1 (2004): 23-48; Eric
Tagliacozzo, Secret Trades, Porous Borders: Smuggling and States along a Southeast Asian
Frontier, 1865-1915 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005); Timothy P. Barnard, Multiple
Centres of Authority: Society and Environment in Siak and Eastern Sumatra, 1674-1827
(Leiden: KITLV Press, 2003); Timothy P. Barnard, “Celates, Rayat-Laut, Pirates: The Orang
Laut and Their Decline in History,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society 80, no. 2 (2007): 33-49; Ota Atsushi, “The Business of Violence: Piracy around Riau,
Lingga, and Singapore, c.1820-1840,” in Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers: Historical Per-
spectives on Violence and Clandestine Trade in the Greater China Seas, ed. Robert Antony
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 127-41; Ota Atsushi, “Pirates or Entrepre-
neurs? Migration and Trade of Sea People in Southwest Kalimantan, c. 1770-1820,” Indone-
sia 90 (2010): 67-96; Scott C. Abel, “Asian Seafaring Communities and the Blood-Red Seas:
Maritime Violence and the Waters Surrounding the Malay Peninsula, 1825-1885,” Explora-
tions 14 (2014): 32-45. For an overview of piracy in early-modern Southeast Asian, Robert
Antony, “Turbulent Waters: Sea Raiding in Early Modern Southeast Asia,” Mariner’s Mirror
99, no. 1 (2013): 23-38.
22 J.L. Anderson, “Piracy and World History: An Economic Perspective on Maritime Preda-
tion,” Journal of World History 6 (1995): 175-99. For economic dimensions of global piracy,
see also David J. Starkey, “Pirates and Markets,” in C.R. Pennell, ed, Bandits at Sea: A Pirates
Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 107-24. For another type of classifica-
tion of piracy, see Joseph N. F. M à Campo, “Discourse without Discussion: Representation
of Piracy in Colonial Indonesia, 1816-25,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34, no. 2 (2003):
199-214.
23 Alejandro Colás and Bryan Mabee, “Introduction: Private Violence in Historical Context,”
in Colás and Mabee, Mercenaries, Pirates, Bandits, and Empire, 8-9; Patricia Owens, “Dis-
tinctions, Distinctions: ‘Public’ and ‘Private’ Force?” in Colás and Mabee, Mercenaries,
Pirates, Bandits, and Empires, 15-32.
Introduction 9

policy.24 Simon Leyton has examined the changing British perceptions of

piracy in the different stages of their colonial expansion in Asia. In a journal
roundtable, Leyton and his co-authors have expanded the discussion of British
imperial expansion and the shifting of maritime violence into a wider geo-
graphical scale.25 Robert Antony, Sebastian Prange, Y.H. Teddy Sim, and Tonio
Andrade and Xing Hang have edited volumes and journal special issues about
piracy in early-modern Asian waters, attempting to abstract characteristic pat-
terns and structures in Asian piracy.26
While these recent works have greatly expanded our understanding of vari-
ous dimensions of historical maritime violence, the argument put forward by
Thomson and other scholars that the norm of state responsibility to quash
piracy was formed in Europe and it was transmitted to areas outside has
remained unchallenged. Nevertheless, this argument does need reexamina-
tion. The first reason is that demonstrably Japan had a similar but far more
successful experience of the state eradication of piracy in the earlier period,
exercising its own norm of state responsibility. How its antipiracy norm was
formed and how the eradication succeeded will be discussed later in this vol-
ume. The second reason is that many scholars seem to presume that the
Europe-origin antipiracy norm was so powerful that indigenous states had no

24 Patricia Risso, “Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Piracy: Maritime Violence in the Western

Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf Region during a Long Eighteenth Century,” Journal of
World History 12, no. 2 (2001): 293-319.
25 Simon Layton, “Discourses of Piracy in an Age of Revolution,” Itinerario 35, no.2 (2011):
81-97; Simon Layton, “The “Moghul’s Admiral”: Angrian “Piracy” and the Rise of British
Bombay,” Journal of Early Modern History 17 (2013): 75-93; S.H. Layton, “Hydras and Levia-
thans in the Indian Ocean World,” International Journal of Maritime History 25 (2013): 213-
25; The scope and aims of the abovementioned journal roundtable are explained in
Richard J. Blakemore, “British Imperial Expansion and the Transformation of Violence at
Sea, 1600-1850: Introduction,” International Journal of Maritime History 25 (2013): 143-46.
For the Dutch colonial expansion and their antipiracy politics, see G. Teitler, A.M.C. van
Dissel, and J.N.F.M. à Campo, Zeeroof en zeeroofbestrijding in de Indische archipel (19de
eeuw) (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 2005).
26 Antony, Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smuggler; Robert J. Antony and Sebastian R. Prange, spe-
cial issue “Piracy in Asian Waters,” pt. 1 and 2, Journal of Early Modern History 16 (2012) and
17 (2013); Y.H. Teddy Sim, ed. Piracy and Surreptitious Activities in the Malay Archipelago
and Adjacent Seas, 1600-1840 (Singapore: Springer, 2014); Andrade and Hang, Sea Rovers,
Silver, and Samurai. Apart from these works, more recently Scott C. Abel has examined
the connection between the piracy and the political economies of the Straits Settlements
and the Malay states around the Malay Peninsula during the nineteenth century. Scott C.
Abel, “A Covert War at Sea: Piracy and Political Economy in Malaya, 1824-72” (PhD. diss.,
Northern Illinois University, 2016).
10 Ota

option but to accept it for survival. This assumption ignores, or at least under-
estimates, the state antipiracy measures promulgated in Qing China. As the
chapter by Toyooka Yasufumi and Murakami Ei in this volume discusses, how
on its own initiative the nineteenth-century Qing administration involved the
British Navy in order to achieve its goal of suppressing piracy conform to its
own idea of sovereignty.
These problems could have arisen from the fact that the previous studies
dealing with state antipiracy politics in Asia have tended to concentrate their
arguments on the regions that later became European colonial territories.
Independent China and Japan have often been ignored, but they actually do
bring new, different insights into the development of the global antipiracy
politics.
Even in the regions later placed under colonial control, the following chap-
ters suggest that Europeans did not initially have any firm grip on a state
monopoly of maritime violence. Facing complicated local politics, and thread-
ing through the negotiations and conflicts between different levels of European,
Asian, and intermingled agents, state rulers had to strike a balance between
their absolute sovereignty and more economical solutions. European involve-
ment in antipiracy campaigns did not mean the immediate establishment of a
European colonial system. Piracy eradication always required long negotia-
tions, and the results were not always successful.

Structure of Discussions

This volume deals with the period of transition from the early-modern to the
modern period. I believe that the changes in state attitudes toward piracy dur-
ing this transition period give insights into the understanding about how states
changed their nature. For this argument, the first step is to grasp how early-
modern states dealt with maritime violence, and then we should focus on how
their relationship with maritime violence gradually changed in the period of
transition. These are the central questions of the First Part, that deals with
European privateering and antipiracy policies.
In this Part the first chapter discusses the privateering in the Mediterranean
between c. 1600 and 1830, the period when European and Maghribi privateer-
ing was rampant. Kudo Akihito and Ota Atsushi argue that privateering was a
mixture of state diplomacy and private business for both the European and the
Maghrib states. This argument shows that states and non-state agents were not
clearly separated even until the early nineteenth century, that we convention-
ally consider the “modern” era.
Introduction 11

In the second chapter Satsuma Shinsuke discusses two issues: the nature of
the European privateering system between the mid-seventeenth and early-
nineteenth century, and its abolition in the mid-nineteenth century. Beginning
with a discussion of the system to control maritime violence including priva-
teering, Satsuma argues that European states had established a common legal
framework to control privateering by the early eighteenth century. He argues
that this legal framework, that was based on the ideology of sovereign state
system emerging in early modern Europe, was one of the most distinctive fea-
tures of maritime plunder in Europe. The author then goes on to argue that the
efforts of nineteenth-century European states to abolish privateering and their
antipiracy campaigns outside Europe were both sides of the same coin, work-
ing in parallel to each other.
Satsuma’s argument emphasizes the link between the development of
European anti-privateering policies and European antipiracy campaigns out-
side Europe. This view implies the importance of European experiences of
antipiracy campaigns outside Europe on the formation of the norms against
pirates.
Therefore, in the Second Part of this volume, four chapters discuss antipiracy
campaigns in the Asian seas, covering the Persian Gulf to the Philippine
Islands, with special attention paid to the political developments and chang-
ing ideas toward piracy behind military campaigns. The authors focus on
various negotiations, arrangements, and misunderstandings that occurred
between various agents like European navy officials, Asian rulers, and Asian
pirates before, during, and after military campaigns. The authors also focus on
Asian ideas of and practices adopted toward maritime violence, because
European and Asian antipiracy ideas and practices mutually impacted each
other. Sometimes local state rulers were very keen to suppress pirates; while
they were sometimes committing piracy themselves. This difference naturally
made European and local politics toward piracy very different. How did the
European and Asian confrontations and negotiations with piracy affect their
concepts of the practice? How did their experiences reframe the antipiracy
politics in Asian and European states? These are the central questions of the
Second Part.
In the Second Part, in his chapter Suzuki Hideaki discusses what was known
as Qawāsimi “piracy” in the nineteenth-century Persian Gulf. In spite of being
in possession of very few clear pieces of evidence of any piratical activity by
the Qawāsim, the British Navy attacked Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah, the capital of the
Qawāsim, on the pretext of the “suppression of piracy.” Examining the back-
ground to this British judgment on the Qawāsim, Suzuki argues that the British
imagined and created pirates from their contingent experiences of negotiation
12 Ota

and their diplomatic relationships with different indigenous groups, including

an enemy of the Qawāsim.
The fourth chapter analyzes the voices of local merchants, chiefs, and the
pirates themselves about piracy in Northwest India at the turn of the nine-
teenth century. Examining local petitions submitted to the English East India
Company (EIC) authorities, Lakshmi Subramanian indicates that, in addition
to the “moral economy” that produced piracy among the locals, how local
actors expected, and were later disappointed in, the English involvement in
curbing piracy. The EIC claimed to protect only a part of local people, those
who accepted its authority, from the threat of pirates, while local rulers insisted
on their right to issue passes. Subramanian’s argument seems to suggest that
the EIC had not fully developed its idea of sovereignty, while the sovereignty of
the seas was under competition between the EIC and local authorities.
In the fifth chapter, Ota Atsushi discusses the changing perceptions of
piracy among the Dutch officials and Malay rulers in Malay waters at the turn
of the nineteenth century. Before the nineteenth century, the Dutch East India
Company often labeled its commercial rivals pirates, while the Sultanate of
Johor had its own criteria to distinguish between piracy and admirable acts of
state. However, when the Dutch established their colonial rule in West
Kalimantan in 1818, fired with a fresh intention of instating territorial control,
they declared the suppression of piracy to be one of the goals of their rule.
Nevertheless, to curb piracy the weak Dutch authorities in the early colonial
administration chose to collaborate with ex-pirate leaders. On the other hand,
some local rulers launched their own antipiracy campaigns in order to estab-
lish good relationship with the Dutch authorities. Ota’s argument indicates
that the Dutch and the local perceptions of piracy were both subject to change,
adjusting to the local political circumstances, and that the policies of the colo-
nial state were a result of realistic compromise.
The sixth chapter by James Francis Warren traces Spain’s efforts to contain
the formidable Muslim slaving populations, the Iranun and the Balangingi
Samal, up to 1848, and then to defeat and displace them over the next half cen-
tury. The post-1848 hard-line policy was accomplished in increments through
a series of aggressive expeditions, the establishment of forward bases, the
effective use of steam warships, a concerted naval blockade and a campaign to
annihilate all prahu shipping from the Sulu Archipelago. These measures were
complemented by the wholesale deportation and exile of captured slavers and
‘pirates.’ The anti-slave raiding campaigns were legitimated by a colonial frame
of mind, and a cant of conquest that portrayed the Iranun and Balangingi,
or ‘Moros,’ as ‘savages’ and ‘wild men’ who stood in the way of Christianity,
freedom, free trade, and progress. Warren’s argument suggests that Spanish
Introduction 13

anti­piracy campaigns strengthened their sense of superiority and that this

became linked to their “mission of civilization,” becoming more evident in the
Spanish deportation process after the military campaigns.
The Third Part turns attention to East Asia. Antipiracy politics in Japan and
China stands out in the global history of piracy because of the relative inde-
pendence of these states from outside powers such as Europeans during the
time frame discussed. Japan did not have any significant threats from outside
powers in the late-sixteenth century, while, compared with other Asian states,
China maintained a leading position in its antipiracy politics in the nineteenth
century. Why and how did they tackle piracy, and how different were their
results from those of European antipiracy campaigns? How were the ideas of
the Japanese and Chinese regimes about sovereignty and state-building
reflected in their respective antipiracy campaigns? These are the central ques-
tions of Part Three.
In the seventh chapter, Fujita Tatsuo discusses the piracy prohibition edicts
issued by the Toyotomi regime and the subsequent establishment of a mari-
time control system under the Tokugawa regime in Japan. He argues that the
piracy prohibition edicts were a part of the new type of state-building intro-
duced by the Toyotomi regime in the late-sixteenth century. After taking its
first steps in the state-building process, like the survey of the acreage of all the
arable land and the destruction of superfluous castles, the regime ordered feu-
dal lords to strictly forbid their retainers to take up piracy. The succeeding
Tokugawa regime went even further and organized a national maritime secu-
rity system, under which many feudal lords installed ex-pirates in their
maritime control facilities, usually in different locations in which the ex-pirates
had formerly had their bases of operations. Through these measures, the
Toyotomi and Tokugawa regimes attempted to create a far more centralized
state than before, and a state monopoly on violence was crucial to this
process.
In the last chapter, Toyooka Yasufumi and Murakami Ei describe the piracy
suppression on the Chinese coast by the Chinese, Portuguese, and British
authorities from 1780 to 1860. In the early-nineteenth century, while the English
East India Company held itself aloof from piracy issues, the Qing government
took measures to suppress piracy in cooperation with the Portuguese authori-
ties in Macao. However, after the Opium War, when it finally suppressed
pirates, the Qing government relied on the military support of the British Navy.
As a result, the Qing government successfully restored and reorganized politi-
cal and commercial order in the coastal area, but again buttressed by the
maritime security controls carried out by the British Navy. This development
meant that the British Navy played an increasingly important role as a
14 Ota

substitute for the local authorities in the control of piracy. This development
raises doubts not only about the regular pattern of piracy suppression consist-
ing of “European pressure and local cooperation,” but also on our understanding
of the concept of sovereignty.

Issues to be Discussed

This volume compares developments in different parts of the world, and dis-
cusses the connections between them from a global perspective. Through
these discussions, the present volume aims to argue that, taking a tack away
from what is a fairly pervasive idea, modern Europe was neither the sole place
of origin of the norm of state responsibility to suppress piracy, nor the central
place from which this norm was transmitted to the world beyond Europe.
Japan formed a very similar norm in the late-sixteenth century and, as was the
case in early- nineteenth-century Europe, its policy was strongly linked to the
new model of state-building. Nevertheless, it is still arguable if Japan under the
Toyotomi and Tokugawa regimes was a modern nation-state. In China a state
monopoly of violence was not necessarily the norm in the period discussed.
The first point to be analyzed is what kind of states we are going to deal with?
What we should bear in mind is that even in Europe the system and the
concept of “modern state” had not assumed their final shape in the period dis-
cussed in this volume. The Peace Treaties of Westphalia, signed in 1648, did not
signify an immediate birth of modern nation-states. On the contrary, as the
first and second chapters of this volume elucidate, it was only by a lengthy
process that European states established the coordinated system for state
monopoly of violence, that is considered to be an important element of a mod-
ern state. Therefore the term state is taken here as any kind of political body
that claims sovereignty over a certain territory and people, whose claim to sov-
ereignty is acknowledged by other states. This loose definition is useful when
states were in the process of state-building.
While the process to abolish non-state violence in Europe seems to have
been linked to the emergent ideas of “nation” and nation-states, Japan and
China do not seem to have created nation-states in the European sense in con-
cert with their antipiracy campaigns. However, it is still important to point out
that the regimes in Japan and China were moving toward a new phase of state-
building through their pursuit of a state monopoly of maritime violence. In
Japan, the suppression of piracy contributed to the establishment of far more
centralized regimes than those that had gone before. In China, the successful
suppression of piracy the Qing regime, utilizing the military forces of outside
Introduction 15

powers like the Portuguese and British, contributed to the strengthening of the
central authority of the Qing government, at least against the threat of the
local elites in coastal areas. The antipiracy politics ushered these states into a
new phase of the state-building, one in which their authority was greatly
strengthened.
Besides the emerging concepts of nation and nation-states, the establish-
ment of a state monopoly of violence was also a result of various other factors
in Europe. In Britain, as Satsuma argues in his chapter, its aggressive type of
free trade policy, that urged the state use of military force against trade obsta-
cles, was an important reason for its antipiracy campaigns in Asia. In the East
Indies, the Dutch antipiracy campaigns were linked to the establishment of
their colonial state delineated with clear borders, that also decided the extent
to which the local rulers had the responsibility for the suppression of piracy.
Although the causes and results of antipiracy campaigns were diverse because
of different local situations, what they had in common was to help states crys-
tallize their ideas of sovereignty, because they introduced the ideas of a state
monopoly of violence, borders on the seas, and renewed relationships with
foreign powers.
We also focus on the connection between European and Asian factors
through antipiracy campaigns. Previous studies seem to have overempha-
sized the differences and conflicts between them, as if Europeans introduced
brought the antipiracy norms that were totally foreign to Asians, and as if
Euro­pean states alone had overwhelmingly suppressed Asian pirates. As many
chapters in this volume elucidate, the actual practices of antipiracy poli-
tics developed outside Europe more contingently and less successfully than
previous scholars like Thomson have argued. As a consequence of these dis-
cussion, this volume argues that the norms against piracy were created and
elaborated in various places through strong connections in a series of political
confrontations, negotiations, and compromises between intermingled agents
on different levels of European and Asian states, for instance, European naval
commanders, European colonial government officials, Asian rulers, and Asian
merchants. They had different goals, that were in many case more strongly
related to the enhancement of their personal benefits and power than to those
of their home states, but their interaction contingently led to the creation of
the norms against maritime violence. Through this process the distinction
between Asians and Europeans became blurred, and in this way antipiracy
politics was a global phenomenon and a part of connected history.
16 Ota
Introduction 17

Part 1
From Co-existence to Prohibition:
Maritime Violence in Europe

∵
18 Ota
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 19

Chapter 1 Kudo and Ota

Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean:

Violence, Diplomacy and Commerce in the
Maghrib, c. 1600-1830
Kudo Akihito and Ota Atsushi

Introduction

The European representation of the early-modern Maghrib,1 covering present-

day Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, has been closely associated with
images of its cities as the lairs of “Barbary pirates.” These sea raiders, also called
corsairs (privateers),2 not only caused havoc on the sea; they also played a cru-
cial role in the creation of inland territorial polities, known as regencies under

1 For the use of the term “early modern,” see Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Goffman, “Introduction:
Situating the Early Modern Ottoman World,” in The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the
Empire, ed. Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Goffman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007), 1-12. The term Maghrib originates from an Arabic word al-maghrib‬, meaning “the land
of the sunset,” or “the west.” Its corresponding European name, the Barbary Coast, also in-
cludes Morocco. From the seventeenth to the late-eighteenth century, European images of
the Barbary Coast gradually shifted their emphasis from its closeness as shadow of the Roman
Empire, to its otherness as the Orient, a view that concomitantly underlined Europe’s distance
from this unknown continent. Ann Thomson, Barbary and Enlightenment: European Attitudes
towards the Maghrib in the 18th Century (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 41-63.
2 The term “corsair” is thought to have spread from the Late Latin word cursarius (the thirteenth
century) through Italian corsao (the fourteenth century) into various languages. Words of the
same origin are found in many languages, for instance, lingua franca corso, Spanish corsario,
Arabic qursān, and Turkish korsan. The word was introduced into French in the fifteenth
century, via Provençal corsari (the fourteenth century), with alternative spellings such as
cursaire, coursaire, and corsaire. Auguste Jal, Glossaire nautique. répertoire polyglotte de termes
de marine anciens et modernes (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1848), 527, 540, 710, 722-23; Henry Romanos
Kahane, Renée Kahane, and Andreas Tietze, The Lingua Franca in the Levant: Turkish Nautical
Terms of Italian and Greek Origin (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1958), 193-96;
Ch. Pellat, C.H. Imber, and J.B. Kelly, s.v. “Ḳurṣān,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed.
P. Bearman et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1955-2005), <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/
encyclopaedia-of-islam-2> (accessed March 31, 2017); s.v. “corsaire,” Trésor de la langue fran-
çaise informatisé, <http://atilf.atilf.fr> (accessed March 31, 2017).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_003

20 Kudo And Ota

Ottoman suzerainty,3 and subsequently participated in the politics and diplo-

macy in the Mediterranean.
Until recently, historical writings on Barbary corsairs have tended to empha-
size either the conflicts between Muslims and Christians, stressing their
diagonally opposed interests and worldviews, or the “legality” or “illegality”
of privateering. These sorts of viewpoints have also argued that the Maghrib
regencies were doomed to decline toward the end of the eighteenth century,
just at a time European monarchies were organizing their legal and politi-
cal systems on the road to efficient modern states.4 This view suggests that
one inevitable result of these contrasting/antithetical developments was the
French conquest of Algeria in 1830, a watershed in the history of the Mediter­
ranean, as it marked the beginning of European territorial expansion onto the
southern shore. If we follow this mode of narration, the implication would be
that the practice of privateering represented the archaism from which modern
European states were linearly attempting to extricate themselves.
However, these views have been challenged by recent scholarship. Taking
Algeria as its example, this chapter argues that the borders between conven-
tional oppositions, such as Europe and the Maghrib, Christian and Muslim,
legal and illegal, development and decline, have always been blurred. European
and Maghribi polities did not have their own clearly separate international
orders. Rather, they shared an intertwined political-legal configuration, and
that configuration was largely maintained until the early-nineteenth century.

1 Establishment of Privateering Polities

From the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, privateering was very rampant
in the Mediterranean, where it was an important financial basis of a number of
port polities. In the Maghrib, this period is called “the era of the Beylerbeyi,” the
(very often foreign) rulers appointed under the Ottoman suzerainty, who
established themselves in close association with privateering. Many of them,
who had often come from the Eastern Mediterranean, were in fact leaders of
privateering groups called taife.5 Having obtained different titles from the

3 In European sources, Ottoman provinces (eyalet) in the Maghrib are usually referred as a
“kingdom” or as a “regency.” In Morocco, the Alawi dynasty did establish a kingdom in the
seventeenth century.
4 This attitude can be traced back to colonial historiography. See, for instance, Emile Félix
Gautier, L’islamisation de l’Afrique du Nord: les siècles obscures du Maghreb (Paris: Payot, 1927),
27.
5 The Ottoman word taife and Arabic ṭāʾifa mean a group, party of men. In the course of time
these words gradually came to refer to vocational and social groups formed for a particular
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 21

Ottoman authorities, they established territorial control in the coastal region

from present-day Libya to Algeria.
Behind this development lay the fierce conflict between Christian and
Muslim empires.6 In this fraught religious climate, the Spanish conquest of
the coastal cities, like Melilla (1497), Oran (1509), and Tripoli (1510), inevitably
created tension between the conquerors and the inland society. Taking advan-
tage of this tension, a corsair called Hızır from the island of Lesbos, later called
Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa,7 carved himself a position in the Western Medi­
terranean. Hızır made his first base in Djerba and, after the death of his brother,
he chose to pledge his loyalty to Sultan Selim I of the Ottoman Empire and, in
return, he was granted recognition of his rule over the Maghrib and had 2,000
Janissaries assigned to him. Soundly backed by this Ottoman support, Hızır
established his rule in Algeria in 1529.
From this time until the end of the sixteenth century, Hayreddin and other
privateers conquered the Spanish bases along the coast. Tripoli, that had been
conquered by Spain in 1510 and then assigned to the Knights Hospitalers (the
Order of St John) in 1523, fell to Ottoman control in 1551. The siege was led by
Turgud Reis, another native of Anatolia with a privateering background.8
When Turgud was killed, he was succeeded by Uluç Ali, an ex-galley slave and
convert, born in Carabria (Southern Italy).9 He invaded Tunis in 1569 and car-
ried out many raids on Spanish coastal cities. Around this time influential
members of privateering groups included a number of foreigners among them

purpose, including privateering groups in the Maghrib. E. Geoffroy, s.v. “Ṭāʾifa,” Encyclopedia
of Islam, Second Edition.
6 The Spanish invasion of the Western Mediterranean was not only a Catholic “Crusade” against
Muslims, it was also conditioned by the rivalry with other European states. Anne Brogini et
Maria Ghazali, Un enjeu espagnol en Méditerranée: les présides de Tripoli et de La Goulette au
XVIe siècle, Cahiers de la Méditerranée (Tome 1) 70 (2005): 9-43, <https://cdlm.revues.org/840>
(accessed March 31, 2017).
7 Hayreddin was a title of honor, and the epithet Barbaros (Barbarosssa, meaning “red beard”)
the name by which he is commonly known in Europe. Granted the titles of Kapudan Paşa
(Admiral) of the Ottoman Fleet and Beylerbeyi (Governor) of the Archipelago around 1533, he
played an active role in the maritime affairs of the Ottoman Sultanate. Daniel Panzac, s.v.
“Barbaros Hayreddin,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, Three, ed. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, and
Denis Matringe (Leiden: Brill, 2007-) http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/encyclo-
paedia-of-islam-3 (accessed March 31, 2017).
8 S. Soucek, s.v. “Ṭorg̲ h̲ud Reʾīs,” Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition.
9 Raised from a prisoner-of-war condemned to be a galley-slave, Uluç Ali served under Turgut
Reis. As reward for his exploits during the Battle of Lepanto, he was granted the name Kılıç
(sword). Idris Bostan, “Kılıç Ali Paşa,” Encyclopedia of Islam, Three; Daniel Panzac, La marine
ottomane: de l’apogée à la chute de l’Empire (1572-1923) (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2009), 18-20.
22 Kudo And Ota

Hassan Aga from Sardinia (self-converted when young), Mami Arnault from
Albania, and Hasan Corso from Corsica.10
Hayreddin’s descendants and his close followers gradually established their
authority in the coastal areas stretching from Libya to Algeria, sometimes only
after conflicts with local Muslim dynasties like Tlemcen. Their actions incor-
porated a large part of the Maghrib into the periphery of the Ottoman rule.11
After Hayreddin left Algeria, his son Hasan Paşa, born to a local lady, was
appointed Beylerbeyi three times between the 1540s and the 1560s. In 1587, dur-
ing the détente after the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Beylerbeyi jurisdictions
in the Maghrib were reorganized into the three regencies, whose capitals were
placed in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli respectively.12 Although it is impossible to
ascertain whether these regencies had clearly defined borders in that period, it
can be said with certainty that throughout the seventeenth century their ter-
ritorial framework gradually formed into the modern countries of Algeria,
Tunisia and Libya. As will be discussed in the following parts, in these regen-
cies, not only rulers but also merchants, diplomats, and local elites were heavily
involved in privateering.

2 Privateering and War

As widely known, privateering, an exploit carried out under a certain official

order from the authorities and sanctioned by particular laws, rules, and cus-
toms, was in theory distinguished from piracy, the predations of unidentified
outlaws.13 It is important to note, however, that the prevailing image of Algiers

10 Lemnouar Merouche, Recherches sur l’Algérie à l’époque ottomane. II. La course: mythes et
réalité (Paris: Bouchène, 2007), 168-70; Fray Diego de Haëdo, Histoire des rois d’Alger
(Algiers: A Jourdan, 1881), 62, 82, 85, 98; Gaëtan Delphin, “Histoire des pachas d’Alger de
1515 à 1745,” Journal asiatique 11, no. 19 (1922): 200-1.
11 Molly Greene, “The Ottomans in the Mediterranean,” in The Early Modern Ottomans:
Remapping the Empire, ed. Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Goffman (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2007), 108-9.
12 The impact of the Battle of Lepanto is still a matter of argument. In the vast bibliography,
see, for instance, Niccolo Capponi, The Victory of the West: The Great Christian-Muslim
Clash at the Battle of Lepanto (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2006), chap. 8; Onur Yildirim,
“The Battle of Lepanto and its Impact on Ottoman History and Historiography,” Mediter-
raneo in armi (secc. XV-XVIII) 2 (2007): 533-56.
13 As early as in fifteenth-century French, the definition of corsairs as those who captured
enemy merchant ships was established. However, there was still some ambiguity in its
distinction from similar words that mean outlaw plunderers, such as forban and flibustier.
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 23

as the capital of “piracy” was reinforced only after the collapse of the early-
modern political configuration, in which privateers played a significant role.
Before that time, maritime battles near Algiers were largely (or at least to some
extent) legalized privateering. Therefore it is misleading to identify simply it
with the image of fierce pirates or hostis humani generis.
Privateering in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean was, Braudel argues,
a “secondary form of war” that irrupted in the intervals between large-scale
naval battles.14 Maritime plunder, as booty of war, had been a fact of life in the
Mediterranean since ancient times. Nevertheless, from the sixteenth century,
with ever-increasing frequency, it began to consist of attacks on vessels and
their cargoes and crews rather than on the towns and people in coastal areas.
Consequently privateering was deemed an important part of intra-Mediterra-
nean relations, and its basic structure remained the same, albeit with certain
adjustments, until the early-nineteenth century.
The basic structure of maritime privateering followed a particular cycle:
First privateers obtained authorization for their exploits from a ruler in the
form of official letters like charters (lettres de marque) and certificates of navi-
gation (passeport). Once this authorization had been obtained, secure in their
official mandate they attacked the merchant ships of enemy states, and cap-
tured their cargoes and crewmembers. Privateers made their profits by reselling
this booty, or forcing someone to ransom crewmembers.15 In short, although
privateering was in part undeniably a bellicose act, it was also a form of eco-
nomic activity, linked not only to merchants in their business of captured
cargoes and hostages, but also to negotiators in these kinds of operation and
the network of cities. Privateering was closely incorporated into the Mediter­
ranean economy. For example, it was not unusual for Algerian privateering
ships to call at Marseilles during the period in which they had an agreement
with the French government.

Cf. Daniel Panzac, Barbary Corsairs: The End of a Legend 1800-1820 (Leiden: Brill, 2005),
89-90; Godfrey Fisher, Barbary Legend. War, Trade and Piracy in North Africa (Oxford: Clar-
endon, 1957), 140; Isabelle Turcan, “Les corsaires et flibustiers de la lexicographie fran-
çaise,” in Les tyrans de la mer: Pirates, corsaires et flibustiers, ed. Sophie Linon-Chipon and
Sylvie Requemora (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris- Sorbonne, 2002); Salvatore
Bono, Les corsaires en méditerranée (Paris: Paris-Méditerranée, 1998).
14 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II,
vol. 2, translated by Siân Reynolds (London: Collins, 1972-1973), 864.
15 Early cases, in which privateering ships were requested to obtain letter of marque in the
thirteenth century, have been found in France and England. Patrick Villiers, La France sur
mer: de Louis XIII à Napoléon 1er (Paris: Fayard, 2015), 4.
24 Kudo And Ota

According to Godfrey Fisher, in sixteenth-century Spain the Barbary fleets

in the Mediterranean were called corsario, and they were distinguished from
the British, French, and Dutch fleets in the Atlantic called pirata. He argues
that it was only after the seventeenth century, when the fleet led by English
seaman Henry Mainwaring16 joined forces with Algiers, that Algerian ships
were called “pirates”. In their references to similar acts of plunder at sea, the
Spanish condemned that conducted by Christians as contemptible piracy,
while they considered that carried out by Muslims and others as (somehow
justifiable) privateering.17 In the tumultuous Mediterranean world, religion
and privateering were closely interlinked. Muslims considered privateers as
actors in the jihad against Christians, and these warriors were devoted to the
cults of local saints.18 On the side of the Christians, the Order of St John of
Malta, the Order of Saint Stephen of Tuscany and others cities and groups were
actively engaged in privateering against Muslims under the banner of a holy
war.19
Nevertheless, we should not see privateering only within the framework of
its “legality” or within the confines of struggles between different religions.20
In the sphere of international relations, state strategies to promote trade
strongly stimulated privateering behind the scenes.21 A holy war waged against
heretics was a useful smoke-screen to conceal the reality of attacks carried out
in the gray zone between legal and illegal activities. In fact, it was not at all
unusual for both Christians and Muslims to attack people of the same religion
under the pretense of privateering. The picture is complicated even further

16 Henry Mainwaring (1586/7-1653) was a navigator from Shropshire in England. He won

fame for his attacks on Spanish ships in the years 1612-1616. When his activities became a
diplomatic issue, he chose to submit to James I of England and served as a naval officer.
G.G. Harris, s.v. “Mainwaring, Sir Henry (1586/7-1653),” in Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, ed. H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004), <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38733> (accessed March 31, 2017).
17 Fisher, Barbary Legend, 138.
18 Panzac, Barbary Corsairs, 24-25.
19 Nicolas Vatin, L’ordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem, l’Empire ottoman et la Méditerranée
orien­tale entre les deux sièges de Rhodes: 1480-1522 (Paris: Peeters, 1994); Anne Brogini,
Malte, frontière de chrétienté (1530-1670) (Rome: École française de Rome, 2006); Géraud
Poumarède, Pour en finir avec la Croisade: mythes et réalités de la lutte contre les Turcs aux
XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris: PUF, 2009); Michel Fontenay, La Méditerranée entre la Croix et
le Croissant: Navigation, commerce, course et piraterie (XVIe-XIXe siècle) (Paris: Classiques
Garnier, 2010).
20 Merouche, La course: mythes et réalité, 30.
21 Philip McCluskey, “Commerce before Crusade? France, the Ottoman Empire and the Bar-
bary Pirates (1661-1669),” French History 23, no. 1 (2009): 1-21.
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 25

because, among the privateers, were a number of “apostate” (renégat) sailors

and adventurers, who changed sides along with their conversion.22 For exam-
ple, it was well known that a number of adult Christian converts from the
Balearic Islands were among the crewmembers of Algerian privateering ships
in the seventeenth century.23 As Braudel aptly puts it, “Privateering often had
little to do with either country or faith, but was merely a means of making a
living. If the corsairs came home empty-handed there would be famine in
Algiers. Privateers in these circumstances took no heed of persons, nationali-
ties or creeds, but became mere sea-robbers.”24
In the first half of the seventeenth century, Maghrib privateering assumed
enormous proportions. One theory argues that the reason for this upsurge was
that, after the lull in religions wars, surplus crews and equipment from priva-
teering ships poured into the south shore of the Mediterranean.25 Making use
of their links with the northern shore, Maghrib privateers now no longer con-
fined their attacks to the Mediterranean coasts but expanded the targets of
their assaults, far beyond Spain, reaching the coasts of British Isles in the 1620s.
Another reason for the expansion of privateering is thought to have been the
forced migration of Moriscos from the Iberian Peninsula. The number of these
people who had been forcibly but ineffectually converted from Islam to
Christianity amounted to 300,000 at the time of expulsion decree in 1614.26
Some of them sought their livelihood in privateering.27 These few facts are

22 Bartolomé Bennassar and Lucile Bennassar, Les chrétiens d’Allah: l’histoire extraordinaire
des renégats, XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris: Perrin, 1989).
23 Natividad Planas, “Les majorquins dans le monde musulman à l’époque moderne,”
Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez 27, no. 2 (1991): 115-28.
24 Braudel, The Mediterranean, 867.
25 For instance, Siemen Danziger (Zymen Danseker, Simon de Danser) from Dordrecht was
thought to have brought “round ships” to Algiers. Philip Gosse, The History of Piracy (Lon-
don: Longmans, Green, 1932; reprint, Mineola: Dover, 2007), 49-53. According to Laugier
de Tassy, French consul in Algiers at the beginning of the eighteenth century, in Algiers
there was technology available to build cheap ships by reconstructing their carcasses
using wood brought from Kabylia region, and equipping them with parts cannibalized
from captured ships. Jacques Philippe Laugier de Tassy, Histoire du royaume d’Alger: avec
état présent de son gouvernement, de ses forces de terre et de mer, police, justice, politique et
commerce (Amsterdam: n.p., 1724; reprint, Paris: Loysel, 1992), 155.
26 Bernard Vincent, “The Geography of the Morisco Expulsion: A Quantitative Study,” in The
Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain: A Mediterranean Diaspora, ed. Mercedes García-
Arenal Rodriquez and Gerard Albert Wiegers (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 19.
27 Leïla Maziane, Salé et ses corsaires, 1666-1727 : un port de course marocain au XVIIe siècle
(Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2007), 169-70; Sakina Missoum, Alger à l’époque
ottomane: la médina et la maison traditionnelle (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 2003), 34.
26 Kudo And Ota

enough to paint a picture of privateer port cities as examples of plural socie-

ties, open to foreigners like converts and migrants.

3 Diplomatic Recognition

France, Britain, and the Netherlands, countries that had emerged as major
players in maritime transportation in the Mediterranean by the seventeenth
century, concluded capitulations (imtiyazat) with the Ottoman Empire in
1569, 1580, and 1612 respectively. These followed the example of Ottoman-
Venice treaties. The capitulations were supposed to guarantee the European
ships safe passage, protecting them from attacks either by the Ottoman Navy
or by Maghribi privateers.28 In fact, their vessels continually suffered assaults
by Maghribi privateers, just as did those of Spanish and Italian cities at war
with the Ottoman Empire.
In order to deal with the privateering under the aegis of those Maghrib
regencies that ignored the regulations of the central government, European
courts took three measures. Playing the diplomatic card, their first step was to
request the Ottoman court to intervene. Their second measure was to exert
military pressure. Thirdly, they took their diplomacy personally to the Maghrib
regencies and entered into direct negotiations. France was the first to seek a
diplomatic relationship with the Maghrib powers. Because its requests to the
government in Istanbul to curb the privateering had been unsuccessful, France
chose to conduct bilateral negotiations with each regency. Its efforts resulted
in an agreement with Tunis in 1605, that had no concrete effect. The Netherlands
concluded treaties with Algiers and Tunis in 1626, and these treaties would
serve as a model for others, including the treaty between France and Algiers in
1628.29 Tripoli signed similar agreement with England in 1658. With the excep-
tion of several periods in which they were suspended, these treaties were
renewed every few years with small amendments, and they continued to form

28 Inalcik, s.v. “Imtiyāzāt,” in Encyclopedia Islam, Second Edition; Maurits H. van den Boogert,
The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls and Beratlıs in the 18th
Century (Leiden: Brill, 2005); Géraud Poumarède, “Négocier près la Sublime Porte: jalons
pour une nouvelle histoire des capitulations franco-ottomanes,” in L’invention de la diplo-
matie, ed. Lucien Bély (Paris: PUF, 1998), 71-85.
29 Edgard Rouard de Card, Traités de la France avec les pays de l’Afrique du Nord: Algérie,
Tunisie, Tripolitaine, Maroc (Paris: A. Pedone, 1906), 113. For the process of diplomatic
negotiations between European states and the Barbary regencies, see also Géraud Pou-
marède, “La France et les Barbaresques: police des mers et relations internationales en
Méditerranée (XVIe-XVIIe siècles),” Revue d’histoire maritime 4 (2005): 117-46.
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 27

the basis on which the relationship between Europe and Maghrib regencies
was regulated until the nineteenth century.30
Among other stipulations, these documents confirmed the obligation to
observe the existing capitulations, guaranteed safe passage and calls at ports,
and laid down the conditions governing the exchange of hostage and slaves,
the recovery of captured cargoes, and the residence of consuls. No matter how
diplomatically couched the negotiations were, these treaties were not always
observed, and Maghrib privateering was resumed for a number of reasons.
Algeria especially was financially dependent on privateering during the seven-
teenth century. Importantly, the refusal of the European powers to repatriate
the Muslim captives they used in their galleys gave the Maghrib side another
reason to continue privateering.31 Every time tension heightened, similar trea-
ties were renegotiated. Nevertheless, the almost equal balance of naval power
turned the seas into an arena for repeat performances of these depredations.
However, as the seventeenth century drew to its close, the European coun-
tries gradually gained the upper hand over the Maghrib regencies in naval
power. European fleets bombarded privateering ports when necessary, in order
to pressure the Maghrib rulers into issuing concessions.32 The Maghrib side
also had reasons to reduce its scale of privateering, for instance, the decline in
the use of galleys, for which privateers had captured people as rowers,33 and
the growth in the importance of trade not dependent on plunder.
Although these signs of change were in the air in the eighteenth century,
the Maghrib regencies continued to be accorded diplomatic recognition.
In exchange for their promise to suspend privateering, the European courts
agreed to send “gifts,” either in the form of annual payments or payment in kind
upon the conclusion of treaties.34 In the early-eighteenth century, Austria and

30 Rouard de Card, Traités de la France avec les pays de l’Afrique du Nord, 3-9.
31 Panzac, Barbary Corsairs, 29-31.
32 In 1664, in the reign of Louis XIV, France sent an expedition to Djidjelli (now Jijel in west-
ern Algeria) but was defeated. French vessels bombarded Algiers in 1682, 1683, and 1688.
Bernard Bachelot, Louis XIV en Algérie (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2011); Phil McCluskey, “‘Les
ennemis du nom Chrestien’: Echoes of the Crusade in Louis XIV’s France,” French History
29, no. 1 (2015): 46-61.
33 This does not mean the complete disappearance of the custom of capturing galley oars-
men to resell as captives or slaves. Boyer has explained this as a process of transformation
from “slave as a energy source to slaves as a commodity.” Pierre Boyer, “Alger en 1645
d’après les notes du RP Hérault (introduction â la publication de ces dernières),” Revue de
l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée 17 (1974): 25.
34 Christian Windler, La diplomatie comme expérience de l’autre: consuls français au Maghreb
(1700-1840) (Genève: Droz, 2002), 485-90.
28 Kudo And Ota

Sweden also concluded similar treaties with the three regencies and, after the
Seven Years’ War, Venice and Spain, the last states inimical to the regencies, did
the same in 1764-1765 and 1785-1791 respectively. When the United States also
joined this group in 1795-1797, bilateral treaties had been established between
the Maghrib regencies and almost all major Western states.
Therefore, the Maghrib polities were able to contrive the balancing act of
benefiting from their acts of privateering and simultaneously from their diplo-
matic relations with Western states associated with privateering for almost
two centuries. In short, they obtained de facto and de iure recognition as sover-
eign polities, possessing the right of legation. From the mid-eighteenth century,
Maghribi corsairs carried certificates of navigation issued by the French and
British consuls. By this time, diplomatic relations were no longer one-sided.
For example, Tripoli sent its envoys to Paris in 1719 and 1720, to Venice in 1764,
to London in 1765 and 1773, and again to Paris in 1774, in order to offer congratu-
lations on the coronation of Louis XVI.35
This seemingly strange relationship between European and Maghrib poli-
ties should be considered within the accepted framework in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. The classical clear-cut distinction between Europe
and the “rest” is obviously too simplistic. In seventeenth-century Europe, the
process of the formation of the sovereign state was still work-in-progress, and
the system was still far from accomplished. The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648
did not signal an immediate paradigm shift toward the sovereign state, either
in theory or in actual practice.36
In early-modern Europe, the concept of international relations was multi-
layered, consequently thinkers held various views about the relationship with
the privateering regencies in the Maghrib. For example, Hugo Grotius implied
that the Maghrib privateering could be considered within the legal category of
the laws of war in Europe, taking a precedent set by the Supreme Court of Paris
in its adjudication of a case of maritime plunder. In this case, the cargo of a

35 Panzac, Barbary Corsairs, 40-41.

36 Benno Teschke, The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics and the Making of Modern Interna-
tional Relations (London: Verso, 2003). For the transformation of the international order,
see Dan Edelstein, “War and Terror: The Law of Nations from Grotius to the French Revo-
lution,” French Historical Studies 31 (2008): 229-62. For the complex characteristics of the
early modern European states, see John Robertson, “Empire and Union: Two Concepts of
the Early Modern European Political Order,” in Theories of Empire, 1450-1800, ed. David
Armitage (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 11-44; Jean-Frédéric Schaub, “The European Old
Regime and the Imperial Question: A Modernist View of a Contemporary Question,” in
Nationalizing Empires, ed. Stefan Berger and Alexei Miller (Budapest: Central European
University Press, 2014), 555-71.
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 29

French merchant had been plundered by an Algerian privateer, and another

Frenchman had obtained the cargo after it had been confiscated. Although the
victim of the plunder claimed his right to the ownership of the cargo, the court
dismissed his claim and awarded ownership to the actual possessor of the
goods. This decision was taken on the juridical grounds that the Algerian plun-
der had been a legal action during wartime, thereby distinguishing it from
piracy.37 The other side of the coin was a deep-rooted view among contempo-
rary Europeans that the Barbary corsair was beyond the bounds of “civilization”
and therefore outside the confines of the international legal community.38
In an attempt to explain the co-existence of these conflicting views, Jörg
Manfred Mössner has stated that there were two co-existing legal zones in the
seventeenth-century Mediterranean Sea. Mössner suggests that the Europeans
understood that, alongside ordinary international law or “intra-ordinal law,”
lay another legal zone of “inter-ordinal law.” This meant that the Maghrib
regencies, viewed from Europe, were not outside the jurisdiction of interna-
tional law, but they were supposedly “on the fringe of the European legal
order.”39 As Michel Mollat du Jourdin puts it, “The coexistence of several judi-
cial areas on the European seas cannot be doubted.”40 European recognition of
co-existing legal zones must have justified, or at least made it possible to
accept, the establishment of official diplomatic relations in which privateering
played a pivotal role.

4 Political Structure in the Periphery of Empire

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the Maghrib regencies

continued to establish control over their inland territory. During that time,
they were also gradually edging away from the authority of Ottoman Empire
and reaping the benefits of privateering diplomacy. Most noteworthy is the
case of Algeria. Pointing out the conflicts that arose between Algiers and

37 Hugo Grotius, De jure belli ac pacis libri tres, trans. Francis W. Kelsey (New York: Oceana,
1964), 715.
38 Guillaume Calafat, “Ottoman North Africa and ius publicum europaeum: The Case of the
Treaties of Peace and Trade (1600-1750),” in War, Trade and Neutrality. Europe and the Med-
iterranean in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Antonella Alimento (Milano:
Franco Angeli, 2011), 171-87.
39 Jörg Manfred Mössner, “The Barbary Powers in International Law (Doctorinal and Practi-
cal Aspects),” in Grotian Studies Papers: Studies in the History of the Law of Nations, ed.
Charles Henry Alexandrowicz (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), 198, 220-21.
40 Michel Mollat du Jourdin, Europe and the Sea (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 97.
30 Kudo And Ota

Ottoman Empire, some scholars have argued that Algeria was only nominally
part of the Ottoman Empire and it was in fact independent by the seventeenth
century.41 However, it is impossible to understand the Ottoman influence in
such a simplistic framework of submission or independence.42
For example, the treaty of 1628 concluded between France and Algiers was
formulated in such a way that Algiers, as a subject of the Sultan, entered into a
peace agreement on the orders of the Supreme Emperor of Muslims (le très
haut Empereur des Musulmans). However, the wording of the treaty leaves no
room to doubt that the local authorities in Algiers maintained the right to
make a decision that might diverge from that of the central government. One
article in the treaty, for example, distinguishes those ships that should be sub-
ject to investigation between those of “the enemy of the Supreme Emperor
(the Sultan)” and those of “the enemy of Algiers,” even though the treaty as a
whole was couched in terms that emphasized the superiority of the Ottoman
government over that of Algeria.43 Almost a century and a half later, the peace
negotiations between Spain and Algeria in the 1780s reveal different attitudes.
Spanish diplomatic documents disclose that during the negotiations the local
authorities in Algiers did not readily accept the validity of Sultan’s edict (fer-
man), hence the agreed peace treaty made no reference to the imperial decree
and the guarantee of the peace made by the Ottoman government, in spite of
the request to this effect made by the Spanish side.44 These two cases indicate
that Algiers was gradually gaining autonomy in Meditearranean diplomacy.
Nevertheless, Spain was still attempting to negotiate with Algiers through the
Ottoman court in the late-eighteenth century.
The changing relationship with the imperial center also influenced the
internal political structure of Algeria. After the division of the Maghrib into

41 Charles-André Julien, Histoire de l’Afrique du Nord, Tunisie-Algérie-Maroc (Paris: Payot,

1964), 274-76.
42 Tal Shuval, “Cezayir-i Garp: Bringing Algeria back into Ottoman History,” New Perspectives
on Turkey 22 (2000): 85-114; Emrah Safa Gürkan, “The Centre and the Frontier: Ottoman
Cooperation with the North African Corsairs in the Sixteenth Century,” Turkish Historical
Review 1 (2010): 125-63. See also Robert Mantran, “Le statut de l’Algérie, de la Tunisie et de
la Tripolitanie dans l’Empire ottoman,” in L’Empire ottoman du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle:
admin­istration, économie, société (London: Variorum, 1984), 3-14; Abdeljelil Temimi,
Recherches et documents d’histoire maghrébine : la Tunisie, l’Algérie et la Tripolitaine de 1816
à 1871 (Tunis : Publication de l’Université de Tunis, 1971), 9-10.
43 Rouard de Card, Traités de la France avec les pays de l’Afrique du Nord, 16-17.
44 Ismet Terki-Hassaine, “Relations entre Alger et Constantinople sous le gouvernement du
Dey Mohammed ben Ottomane Pacha (1766-1791), selon les sources espagnoles,” Osmanlı
Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi (OTAM) 5 (1994): 188-90.
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 31

three provinces at the end of the sixteenth century, the central government
appointed a Paşa as the ruler of each regency with a three-year term of office.
He was to replace the Beylerbeyi. A closer reading of the situation shows that
the real authority of the Paşa, a foreign ruler, was circumscribed by the local
military powers: the taife (privateers) and the ocak (Janissaries).45 An impor-
tant factor contributing to the weak position of the Paşa was that the holders
of this office did not have an income base generous enough to maintain their
followers.46
In contrast, the taife were dominant in the early-seventeenth-century
because they influence the financial conditions of the province. The activities
of the taife had a dual character: on the one hand, they were private entrepre-
neurs who provisioned privateering ships; on the other hand while they were
officially serving in the Ottoman Navy at the request of the central govern-
ment and they were also financing the regency of Algeria with their income
from privateering.47 Although the income from privateering could fluctuate
enormously, there are a number of pieces of evidence that demonstrate their
economic power was the backbone of the finances of the province.
A good example is Ali Bitchin who became the chief of the taife in Algiers in
the first half of the seventeenth century.48 Forging ties with the Berber Kuku
dynasty, Bitchin was a master of all kinds of wiles in his dealing with Paşas. The
fact that when he concluded a treaty with foreign delegates he called himself
“Gouverneur et Capitaine général de la Mer et Terre d’Alger” leaves no doubt
about his power.49 Pertinently, Bitchin’s ambition was directed not to any with-

45 Ocak, that originally meant “a hearth,” refers to a corps or a unit of Janissaries. It was cur-
rent in each of the three Ottoman regencies. K. Kreiser, s.v. “Odjak,” Encyclopedia Islam,
Second Edition.
46 Examining the precarious positions of the Paşa, some scholars link the problem to the
theory of “general crisis” in the seventeenth century. Shuval, “Cezayir-i Garp: Bringing
Algeria back into Ottoman History,” 90-93; Jacques Revel, “Au XVIIe siècle : le déclin de la
Méditerranée?” in La France et la Méditerranée : vingt-sept siècles d’interdépendance, ed.
Irad Malkin (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 359-61. The theory of a crisis in seventeenth-century Eur-
asia has yet to be studied empirically. See Suraiya Faroqhi, “Crisis and change, 1590-1699,”
in An Economic and Social History of Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, ed. Halil İnalcık and Don-
ald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 433-73.
47 Laugier de Tassy, Histoire du royaume d’Alger (1992), 156.
48 Ali Bitchin is often considered to have been a convert of Venetian origin, but some con-
temporary sources indicate that he could have been either of Dutch or of Turkish/Alge-
rian origin. Merouche, La course : mythes et réalité, 184-90.
49 Boyer, “Alger en 1645 d’après les notes du RP Hérault,” 21. It was common for more than
one person on the Algerian side, the Paşa, a captain of the Janissaries, a Mufti or a Qadi, to
sign diplomatic documents. The French notations of each title are Bacha or gouverneur
32 Kudo And Ota

drawal from the confines of the Ottoman Empire but to the promotion within
it.50
After Bitchin’s death around 1644-1645, the center of power in Algiers
seemed to shift from the taife to the ocak. How this happened is not clear, but
it is plausible to assume that these two groups, in collaboration with the local
population, merged together to form a new urban elite.51 The growing power of
the ocak prepared fertile ground for the outbreak of what was known as the
“Agha Revolution” in 1659.52 Irritated by the delay in the payment of their
wages in Algiers, the ocak put the acting Paşa in jail and created a disturbance
when the new Paşa arrived in Algiers. However, their resistance to the central
government was pretty nominal. In fact, after being apprised of the govern-
ment’s message that it would cancel the appointment of the new Paşa, the
ocak in Algiers immediately showed they were willing to submit. Nevertheless,
it was only two years later, in 1661, that the Ottoman government decided to
resume the appointment of a Paşa, at the request of Algiers.53
This episode is open to the following interpretation. The fact that the
Ottoman government did not impose military sanctions but declared that the
relationship would be discontinued and that the dispatch of the new Paşa was
delayed by two years seems to indicate that the importance the peripheral
province of Algeria had once held was fading as far as the central government
was concerned, and therefore it was prepared to acquiesce in the loosening of
its control. Nevertheless, Algeria needed the authority bestowed by the central
government of the Empire, in spite of its recalcitrant attitude.

d’Alger for Paşa, chef des Janissares or chef et général de la Milice for ocak, and Mufti, Cadi,
secrétaire du Divan for Mufti and Cadi. Rouard de Card, Traités de la France avec les pays de
l’Afrique du Nord, 22; Henri Delmas de Grammont, Relations entre la France et la régence
d’Alger au XVIIe siècle. troisième partie. La mission de Sanson le Page (1633-1646) (Algiers:
A. Jourdan, 1880), 26.
50 Mouloud Gaïd, L’Algérie sous les Turcs (Algiers: Mimouni, 1991), 129.
51 It might be possible to see this process as a derivative form of the emergence of “Otto-
man-Local elite,” a common happening in various parts of the Empire around the same
time. Ehud Toledano, “The Emergence of Ottoman-Local Elites (1700-1900): A Framework
for Research,” in Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas: A History from Within, ed. Ilan Pape and
Moshe Ma’oz (London and New York: Tauris, 1997), 145-62.
52 Agha is an Ottoman word meaning “chief,” “master.” It was used as a title for those holding
various official positions like the commander of a Janissary corps. The Agha of Algiers was
the chairman of the meeting composed of the Janissaries. H. Bowen, s.v. “Agha,” Encyclo-
pedia Islam, Second Edition.
53 Pierre Boyer, “La révolution dite des “Aghas” dans la régence d’Alger (1659-1671),” Revue de
l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée, 13-14 (1973): 159-70.
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 33

These examples indicate that episodes of disobedience to the central gov-

ernment were not staged with the intention of breaking away from the Empire,
but seem to have been a fairly common form of negotiation to do with achiev-
ing a power balance within the imperial order.54 In short, these incidents of
subordination were not thought of as a process through which Algeria would
become an independent political body, but should be understood within the
context of the reorganization of the regional order in the Ottoman Empire.
After the period of instability, the elected leader of the ruling elite in Algiers
began to gather the reins of supreme power in his hands and assumed title of
Dey in 1671. From 1710 the Ottoman government accorded the Dey the addi-
tional title of Paşa.55 However, the Dey in Algeria did not become a hereditary
position. It was often taken over by the nephews, sons-in-law, or followers of
the previous incumbent. In other words, the holders established their power
through the patron-client network of the “kapı (household),” groups consisting
of subjects and employees but centered on the kin relationship.
Although the system of government that emerged in this period did increase
effective autonomy, it also maintained attachment to the Ottoman center. In
contrast to other regions in the Empire, until the nineteenth century the ocak
in Algeria consisted mostly of immigrants, who were often recruited from the
Eastern Mediterranean at great expense.56 Once they were stationed in Algiers,
marriage between the ocak and local women was indirectly restricted through
a system of the provision of privileges available only to single men. Although
intermarriage was in fact accepted, their descendants formed a distinct group

54 Karen Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization (New
York: Cornell University Press, 1997), 55-56; Faroqhi, “Crisis and change, 1590-1699,” 416-19.
55 The origin of the title Dey is Turkish dayı, meaning “maternal uncle.” It was used as the
title of the commander of the ocak in Algeria and Tunisia. Tal Shuval, s.v. “Dayı,” Encyclo-
pedia of Islam, Three. In the early-nineteenth century, William Shaler, the US consul-gen-
eral at Algiers noted that, although the title Dey was used in dealings with the outside
world, the title Paşa was commonly used among local people. William Shaler, Sketches of
Algiers, Political, Historical and Civil (Boston: Cunnings, 1826), 17; Merouche, La course:
mythes et réalité, 254-55.
56 The interpreter Venture de Paradis, stationed in Algiers at the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury, noted that the most of the recruitments for the ocak were conducted in Smyrna and
Karaman provinces. A later study indicates that the principal place of origin of the new
recruits was Anatolia, but some of them were from the Balkans. Jean-Michel Venture de
Paradis, Tunis et Alger au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Sindbad, 1983), 109; M. Colombe, “Contribu-
tion à l’étude du recrutement de l’odjaq d’Alger dans les dernières années de l’histoire de
la Régence,” Revue africaine 87 (1943): 171-72, 175-76.
34 Kudo And Ota

called kulugli.57 Local recruitment of ocak was also fairly common, but those
people would never become predominant.58 Overall, the “households” of the
ruling elite in Algiers maintained their foreignness in terms of their lineage, a
situation rare among Arab cities in the Ottoman Empire.59
Generally speaking, the urban societies in the Maghrib regencies adopted
the Ottoman Empire as their model in terms of their social organization and
culture, in spite of their palpably growing political autonomy. For example, the
ruling groups maintained their distinction from the local society by adhering
to the lifestyle, language, and legal norms of the center of the Empire.60 The
rural Arab-Berber speaking population, albeit to varying degree over time,
accepted this attachment to the Ottoman suzerainty.61 In other words, para-
doxically as central control was loosening its grip, the relationship between the
ruling groups in Algiers and the center of the Empire became more pro-
nounced, and the foreignness of the former was preserved. This is a remarkable
example of the particular strategy adopted by a political body that attempted
to remain within the imperial order, despite its location in its periphery.62 The
ruling power in Algeria was still characteristically in the hands of immigrants,
but the center of the power was gradually moving from the abovementioned
mixed maritime people to the more closed Ottoman military elites.

57 Laugier de Tassy, Histoire du royaume d’Alger (1992), 127; Pierre Boyer, “Le problème Kou-
loughli dans la régence d’Alger,” Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée,
numéro spécial (1970): 88-89; Tal Shuval, La ville d’Alger vers la fin de XVIIIe siècle (Paris:
CNRS, 1998), 115-16.
58 Shuval, La ville d’Alger vers la fin de XVIIIe siècle, 63-64.
59 Tal Shuval, “Households in Ottoman Algeria,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 24, no. 1
(2000): 41-64.
60 Bruce McGowan, “The Age of the Ayans, 1699-1812,” in An Economic and Social History of
Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914, ed. Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994), 676-77.
61 James Mcdougall, A History of Algeria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017),
39-40.
62 Shuval has argued that this is an ideology that nurtured a “Turkish” character of ruling
elite. Shuval, “Cezayir-i Garp: Bringing Algeria back into Ottoman History,” 108. In another
study, he has also noted that the ruling groups took the nisbah (adoption of a place-name/
name of place of origin) of al-turki (“from Turky”). This does not necessarily mean, as
already noted, that they were ethnically Turkish. Interestingly, only very few bore nisbah
derived from places in the Arab region. Shuval, La ville d’Alger vers la fin de XVIIIe siècle,
51-52. Some European sources indicate that the children born to them by Christian slaves
were treated as equals to the “Turks” by conversion. Laugier de Tassy, Histoire du royaume
d’Alger (1992), 58.
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 35

5 Commerce and Diplomacy

In the relationship between Algeria and the outer world, merchants and diplo-
mats played important roles. As was the situation in many other places, private
and public interests were only loosely distinguished in this context. These
international relations reflected the intertwined interests of private compa-
nies and the state, and this had a decisive effect on the fate of privateering.
Jewish families were the most prominent group in the maritime trade of
Algeria, with a not inconsiderable connection to privateering. In the eight-
eenth century, Jewish merchants from Livorno, North Italy, from where they
had controlled the Levant-North Europe trade, gradually moved the base of
their activities to the Maghrib.63 After their settlement in Algeria, they still
remained in close communication with Italy through their accommodation of
waves of newcomers. By and large, the members of these communities were
residents living under the protection of European states, especially France.64
In the period in which privateering flourished, these Jewish merchants were
heavily involved as intermediaries in the trade in Christian slaves, but by the
eighteenth century they were dealing in various kinds of merchandise, includ-
ing wheat, leather, beeswax and olive oil. The scale and fields of their activities
varied. As the financiers of the Dey, influential members accumulated wealth
through the tax-farming of customs, and through their monopoly rights to oil
trading.65
Among the influential Jewish families in Algiers, the best-known were the
Bacris and the Busnaches.66 Both families were settled in Algiers by the 1720s
and, after establishing affinal relationships with each other, they expanded
their fields of activities. Their heyday was at the end of the eighteenth century,
when Naphtali Busnach, as a right-hand man of Mustafa (r. 1798-1805), the
incumbent Dey, obtained the position of the Muqaddam (the representative of
the Jewish community in Algiers). His activities were many and varied, includ-

63 Jean-Pierre Filippini, “Les négociants juifs de Livourne et la mer au XVIIIe siècle,” Revue
française d’histoire d’outre-mer 326/327 (2000): 85; Jean-Pierre Filippini, “La ‘Nation juive’
de Livourne et le royaume de France au XVIIIe siècle,” in La France et la Méditerranée:
vingt-sept siècles d’interdépendance, ed. Irad Malkin (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 259-71.
64 Richard Ayoun, “Les négociants juifs d’Afrique du Nord et la mer à l’époque moderne,”
Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 326-27 (2000): 110-11.
65 Laugier de Tassy, Histoire du royaume d’Alger (1992) 55-57.
66 Shalom Bar-Asher and Joachim O. Ronall, s.v. “Bacri,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 3
(Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 41-42; David Corcos, s.v. “Busnach,” Encyclopae-
dia Judaica, vol. 4, 316.
36 Kudo And Ota

ing acting as mediator in the trade and diplomacy between Algiers and Western
states.67
Although classical studies of Algeria’s external trade tend to emphasize the
dominant position of Europeans, among them the French who controlled a
large part of the commercial shipping,68 recent scholars, while admitting the
advantages enjoyed by Europeans, have focused on the active role of the
Maghribi side. For example, when the activities of French commercial vessels
were restricted because of the Anglo-French wars from the 1790s to the 1800s,
Maghribi trading vessels filled a part of the resultant vacuum. Daniel Panzac
has pointed out the fact that, at the turn of the century, the number of the
ships registered in the Maghrib increased in European trading ports. He has
emphasized the important role of the Muslim and Jewish merchants, who
sometimes diverted privateering ships to their legitimate trade in this change
in fortunes.69 For example, David Bacri, the Muqaddam in Algiers, bought up
French privateering ships to convert them into trading vessels.70 Consequently,
the merchant groups in Algiers became mediators between the Maghrib and
Europe, and they were extremely flexible in adapting themselves to interna-
tional turmoil.
It should never be forgotten that the contemporaneous intra-Mediterra-
nean trade was inseparable from diplomacy. European diplomacy toward the
Maghrib regencies owes its character to on the way it was organized on the
basis of a consular system. From the sixteenth century onward, the French
monarchy had been trying to strengthen its control over its overseas diplo-
matic bases in the Meditearranean, but this does not necessarily mean that it

67 Their upward social mobility did not bring stability as it was hampered by the conflicts
with other Jewish families and by the political turmoil seething among the ruling elite.
Naphtali was killed in 1805, while David Bacri, who later took over the position of the
Muqaddam, had to take refuge. H.Z. (J.W.) Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa
from the Ottoman Conquests to the Present Time (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 29-36. See also Yaron
Tsur, “Prélude aux relations judéo-françaises à l’époque coloniale: les rapports entre les
marchands juifs et les français, en Algérie, du XVIIIe-début XIXe siècles,” in La France et la
Méditerranée: vingt-sept siècles d’interdépendance, ed. Irad Malkin (Leiden: Brill, 1990),
401-11.
68 For such an example, see Jean Mathiex, “Sur la marine marchande barbaresque au XVIIIe
siècle,” Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 13, no. 1 (1958): 87-93.
69 Panzac, Barbary corsairs, chap. 6-8. See also Mohamed Amine, “Géographie des échanges
commerciaux de la régence d’Alger à la fin de l’époque ottomane 1792-1830,” Revue
d’histoire maghrébine 20, nos. 70-71 (1993): 287-373; Sadok Boubaker, “Négoce et enri­
chissement individuel à Tunis du XVIIe siècle au début du XIXe siècle,” Revue d’histoire
moderne et contemporaine 50, no. 4 (2003): 29-62.
70 Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 41-42.
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 37

swept aside the social configuration already in place. State control overlapped
with the existing mercantile network. The consuls were a part of the state
diplomacy, but at the same time members of merchant society.71
Interpreters also played an important role in the multifaceted diplomacy
in the Maghrib. The European merchants and consuls often employed local
interpreters called dragoman or drogman, Christian subjects of the Ottoman
Empire, to assist them in their daily work. Aware of this impediment, in France,
as part of its efforts to strengthen central control, Jean-Baptiste Colbert estab-
lished the École des jeunes de langues (the School of Oriental Languages) in
1669. By the eighteenth century, this school had become a general career path
for the students, who had to be French nationals, to become official interpret-
ers or secretaries in the diplomatic posts.72 However, the professionalization
of the interpreters did not lead to bureaucratization in terms of modern meri-
tocracy. It certaily represented progress in the expansion of royal authority, but
through patron-client links. Therefore it succeeded in coming to terms with
the predominance of the influential families that produced the interpreters.
They included, to name a few, the Latin merchant families in the Galata area
in Constantinople (the Fornettis from Genova), several Jacobite families (the
Adansons), and those who had migrated to the Levant from various places
in France (the Robolys, the Fontons, and the Devals).73 These families pro-
duced interpreters for three centuries at the longest, and acted as the pivot

71 Officially the consuls, as were the interpreters, were prohibited from participating in
trade, but this rule had only symbolic value. Géraud Poumarède, “Naissance d’une institu-
tion royale: Les consuls de la nation française en Levant et en Barbarie aux XVIe et XVIIe
siècles,” Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de France (2001), 128; Windler, La diplo-
matie comme expérience de l’autre, 120-29; Testa Marie de and Antoine Gautier, “Les drog-
mans au service de la France au Levant,” Revue d’histoire diplomatique 105, nos. 1-2 (1991):
12. See also, Marc Belissa, “Diplomatie et relations ‘internationales’ au 18e siècle: un
renouveau historiographique?” Dix-huitième siècle 37 (2005): 31-47; Jean-Pierre Farganel,
“Les échelles du Levant dans la tourmente des conflits méditerranéens au XVIIIe siècle: la
défense des intérêts français au fil du temps,” Cahiers de la Méditerranée 70 (2005): 61-83.
72 Robert Mantran, “Le drogman, instrument de la connaissance de l’Orient musulman,”
Méditerranée, mer ouverte. Acte du Colloque de Marseille (21-23 septembre 1995), ed. Chris-
tiane Villain-Gandossi, Louis Durteste, and Salvino Busuttil (Malta: International Foun-
dation, 1997), 422. See also Antoine Gautier, “Les drogmans des consulats,” in La fonction
consulaire à l’époque moderne: L’affirmation d’une institution économique et politique (1500-
1800), ed. Jörg Ulbert and Gérard Le Bouëdec (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes,
2006): 85-103; Suna Timur Agildere, “Les interprètes au carrefour des cultures: Ou les drog-
mans dans l’Empire ottoman (XVIe-debut du XXe siècle),” Babel 55, no. 1 (2009): 1-19.
73 For the biographies of the well-known families of translators, see Antoine Gautier and
Marie de Testa, “Quelque dynasties de Drogmans,” Revue d’histoire diplomatique 105, nos.
38 Kudo And Ota

in diplomatic exchanges. The interpreters, who spent the greater part of their
lives in Mediterranean cities, were ineradicably connected to the merchants’
world.
This sort of the overlapping of diplomacy and commerce had been obvious
since the early period of the diplomatic relationship between the Maghrib and
Europe. For example, Sanson Napollon (or Napoleoni), the former consul in
Aleppo, who took charge of the negotiations that concluded the first peace
treaty between France and Algeria in 1628 on the orders of Louis XIII, came
from a merchant background.74 In the same year, Napollon also concluded an
agreement with Algerian ruler about the reestablishment of a mercantile office
(Bastion de France) in La Calle on the eastern coast of Algeria, whose putative
purpose was as a base for coral-fishing. Although this was an inter-governmen-
tal treaty, between the Paşa of Algiers and the King of France, it granted
Napollon the trading privileges to and the management of the concession.75
The dual nature of the office, in which a state diplomatic relationship over-
lapped with individual family-based enterprises, would survive for a couple of
centuries, although the former gradually assumed more importance.
The dual nature of state diplomacy and private commerce was still obvious
in the process that led to the French expedition to Algiers in 1830. The immedi-
ate incident that precipitated this military operation was a conflict between
the Dey and the French consul that had flared up in 1827. However, lurking
behind this episode were the complicated debt problems that had beset
Algeria and France that had their origins in the wheat export from Algeria to

1-2 (1991): 39-102; Anne Mézin, Les consuls de France au siècle des lumières (1715-1792) (Paris:
Ministère des affaires étrangères, Direction des archives et de la documentation, 1998).
74 Sanson Napollon was a merchant from Corsica. He was posted to the trading house with
the title of Gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre du roi on the eve of the negotiations with
Algeria. Eugène Plantet, ed., Correspondence des deys d’Alger avec la cour de France, 1579-
1833, vol. 1 (Paris: F. Alcan, 1889; Tunis: Bouslama, 1981), 26; Henri Delmas de Grammont,
Relations entre la France et la régence d’Alger au XVIIe siècle. deuxième partie. La mission de
Sanson Napollon (1628-1633) (Algiers: A Jourdan, 1880); Michel Vergé-Franceschi, “La Corse
enjeu géostratégique en Méditerranée et les marins Cap Corsins,” Cahiers de la Méditer-
ranée 70 (2005), http://cdlm.revues.org/859 (accessed March 31, 2017)
75 Napollon’s privileges were gradually ceded to other individuals throughout the seven-
teenth century, and in 1690 the Chartered Royal African Company took them over. Peter
Fischer, “Historic Aspects of International Concession Agreements,” Grotian Studies
Papers. Studies in the History of the Law of Nations, ed. Charles Henry Alexandrowicz (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), 258, 260. For the French chartered companies in Africa,
see Paul Masson, Histoire des établissements et du commerce français dans l’Afrique barba-
resque (1560-1793) (Paris: Hachette, 1903).
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 39

France in the 1790s. In its heyday, this trade had been in the hands of the House
of Bacri and Busnach. By manipulating their close relationship with the French
foreign minister, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the Bacris monopo-
lized a significant amount of the payment from the French government. After
this breach of faith, following Deys naturally requested the French government
repay its debt to them directly. However, far from fulfilling his expected duty of
intermediating between the governments, the French consul, Pierre Deval,
whose relationship with the Bacris and Talleyrand was highly suspect, contin-
ued to maneuver their negotiations in such a way they were doomed to failure.
His obfuscations finally drove Hussein Dey, the last ruler of Ottoman Algeria,
to the end of his tether.76
The classical interpretation of this episode is summed up in the remark of
Charles-André Julien: “A shady event conspired by an influential Jewish mer-
chant in Algiers and a corrupted French politician, or a trouble created by an
indecent diplomat.”77 Those referred to in the quote are Bacri, Talleyrand and
Deval. In hindsight, this view is legitimate as these developments were a prel-
ude to the French colonization of Algeria. However, if we consider them in
their context, in which people’s private affairs were intertwined with state
diplomacy in a very complicated manner, it might not be as apparent that the
behavior of the merchant and the consul was a glaring lapse, at least from the
perspective of those involved.
As has been argued so far, Algeria had created a particular form of regional
order by the end of the eighteenth century. Its connection with the Ottoman
Empire and its link with European states through commercial and diplomatic
channels persisted until the early-nineteenth century without any drastic
change in character. However, after the post-Napoleonic reorganization of the
international order, European states instigated a fundamental disruption.
Faced with the emergence of the new situation, the Maghrib regencies
resumed privateering. But their day was done, as by now the European states
had changed their policy toward corsair actions, now declared “piracy” and
strictly forbidden. The structural change in international relations was obvi-
ous. The USA had entered the war against Tripoli in 1801. The Anglo-Dutch
expedition bombarded Algiers in 1816. Shortly afterward, the Franco-English
squadron called on Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, to declare a prohibition on
privateering under the terms of the agreement reached at the Congress of Aix-
la-Chapelle in 1818. In efforts to deal with mounting European pressure, the

76 For the details of the debt problem, see Charles-André Julien, “La question d’Alger devant
les Chambres sous la Restauration,” Revue africaine 311 (1922): 270-305; 313 (1922): 425-56.
77 Charles-André Julien, Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine (Paris: PUF, 1969), 21.
40 Kudo And Ota

rulers of the Maghrib regencies emphasized that the series of acts of visitation,
captures of enemy ships and their crews, and the resale of captives were their
fully justified right, acknowledged by custom and treaty.78 Notwith­standing
their protest, a new age had dawned and the claims accepted by the European
states in the eighteenth century were now rejected out-of-hand. Privateering
by Maghrib regencies all but stopped. In the same period the Maltese court
outlawed privateering that the Sultan of Morocco had already abandoned.79
In 1830, immediately after the French conquest of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli
signed treaties with France in which they effectively renounced privateering.
Nevertheless, their submission did not mean their inclusion within the legal
space of European “civilized” nations.80 Nor did small-scale raiding and coun-
ter-raiding completely disappear in the Western Mediterranean. Sporadic
battles between Spanish ships and the ships belonging to the people of Rif
coast continued until the 1850s. Just as before, one party justified such an
attack as the suppression of piracy, and the other party claimed that it was a
counter-attack to protect its trade route.81 In the sphere of international law,
the general ban on privateering began to gain more formal authority after, not
before, the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law of 1856.82 It was only
decades later, in 1908, that Spain declared its adherence to the Paris Declaration.

Conclusion: Changes and Continuity

In sum, the prelude to the colonial relationship in the Mediterranean was

not an encounter between two different systems, but a unilateral notifica-
tion by the European states of their withdrawal from a shared tradition. The
changing power balance and the political turmoil in Europe did not cause a

78 Panzac, Barbary corsairs, 289-90; Temimi, Recherches et documents, 222-23.

79 Paul Cassar, “The Maltese Corsairs and the Order of St John of Jerusalem,” The Catholic
Historical Review 46-2(1960): 155-56; Panzac, Barbary corsairs, 201.
80 Christian Windler, “Towards the Empire of a ‘Civilizing Nation’: The French Revolution
and its Impact on Relations with the Ottoman Regencies in the Maghreb,” in International
Law and Empire: Historical Explorations, ed. Martti Koskenniemi, Walter Rech, and Man-
uel Jiménez Fonseca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 219.
81 C.R. Pennell, “The Geography of Piracy: Northern Morocco in the Mid-Nineteenth Cen-
tury,” in Bandits at Sea: A Pirates Reader, ed. C.R. Pennell (New York: New York University
Press, 2001), 55-68.
82 Jan Martin Lemnitzer, Power, Law and the End of Privateering (Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2014), 42-43, 173.
Privateers in the Early-Modern Mediterranean 41

sudden break in diplomatic customs.83 The importance of privateering had

been declining since the eighteenth century. However, as was the case with
the conflict between the Dey and the French consul in the 1820s, until the
early-nine­teenth century no thoroughgoing change occurred in the existing
structure, in which consuls and merchants mediated international relation-
ships, without necessarily adhering to the instructions of their governments.
What triggered the French expedition of Algeria in 1830 was, it can be
argued, a friction between the new order in international politics and the local
social configuration that had continued since the early-modern period. Peoples
on both shores of the Mediterranean shared, in one way or another, the experi-
ence of the Age of Revolutions.84 On the northern shore of the Mediterranean,
especially in France, the key concepts of the modern state underwent a crucial
transformation. The era was now changing from a period in which people’s dif-
ferences and pluralities were guaranteed as lower-case plural “nations” to the
era of the capitalized singular “Nation.” This conceptual shift resulted in some
remarkable reactions from the Algerian elite in the 1830s.85 Nevertheless, on
the whole, the early-nineteenth-century Maghribi port city was still a society

83 Windler, La diplomatie comme expérience de l’autre, 353-87.

84 Ian Coller, “The Revolutionary Mediterranean,” in A Companion to the French Revolution,
ed. Peter McPhee (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2013), 419-34.
85 Shortly after the French expedition, notables from Algiers led by Hamdan ibn Uthman
Khodja and Ahmad Bu Darba went to Paris to try to influence French opinion. They pro-
duced a book in French entitled Le Miroir. The author of this book claimed that the “Alge-
rians” had the right to regain their freedom just like the “European nations.” Sidy Hamdan
Ben Othman Khodja, Aperçu historique et statistique sur la Régence d’Alger, intitulé en
arabe le Miroir (Paris: Goetschy, 1833), 426. In another document addressed to the French
Parliament, Hamdan declared that the case of Algeria should be considered within the
tradition of Vattel’s natural law. Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer (France), FR ANOM
F80/9: “Mémoire de Si Hamdan.” Although their activities cannot be defined as proto-
nationalism, they do indicate the circulation of ideas between both shores of the Medi-
terranean. Further discussion on this topic can be found in the following publications in
Japanese. Kudo Akihito, “1830-nendai Furansu no shokuminchi ronso to “Arabu no
nashonarite” 1830 年代フランスの植民地論争と「アラブのナショナリテ」 [French
Colonial Debates in the 1830s and the Question of ‘Nationalité Arabe’], Seiyo Shigaku
西洋史学 210 (2003): 24-44; Kudo Akihito 工藤晶人, Chichukai Teikoku no hen’ei: Fuansu-
ryo Arugeria no 19-seiki 地中海帝国の片影: フランス領アルジェリアの 19 世紀 [The
mirage of Mediterranean Empire: French colonial Algeria during the 19th Century]
(Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 2013). See also Jennifer Pitts, “Liberalism and Empire
in a Nineteenth-Century Algerian Mirror,” Modern Intellectual History 6, no. 2 (2009): 287-
313.
42 Kudo And Ota

composed of lower-case plural “nations” (resident groups), each of which was

interconnected by religion, origin and kinship and by its own interests.
In the early-modern period, privateering was both a form of private busi-
ness and a tool of state diplomacy in the polities around the Mediterranean, be
that European or Maghribi. At that time, privateering and state were not miles
apart but supported each other closely. From its peak in the seventeenth cen-
tury to its end in the nineteenth century, the trajectory of privateering was
never straightforward. Maghribi privateering survived longtime pressure and
reached its broadest diplomatic recognition toward the end of the eighteenth
century. In other words, this maritime violence was not simply a synonym for
disorder: it was instead a constituent part of order in this region, and accepted
as such throughout the period of transition to the modern state in Europe. This
overlapping chronology suggests that there are issues, related to the genealogy
of state monopoly of violence, that merit further investigation.
Plunder and Free Trade 43

Chapter 2

Plunder and Free Trade: British Privateering and

Its Abolition in 1856 in Global Perspective
Satsuma Shinsuke

Introduction

In April 1856, major European powers such as Britain, France, Russia, and
Prussia signed the Declaration of Paris to regulate various naval activities asso-
ciated with seaborne trade.1 This declaration marked a turning point in the
history of maritime plunder by private individuals, not least in Europe; it
brought about the abolition of privateering.
Privateering was plunder by private individuals with the permission of the
authorities, and had been carried out in many parts of early modern Europe,
most actively from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth centu-
ry.2 The activities of privateers and the role they played have been analyzed by
various historians, including David J. Starkey and Patrick Villiers.3 Historians

1 This chapter is based on a paper which I gave at the international workshop “Globalizing
Violence, Emerging Modernity: Piracy and Anti-Piracy Campaigns in Eurasia, c. 1600-1900”
held in Tokyo in December 2011. I would like to thank the participants of the workshop, and
also anonymous referees, for their helpful comments.
2 One of the origins of privateering was the medieval custom of “reprisals.” If an owner of a ship
was robbed of her cargoes by a foreign ship, the owner was permitted to attack a vessel belong-
ing to the same foreign country and take her cargo’s worth in equivalent value. This custom
of “reprisals” enabled victims of an attack to recoup their losses by force, if these were not
retrievable by diplomatic or judicial means. N.A.M. Rodger argues that this custom of repri-
sals, that formed part of private and commercial warfare and in principle could be resorted
to only in peace time, should not be confused with privateering, that formed part of public
naval warfare and could be undertaken only in war time. Rodger also claims that it is anach-
ronistic to call maritime raiding during the Elizabethan period “privateering,” as this was
developed only after the mid-seventeenth century. N.A.M. Rodger, “The New Atlantic: Naval
Warfare in the Sixteenth Century,” in War at Sea in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
ed. John B. Hattendorf and Richard W. Unger (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003), 240-41; See
also, N.A.M. Rodger, “The Law and Language of Private Naval Warfare,” Mariner’s Mirror 100,
no. 1 (2014): 5-16.
3 David J. Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise in the Eighteenth Century (Exeter: University of
Exeter Press, 1990). For British colonial privateering in the mid-eighteenth century, see Carl

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_004

44 Satsuma

have often dealt with privateering in connection with piracy, which is, in the
European legal context, plunder by private individuals without permission of
the authorities. Robert C. Ritchie is one author who has described the process
of the suppression of European piracy and the control and abolition of priva-
teering.4 Viewed in conjunction with piracy, privateering is sometimes also
placed in the context of the monopolization of violence by the nation-states
that emerged in early-modern Europe. In his chapter that analyzes the rela-
tionship between the state-building and war, Charles Tilly refers to privateers
and pirates as one of the parties that shared the right to use violence in the
early stages of state-making process.5 Exploring Tilly’s argument has also led
Janice E. Thomson to examine this process of the monopolization of violence,
and consequently she regards privateers, and pirates, as one example of “non-
state violence,” that was widely exercised up to the end of the nineteenth
century.6
Besides these studies that view both European privateers and piracy as
closely interrelated activities, several attempts have been made to write a com-
parative history of various types of maritime raiding throughout the world that
has sometimes inaccurately been labeled “piracy.”7 Nevertheless, studies that
compare European privateering, not piracy, with maritime raiding in other
regions of the world have been few and far between. It is true that some litera-
ture on “piracy” in various regions does refer briefly to privateering. For
instance, Anthony Reid has made a passing reference to European privateering
in a comparison with “piracy” in Asian waters.8 However, these works do not

E. Swanson, Predators and Prizes: American Privateering and Imperial Warfare, 1739-1748
(Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991); Patrick Villiers, Les Corsaires: Des
Origines au Traité de Paris du 16 Avril 1856 (Paris: Jean-Paul Gisserot, 2007).
4 Robert C. Ritchie, “Government Measures against Piracy and Privateering in the Atlantic Area,
1750-1850,” in Pirates and Privateers: New Perspectives on the War on Trade in the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries, ed. David J. Starkey, E.S. van Eyck van Heslinga, and J.A. de Moor (Exeter:
University of Exeter Press, 1997), 10-28.
5 Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Bringing the State Back
in, ed. Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985), 173.
6 Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial
Violence in Early Modern Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 9.
7 For example, see John L. Anderson, “Piracy and World History: An Economic Perspective on
Maritime Predation,” Journal of World History 6, no.2 (1995): 175-99.
8 Anthony Reid, “Violence at Sea: Unpacking ‘Piracy’ in the Claims of States over Asian Seas,”
in Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers: Violence and Clandestine Trade in the Greater China
Seas, ed. Robert J. Antony (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), 20. Also see, Bruce
A. Ellerman, Andrew Forbes, and David Rosenberg, “Introduction,” in Piracy and Maritime
Crime: Historical and Modern Case Studies, ed. Bruce A. Ellerman, Andrew Forbes, and David
Rosenberg (Newport: Naval War College Press, 2010; reprint, Lexington, KY, 2011), 2-8.
Plunder and Free Trade 45

answer the question of what the distinctive features of European privateering

were and how it differed from maritime raiding in other regions of the world.9
In connection with this question, Anne Pérotin-Dumon’s observation on
the political element involved in the issue of piracy and its suppression is
worth noting. She claims that who should be called “pirates” depends on who
holds the power.10 As she claims, political considerations have indeed played
an important role in anti-piracy campaigns, but it is too simplistic to say that
this is simply a matter of political labeling. It is also necessary to investigate
how the use of non-state violence in maritime warfare by the European states
differed from that in other regions of the world and this will be the first ques-
tion raised in this chapter.
The latter half of the chapter examines the abolition of privateering in the
mid-nineteenth century and points out the ideological connection between
this abolition and the suppression of indigenous “piracy” in other regions of
the world. In Britain, ever since the early nineteenth century, attacks on com-
merce in war time had attracted harsh criticism, and eventually this led to the
abolition of privateering in the Declaration of Paris in 1856. Around the same
time, the suppression of indigenous sea-raiders was in full swing in East and
Southeast Asia. This chapter also draws attention to the ideological connec-
tions between the two movements.
By examining the characteristics of European privateering and the process
of its abolition, this chapter attempts to provide a wider historical context and
ideological background to the suppression of “piracy” in other regions of the
world. This is perhaps overambitious, especially because it is difficult to trace
the development of privateering in all major European nations in this brief

9 More recently, in a book entitled Persistent Piracy, the chapter by Starkey and McCarthy
deals with European privateering. David J. Starkey and Matthew McCarthy, “A Persistent
Phenomenon: Private Prize-Taking in the British Atlantic World, c. 1540-1856,” in Persistent
Piracy: Maritime Violence and State-Formation in Global Historical Perspective, ed. ­Stefan
Eklöf Amirell and Leos Müller (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 131-51. However,
their work does not compare European privateering with maritime plunder in other
regions of the world as my chapter does. Their point of emphasis is also different. They
stress the fact that the British government often modified the legal framework regulating
privateering as well as its legal posturing toward private maritime plunder for its own
political purpose. On the other hand, I argue that the very existence of that established
legal framework was one of the most distinctive features of European privateering com-
pared to other forms of maritime plunder in the world, as will be explained in this chap-
ter.
10 Anne Pérotin-Dumon, “The Pirate and the Emperor: Power and the Law on the Seas 1450-
1850,” in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade 1350-1750,
ed. James D. Tracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 203-4.
46 Satsuma

survey. Therefore the principal focus chosen for this chapter discusses British
privateering, because Britain was one of the leading maritime powers in
Europe throughout both the eighteenth and the nineteenth century and also
one of the key players in the suppression of piracy in East and Southeast Asia
in the first half of the nineteenth century.

1 Privateering: Its Definition and Roles

The first step of this analysis of the characteristics of European privateering is

to understand what privateering was and how it differed from piracy in the
European legal context. Privateering was one form of the exertion of violence
by private individuals whose aim was to make a profit from their venture. It is
often confused with piracy, another form of the exertion of maritime violence
by private individuals for private gain. In fact, as many historians have repeat-
edly pointed out, the line between privateers and pirates was often thin and
easily crossed, especially in American waters before the eighteenth century.
However, it should be also stressed that, even at that time, there was a clear
distinction between the two groups, at least in the legal terms.
Privateering can be defined as an attack by private individuals on enemy, or
sometimes even neutral vessels, in war time, sanctioned by the permission of
the authorities. In the case of Britain, privateers were permitted to attack only
those vessels that belonged to the particular nations designated in their com-
mission.11 They were also required to bring back any goods seized to ports in
their own or allied countries to have them adjudged a legitimate prize. By con-
trast, piracy is an unauthorized and often indiscriminate attack on sea-borne
commerce, which could occur in peace as well as in war time. This legal dis-
tinction between privateers and pirates is apparent in the way they were
treated when captured. Pirates were punished as criminals (in many cases by
hanging); privateers were treated as prisoners-of-war. Therefore, at least in
terms of their legal statuses, there was a clear distinction between privateering
and piracy in early-modern Europe. Furthermore, as we shall see later, by the

11 It should be noted that there were some variations in the form of commerce raiding
involving private individuals across countries and time periods. For example, in France in
the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, commerce raiding was conducted in
far closer collaboration between the navy and private individuals than in Britain. In this
guerre de course, the navy often offered vessels, arms, and personnel, while private indi-
viduals provided capital. John S. Bromley, “The French Privateering War, 1702-13,” in John
S. Bromley, Corsairs and Navies, 1660-1760 (London & Ronceverte: Hambledon Press, 1987),
215-16.
Plunder and Free Trade 47

early-eighteenth century, although large-scale piracy by Europeans was being

suppressed, privateering was becoming an increasingly highly institutional-
ized form of plunder in war time, operating within an established legal
framework; the shield that distinguished it from piracy.
What was the role of privateering? Why was this sort of maritime depreda-
tion allowed to continue? First and foremost, from a government standpoint,
privateers were regarded as auxiliary naval forces in the “war on commerce,”
that is, attacks on enemy seaborne trade. Maritime warfare in early-modern
Europe was not confined to battles between naval fleets. Attacks on the enemy
mercantile marine were also an important component. The goal of this “war
on commerce,” that John Brewer has described as “a more prosaic and profit-
able skirmishing war” in comparison to more spectacular fleet battles, was to
weaken the enemy economy by seizing their merchant vessels or, in some
cases, even neutral vessels trading with the enemy.12 Alongside the navy, pri-
vateers were one of the key players in these attacks on enemy commerce and,
to a certain extent, in the defence of the seaborne trade of their own country.
As Carl E. Swanson has pointed out, this privateering was a strategy attuned
to the mercantilist world view, an ideology influential in the seventeenth and
eighteenth century. In the mindset of mercantilist policy makers, the chief pri-
ority was to secure the finite wealth of the world at the expense of other nations
by obtaining bullion or securing a favorable trade balance under the protec-
tion of the government. From this standpoint, privateering was an ideal
instrument of warfare, as it could harm an enemy economy without incurring
greater naval expenses, and simultaneously bringing wealth, including coveted
bullion, to the nation.13 Therefore, privateers were expected to be auxiliary
naval forces with the added advantage of the chance of economic gain in the
war on commerce, although historians who study British privateering in the
“long eighteenth century” are generally skeptical about their actual strategic
value.14

12 John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War Money and the English State, 1688-1783 (London:
Century Hutchinson, 1988; reprint, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 197.
13 Swanson, Predators and Prizes, 16-20.
14 Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise, 253; W.R. Meyer, “English Privateering in the War
of 1688 to 1697,” Mariner’s Mirror 67, no. 3 (1981): 270; W.R. Meyer, “English Privateering in
the War of the Spanish Succession 1702-1713,” Mariner’s Mirror 69, no. 4 (1983): 445-46. By
contrast, historians who study privateering in the American colonies have made a more
favorable judgment of the military significance of colonial privateering. James G. Lydon,
Pirates, Privateers, and Profits (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Gregg Press, 1970), 148-49; Swanson,
Predators and Prizes, 225. It is possible that, in the British American colonies, in which the
48 Satsuma

Besides this military aspect, privateering had another equally important

function. For those directly involved in privateering, it was first and foremost
an economic activity. Their primary motive was not to destroy enemy com-
merce, but to make a personal profit by taking prizes in the form of enemy
ships and their cargoes. Both the investors in and the crews of privateers had
shares in the profits expected from the sale of the prizes and, after the sale,
they would receive prize money according to a prearranged agreement. For
merchants and ship-owners, privateering was just one of the options for invest-
ment in war time when normal trade was interrupted by war. Rather less
glaringly obvious, privateering provided an opportunity to employ vessels and
labor forces that might have been left to languish unused if they had not been
employed in privateering. For example, during the War of American Inde­
pendence, the Atlantic trade of Liverpool was disrupted by the activities of
American privateers and the subsequent closure of the American market.
Liverpudlian merchants did their best to circumvent the difficulty by fitting
out slave-traders as privateers.15
Profits from privateering were subject to enormous fluctuations according
to number and values of prizes captured in the course of a voyage. Starkey
reckons that between 1702 and 1783, about 40 percent of the 1,201 “Channel”
privateers who cruised around the English Channel and 823 “deep-water” pri-
vateers who cruised in the north-eastern Atlantic failed to take any prize that
was adjudged by the Admiralty Court to be legitimate.16 That having been said,
there were several cases of dazzling success. In December 1709, during his cir-
cumnavigation of the globe, Captain Woodes Rogers, a Bristol privateer,
succeeded in capturing several ships including one of the Manila galleons
engaged in trade between Manila and Acapulco, the net profits from which
were estimated to have been in the region of £106,000. In a nutshell, privateer-
ing was more a sort of gambling game than a business offering an assured
income.17

number of warships stationed was far fewer than in home waters, privateering had a
greater military significance.
15 David J. Starkey, “The Economic and Military Significance of British Privateering, 1702-83,”
Journal of Transport History 9, no. 1 (1988): 52-54; Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise,
271-72.
16 Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise, 276.
17 Ibid., 278-79.
Plunder and Free Trade 49

2 Privateering as Institutionalized Plunder

As we have seen in the foregoing section, privateering was both a military

activity backed by political entities and an economic activity whose purpose
was to make a profit from depredations. However, these characteristics were
not unique features of privateering and they were often to be found in many
maritime raids in other regions of the world that are often labeled “piracy.” For
example, Robert J. Antony states that maritime raiding in Southeast Asia was
not regarded as a criminal activity, but as a respectable profession. It was a part
of inter-tribal warfare pursued by communities and kingdoms as well as indi-
viduals, whose aim was to seize valuable resources, such as slaves and weapons.18
This begs the question of what was the difference between British privateering
and sea-raiding backed by local rulers in other regions of the world.
One of the most marked characteristics of British and European privateering
is that the extent of its institutionalization and the existence of a well-devel-
oped legal system to regulate privateers’ activities. Although privateering was
an act of plunder conducted with the permission of the authorities, the dan-
ger of privateers’ evading the control of the government was an ever-present
threat and, in order to ensure a tight rein was kept on them, an institutional
and legal framework was gradually developed. In Britain, the key institution in
this legal system was the High Court of Admiralty, a court that dealt with cases
arising on the sea, such as seamen’s wages, collisions, and salvage, in which
both British subjects and foreigners could be involved. In the colonies, the
Vice-Admiralty courts fulfilled a similar function. In order to obtain a license
for privateering called “letters of marque” or “commissions,” the commander
of a privateer or his agents were required to make a declaration before these
courts, providing information about the vessel as well as posting a bail to guar-
antee the good conduct of its crew.19
This High Court of Admiralty and the Vice Admiralty Courts in the colonies
were also responsible for prize adjudication. The Prize Act of 1649 ordained
that every ship seized on the high seas was to be brought before the High Court
of Admiralty to be condemned as a lawful prize and, for this purpose, a distinct
Prize Division was created in the court. Thereafter, Royal Commissions that

18 Robert J. Antony, Pirates in the Age of Sail (New York & London: W.W. Norton, 2007), 44-45.
19 Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise, 23-4. Privateers were also given instructions com-
piled by the Lords of the Admiralty that stipulated the rules to be followed during their
cruises and during the process of adjudication of captured vessels and goods.
50 Satsuma

would enable the court to function as a prize court were issued to the High
Court of Admiralty at the outbreak of each war.20
Several pieces of legislations were also devised to control prize-taking by
both privateers and the navy. Prior to the late-seventeenth century, the princi-
pal instruments that regulated their activities were the Orders in Council and
the instructions issued by the Lord High Admiral.21 From the late-seventeenth
century, however, Parliament began to assume a more active role in this matter.
The most important eighteenth-century pieces of legislation affecting priva-
teering were the two acts passed in 1708: the Cruisers and Convoy Act and the
American Act. These statutes dealt with a wide range of issues, but, from the
viewpoint of the development of the juridical system regarding privateering,
they were especially significant because they established the system of the
condemnation and disposal of prizes. Although one of their purposes was to
sharpen the appetite for prize-taking by abolishing the Crown’s share in the
prizes, they made an attempt to control both privateers and prize courts by
defining the legal procedures for dealing with prizes more clearly, covering
prize adjudication, the manner of custody and the sale of prizes, and the pen-
alties imposed for irregularities committed by the crews of privateers or by
judges of the court.22
Privateers themselves had good reason to observe these regulations. Fear of
punishment and the possibility of loss of prize money, compounded by the
cost of litigation that could diminish their profits, deterred temptation to com-
mit irregularities. Moreover, owners and promoters of privateering ventures
attempted to regulate the conduct of their crews by making articles of agree-
ment with them and issuing strict orders to a captain, as they too feared the
pecuniary losses that might be incurred by any irresponsible actions commit-
ted by their crews.23 In short, one of the most distinctive features of privat­eering
is that it was “licensed” maritime plunder operating within a set of clearly
defined legal regulations.
The second feature of British privateering is that this legal system that regu-
lated prize-taking was linked to the maritime legal systems in other European

20 P.K. Kemp, Prize Money: A Survey of the History and Distribution of the Naval Prize Fund
(Aldershot: Wellington Press, 1946), 9-10; Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise, 22-23.
21 Ellerman, Forbes, and Rosenberg, “Introduction,” 5-6.
22 On the enactment of the American Act of 1708, see Satsuma Shinsuke, “Politicians, Mer-
chants, and Colonial Maritime War: the Political and Economic Background of the Amer-
ican Act of 1708,” Parliamentary History 32, no. 2 (2013): 317-36.
23 Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise, 69-73; David J. Starkey, “The Origins and Regula-
tion of Eighteenth-Century British Privateering,” in Bandits at Sea: A Pirates Reader, ed.
C.R. Pennell (New York & London: New York University Press, 2001), 79.
Plunder and Free Trade 51

countries by procedures based on civil law. Unlike many other courts in

England, the law used by the High Court of Admiralty was not derived from the
common law. It was difficult, if not impossible, for the common law courts to
have dealt with cases occurring outside England, because it would have been
impossible to summon the jury required for trial in common law courts in for-
eign countries. Instead, the law applied by the Admiralty courts was based on
the jus gentium or the universal law of the sea, whose origins lay in the ancient
Rhodean sea law, Roman maritime law, and the laws of Oléron.24
In spite of the repeated attempts by the common law courts to curtail the
sway of their jurisdiction, the Admiralty courts managed to retain their juris-
diction over prizes and continued to handle prize cases on the basis of civil law
procedures. The use of the civil law procedure in the Admiralty courts made its
rulings acceptable to other maritime powers in Europe, although there were
sometimes sharp disagreements between Britain and these nations caused by
friction over various issues, not least the definition of “contraband,” goods that
might have aided the enemy war effort, and the rights of neutrals, as we shall
see later. Consequently, the legal system regulating British privateering was
also linked to maritime law in other European countries by the civil law proce-
dure adopted by the British Admiralty courts.
The third important feature of privateering was that it gradually emerged as
an integral part of the inter-state war fought between European states. In the
eighteenth century, the authority that could issue valid commissions had to be
a European state recognized by other European states as a legitimate govern-
ment. Conversely, this meant that, if the authority backing these sea-raiders
was not recognized as a valid state, the activities it sanctioned could not be
deemed to be legitimate privateering; indeed in some cases, they were even
regarded as “piracy.”

24 J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 4th ed. (London: Butterworths, 2002),
122-24. The Rhodean sea law is claimed to have been compiled on the Mediterranean
island of Rhodes and was partly adopted into early Roman law. This Roman law also influ-
enced the maritime laws codified in Northern Europe and the Mediterranean. Among
these were the laws of Oléron (or the Roll of Oléron), that had reputedly been made in the
courts on the island of Oléron off the western coast of France and later became a basis of
maritime codes in the Atlantic and the Baltic. By the mid-fourteenth century, this law had
also been adopted in England to adjudicate in such maritime cases as piracy, smuggling,
and shipwreck. Frank L. Wiswall Jr., “Classical and Medieval Law,” in The Oxford Encyclo-
pedia of Maritime History, vol. 2, ed. John B. Hattendorf (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007), 326-27; Timothy J. Runyan, “The Rolls of Oleron and the Admiralty Court in Four-
teenth Century England,” American Journal of Legal History 19, no. 2 (1975): 96-99.
52 Satsuma

The case of Jacobite “privateers” in the Nine Years War presents an interest-
ing example of disputed legitimacy. During this war, a number of commerce
raiders were fitted out carrying commissions from James II, the former king of
England, who had been ousted from power in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
When some of these “privateers” carrying James’ commissions were captured,
there was a debate in the Privy Council in England about whether or not they
should be tried as pirates. One of the focal points of the debate was whether
or not the “abdicated” monarch would have had the power to issue such com-
missions.25
In other words, the legitimacy of privateers was closely connected to the
legitimacy of the authority that issued their commissions, and only those who
received commissions from such sovereign states recognized by other major
European powers could plunder with impunity as long as they operated within
the terms prescribed in these commissions. In view of this aspect of privateer-
ing, it would be more correct to see them as a “semi-state” actor rather than
considering them a form of “non-state violence” as Thomson does.
Parallel with this process of the institutionalization of privateering, from
the late-seventeenth century to the early-eighteenth century, the British gov-
ernment carried out a number of anti-piracy operations, especially in the
period after the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13) when there was a
large-scale outbreak of piracy in the Atlantic, and also in the Indian Ocean and
the Red Sea. The pirates in this period consisted largely of men from the British
Isles and the British American colonies and their principal bases were in the
British American colonies and Madagascar. The government launched naval
operations against their vessels and bases and, as a result of these operations,
they had been effectively suppressed by 1730.26 This campaign marked the
temporary end of large-scale piracy by people of European origin, although
one-off piracy did continue to erupt from time to time.27 Hereafter, the distinc-

25 Alfred P. Rubin, The Law of Piracy (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1988; reprint,
Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2006), 69-73.
26 On the suppression of piracy in this period, see Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations:
Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004); Arne Bialuschewski,
“Pirates, Markets and Imperial Authority: Economic Aspects of Maritime Depredations in
the Atlantic World, 1716-1726,” in Organised Crime in History, ed. Mark Galeotti (London:
Routledge, 2009), 52-65.
27 A recent work by McCarthy shows that piracy revived again in the 1820s in the confusion
caused by the Latin American Wars of Independence. During this war, alongside “priva-
teers” licensed by Spain and newly independent Latin American states, pirates based on
Cuba attacked vessels sailing in the American waters. See Matthew McCarthy, Privateer-
Plunder and Free Trade 53

tion between privateers and pirates became much clearer, not only in terms of
their legal definition but also of their actual activities.

3 Conflict with Neutrals and the Abolition of Privateering

As we have seen so far, by the early-eighteenth century, in conjunction with

other major European states, Britain had established a system of privateering,
legalized and institutionalized maritime raiding in war time. However, their
state-sanctioned status did not mean their legality prevented them from caus-
ing any problems. Quite the opposite in fact, their activities sometimes created
diplomatic tensions between European countries.
One particularly difficult problem was the capture of neutral vessels trading
with an enemy or carrying enemy cargoes. English interests in this issue were
often at odds with those of the countries like the Netherlands and Sweden that
profited from trade as neutrals. The clash of interests on this issue had already
emerged as an important maritime issue in the seventeenth century. For exam-
ple, during the war with France and Spain in the 1620s, the English government
attempted to interrupt trade with the enemy by the neutrals, such as Hamburg
and Bremen, in naval stores and grain that it regarded as contraband. For this
purpose, the government employed privateers as well as the navy. However,
this attack on neutral trade provoked a barrage of protest from the neutrals.28
Attempts were made to solve this issue, and a series of treaties was con-
cluded between the principal European maritime powers. One of these
treaties, the Anglo-Dutch Maritime Treaty of 1674, established an important
precedent as it exempted neutral vessels from capture, unless they were car-
rying contraband. This principle of “free ships, free goods” was also implicit in
the pacts the English made with Denmark, Spain, and Sweden.29

ing, Piracy and British Policy in Spanish America, 1810-1830 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press,
2013).
28 John C. Appleby, “Wars of Plunder and Wars of Profit: English Privateering during the late
Sixteenth and early Seventeenth Centuries,” in Bridging Troubled Waters: Conflict and Co-
operation in the North Sea Region since 1550: 7th North Sea History Conference, Dunkirk
2002, ed. David J. Starkey and Morten Hahn-Pedersen (Esbjerg: Fiskeri-og Søfartsmuseet,
2005), 71-72.
29 Nicholas Tracy, Attack on Maritime Trade (Toronto & Buffalo: University of Toronto Press,
1991), 33; Jaap R. Bruijn, “The Long Life of Treaties: The Dutch Republic and Great Britain
in the Eighteenth Century,” in Navies in Northern Waters 1721-2000, ed. Rolf Hobson and
Tom Kristiansen (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 42.
54 Satsuma

In the mid-eighteenth century, this issue assumed even greater importance,

and the Dutch advocated their right to wartime trade with the enemies of
Britain, invoking the principle of “free ships, free goods.” However, during the
Seven Years War, the British government adopted its new “Rule of the War of
1756” that forbade neutral vessels to engage in such trade as was denied to
them in peace time. The British government also adopted the principle of
“continuous voyage,” by which cargoes on board neutral vessels destined for
enemy ports became a target for capture at any juncture in their voyage. These
measures made it difficult for the neutrals like the Netherlands to trade with
Britain’s enemies.30
Behind this sterner attitude of the British government toward neutral trade
was a change in French tactics for protecting their wartime trade from British
attack. During this war, the French government entrusted its trade with its
West Indian colonies and its Baltic trade, which had been previously restricted
to French vessels, to neutral ships. The adoption of the “Rule of the War of 1756”
by the British government was a response to this. Nevertheless, the search and
capture of the neutral vessels trading with France by the British Navy and pri-
vateers provoked angry protests from neutrals, not least the Netherlands. This
outcry obliged the British government to compromise, and consequently a
new act passed in 1759. This act was intended to regulate the activities of
smaller-scale privateers who had often been guilty of committing irregularities
in the capture of neutral vessels. However, this new act failed to achieve the
desired effect, and tension with neutrals continued.31
In the subsequent wars of the late-eighteenth century, British interference
in neutral commerce led various countries, such as Russia, Denmark, Sweden,

30 For detailed analysis on the “Rule of the War of 1756” and the principle of “continuous
voyage,” see Richard Pares, Colonial Blockade and Neutral Rights, 1739-1763 (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1938), 180-224.
31 Tracy, Attack on Maritime Trade, 66-67; Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise, 162-63;
Ritchie, “Government Measures,” 20-21. It should be also pointed out that there was sig-
nificant difference between neutral nations in terms of their trade areas and goods. For
example, unlike the Netherlands and Denmark, Sweden had had few commercial inter-
ests in the West Indian trade until 1780s, and was therefore not affected by the “Rule of the
War of 1756” as much as the Netherlands and Denmark were. Instead, what mattered to
Swedish merchants at the time was the British decision to include naval stores in contra-
band, because, like Russia, its export trade was dominated by the export of iron and naval
stores to European maritime powers. Leos Müller, “Sweden’s Neutral Trade under Gustav
III: The Ideal of Commercial Independence under the Predicament of Political Isolation,”
in Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, ed. Koen Stapel-
broek (Helsinki: Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011), 144-46.
Plunder and Free Trade 55

and Prussia, to form the League of Armed Neutrality in 1780, and again in 1800.
The issue of wartime trade by the neutrals re-emerged in the Napoleonic Wars.
While Napoleon attempted to drive British manufactured goods out of the
continental market by the Decrees of Berlin and Milan issued in 1806 and 1807
respectively, the British government retaliated by issuing a series of Orders in
Council devised to bring all trade with continental ports under British control.
This would be accomplished by restricting this trade only to those vessels that
sailed under British convoy or purchased licenses from Britain.32 However,
Britain’s attempts to control neutral trade for its own benefit increasingly
began to clash with the interests of the United States, a rising power in neutral
trade at the time.
As the work of Silvia Marzagalli has revealed, after the independence of the
United States, American merchants and ship-owners found increasingly lucra-
tive business chances in neutral trade. During the most of the period of the
French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the United States remained neu-
tral until 1812.33 This neutral status opened a window of opportunity for
American merchants and ship-owners to benefit from trade on behalf of the
belligerents, as merchants of other neutral countries such as Denmark and
Sweden did. France especially, whose West Indian trade had been severely
interrupted by the war, relied heavily on this neutral trade by the Americans.34
Nevertheless, Britain’s new policy of controlling neutral trade, as well as the
impressment of seamen from American merchantmen plus conflicts with the
Native Americans allied with Britain in the Ohio River Valley, exacerbated rela-
tions between the United States and Britain, leading to the outbreak of the War
of 1812.35
In spite of these frictions with neutrals, Britain continued to use privateers
until the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Nevertheless, by the late-eighteenth

32 Tracy, Attack on Maritime Trade, 67-72, 74-76; N.A.M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean:
A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815 (London: Allen Lane, 2004; reprint, London: Penguin
Books, 2005), 551-52, 558-59.
33 From 1797 to 1801, there was an armed conflict called the “Quasi War” between the United
States and France over the issue of neutral trade. In this conflict, the both nations seized
each other’s vessels, but neither side made a formal declaration of war. Alexander
DeConde, The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France,
1797-1801 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966).
34 Silvia Marzagalli, “American Shipping and Trade in Warfare, or the Benefits of European
Conflicts for Neutral Merchants: The Experience of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic
Wars, 1793-1815,” Kyoto Sangyo University Economic Review 1 (2014): 1-29.
35 For a recent study on this war, see Jeremy Black, The War of 1812 in the Age of Napoleon
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009).
56 Satsuma

century the tide had begun to turn. One of the important ideological motives
behind this switch was a gradual change in attitude toward war and private
property in wartime. The dominant view of war in medieval times was the con-
cept of “individual enmity.” This view regarded war as a conflict between rival
individuals, not between states, and saw all subjects of the enemy monarch
and their property as a potential target for attack. However, partly because of
the influence of the Enlightenment, one of the aims of which was to limit the
harmful effects of war, by the late-eighteenth century this concept had almost
disappeared. Instead, a belligerent state and its members were increasingly
distinguished from each other, an idea that we find most clearly expressed in
the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This also led to the development of the
distinction between combatants and non-combatants, and, in turn, contrib-
uted to the emergence of a new view of private property. This point of view
argued that, in war time private property, including those of neutrals, should
be protected against capture at sea, as well as on land, on the grounds that it
does not necessarily contribute to war effort of the enemy government. Like­
wise, it argued that trade should be carried on free and unhindered even in war
time.36
This new idea found fervent supporters not only in the countries of Con­
tinental Europe like France, but also in the newly independent United States,
whose overseas trade as a neutral was beginning to flourish.37 On the other
hand, in Britain support for a belligerent’s right to capture at sea remained
vociferous. However, even in Britain, by the early-nineteenth century, liberals
and the Radicals had begun to criticize the belligerent right to the search and
capture of enemy goods aboard neutral vessels (that they called “the old rule”)
as a violation of the freedom of the sea. Instead they advocated the principle of
“free ships, free goods,” that they dubbed the “new rule.”38 Among these critics
was James Mill, a Benthamite Radical. He advocated freedom of commerce in
war as well as in peace time, and even argued for abolition of the concept of
contraband, that would have almost totally freed neutrals engaged in wartime
commerce from search and detention by belligerents.39
During this campaign against interference in wartime commerce, privateer-
ing was also condemned as an obstacle to international trade. During the

36 Francis R. Stark, The Abolition of Privateering and the Declaration of Paris (New York:
Columbia University, 1897; reprint, Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2002),
13-22; Geoffrey Best, Humanity in Warfare (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980),
35-36, 64-65, 67-70.
37 Tracy, Attack on Maritime Trade, 82-83.
38 Bernard Semmel, Liberalism and Naval Strategy: Ideology, Interest, and Sea Power during
the Pax Britannica (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 51-53.
39 Ibid., 68.
Plunder and Free Trade 57

Crimean War (1853-1856), it was the Manchester School of Radicalism that

spearheaded the movement against the “old rule” and privateering. Richard
Cobden, who led the school with the Quaker John Bright, criticized com­
mercial blockades and the searching of neutral vessels that hampered the
inter­national trade of nations, championing the right of neutrals to carry on
trade with Russia on both economic and moral grounds.40 Therefore, by the
mid-nineteenth century, privateering was attracting harsh criticism from those
advocating the principle of freedom of sea and trade. This is a far cry from the
situation in the eighteenth century when privateering was encouraged by mer-
cantilist policy makers as an effective means to weaken enemy economic
power.
The demand of the Manchester School was partly met after the Crimean
War. As early as March 1854, when Britain and France declared war on Russia,
the governments of the both countries agreed to temporarily waive some of
the belligerent rights at sea. They also decided not to issue privateering com-
missions during the war. This tendency toward restricting the right of belliger-
ents and to respect the neutrals’ right of trade culminated in the Declaration of
Paris in April 1856, signed at the peace conference at the end of the war. In this
declaration, as did other major European powers, such as France and Russia,
Britain agreed to abolish privateering and to make the principle of “free ships,
free goods” permanent.41
On the face of it, this seemed like a realization of the liberal ideology of
the Manchester School.42 Nevertheless, we should be cautious about over-
emphasizing the role of the ideological factor in this change. A more direct

40 Ibid., 54-55; Peter Cain, “Capitalism, War and Internationalism in the Thought of Richard
Cobden,” British Journal of International Studies 5, no. 3 (1979): 241.
41 This declaration also established the following principles; firstly, neutral cargoes carried
by enemy ships were not subject to seizure, with the exception of contraband; secondly,
blockades were effective only when they were enforced by a number of warships suffi-
cient to render approach to the enemy’s coast actually dangerous. C.I. Hamilton, “Anglo-
French Seapower and the Declaration of Paris,” International History Review 4, no. 2 (1982):
174, 178-79; Tracy, Attack on Maritime Trade, 84-85.
42 In fact, Cobden was not satisfied with this Declaration. He continued to demand more
thorough protection of maritime trade. A similar idea was expressed in Marcy’s Amend-
ment, a proposal presented in July 1856 by William Marcy, the US Secretary of State at
the time, as a counter to the Declaration of Paris. This proposal favored the immunity of
private property, including that of the enemy, from capture on the high seas, with
the exception of contraband. On the other hand, advocates of the “old rule” in Britain
began to attack the Declaration of Paris as soon as Britain signed it. In the House of Lords
in May 1856, several Tory peers, including the Earl of Derby, the former prime minister,
cri­ticized the Declaration as a disadvantageous agreement for the nation since it severely
curtailed its belligerent rights. Jan Martin Lemnitzer, Power, Law and the End of Privateer-
58 Satsuma

factor that urged the British and French governments to restrict belligerent
rights during the Crimean War was the diplomatic consideration of neutrals
such as Sweden, Denmark, and, not least, the United States.43 This considera-
tion was equally important in the abolition of privateering after the war. As
Lemnitzer’s recent work on the Declaration of Paris shows, one of the most
important backgrounds to the abolition was tension between Britain and the
United States over the issue of neutral trade and privateering during the 1850s.
While the United States, one of the leading actors in neutral trade, demanded
further protection of maritime trade in war time, including immunity of pri-
vate property at sea from capture, it refused to ban privateering, because it
regarded privateers as its only weapon in war against stronger naval powers
like Britain. On the other hand, Britain was seriously concerned about the
possibility that the Americans might convert their merchant fleet, the second
largest at that time, into privateers by accepting Russian letters of marque, and
set them on British merchant marine all over world. The Declaration emerged
against the backdrop of this clash of interests between Britain and the United
States. The Declaration was, in part, a British attempt to deprive the United
States of privateering. While the United States tried to take an initiative in the
movement to promote protection of neutral trade, Britain, in a close coopera-
tion with France, countered this move by coupling the issue of the abolition of
privateering to that of protection of neutral trade and making it impossible for
the United States to discuss the two issues separately. In the end, the United
States, for whom the abandonment of privateering was unacceptable, did not
sign this Declaration. However, most of the nations in the world, including
non-Euro­pean nations such as Brazil and Japan, did sign, their decision partly
prompted by one of its provisions that allowed non-participants in the peace
conference to join it later simply by announcing its intention.44 As a conse-
quence, maritime raiding of commerce by private individuals, which had been
carried on in Europe throughout the early-modern period, was finally abol-
ished in most of the states in the world.45

ing (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 71, 87; Semmel, Liberalism and Naval Strat-
egy, 57-58.
43 Hamilton, “Anglo-French Seapower,” 167, 170-71; Lemnitzer, Power, Law and the End of Pri-
vateering, 17-23.
44 Lemnitzer, Power, Law and the End of Privateering, 36-70.
45 The impact upon the abolition of privateering of the new technologies that developed in
the nineteenth century is a rather tricky question. It is sometimes argued that the advent
of steamships made privateers an outmoded weapon. In fact, steamships revived the
military potential of commerce raiders, including privateers. As Lemnitzer has stated,
during the Crimean War, one of the concerns of British statesmen was that American
Plunder and Free Trade 59

4 Free-trade Ideology and the Suppression of Maritime Raiders

Outside Europe

There is one point that has been neglected by historians who study the aboli-
tion of privateering; running parallel to this process of the criminalizing of
privateering, a campaign for the suppression of indigenous sea-raiders was
being pursued in several regions outside Europe, such as East Asia and South­
east Asia. This raises the question: Was there any interconnection between the
two movements in the nineteenth century? This last section is devoted to an
examination of the point.
One of the key words in Britain’s imperial policy in the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury was the “Imperialism of Free Trade.” This idea was proposed by John
Gallagher and Ronald Robinson in an article published in 1953. They refute the
conventional interpretation that depicted the mid-nineteenth century as an
age in which the British government was indifferent to imperial expansion;
usually juxtaposed with the age of “new imperialism” in the late-nineteenth
century. Gallagher and Robinson claim that Britain was not lacking in expan-
sionist tendencies in the mid-century, and that it did extend its influence by
pursuing expansion not only of its “formal empire,” but also of its “informal
empire,” that is: Countries or regions that were not British colonial territories
but were under Britain’s political and economic influence. In the nineteenth
century, the British government made use of these direct and indirect means
of control, depending on the situations in the regions on which it wanted to

steamers might be converted into privateers on behalf of Russia and used against a British
merchant fleet, many of which were still sailing ships and therefore vulnerable to such
attacks. This was indeed a fear that the Earl of Clarendon raised in Parliament as one of
the justifications for the British government’s signing the Declaration of Paris. This con-
cern about commerce raiding by steamers later proved not totally unfounded when a
Confederate steamship, the CSS Alabama, succeeded in capturing 71 Union vessels during
the American Civil War, even though she was not a privateer but a vessel commissioned
to serve in the Confederate navy. By contrast, the activities of the Confederate privateers
were brief in this war. However, this was mainly because the signatories to the Declara-
tion of Paris closed their ports to the Confederate privateers (but not to its navy) and
deprived them of bases available to replenish and bunker. Lemnitzer, Power, Law and the
End of Privateering, 14, 72-73, 130-34; Arne Røksund, The Jeune École: The Strategy of the
Weak (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2007), 18-19. Hence, it could be argued that the advent of the
steamship indirectly contributed to the abolition of privateering, but not by rendering
privateers obsolete but by increasing its potential threat to British shipping. However, the
question of the influence of new technologies on the abolition needs further investiga-
tion.
60 Satsuma

impose “free” trade. Consequently, Gallagher and Robinson emphasize the

fundamental continuity of British imperial and diplomatic policy throughout
the century, summarized as follows: “Trade with informal control if possible;
trade with rule when necessary.”46
Their argument, although stimulating, has attracted plenty of criticism
from other scholars. D.C.M. Platt in particular has strenuously denied that
the British government in the mid-nineteenth century had any intention of
intervening actively on behalf of British private interests in the politics of
those regions categorized as the “informal empire,” such as Latin America, the
Levant, and the Far East, areas that were still marginal markets for Britain.47
Their argument has also raised several points of contention, for instance, the
degree of the British government’s control of the “informal empire” and the
motives behind this government’s promotion of free trade.48
We are not concerned here with the details of this long-standing debate.
However, it should be pointed out that the historians involved in this debate
seem to have overlooked, or at least underestimated, one important aspect of
the movement of free trade in the mid-nineteenth century, namely, the issue of
maritime security and freedom of navigation. We should bear in mind that, in
the age in which British trade with foreign markets was predominantly con-
ducted by sea and in which international shipping was still vulnerable to attack
by private maritime raiders not only in war but also in peace time (mirroring
the situation in today’s world), opening foreign markets for British exports by
various means, like the conclusion of unequal treaties, did not automatically
lead to growth in exports, especially when that trade was with areas remote
from Europe. Safety and freedom of navigation were equally significant issues
to be considered in the promotion of free trade. As we have seen in the preced-
ing section, the Manchester School, leading proponents of free trade, called for
the abolition of privateering so that trade could be conducted safely, even in

46 John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, “The Imperialism of Free Trade,” Economic History
Review (2nd ser.) 6, no. 1 (1953): 1-15.
47 D.C.M. Platt, Finance, Trade, and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815-1914 (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1968); D.C.M. Platt, “Further Objections to an ‘Imperialism of Free Trade,’ 1830-
60,” in Imperialism: The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy, ed. Wm. Roger Louis (New
York: New Viewpoints, 1976), 153-61.
48 P.J. Cain, Economic Foundations of British Overseas Expansion, 1815-1914 (London & Basing-
stoke: Macmillan, 1980), 40-41; Martin Lynn, “British Policy, Trade, and Informal Empire in
the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire. Vol. III: The Nine-
teenth Century, ed. Andrew Porter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999; reprint, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 119-20.
Plunder and Free Trade 61

war time. Likewise, the suppression of the maritime raiders in the regions out-
side Europe was one of the essential conditions for safe and free navigation
and consequently for the promotion of free trade in those regions.
Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the reason for promoting free
trade in this anti-piracy campaign was not the same as the Cobdenite advocacy
of free trade in the campaign against the war on commerce. Cobden saw free
trade a means to eliminate brutal and costly war, that would benefit only the
landed aristocracy at the expense of the interests of the middle classes. It was
also a means to create a peaceful world, in which nations would be mutually
linked by commerce. Furthermore, he strongly supported non-intervention in
international conflicts and adopted an anti-colonial stance, as he regarded
colonies as a burden on the mother country.49
This pacifist, moralistic, and anti-colonial argument for free trade put
forward by Cobden was just one such, albeit a very influential, variation in
con­­temporary ideas supporting free trade. As many historians have pointed
out, another version of the argument or policy for free trade was also current,
one that is far closer to Gallagher and Robinson’s concept of the “Imperialism
of Free Trade.” The goal of this policy was not to establish universal peace
through commerce as Cobden dreamed, but to make Britain the Workshop of
the World and turn other parts of the world into markets for British industrial
exports, as well as places in which British capital could invest
This goal could be achieved by imposing free trade on those regions. Unlike
the pacifist Cobden, the proponents of this policy did not hesitate to use mili-
tary force if necessary to subdue those who obstructed British trade, despite
the fact that its supporters did share one point with the Cobdenite doctrine of
free trade, in that they also claimed that the promotion of free trade could
bring civilization and a better life to people in allegedly “backward” societies.
Some contemporary leading British statesmen endorsed this type of a more
aggressive free trade policy. In particular, Henry John Temple, third Viscount
Palmerston, who played the key role in British foreign policy from the 1830s to
1860s, first as foreign secretary and later as prime minister, understood the
value of this policy and often, but not always, supported it. Proponents of this
argument were also to be found among some leading parliamentary Radicals.
As Semmel states, they could be even more bellicose than those in charge of
British foreign policy, like Palmerston, and were willing to exert military force
to protect trade, one good example being their defence of the Opium War.

49 Cain, “Capitalism, War and Internationalism,” 233-39; Oliver Macdonagh, “The Anti-Impe-
rialism of Free Trade,” in Great Britain and the Colonies, 1815-1865, ed. A.G.L. Shaw (London:
Methuen, 1970), 167-69.
62 Satsuma

Commercial and industrial interests, including the cotton manufacturers in

Manchester, also supported this policy, if they found it helpful in expanding
the market for their products.50
Suppression of indigenous maritime raiders in the early- to mid-nineteenth
century should be understood in the context of this contemporary movement
for free trade. In the eyes of those who endorsed this aggressive version of free
trade policy, maritime raiders in areas outside Europe were an obstacle to free
trade and navigation, just as the war on commerce and privateering had been
in the eyes of the Manchester School. This view seems to have been shared by
some of those actually engaged in the suppression of indigenous maritime
raiders. In a memorandum of 1845, referring to indigenous maritime raiders on
the northwestern coast of Borneo, James Brooke also describes the suppres-
sion of “piracy,” as well as support for the established, stable native governments
in those regions, as a necessary means for the extension of commerce.51
Of course, commercial interest was not the only factor that activated the
suppression campaign. Political and diplomatic considerations, especially
those on local levels, often played an important role too. As Tarling shows, the
attempt by the British colonial authorities to halt the expansion of Thai influ-
ence in Perak was an important motive behind the suppression of “piracy” in
the Malay Peninsula in the late 1820s.52 Nevertheless, it can be argued that sup-
port for free trade was an equally significant background to the suppression of
indigenous maritime raiders, as in the political campaign for the abolition of
privateering.
Finally, there is one more point to note in the process of suppression of
indigenous maritime raiders, namely, a new usage of the word “piracy.” In
his detailed research on the history of the legal concept of “piracy,” Alfred P.
Rubin has pointed out the change in the use of the word “piracy” in the late
eighteenth century. Before that period, in Britain, the term “piracy” was used
mainly in a municipal criminal law and property law sense. From the late
eighteenth century, however, the term gradually began to assume political
and military implications. In a series of statutes first passed in 1777, American

50 Bernard Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism: The Classical Political Economy, the
Empire of Free Trade and Imperialism, 1750-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1970), 151-54, 157; Cain, “Capitalism, War and Internationalism,” 243; Lynn, “British Policy,
Trade, and Informal Empire,” 106-9. Cobden was a fierce critic of Palmerston’s interven-
tionist foreign policy and in 1849 he severely criticized the government’s policy of inter-
vention in Borneo. Macdonagh, “Anti-Imperialism of Free Trade,” 170-71.
51 Nicholas Tarling, Piracy and Politics in the Malay World: A Study of British Imperialism in
Nineteenth-Century South-East Asia (Melbourne: F.W. Cheshire, 1963), 126-27.
52 Ibid., 23-26.
Plunder and Free Trade 63

privateers in the War of the American Independence were labeled “pirates,”

although nobody was actually executed as a “pirate” under these laws. After the
Napoleonic War, the application of the word “piracy” was again expanded both
legally and geographically, and armed interference in British shipping beyond
the jurisdiction of the British Admiralty Court also began to be regarded as
“piracy.” This was reflected in a provision in the Bounty Act of 1825 that granted
“head money” to naval officers and seamen who would take or destroy any
ships manned by “pirates,” without mentioning how the criminality of the
crew of the taken or destroyed ships should be adjudicated.53
By the 1820s, British colonial officials began to use this word to justify a mili-
tary action short of war against members of foreign societies, including those
in Southeast Asia, that would impede British commerce. In the case of the
Malay Peninsula and Borneo, some of the sea raiders in these societies were
actually worked on behalf of local rulers and nobles, acting with their permis-
sion. Nevertheless, in order to avoid the responsibility entailed in formal war,
British colonial officials labelled those sea raiders “pirates” and tried to launch
military actions against them without declaring war. However, as Rubin has
pointed out, this use of the word “piracy” was not based on international con-
sensus, but was merely an interpretation of international law by British colonial
officials. Therefore, the legitimacy and appropriateness of military interven-
tion under the name of the suppression of “piracy” was questioned from time
to time, even by some of the legal experts, government officials, and the
Radicals in the mother country. Moreover, this policy did not always achieve its
desired aim. In British involvement in the conflict in the Malay Peninsula in
the 1870s, despite the use of the label “pirates,” the British colonial authorities
were dragged into the local conflict as a belligerent, a predicament it had been
trying avoid, and this ultimately led to the conquest of the sultanates of the
Malay Peninsula.54
Therefore, when British colonial authorities launched an attack on indige-
nous maritime raiders, they attempted to justify their action by stretching the
interpretation of the term “piracy” and applying it to those maritime raiders,
but refusing to regard the local rulers employing them as political entities with
the sovereignty that would give them the status of a formal belligerent.
Furthermore, their policy sometimes provoked criticism from the metropolis,
and also did not always succeed in stopping Britain from being dragged into a
war.

53 Rubin, Law of Piracy, 202-3, 205-6.

54 Ibid., 236-37, 249-59; Tarling, Piracy and Politics in the Malay World, 58-59, 125-26, 134-35,
139-40.
64 Satsuma

Conclusions

Privateering, attacks on commerce by private individuals carrying the formal

permission of their states, was regarded as a legitimate war-time activity by
major European maritime powers until the mid-nineteenth century. Privateers
were auxiliary naval forces for these governments, and an alternative invest-
ment option for merchants whose business had been disrupted by war. In a
nutshell, privateering was both a military and an economic activity.
Similar features can be perceived in various types of maritime raiding in
other regions of the world that are normally labeled “piracy.” However, Euro­
pean privateering was distinct from these in several respects. Firstly, it had the
backing of judicial institutions, in the case of Britain, the High Court of
Admiralty and the Vice-Admiralty Courts, and was furnished with clearly codi-
fied regulations that controlled the activities of those who participated in it
and confirmed the validity of captured prizes. Secondly, the British system of
prize adjudication was connected to a legal system governing the maritime
affairs in other European nations through legal procedures based on civil law.
Thirdly, privateering was a part of an inter-state war fought between European
states, and each state accepted the reciprocal validity of capture by enemy pri-
vateers as long as they acted under the prescribed terms of a commission, and
as long as the commission had been issued by an authority recognized as a
legitimate sovereign state by other European states. By the early eighteenth
century, as had other European maritime states, Britain had turned commerce
raiding by private individuals into a highly institutionalized form of plunder
backed by judicial institutions and governed by clearly codified regulations. In
this respect, it can be said that privateering was distinct from much of the mar-
itime raiding in other regions of the world that was similarly supported by
political entities. One good example is maritime raiding in Southeast Asia.55

55 This is not to say that those regions did not have codified agreements to arbitrate in mar-
itime conflicts between various political entities or between individuals. For example, 
G.J. Resink refers to the Bonggaya Treaty of 1667 as a kind of international law in Indone-
sia in the seventeenth century. This was a multilateral treaty ratified between Makassar
and other political entities in Indonesia and with the Dutch East India Company. It
included a clause for arbitration and mediation between them. G.J. Resink, Indonesia’s
History between the Myths: Essays in Legal History and Historical Theory (The Hague: W.
van Hoeve, 1968), 52-53. I am grateful to Professor James Francis Warren for turning my
attention to this point. However, it can still be claimed that European maritime states in
the early-modern period were distinctive in that they developed a legal system, not to
suppress but to regulate maritime raiding by private individuals in order to utilize it in
Plunder and Free Trade 65

Throughout the eighteenth century, British privateering continued to play

an important role in the war on commerce. However, the practice also caused
friction with neutrals that were often pursuing war-time trade with Britain’s
enemies. Partly because of this friction but also because of the emergence of
new views about war and trade, after the late-eighteenth century, interference
in seaborne trade in war time became a target of growing criticism. The bel-
ligerent’s right to search and capture at sea was severely condemned by the
Manchester School led by Cobden that strongly advocated freedom of trade
and navigation. This movement contributed to the abolition of privateering by
the Declaration of Paris in 1856, although the diplomatic considerations, espe-
cially Britain’s fear of American privateers, were an equally important factor in
the abolition. This marked the formal termination of the utilization of mari-
time raiding by private individuals in most European countries.
Running parallel with the movement for the abolition of privateering, mili-
tary actions against indigenous maritime raiders were being carried out in
various regions outside Europe. As in the movement against the war on com-
merce and privateering, the advocacy of free trade was one of the ideological
rationales behind this anti-piracy campaign. However, what really promoted
this campaign was not Cobden’s moralistic and idealistic argument for free
trade, but the more aggressive free trade policy endorsed by some politicians
like Palmerston, and by British commercial and industrial interests. In this
operation against indigenous maritime raiders, the British colonial authorities
tried to dismiss them as mere “pirates” in order to avoid getting involved in a
formal war with local rulers, although their policy sometimes attracted criti-
cism from the metropolis, and also it did not always achieve a desired result.
From a global perspective, the mid-nineteenth century was the age in which
large-scale attacks on seaborne trade by private individuals were finally termi-
nated or suppressed. The two movements against such attacks – campaigns for
the abolition of privateering and the suppression of indigenous maritime raid-
ers – shared a common ideological background: The promotion of free trade.
These two movements were two sides of the same coin. Both privateers and
indigenous maritime raiders became the target of criticism and suppression,
primarily because they were the enemies of free trade and free navigation.

inter-state war without incorporating those maritime raiders directly into the official
naval force.
66 Satsuma
Plunder and Free Trade 67

Part 2
Contingent Developments in Antipiracy Politics
in the Asian Seas

∵
68 Satsuma
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 69

Chapter 3

The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates: A Relativist

Reconsideration of the Qawāsimi Piracy in the
Persian Gulf
Hideaki Suzuki

Introduction

The theme of this chapter is an attempt to trace the transition in British under-
standing of the people they called the “Joasmee” pirates in the Persian Gulf in
the period between the late-eighteenth century and the early-nineteenth cen-
tury. It is also an exploration of the justification of the construction of the
“Joasmee” pirates in the minds of the British officials; the majority attached to
the Bombay Government and its naval arm the Bombay Marine, who were in
charge of British interests in the Persian Gulf. Given a famous remark by the
early-nineteenth-century poet and philosopher Samuel T. Coleridge, “no man
is a pirate, unless his contemporaries agree to call him so,”1 we should be care-
ful how we deal with people referred to as “pirates” in the documents; all these
“pirates” are a construction of someone’s views and the corollary of this is that
others, not least themselves, might not have thought about them in the same
light. In other words, “pirates” is one of the concepts that only emerges in the
context of the relationship between those who name and those who are
named. Therefore, one of the focuses of studies on piracy should be the ques-
tion of how and why others regarded a particular group as pirates, in this
instance the Qawāsim (sing. Qāsim) who were based on the western coast of
the Musandam Peninsula regarded by the British as pirates. “Joasmee” is usu-
ally identified as a corrupted form in English of Qawāsim or Qāsim. Twice
British expeditions, in 1809-1810 and in 1819, were mounted to attack their
ports. The campaign of suppression was brought to a successful conclusion by
the 1820 General Peace Treaty, signed by most of the sheikhs ruling major ports
along the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf. Subsequently, after 1835 several
British-led maritime truces were concluded with the sheikhs along the Persian

1 Samuel T. Coleridge, Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. 1 (New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1835), 16.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_005

70 Suzuki

Gulf coast.2 These truces were maintained by a juxtaposition of the British

consular system and naval squadrons. Eventually the coast formerly known as
the “Pirate Coast” began to be called the “Trucial Coast” in the English litera-
ture. This is an unequivocal indication of a transition in the position of the
Persian Gulf on the British imperial geo-political map, as various historians
have pointed out.3 This transition sent a clear signal about the inception of
British supremacy in the Persian Gulf, the so-called Pax Britannica, that con-
tinued until the latter half of the following century.4 As a natural consequence
of this intervention, the regional political system changed. The British-made
Trucial System gradually replaced the protector-protegé network that had
been lubricated by tribute and inter-marriage among the local rulers.5 To sum
up, the suppression of “Joasmee” piracy was a significant factor in Persian Gulf
history during the nineteenth and the following century.
In spite of the fact this conventional view is shared by most scholars, there
is a contradiction in terms in the interpretations of the behavior of the
Qawāsim, namely: Did they or did they not commit acts of piracy? Most of the
literature that accuses the Qawāsim of being pirates is in the form of nine-
teenth-century travel accounts, but this trend did tend to continue among
Western travelers and visitors even after World War II. The Sand Kings of Oman,
published in 1947, was written by Raymond O’shea, a Royal Air Force officer
stationed at Oman at the end of World War II, is one of the most striking exam-
ples. He writes as follows;

2 For maritime truces, see John B. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf 1795-1880 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press1968), 357-59 and passim.
3 Cf. Husain M. Albaharna, The Arabian Gulf States: Their Legal and Political Status and Their
International Problems (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1975), 5-6; Kelly, Britain, 166-167; John B.
Kelly, Arabia, the Gulf and the West: A Critical View of the Arabs and Their Oil Policy (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980), 61-64; James Onley, “Britain’s Informal Empire in the Gulf, 1820-
1971,” Journal of Social Affairs 87 (2005): 39-40, 42-43; J.E. Peterson, “Britain and the Gulf: At the
Periphery of Empire,” in The Persian Gulf in History, ed. L.G. Potter (London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009), 279, 285-86.
4 Cf. Glen Balfour-Paul, The End of Empire in the Middle East: Britain’s Relinquishment of Power
in Her Last Three Arab Dependencies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 100;
Patricia R. Dubuisson, “Qāsimi Piracy and the General Treaty of Peace (1820),” Arabian Studies
4 (1978): 55; James Onley, “La politique de protection: les dirigeants du Golfe et la Pax Britannica
au XIXe siècle,” Maghreb-Machrek 204 (2010): 26-31.
5 For protector-protégé system, see Onley, “La politique,” 20-26; James Onley, “The Politics of
Protection in the Gulf: The Arab Rulers and the British Resident in the Nineteenth Century,”
New Arabian Studies 6 (2010): 30-92.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 71

The Persian Gulf was the haunt of pirates until almost the end of the
nineteenth century, and the waters around Sharjah and Dubai were
infested with these cruel and bloodthirsty sea-brigands, most of whom
belonged to the Quasimi [sic] clan […]6

Several examples of scholarly literature can also be included on the list with
these travel accounts, since they relied almost exclusively on British sources,
and hence basically followed the views contained in these travel accounts
and other observations. In the opposite camp, Sulṭān Muḥammad al-Qāsimī
devotes most of the introduction of his book entitled The Myth of Arab Piracy
in the Gulf to bitterly criticizing British pioneers of Persian Gulf history, notably
John G. Lorimer, John B. Kelly and Charles R. Low. His criticism is so aggrieved
because this direct descendant of the Qāsim family and current ruler of
Shāriqah (Sharjah, one of emirates in the United Arab Emirates) discovered an
imperialistic perspective behind their accusations of the Qawāsim as pirates.7
Another current in this subject, found among historians specializing in
Persian Gulf history or scholars in related fields, including Arab scholars who
regard the past of this gulf as their own history, has emerged since the 1970s.8
In contrast to scholars like Lorimer whom she terms an absolutist, Patricia
Risso discerns moral relativism in it.9 She has written one of the earliest prod-

6 Raymond O’Shea, The Sand Kings of Oman, Being theEexperiences of an R.A.F. Officer in the
Little Known Regions of Trucial Oman Arabia (London: Methuen, 1947), 105-6.
7 Sulṭān Muḥammad al-Qāsimī, The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf (London: Croom H., 1986),
xiii-xx. He stated, Lorimer was an official in the Indian Civil Service who was commissioned
by Lord Curzon to compile a Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia as “an
apologia for the long history of British colonialism in the Gulf.” (al-Qāsimī, The Myth, xiii).
Kelly, the author of Britain and the Persian Gulf, was a long time lecturer at the Institute of
Commonwealth Studies, the University of Oxford, and was not therefore an imperial civil
servant. Nonetheless, in al-Qāsimī’s view, “in a sense he was more royalist than the king and
his adoption of the imperialistic point of view was almost more unquestioning than that of
the imperialist functionaries themselves” (al-Qāsimī, The Myth, xiii). Low was the least guilty
among these imperial historians in the judgment of al-Qāsimī, who nevertheless does not
forget to point out that Low’s History of the Indian Navy was published “to glorify British im-
perialism” (al-Qāsimī The Myth, xvi).
8 For references to this current, see Muḥammad M. Abdullah, The United Arab Emirates:
A Modern History (London & New York: Croom Helm, 1978), 81, n.1; Charles E. Davies, The
Blood-Red Arab Flag: An Investigation into Qasimi Piracy 1797-1820 (Exeter: University of Exeter
Press, 1997), 65-66; Patricia Risso, “Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Piracy: Maritime Violence in
the Western Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf Region during a Long Eighteenth Century,” Journal
of World History 12, no.2 (2001): 296.
9 Risso, “Cross-Cultural Perceptions,” 295-96.
72 Suzuki

ucts of this group under the name of Patricia R. Dubuisson.10 She has tried to
revise the established interpretation by making an effort to reveal the
Qawāsim’s own view. Her interpretation is that they looked upon their attacks
on commercial vessels as a form of warfare.11 Al-Qāsimī takes in the same tack,
but in a more radical form. He claims that, “to designate the Qawāsim as pirates
was injustice enough thrust upon them.”12 In fact, he points out that the British
documents claiming piratical activities pursued by the Qawāsim did not even
always produce any unequivocal evidence of their involvement. He asserts “if
they (the Qawāsim) were (called as ‘pirates’), that they were involved only to
defend themselves against British ‘piracy’.”13 The doubts raised by this group
about the discourse on Qawāsimi piracy on the basis of what they have found
in British documents has opened the way for them to reconsider the hidden
aim of the suppression. In short, they believe that the East India Company
(EIC) and Britain used the suppression of piracy as “a tool in commercial com-
petition and in the building of empire”.14
Both Risso’s approach to the Qawāsim’s view of their attacks as warfare and
al-Qāsimī’s counter-claim of “British ‘piracy’” are compelling enough to dem-
onstrate the fragile nature of the concept of piracy. However, it is as well to
bear in mind that this moral relativist logic also admits the imperial historians’
perspective in the affirmative. Hence al-Qāsimī’s bitter labeling now turns out
to be a strong defense of these imperialistic historians because, while in as far
as the moral relativists’ view are accepted, focusing on the view of those who
were called as “pirates” and claiming that they were not pirates, simultane-
ously the perspective of those who called them “pirates” should be respected.
After all, each party’s interpretations of the Qawāsimi pirates is as it were one
side of the same coin. Just as it is impossible for the obverse and the head of
the same coin ever to face each other, neither interpretation can ever tally with
the other. If it continues to be based on the moral relativist viewpoint, this
dichotomous debate will never end.15 However, a fair conclusion can be found
in one of the latest works on this subject. After careful investigation of contem-

10 Dubuisson, “Qāsimī Piracy.”

11 Ibid., 48.
12 al-Qāsimī, The Myth, xvi.
13 Ibid., 32.
14 Risso, “Cross-Cultural Perception,” 296; al-Qāsimī, The Myth, 32. See also, Albaharna, The
Arabian Gulf, 5-6; James Onley, The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers,
and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),
44-47.
15 Risso has developed her ideas on this dichotomous debate toward the issue of cross-cul-
tural misunderstanding. See, Risso, “Cross-Cultural Perception,” 319.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 73

poraneous documents and the modern scholarly literature in both English and
Arabic, Charles E. Davies has reached the following conclusion:

But what finally of the question which originally sparked off this investi-
gation – were the Qawasim pirates? The simplest answer, if insisted upon,
would have to be no, but some of what they did was piracy; but, if nothing
else, it is hoped that this work will in the end have demonstrated that this
is not one of the appropriate questions to ask.16

While this chapter intends to circumvent this never-ending debate, it still does
offer some potential for a further exploration of this topic from the moral rela-
tivist approach. Certainly the moral relativists have attempted to make a
counter-argument against the imperial or absolutist historians’ discourse of
Qawāsimi piracy. And, in doing so, they have successfully clarified the hidden
aim of the suppression, but the potential in their work does not stop there.
What has not been explored in great depth so far is the background to the
British accusations of the Qawāsimi piracy.
The obvious importance of tackling this particular subject emerges very
clearly when the following two facts are placed together side-by-side: The
former is the historical evidence of the British expeditions against the Qawāsim
and the latter is, as Davies and al-Qāsimī have ascertained, the truth in the state-
ment that the British officials did not always have solid evidence to accuse the
Qawāsim of being pirates. Those who read through British reports on “Joasmee”
piracy would agree with them.17 It is difficult to identify always these “Joasmee”
with the Qawāsim, the family of the Qāsim. This begs the question: Why did the
name “Joasmee” spring so readily to their minds whenever they heard reports
of piracy somewhere in the Persian Gulf and off Indian Coast? Why did these
officials think it so necessary to suppress the Qawāsim, even though they did
not always have solid evidence on which to base their accusations? In other
words, we need to find an explanation to bridge the gap between the British
officials’ poorly supported accusations and the physical suppression they
exerted, a force ultimately strong enough to change the political system in this
region. Obviously, their expeditions were not spur-of-the-moment decisions.

16 Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 276.

17 This article refers mainly to photocopied duplications of the Bombay Diaries held in the
Arab World Documentation Unit, University of Exeter (hereafter BDUE). These approxi-
mately 11,000 duplications cover the period between c. 1790 and 1820. The original diaries
are located in the Bombay Record Office of the Central Archival Agency of the Govern-
ment of Maharashtra, India.
74 Suzuki

The first expedition was only decided on more than thirty years after the first
recognized piratical incident had occurred. Therefore the challenge is to trace
what happened to change the minds of the British officials and to clarify what
lay behind it.
Few have yet explored in this direction, although al-Qāsimī quite clearly rec-
ognizes this gap between the imagination and the behavior of the British
officials.18 The weakness of his explanation is that it concentrates on British
“false accusations of piracy” founded on a series of their “Big Lies” in order to
overthrow “far-reaching trading activities in and out of the Gulf” by the
Qawāsim and establish their own political and commercial supremacy in the
Persian Gulf.19 His interpretation has been widely criticized and reexamined
by recent historians,20 nevertheless, it is still agreed that Qawāsimi trading
activity was not a factor that could be ignored in the period covered in this
article, and Britain, at the very least, did want to eradicate any potential danger
to its commerce and communication out of the Persian Gulf.21 This chapter
tries to describe the whole gamut of the process from suspicions to concrete
accusation that eventually led to the mounting of a military expedition, and it
also tries to disentangle the complicated background to this thought-transi-
tion in the minds of British officials. Furthermore, considering that these
expeditions to suppress the piracy of the Qawāsim carried the Pax Britannica
into the Persian Gulf, something on which historians agree regardless of their
interpretation of Qawāsimi behavior, this challenge will contribute to our
understanding of the foundation of the Pax Britannica in the Persian Gulf.
For this purpose, it is necessary to make a distinction between both the
Qawāsim/Qāsim and the “Joasmee”. In this article, the terms the Qawāsim and
the Qāsim indicate a physical existence. This group should be distinguished
from the “Joasmee” (English spelling of the Qāsim/Qawāsim) who were cre-
ated in the discourse and imagination of the British officials. This rule of
distinction is applied to several other personal and group names. To indicate a
particular person or group as a physical existence, the transliteration of their
Arabic name is applied; English spelling is used to indicate a particular person
or group as these existed in the discourse and imagination of the British
officials.

18 al-Qāsimī, The Myth, 33.

19 Ibid., xv-xvi, 32.
20 Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag; Risso, “Cross-Cultural Perceptions,” 313-14. For brief sum-
mary of al-Qāsimī’s The Myth by Davies, see Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 64-65.
21 Cf. Bhacker, Trade, 46; Kelly, Britain, 58.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 75

Following this introduction, the usage of the term piracy in British docu-
ments relating to the Persian Gulf in the late-eighteenth and the nineteenth
century will be the first matter to be discussed. The transition of the “Joasmee”
is traced in the following section. The background to this transition is exam-
ined in the third section, and a conclusion will follow.

1 Piracy in the Persian Gulf

The 1820 General Peace Treaty is the first instance in which the English defini-
tion of piracy is unequivocally and officially with reference to the inhabitants
of the Persian Gulf. It was signed by several Arab sheikhs and Article Two states
as follows:

If any individual of the people of the Arabs contracting shall attack any
that pass by land or sea of any nation whatsoever, in the way of plunder
and piracy and not of acknowledged war, he shall be accounted an enemy
of all mankind and shall be held to have forfeited both life and goods.
And acknowledged war is that which is proclaimed, avowed, and ordered
by government against government; and the killing of men and taking of
goods without proclamation, avowal, and the order of a government, is
plunder and piracy.22

Although the words in the Arabic text corresponding to “plunder and piracy”
are “al-nahb wa al-ghārāt (plunder and raids),” the definitions of these words
are clearly used with the explicit connotation of illegality.23 Moreover, the ille-
gal activities in these waters are obviously directly associated with the “enemy
of all mankind.”
However, this definition of piracy does not always correspond to the British
officials’ usage in contemporary documents. As it is discussed in greater depth
in the following sections, these officials were not equipped to follow the rap-
idly changing regional politics with any precision, and the political allegiance

22 C.U. Aitchison, ed., A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads: Relating to India and
Neighbouring Countries, vol. 12 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1909),
172.
23 For the Arabic text of this treaty, see P. Tuson ed., The Records of the Emirates, 1820-1960,
vol. 1 (Cambridge: Archive Editions, 1990), 161-63.
76 Suzuki

of the local inhabitants remained a profound mystery to them.24 They applied

the term pirates or piracy freely to particular groups and individuals, most
notably the “Joasmee.”
As the above quote clearly demonstrates, while the English term piracy car-
ries the connotation of illegality,25 the Arabic language, the lingua franca in the
Persian Gulf, does not really have a word that covers the English term proper-
ly.26 Most probably, qurṣān (corsair or pirate) and qarṣana (piracy) are both
derived from the Italian word corsaro that does contain this connotation.27
However, despite the fact that both terms had already been introduced into
Arabic, they are rarely found in nineteenth-century Arabic texts relating to the
Persian Gulf. The difficulty of trying the associate the English term piracy with
a particular Arabic term is shown in George P. Badger’s English translation of
al-Fataḥ al-mubīn fī sīra al-sāda al-Bū Saʿīdiyīn (True Victory of Autobiography
of the Rulers of the Āl Bū Saʿīd) published in 1871, renowned as one of the Arabic
chronicles full of rich information on Persian Gulf affairs. Although Badger, a
chaplain in the Presidency of Bombay, frequently uses the term piracy in his
introduction and notes, he uses it only once in his translation of the text as
follows;

Moreover, whenever his (Sulṭān b. Ṣaqr b. Rāshid, current chief of the

Qāsim) boats are short of water, or meet with bad weather, they run into
Fakkān for supplies and repairs, and then set off again to commit piracy
and murder on the sea.28 (bracket and italicized by the current author)

The corresponding part in the original text says “min-hā ilā fasād al-baḥr bi-al-
nahb wa al-qatl (from there for maritime depravity with plundering and
killing).”29 Although Badger does not mention, or indeed even imply, the rea-
son for this exceptional usage, it should be noted that the underlined part

24 For example, “Shaikh Gadeef,” sheikh of Bandar-e Lengeh “calls himself, when it suits his
purpose a Persian subject, though he obeys no order, but what pleases him.” BDUE SP
171/1805/4341, Seton to Bombay, Muscat, August 14, 1805.
25 See also, Risso, “Cross-Cultural Perceptions,” 298; Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 64-65.
26 Risso, “Cross-Cultural Perceptions,” 300-2. Contemporary Arab authors usually use several
triliteral roots such as gh-ṣ-b (to take away by force), n-h-b (to plunder), gh-z-w (to raid)
when they describe the events that English documents condemn as piracy. Risso, “Cross-
Cultural Perceptions,” 300-01.
27 Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Series, vol. 5, 502-9, s.v. Ḳurʿṣān.
28 George P. Badger, History of the Imāms and Seyyids of ‘Omān, by Salīl-Ibn-Razīd, from ad
661-1856 (London: n.p., 1871), 293.
29 Humayd b. Muḥammad b. Ruzayq b. Bakhīt, Al-Fatḥ al-mubīn fī sīra al-sāda al-Bū Saʿīdiyīn,
ed. ʿAbd al-Munʿim ʿĀmir and Muḥammad Mursī ʿAbd Allāh (n.p., 2001), 433.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 77

clearly refers to the behavior of the Qawāsim, or as they were called in contem-
poraneous British terminology the “Joasmee.”
Piracy in British sense was not shared with the locals, and the British usage
of piracy in the Persian Gulf tended to accuse a certain “Joasmee” in particular.
The question now arising is how this identification of piracy with the “Joasmee”
was established. The following sections look at the transition in their percep-
tion of the “Joasmee” that took place in the imagination of British officials and
its background.

2 From Imagination to Reality

In his examination of the abovementioned British documents, Davies says they

claim that at least eighty-seven vessels were suspected to have been captured
by the “Joasmee” in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf between the first incident
reported in 1797 and the second expedition in 1819. Besides these, some 100
vessels were captured off the coast of India and some twenty-nine vessels off
Southern Arabia.30 In some of these incidents, we can conclude that there
is reasonable evidence to support British suspicions of “Joasmees” involve­
ment and, in all of them, “Joasmee” is definitely identifiable with al-Qawāsim.
The incident in 1778 recorded as the first incident of “Joasmee” piracy is one
of these cases.31 A “Joasmee” fleet captured an EIC ship somewhere between
Bombay and al-Baṣra, but it was released after a short while.32 The corre-
spondence between the Resident at Bandar-e Būshehr and Shaykh Rāshid of
the Qāsim proves that the Qawāsim were indeed involved.33 Therefore, in this
case “Joasmee” in the document is identifiable with the Qawāsim. However,
this is one of relatively few incidents in which researchers can be sure of hav-
ing some reasonable evidence to back British suspicions of the Qawāsim. As
al-Qāsimī eagerly and repeatedly emphasizes in his book, many of British
accusations and suspicions of “Joasmee” involvement are not supported by any
kind of solid evidence that proves the Qawāsimi – or even “Joasmee” – involve-

30 Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 157, Figure 1, 169, Table 1, 170, Table 2. These numbers
include the incidents with ships under non-EIC and British flags.
31 al-Qāsimī, The Myth, 32; Kelly, Britain, 106; John G. Lorimer The Gazetteer of the Persian
Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia (Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Press, 1908
-1915; reprint, London: Archive Editions, 1986), 634.
32 al-Qāsimī, The Myth, 32.
33 Ibid., 32.
78 Suzuki

ment. Davies also admits uncertainty about many of the British accusations of
“Joasmee” piracy, especially those related to incidents off the coast of India.34
British officials’ suspicions of “Joasmee” piracy reached two peaks, the first
around 1805 and the second after 1808. The first period was remarked on in
both the “Historical Sketch of the ‘Joasmee’” by Francis Warden, Member of
Council at Bombay Government, and in the “Chronological Table” by Arnold B.
Kemball, Assistant-Resident at Bandar-e Būshehr.35 Kemball makes no bones
about his belief that Wahhabism was the evil genius behind “Joasmee” piracy,
an assertion examined in the following section.
The second period was characterized by reduction in the variety of
those whom the British officials stigmatized as pirates. The “Uttobee,”36 the
“Sweedee” (also spelt “Sevedee,” “Suvdee,” and so forth)37 and the “Chan-

34 Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 151-163,

35 Francis Warden, “Historical Sketch of the Joasmee Tribe of Arabs; from the Year 1747 to the
year 1819,” in Arabian Gulf Intelligence, Selections from the Records of the Bombay Govern-
ment, New Series, no. 24, ed. R.H. Thomas (Bombay: Government at the Bombay Educa-
tion Society’s Press, 1856), 130; Arnold B. Kemball, “Chronological Table of Events
Connected with the Government of Muskat from the Year 1765 to 1843; with the Joasmee
Tribe of Arabs, from the Year 1765 to 1843…” in Thomas, Arabian Gulf, 303.
36 Cf. BDUE SP 164/1805/317, An Orzee from Mohummed Alli Moonshee, n.p., December 6,
1804. “Uttobee” corresponds to the ʿUtūb. Today there are two ʿUtūbi ruling families in the
Persian Gulf, namely: the House of Āl Ṣabāḥ of al-Kuwayt and the House of Āl Khalīfa of
Baḥrayn. The ʿUtūb can be understood as a confederation of a number of Arab families.
The lack of contemporary written materials is the most serious problem confronting any
attempt to discover their earlier history. According to the Ta⁠ʾrīkh al-Kuwayt written by
ʿAbd al-Azīz al-Rashīd but based on local traditions in the early-twentieth century, the
family of Āl Ṣabāḥ originated in al-Hadār in Najd and they established themselves in al-
Kuwayt in the seventeenth century after their emigration from their homeland in central
Arabia. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Rāshid, Ta⁠ʾrīkh al-Kuwayt, vol. 1 (n.p. [Baghdād?], 1926), 10-11, 13.
37 This term is associated with the Arabic term “suwaydī” (diminutive form of sūdī, plural of
aswad in the possessive case, that literally means “black”). Although that it is uncertain
whether they were unified as a group at the beginning of the nineteenth century, they set
up their base on Ḥormūz Island and “Bur Gutter” (Būr Qaṭar?) Cf. BDUE SP 112/1801/4229,
Rejib Crany to Aka Abul Hassein, n.p., May 19, 1801; BDUE SP 116/1801/5900, anonymous to
anonymous, n.p., n.d.]; BDUE SP 116/1801/4235, The Governor of Bombay to Seyd ben
Mohammed, July 31, 1801. For other reports on their piracy, see BDUE SP 126/1802/4609-
4611 Seton to Bombay, recd. August 27, 1802. Lorimer claims that they had plundered sev-
eral ships under the British flag. Lorimer, The Gazetteer, vol. 1, 431. This statement
corresponds to several entries in contemporary Bombay Diaries. Cf. BDUE SP 112/1801/
4227-4330, Vishendas to Aka Mahomed, n.p., June 14, 1801; Rejib Crany to Aka Abul Has-
sein, n.p., May 19, 1801; BDUE P 325/1809/2631, Seton to Malcolm, Muscat, February 16,
1809. At least one incident of plunder is confirmed by a letter in the Bombay Diaries stat-
ing that they returned the booty of the British ship after a request from the Sulṭān of
Masqaṭ BDUE SP 112/1801/4228-4229, Rejib Crany to Aka Abul Hassein, n.p., May 19, 1801.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 79

chias”38 do occasionally appear in documents prior to this period, as do the

names of some individuals such as “Rehma ben Jaber” who was known as
“Shaikh Rehma”39 and another pirate called “Abadella Ben Ahmed.”40 These
“pirates” gradually disappeared from, or they were no longer referred to as
such, in documents by the middle of the 1810s. The main reason for this decline
was the decrease in their influence. Raḥmah b. Jābir, known as “Rehma ben
Jaber” or “Shaikh Rehma,” is a good example. His general reputation was as
“one of the most turbulent lawless freebooters” in this region and he was fre-
quently mentioned in British documents.41 However, he was defeated by the
ʿUtūb in 1811.42 Bruce continues:

38 Cf., BDUE SP 177/1806/337-338, Petiton from Shaik Mahomed Subedar, Bombay, January 10,
1806; BDUE SP 178/1806/486-488, Petition from Hurra Sudgoo Cooly, January 15, 1806. See
also, Watson, Statistical Account, 87. “Chanchia” derives from the name of a village called
“Chanch” on southeast coast of the Kāthiavād Peninsula (Watson, Statistical Account, 87).
39 Cf., BDUE SP 151/1803/7142-7144, the Secretary of Government to the Resident at Bushire,
n.p., November 30, 1803; 7147-7149, Statement of Mr. Procter, the Commander of Hector,
Bombay, August 20, 1803. He was sheikh of the Jalāhima, one of the ʿUtūbi divisions based
in Khūr Ḥasan, the northwest coast of the Qaṭar Peninsula. James S. Buckingham who
traveled in the Persian Gulf in the early-nineteenth century, describes him as “the most
successful and the most generally tolerated pirate, perhaps, that ever infested any sea.”
James S. Buckingham, Travels in Assyria, Media and Persia, vol. 2 (London: H. Colburn,
1830), 121.
40 Cf. BDUE SP 182/1806/2860-2863, Duncan to Shykh Nuser Khan, n.p., March 30, 1806; BDUE
P 325/1809/2631, Seton to Malcolm, Muscat, February 16, 1809; BDUE P 325/1809/4234-37,
The Governor of Bombay to Seyd ben Mohammed, n.p., July 31, 1801; BDUE
P 415/1814/3820, Bruce to Wardern, Bushire, August 7, 1814.
41 Cf. BDUE P 355/1810/2206-2207, Smith to Osborne, Muscat, April 13, 1810; BDUE P 374/1811/
2856 Bruce to Bombay, Camp near Munshere, April 26, 1811. Even though this sheikh was
suspected by some of British officials of committing acts of piracy against ships under the
British flag, it is worth noting that some other officials thought he posed less risk to ships
under British protection. Warden states “He had always respected the British pass and
colours.” Warden, “Sketch of the Proceedings,” 522. When he was reported to have plun-
dered a British ship, the Persian government, accordingly, issued a farmān, a royal pre-
script, to the prince of Shīrāz requiring him to settle this affair BDUE SP 164A/1805/553-554,
Royal Farman to the Prince at Shiraz directing an Immediate Settlement of the Affairs,
n.p., July 1804. However, the Indian Navy was not ordered to put down either him or his
people. Warden explains that this was because this sheikh had entered into some sort
connection with the Wahhabist/Suʿūd and this made British officials hesitant to attack
him. Francis Warden, “Sketch of the Proceedings (from 1809 to 1818) of Rahmah bin Jaubir,
Chief of Khor Hassan” in Thomas, Arabian Gulf, 522. They were also mollified by his gen-
eral attitude toward ships under the British flag and British pass-holders.
42 BDUE P 374/1811/2855, Bruce to Bombay, Camps near Munshere, April 26, 1811.
80 Suzuki

This action has cleared the Gulf of one of the most tribulent lawless
freebooters it had and will, it is expected, to go a great way to restore
tran­quility to it. The only tribe that now profess open piracy is a small
part of the Joasimees that inhabit the coast and island to the northward
of Ras el Khima.43

A report of Raḥmah’s death even circulated among the British officials the fol-
lowing year.44 Actually this report was mistaken and he survived his defeat;
however, as Bruce writes, thereafter British officials focused their concern on
the “Joasmee,” not Raḥmah, even though they sometimes regarded Raḥma as a
part of the “Joasmee.”45 It would seem that by their exploits the “Joasmee” had
succeeded in obliterating any other cruel pirates from the minds of these
officials.
Subsequently, reports on piracy are inclined to attribute it solely to the
“Joasmee.” For example, on March 9, 1812, the Political Department of the
Government of Bombay read a report from William Bruce, Acting-Resident at
Bandar-e Būshehr, that describes an incident in which a country ship, the
Moholar, was chased by five large boats near Busheab Island (Lāvān Island).
Bruce strongly suspected these boats belonged to the “Joasmee.” However, all
the evidence he had to support his suspicion was the information that he had
received reporting the departure of the “Joasmee” from the Persian Gulf just
prior to the incident.46 On the same day as the report from Bruce was read,
another letter from the master of the Moholar was also read by the Political
Department of the Government of Bombay. The master, called Alusker, alleges
“from what I can learn, Sir, these pirates are lately come over from the Arabian
Coast in consequence of a force having gone against them from Muscat, which
I think very probable as Ras Alkima (Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah, one of the most impor-
tant bases of the Qawāsim).”47 British documents frequently provide evidence
of local suspicions of “Joasmee” piracy.48 Despite the fact that few locals could
produce any clear evidence for their accusations,49 British officials tended to

43 BDUE P 374/1811/2856, Bruce to Bombay, Camps near Munshere, April 26, 1811.
44 BDUE SP 385/1811/881, Taylor to Warden, Bushire, April 27, 1812.
45 BDUE P 424/1815/2076, Macdonald to Chief Secretary to Government, Fort St. George, May
4, 1815.
46 BDUE P 383/1812/394, Bruce to Bruce, Bushire, February 1, 1812.
47 BDUE P 383/1812/396, Alusker to Warden, February 9, 1812.
48 Cf. BDUE P 408/1814/1207-1211, Cassee Ghoolab to Nipean, February 27, 1814; BDUE SP
438/1817/2141 [Elwood to Warden, Porebunder, October 27, 1817.
49 See the summary of the “Joasmee” activities off Western India and South Arabia by Davies
and the case of the Sylph in 1808. Davies, The Blood Red Flag, 297-320, 100-103.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 81

believe them as they confirmed their own suspicions. In the next section, the
background that fostered these strong suspicions of “Joasmee” piracy among
the British officials is examined.

3 The Background

There are three factors behind British officials’ suspicions and their subse-
quent accusations of “Joasmee” piracy. These can be summed up as follows: the
structure of the Qawāsim; the relationship between the Qawāsim and Britain;
and the growth of Wahhabist/Suʿūd power. This order does not reflect the
importance of each factor as they are all interrelated.

(1) Structure of the Qawāsim

The English term “Joasmee” is applicable to both Qawāsim and Qāsim. Today,
the term Qawāsim is applied to the members of the Qāsim royal family that
governs the emirates of Shāriqah and Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah as part of the United
Arab Emirates. Grammatically “Qawāsim” is indeed the plural form of “Qāsim.”
However, this grammatical explanation does not fill in the gap that can be seen
in the period with which this chapter is concerned. In other words, if “Joasmee”
is equal to Qawāsim, the contemporary British documents alleging the notori-
ous piratical activities of the “Joasmee” give readers the impression that the
size of the Qawāsim, the members of the Qāsim family, was quite large; how-
ever, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the total number of the
members of this family was only sixty.50 It has proved impossible to find any
evidence of a huge population decline in this family, even at the time of the
putative expeditions. Therefore, if we simply equate “the Joasmee” with “the
Qawāsim” limited to the members of “the Qāsim” family, a very large problem
arises. In order to clarify who “the “Joasmee” were, the best step would be to
begin by examining the relationship between “the Qawāsim” and “the Qāsim.”
In the nineteenth century context, the relationship of both terms has to be
explained not by recourse to Arabic grammar but to their political structure. In
short, the Qāwāsim consisted of the members of the multi-tribal confedera-
tion at whose core the Qāsim had situated themselves. Frauke Heard-Bey calls
this structure “the multi-tribal Qasimi Empire.”51 The best description of the

50 Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. 2, 1435.

51 Frauke Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates (London: Longman, 1982;
reprint, Dubai: Motivate Publishing, 2004), 68.
82 Suzuki

30 28
29
27
24 12
26 22 21 14
25 17 13
23 2019 15
18 16 3 Cape
Mussandam
6 5 4
7
8 2
9
1
11 10

Abu Zaby

Masqat

0 100km
Sur

Map 3.1 The Persian Gulf with major place names and ports of the Joasmee in 1819

Table 3.1 List of the ports under the Qawāsimī authority in 1819

Number Name of the port as spelt Modern place name Notes

on Map 1 in source

Ports under direct rule of the Joasmee

1 Khor Fakkan Khawr al-Fakkān [R]
2 Dubba Dibā [R]
5 Ras al-Khaima Raʼs al-Khaymah [R]
6 Hamra Island Ḥamrāʼ [R]
9 Fasht al-Fisht [R]
10 Sharjah al-Shāriqah [R]
15 Bandar-e Kong Bandar-e Gong [R]
19 Mogoo Bandar-e Moghūyeh [R]
Ports under either direct or indirect rule of the Joasmee
4 Ramse al-Rams
13 Homeram Kūh-e ʻOmeyrān
14 Bandar-e Mullim Bandar-e Band-e
Moʻallem
Tribute to the Joasmee
7 Umm al-Qaiwayn Umm al-Qaywayn Pay tribute by
1820
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 83

Number Name of the port as spelt Modern place name Notes

on Map 1 in source

8 Ajman Ajmān Pay tribute by

1820
11 Himreeah al-Ḥimrīyah [R]
12 Luft Laft
Ports under rule of other parties
3 Khasab Khaṣab Shihiriyyin;
taken by the Āl
Bū Saʻīd in 1747
16 Bandar-e Lengeh Bandar-e Lengeh [R]
17 Shinas Shenās [C]
18 Bastion Bandar-e Bustāneh [C]
20 Sertes Bandar-e Ḥasīneh? [C]
21 Kharg Bandar-e Chārak [C]
22 Cheeroo Cherūyeh [C] Shaykh of
23 Inderabia Hendūrābī Cherūyeh (1818)
24 Nakheeloo Nakhīlū
25 Shitwar Shatvār
26 Busheab Lāvān (a.k.a.Būshoeyb) [M] Yūsuf b.
Raḥmah (1818)
27 Naabund Nāy Band [C]
28 Aseeloo Asalūyeh [C]
29 Tahiri Bandar-e Ṭāherī [C]
30 Kangan Kangān [C]

Notes: [C] Common descent to the shaykh of Raʼs al-Khaymah; [M] Married with family of the
shaykh of Raʼs al-Khaymah; [R] Relative to the shaykh of Raʼs al-Khaymah; name ( ): name of
ruler (year of observation)
Sources: BDUE SP 171/1805/4341-4342 [Seton to Bombay, Muscat, 14 August 1805]; Taylor,
“Extracts,” 7, 8, 18, 19, 21-22, 37; Kemball, “Chronological Tables,” 102, 129, 130, 131; idem.,
“Memoranda,” 102; idem., “Statistical,” 292, 293, 294; Warden, “Historical Sketch of the Joasmee,”
301, 304
84 Suzuki

relationship between the Qāsim and the Qawāsim is found in Lorimer’s

Gazetteer:

The subjects of the Qāsimi, to whatever tribes they might belong, were
generally spoken of as Qawāsim; and it seems possible that, abroad, the
name was applied to almost all Arabs hailing from the Western coast of
the ‘Omān promontory.52

Both their origin and early history are pretty obscure. Warden regards the
“Joasmee” as “a race of Arabs descended from the inhabitants of Nujd [Najd,
central Arabia and the coastal region between today’s Bahrain and Kuwait is
regarded as the coastline of Najd],”53 but a recent Arab scholar has claimed
that the Qāsim had migrated from somewhere near Sāmarrā’ in Iraq.54 Some
nineteenth-century contemporaries have recorded some local traditions about
the early history of the “Joasmee” in their writings. Whereas Miles wrote that
the “Joasmee” originally migrated from the Iranian side of the Persian Gulf in

52 Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. 1, 631.

53 Warden, “Historical Sketch of the Joasmee,” 300.
54 al-Jabūrī ʿAbd al-Karīm, al-Qawāsim, wa dawr-hum fī muqāwama al-iḥtilāl al-burīṭānī
(n.p., n.d.), 48. However, in the case of the origin of house of the Qāsim, it is possible to
put forward the following hypothesis. Samuel B. Miles, who had traveled widely in the
Gulf region from the 1840s and compiled a large volume entitled The Country and Tribes
of the Persian Gulf, mentions the etymology of the Qāsim. He states that the nisba (attri-
bution of a person; or in this case, it can be understood as family name) of the Qāsim,
al-Qāsimī (though he wrote as “the Joasmees”), derives from “Shaik Kasim” who was the
grandfather of “Shaikh Rashid bin Muttar.” Samuel B. Miles, The Countries and Tribes of
the Persian Gulf (London: Harrison and Sons, 1919), 269. The latter figure can be identified
as Rāshid b. Maṭar (r. 1760-1777) by referring to the genealogical table of the Qāsimi
sheikhs in ʿAbd Allāh ʿAlī al-Ṭābūr’s ethno-historical work. The genealogical table also
cites the name of Raḥmah b. Maṭar (r. 1560-1600), who was a sheikh eight generations
prior to Rāshid. ʿAbd Allāh ʿAlī al-Ṭābūr, Julfār ʿabr al-ta⁠ʾrīkh (Dubayy, 1987), 286. The rea-
son for Raḥma’s identification is because he bore the laqab (honorific title given to a
­person describing his personality) of al-Qāsim (literally, divider, distributor) that appears
again in the name of his grandson, Raḥma b. Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim (Raḥma, son of
Muḥammad, son of al-Qāsim). ʿAbd Allāh ʿAlī al-Ṭābūr, Julfār, 286. For a brief survey of the
components of classical Arabic names, see Salahuddin Ahmed, A Dictionary of Muslim
Names (New York: New York University Press, 1999), xi-xiii. Therefore it can be assumed
that al-Qāsimī, the nisba of the Qāsim family members, derives from Raḥma b. Maṭar’s
laqab, and consequently it suggests that this Raḥma was the founder of the house of
Qāsim. ʿAbd Allāh ʿAlī al-Ṭābūr, Julfār, 286. See also Zahrī ʿAbd al-Mujīd Sammūr, Ta⁠ʾrīkh
sāḥil ʿumān al-siyāsī fī al-niʿf al-awwal min al-qarn al-tāsiʿ ʿashara (al-Kuwayt), vol. 1, 62-63.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 85

the course of the eighteenth century,55 John Malcolm provides a more detailed
account narrated by his Arab servant named Khudādād.56 This is a story of a
marriage between a daughter of an Arab fisherman who lived near Bandar-e
ʿAbbās and a man of enormous strength who had accidentally been caught at
sea in that fisherman’s net. The daughter of the fisherman bore four sons, from
whom are descended the four tribes including the “Ben Joassem” (corrupted
version in English of “Banī al-Qawāsim” literally children of al-Qawāsim)
and those four tribes were collectively known as the “Ben Houl.” Although
Kelly treads warily when addressing the question of the early history of the
Qawāsim, he also cites a local tradition recorded in a document in the India
Office Records that says the Qawāsim originally inhabited Sīrāf, a flourishing
ancient port on the Iranian side of the Persian Gulf, and migrated to Ṣūr and
Masqaṭ after the decline of this port that had been precipitated by an earth-
quake (366 ah/976-7 CE). Some of the immigrants moved again from there to
Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah.57
What these local traditions reflect is a popular perception of the multi-tribal
structure of the Qāsimi Empire. Interestingly, they have also not overlooked
the network of this empire that tied various ports and groups together. For
example, in Malcolm’s version, “Ben Joassem” is lined up alongside three other
tribes; whereas the version cited by Kelly describes a kind of diaspora of the
Qawāsim, geographically covering the Persian Gulf and the coast of Oman.
Their far-flung network was also recognized by British officials as shown in
Table 3.1. This table showing the ports under the authority of the “Joasmee” was
drawn up on the basis of British observations at the time of the 1819 expedi-
tion. Although it will not be the perfect list, it shows at least thirty locations
were recognized by the British officials as resorting under “Joasmee” authority.58
Furthermore, their awareness of some marital and tribute relationships among
them is also shown on this table.
However, the components of this “empire” were very prone to change
because of the fragile nature of political relationships in this region. From
a political viewpoint, the Persian Gulf was a bewildering web of hostility,

55 Miles, The Countries, 269, 430-31. See also, Farhang Mehr, A Colonial Legacy: The Dispute
over the Islands of Abu Musa, and the Greater and Lesser Tumbs (Lanham: University Press
of America, 1997), 152.
56 John Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1849), 16.
57 Kelly, Britain, 18.
58 For other tribal names under the “Joasmee,” cf., BDUE SP 171/1805/4341-4342, Seton to
Bombay, Muscat, August 14, 1805; BDUE SP 173/1805/5395-5396, Seton to Skinner, Muscat,
October 9, 1805; BDUE SP 208/1807/4942-4950, Seton to Bombay Government, Baroda, July
2, 1807.
86 Suzuki

amity, and protector-protegé relationships. The harsh natural environment, a

combination of sandy soil, searing heat, and limited access to water, caused
such unremitting fierce competition among the tribal groups in this region
that no single super power succeeded in gaining the upper hand. The upshot
was that the protector-protegé relationship was not only subject to change,
it was also vague. Small groups needed to choose the best protector and the
ability of the latter to provide this protection depended on the situation. The
case of the Banū Maʿīn provides a good example. The Banū Maʿīn, who ruled
over al-Ḥīra and al-Ḥamrīyah, had once joined the Qawāsim against the Āl
Bū Saʿīd. However, in 1807 Saʿīd b. Sulṭān, the ruler of the latter, wrote a letter
to the Governor of Bombay stating that the Banū Maʿīn had recently “kissed
my threshold, enrolled themselves in the ranks of my subjects became obe-
dient and submissive […] became clothed in the garment of forgiveness and
obtained my pardon for their crimes.”59 Despite his protestations, as late as
1854, they were again being recognized as a part of the “Joasmee.”60 When
Kemball reported this, he also noted that the Banū Maʿīn were exempt from
the payment of tribute; instead, they actually received an annual allowance
from the sheikh of the Qāsim.61
The British officials were aware of the fragility of the structure to which even
members of the house of Qāsim were no exception. For example, an attack on
the EIC brig the Viper has been remarked on as one of the earlier conflicts
between Britain and the Qawāsim. In October 1797, there was a skirmish
between a fleet led by Shaykh Sāliḥ b. Muḥammad, nephew of Shaykh Ṣaqr of
the Qāsim, and the Viper.62 When the British Resident at al-Baṣra inquired
about this incident from Shaykh Ṣaqr, this sheikh stated that Shaykh Sāliḥ had
been acting independently of his family and had established himself among
the Banū Khālid who were extending their authority over the coastline of the
region known locally as Najd.63

59 BDUE SP 194/1806/1007 [Syyud Saeed to Duncan, n.p., n.d.], read at Bombay Castle,
December 5, 1806.
60 Arnold B. Kemball, “Statistical and Miscellaneous Information connected with the Pos-
sessions, Revenues, Families, &c. of His Highness the Imaum of Muskat; of the Ruler of
Bahrein; and of the Chiefs of the Maritime Arab States in the Persian Gulf,” in Thomas,
Arabian Gulf, 294. For ambiguity of the position of “Sweedee,” see Davies, The Blood-Red
Arab Flag, 84.
61 Kemball, “Statistical,” 294. For more details about the structure of the Qawāsim, see
Heard-Bey, From Trucial States, 68-72, 82-102.
62 Cf. Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 92-93; al-Qāsimī, The Myth, 35-38.
63 Warden, “Historical Sketch of the Joasmee,” 302.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 87

Readers of the Bombay Diaries still find just as much difficulty in disentan-
gling this complexity of relationships among parties and individuals as did the
British officials.64 Try as they might, they were unable to find any clear border-
line to the extent of the Qawāsim because the group was so highly fluid on
account of the frangibility of regional politics. On reflection, this meant that
British officials had sufficient leeway to push any unidentifiable piratical cases
conveniently about within the confines of this vague border. However, such
vagueness was not a unique characteristic of the Qawāsim. A similar blurred
structure can be recognized among other neighboring parties, especially those
around the Strait of Hormūz.65 So, more specific reasons for why British suspi-
cion was concentrated on the Qawāsim have to be explored in the relationship
between the Qawāsim and Britain.

(2) Relationship between the Qawāsim and Britain

Frangibility is a significant characteristic in the web of politics in the Persian
Gulf; in other words, it has always contained a high potential for the replace-
ment of old thread by new. However, the hostile relationship between the Āl
Bū Saʿīd and the Qawāsim, more precisely the family of the Qāsim, was a rela-
tively stable and strong thread.66
The earliest contact between both parties recorded in British documents is
a note on a couple of skirmishes at Buraymī and Khawr Fakkān in 1747.67 This
was narrated as a part of the territorial expansion undertaken by Aḥmad b.
Saʿīd, the first imām of the Āl Bū Saʿīd, who seized control of Musqaṭ, and took
Khawr Fakkān and KhaṢṢab as a consequence.68 They did associate with one
another once for a brief joint expedition to Bandar-e ʿAbbās and Bandar-e
Lengeh in 1772. The alliance was short-lived and they were again adopting a
hostile stance toward each other from 1775.69
The principal policy of the Bombay Government toward local politics in the
Persian Gulf was to display neutrality. This decision was clearly manifested by

64 As far as these officials were concerned, the words of local rulers were often far from those
reliable. See BDUE P 355/1810/2049, Manesty to Bombay, Bussora, March 20, 1810.
65 Cf. Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. 2, 1782-1785.
66 Cf. Ḥusayn Ghabbāsh, ‘Umān, 160-64
67 Robert Taylor, “Extracts from Brief Notes, Containing Historical and Other Information
Connected with the Province of Oman; Muskat and the Adjoining Country; the Islands of
Bahrein, Ormus, Kishm, and Karrack; and Other Ports and Places in the Persian Gulf,” in
Thomas, Arabian Gulf, 7.
68 Taylor, “Extracts,” 7.
69 Warden, “Historical Sketchof the Joasmee,” 301. See also, BDUE SP 207/18007/ 4368-4369,
Seton to Bombay, Bombay, June 17, 1807.
88 Suzuki

the Resident at Bandar-e Būshehr when he said that, “I have nothing to do with
your quarrels nor will that be a source of displeasure to me; so long as you do
not molest English vessles or English property or anybody belonging to the
English.”70 Despite its circumspect resolves, in its attempts to establish a strong
relationship with the latter Britain inevitably became embroiled in the persist-
ent hostility between the Qawāsim and the Āl Bū Saʿīd; a choice that meant it
would be the enemy of the Qawāsim.
The origin of British interest in the Omani coast can be traced back to the
first half of the seventeenth century, and it arose from an undisguised com-
mercial motivation, rather than from any political or military considerations.71
A significant change occurred around the end of the eighteenth century; an
alteration that ran parallel to the transformation of the EIC, namely: The
increasing rivalry between Britain and France in the Western Indian Ocean
and the expansion of the Wahhabist/Suʿūd into the Persian Gulf.72 As these
factors grew in significance, British political and military interest in the geopo-
litically important Omani coast kept pace with them. The contemporaneous
Wahhabist/Suʿūd expansion toward Oman was a particular menace to the Āl
Bū Saʿīd and stimulated them seek a strong alliance with Britain.73 Some schol-
ars claim that this relationship was the most obvious reason behind the
Qawāsimi attacks on British ships.74 A letter from Ṣaqr b. Rāshid, the father of
Sulṭān b. Ṣaqr b. Rāshid and the sheikh of Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah prior to his son, to
a British official in 1797 clearly states “when my cruiser meets the vessel of my
friends such as those belonging to you, to the Arabs in alliance with me, and to
the Basra Government, they behave to them with amity, but when they meet

70 BDUE SP 232/1808/5838-5839, Smith to Rahma bin Jauber, April 14, 1808. See also, Bhacker,
Trade, 55.
71 Badr al-Dīn ʿAbbās ʿAlī al-Khaṣūṣī, Darāsāt fī ta⁠ʾrīkh al-khalīj al-ʿarabī: al-ḥadīth wa
al-muʿāʿir, vol. 1 (al-Kuwayt, 1984), 42; Kelly, Britain, 51.
72 Bhacker, Trade, 31-64; Haneda Masashi 羽田正, Higashi-Indo Kaisha to Ajia no umi 東 イ
ンド会社とアジアの海 [East India Companies and Asian Seas] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2007),
292-306; Lorimer, Gazetteer, vol. 1, 169-81; Beatrice Nicolini, Il sultano di Zanzibar nel XIX
secolo: traffici commerciali e relazioni internazionali (Torino: L’Harmattan Italia, 2002),
78-108; Patricia Risso, Oman and Muscat: An Early Modern History (London & Sydney:
Croom Helm, 1986), 139-57; Malcolm Yapp, “British Policy in the Persian Gulf,” in The Per-
sian Gulf States: A General Survey, ed. Alvin J. Cottrell (London: The Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, 1980), 70-73.
73 Bhacker, Trade, 39-62.
74 ʿAbd Allāh Khalīfa ʿAbd Allāh al-Gānim, Mawlid al-Qawāsim wa ta⁠ʾrīkh basṭ nafūdh-hum
al-siyāsī (n.p., 2002), 22; Sālim b. Ḥamūd b. Shāms al-Siyālī, ʿUmān ʿabra ta⁠ʾrīkh (n.p., 1980),
99.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 89

the vessels of my enemies they attack and destroy them.”75 In another letter to
the Resident at al-Baṣra, this sheikh also clearly declares that the Āl Bū Saʿīd
were his sole enemy.76 Actually, Shaykh Rāshid explains that the incident in
1778 (the first Qawāsim’s attack on a British ship recognized as such by the
British) happened when his fleet “…having fallen in with the vessel taken, she
showed the Imam’s colours with whom we being at war.”77 “The Imam” in this
quote is none other than the Imam of the Āl Bū Saʿīd.
Another factor linked Britain with the Qawāsim even more directly. From
a geopolitical viewpoint, the location of the Qawāsimi ports was a consider-
ation that was impossible for Britain to ignore because the British regarded
the Persian Gulf as an important part of the route connecting metropolis with
India, essential to both communications and commerce.78 Map 3.1 shows the
concentration of the “Joasmee” ports around the Strait of Hormūz. That the
importance of this strait that has been the focus of various polities through-
out history of the Persian Gulf goes without saying.79 Vessels passing through
the Strait of Hormūz used to put in to Masqaṭ to pay their taxes to the ruler
of this port.80 However, this system was jeopardized by the ʿUtūb’s refusal in
1799, and again at the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century81 by the
Qawāsim, who had by then established their governance over the ports around
the Strait of Hormūz and had begun to demand British ships pay tax.82
These two factors forced the British officials take the Qawāsim seriously.
Qawāsimi control over the narrow entrance to the Persian Gulf directly
impinged upon strategic British plans for the Persian Gulf. Because of the
power they wielded in this strategic area, the Qawāsim gradually began to
assume the guise of a potential enemy in the eyes of the British officials. From
being a potential opponent, the Qawāsim now emerged as a full-blown real

75 BDUE SP 59/1798/137-138, quoted in al-Qāsimī, The Myth, 35.

76 Warden, “Historical Sketch of the Joasmee,” 302.
77 Quoted in al-Qāsimī, The Myth, 32. For a similar case, see BDUE P 421/1815/1060, Bruce to
Warden, Bushire, April 15, 1815.
78 Cf. Bhacker, Trade, 46; Kelly, Britain, 58.
79 For an overview of early history of Hormūz, see Jean Aubin, “La royaume d’Ormuz au
début du XVIe siècle,” Mare Luso-Indicum 2 (1972): 77-179; Mohammad Bagher Vosoughi,
“The Kings of Hormuz: From the Beginning until the Arrival of the Portuguese,” in The
Persian Gulf in History, ed. Lawrence G. Potter (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010),
89-104.
80 Miles, The Countries, vol. 1, 291.
81 Ibid.
82 Warden, “Historical Sketch of the Joasmee,” 306.
90 Suzuki

enemy in British minds, particularly when the Wahhabist/Suʿūd absorption of

the Qawāsim dawned on them.

(3) Influence of the Wahhabist/Suʿūd Alliance

In the mid-eighteenth century, Wahhabism, a puritanical religious movement
that wanted the purification of Islam and whose followers called themselves
muwaḥḥidūn (Unitarians), began to associate with the Suʿūd, a house in Najd,
Central Arabia. Subsequently, this alliance exerted an enormous influence on
the surrounding regions. The expansion of the influence of this theocracy
combined with first and second factors mentioned above were what finally
drove Britain to proceed with their expeditions.
The Wahhabist/Suʿūd experienced a rapid rise to power and were influen-
tial enough to stir up regional politics soon after its followers made their
appear­ance in the Persian Gulf. The territory of the Banū Khālid, that once
covered a vast area between al-Baṣra and outskirts of Abū Ẓabī, had gradually
been encroached upon by them since the mid-eighteenth century (completed
c.1790); a part of the ʿUtūb supported by the Wahhabist/Suʿūd regained
al-Baḥrayn Island from the Āl Bū Saʿīd (1799) and thereafter this part of the
ʿUtūb paid tribute to this power. This religious-cum-polity alliance absorbed
the Qawāsim into its own realm (1802) and even the Āl Bū Saʿīd acceded to its
demand to pay tribute (1803). All of these events took place around the turn of
the century.83
In the eyes of contemporary Europeans the Wahhabist/Suʿūd alliance was
both mysterious and powerful. Even though they were not fully acquainted with
its doctrine and Central Arabia was one of the black holes in their geographical
knowledge, they were acutely aware of the rapid and forceful expansion of this

83 BDUE SP 120/1802/688, Letter to Duncan, Bushire, 26 December 1801; BDUE P 325/1809/2695,

Seton to Malcolm, Muscat, February 19, 1809; Ahmad M. Abu-Hakima, The Modern History
of Kuwait, 1750-1965 (London: Luzac & Co, 1983), 5; Ahmad M. Abu-Hakima, History of
Eastern Arabia 1750-1800: The Rise and Development of Bahrain, Kuwait and Wahhabi Saudi
Arabia (Beirut: Khayats, 1965; reprint, London: Probsthain, 1988), 129-44; Humayd b.
Muḥammad b. Ruzayq b. Bakhīt, al-Fatḥ, 368-69; George S. Rentz, The Birth of the Islamic
Reform Movement in Saudi Arabia: Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (1703/4-1792) and the
Beginnings of Unitarian Empire in Arabia (London: Arabian Publishing, 2004), 213-14;
Francis Warden, “Historical Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Government of Muskat;
Commencing with the Year 1694-95, and Continued to the Year 1819,” in Thomas, Arabian
Gulf, 167-87, 174; Francis Warden, “Historical Sketch of the Uttoobee Tribe of Arabs; (Bah-
rein;) from the Year 1716 to the Year 1817,” in Thomas, Arabian Gulf, 366; Francis Warden,
“Historical Sketch of the Wahabee Tribe of Arabs; from the Year 1795 to the Year 1818,” in
Thomas, Arabian Gulf, 429; Zahrī ʿAbd al-Mujīd Sammūr, Ta⁠ʾrīkh, vol. 1, 79.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 91

movement, not only in the Persian Gulf but also into Egypt and Iraq where it
struck fear into the hearts of the local governments and inhabitants.84 Warden
notes that its expedition against Karbalā’, one of the four ʿatābāt (holy places
of Shī’ah Muslim), in 1802 was an event that made a deep impression on the
minds of people living in surrounding regions.85 Some captured letters from
the chief of the Wahhabist/Suʿūd revealed to the British officials the former’s
determined endeavor to convert other Muslims into Wahhabists. Furthermore,
soon after their appearance in the Persian Gulf, British officials noticed that
several “pirates” in this region had also been absorbed by this theocracy.86
The Qawāsim were no exception. In 1808, the Wahhabist/Suʿūd succeeded
in taking more effective control of the Qawāsim. They appointed Ḥasan b. ʿAlī,
nephew of the incumbent Qāsimi ruler of Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah, and some other
amīrs, and dispatched them to govern the ports under Qawāsimi rule, includ-
ing Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah. It was not long before these amīrs superseded the former
authorities in these ports.87 The British officials discovered that the “Joasmee”
were offering the chief of the Wahhabist/Suʿūd one-fifth of their prizes.88 In
1809 Seton reported that the annual amount paid in tribute to the chief of the
Wahhabist/Suʿūd by the “Joasmee” had risen from 4,000 to 12,000 dollars,
funded by the upsurge in piracy.89
As Seton’s report implies, British officials assumed that Wahhabist/Suʿūd
power and “Joasmee” piracy were inextricably linked. In the light of this bond,
the Minerva incident in 1808 is remarkable since it made a palpable impression
not only on the British officials stationed in the Gulf but also on the British in
Bombay, arousing considerable fear. The British officials strongly suspected

84 Natana J. Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam; from Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (London:
Oxford University Press, 2004), 224; Kelly, Britain, 49. See also Hanford J. Brydges, An
Account of the Transactions of His Majesty’s Mission to the Court of Persia, in the Years 1807-
1811, vol. 2 (London: J. Bohn, 1834), 2, 8-11.
85 Warden, “Historical Sketch of the Wahabee,” 430. For this expedition, see Morikawa
Tomoko 守川知子, Shia-ha seichi sankei no kenkyu シーア派聖地参詣の研究 [Shi’ite
pilgrimage to the sacred ʿAtabāt] (Kyoto: Kyoto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai, 2007),
44-45.
86 BDUE SP 120/1802/688, Letter to Duncan, Bushire, December 26, 1801; BDUE 126/1802/4610,
Seton to Bombay, read at Bombay Castle, August 27, 1802; BDUE 164/1805/432, Manesty to
Wellesley, Bussora, January 2, 1805.
87 BDUE P 325/1809/2695, Seton to Malcolm, Muscat, February 19, 1809.
88 BDUE P 165/1805/898, Resident at Muscat to Bombay, n.p., n.d. read in Bombay Castle,
February 26, 1805; BDUE P 325/1809/2626, Seton to Malcolm, Mascat Cove on board the
Turnate, February 5, 1809.
89 BDUE P 325/1809/2695, Seton to Malcolm, Muscat, February 19, 1809.
92 Suzuki

“Joasmee” involvement in this incident. Bruce received a report from the gov-
ernor of Bandar-e Būshehr stating that the Minerva “has been captured by the
Joasime [sic.] Pirates and every soul killed except the captain, one officer and
two Armenians who they have forcibly circumcised and made Mahomedans.”90
The two Armenians will have been the young Armenian wife of Robert Taylor
residing in the Bandar-e Būshehr Residency and her infant son. They were
taken to Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah, and eventually released upon payment of a ran-
som.91 This incident made sensational news in Bombay, as witnessed by articles
in both the Bombay Gazette and the Asiatic Annual Register. Both describe the
cruelty and the religious fanaticism of the “Joasmee.”92 From this moment, in
the minds of the British officials, “Joasmee” piracy was tinged with a vivid reli-
gious hue and this element only exacerbated ideas about their cruelty.
In the case of the incident of the Sylph, that occurred a half year after the
capture of the Minerva, although there was no clear evidence on which to
base accusations against the “Joasmee,” a combination of reports from locals
on the scene convinced the officials of their involvement. The minutes in the
Bombay Diaries dated November 11, 1808 make an explicit connection between
“Joasmee” piracy and Islam.

[…] Information in a letter written by Mahomed Hussein from Muscat to

the President of the pirates having exulted and even performed a reli-
gious ceremony in thanks for their having had an opportunity to put so
many Christians to death […]93

This conviction of the connection between “Joasmee” piracy and a sort of reli-
gious fanaticism also appears in James R. Wellsted’s travel account. He
describes:

After a ship was taken, she was purified with water, and with perfumes;
the crew were then led forward singly, their heads placed on the gunwale,
and their throats cut, with the exclamation used in battle of ʿAllah
akbar!’–God is great!94

90 BDUE SP 336/1809/7344, Bruce to Edmonstone, Bushire, June 30, 1809.

91 Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 105.
92 Both are quoted in al-Qāsimī, The Myth, 95-97.
93 BDUE SP 251/1808/13005, Minutes dated November 11, 1808. For another statement, see
BDUE P 420/1815/441, Elwood to Carnac, Porebunder, January 31, 1815.
94 James R. Wellsted, Travels to the City of the Caliphs, along the Shores of the Persian Gulf and
Mediterranean, vol. 1 (London: Henry Colburn, 1840), 101. See also, William Heude, A Voy-
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 93

As the minutes of the Bombay Diaries relating to the Sylph incident imply,
local perception supported the British officials’ understanding of the coin­
cidence between “Joasmee” piracy and their acceptance of Wahhabism.95
A biography of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, the founder of Wahhabism,
entitled Lamʿ al-shihāb fī sīra Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (The Brilliantly
Shining Shooting Star of the Paths of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb) by an
anonymous author records one particular episode. On the occasion of a visit
by Sulṭān b. Ṣaqr, the then ruler of the Qawāsim, to Shaykh ʿAlī b. Muḥammad
b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, son of the founder of Wahhabism who had succeeded his
father, this sheikh warmly welcomed Sulṭān and his Qawāsim followers and,
during their stay, he ate only the gifts they had brought, “because whatever the
people of Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah have plundered is sweeter than mother’s milk.”96
Whatever the accuracy of this episode, it does reveal the local perception of
the relationship between Qawāsimi piracy and Wahhabism. Furthermore, the
Lamʿ al-shihāb was most probably compiled at the request of the British
Resident.97 This implies that the British officials were able to confirm their
under­standing using this episode as it had been written down by a local. The
British officials were never short of this sort of information to convince them
of the causality between “Joasmee” piracy and the latter’s espousal of Wahha­
bism. Information like this substantiated the “Joasmee” metamorphosis. The
“Joasmee” were no longer just a potential enemy of Britain, the officials could
now confirm that they were a universal enemy, not only of theirs but also of
Christians and even non-Wahhabist Muslims.
In 1809 the Bombay Government ordered an expedition to Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah.
This expedition destroyed the settlement but it did not lead to the conclusion
of a treaty with the Qawāsim that had been its initial aim. Saʿīd b. Sulṭān, the
ruler of the Āl Bū Saʿīd, joined this expedition in the hope of retaking his ter-
ritories, but this also failed because the British officials were afraid to launch a
direct confrontation with the Wahhabist/Suʿūd; had Saʿīd b. Sulṭān retaken
Ra⁠ʾs al-Khymah, the main body of the Wahhabist/Suʿūd would have inevitably
become embroiled into this conflict.98 The Indian Navy officers and civil offi-

age up the Persian Gulf and a Journey Overland from India to England in 1817 (London:
Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1819), 36.
95 See an Arabic letter cited on Davies, The Blood-Red Arab Flag, 131.
96 Lamʿ al-shihāb (OIOC, OC Add. 23346), ff.247-248.
97 Michael Cook, “The Provenance of the Lamʿ al-shihāb fī sīrat Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd
al-Wahhāb,” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 79-86.
98 Cf. BDUE P 355/1810/2202-2203, Malcolm to Osborne, Camp near Bushire, March 30, 1810;
BDUE 361/1810/4770-4771, Duncan to the Imaum of Muskat, n.p., September 13, 1810; BDUE
375/1811/3125-3126, Board’s Resolutions, Minutes, June 7, 1811.
94 Suzuki

cials in the Persian Gulf were anxious not to offend the main body of the
Wahhabist/Suʿūd whose military potential neither they nor the Bombay
Government underestimated. They were very keen to maintain a good rela-
tionship with the main body of the Wahhabist/Suʿūd, despite the fact they
were still looking for an opportunity to suppress “Joasmee” piracy and that
both parties were firmly bonded in their minds.99 Entangled in the toils of the
half-hearted strategy, Saʿīd b. Sulṭān’s territorial ambitions were doomed to
failure. The Bombay Government was determined to tread warily, even after
the first expedition, so as not to offend the main body of the Wahhabist/Suʿūd.
In 1811 Charles Sealy, commander of the HC (Honorable Company) cruiser the
Benares, received his instructions for his posting to the Persian Gulf from the
Bombay Government as follows:

It is known that the Joasmees are under the general protection of the
Wahabee power which is supposed to keep them in a state of unwilling
subjection, however, that may be you are to cause it to be understood that
the British Government have no quarrel with Saood (Suʿūd), the Present
Chieftain of the Wahabees but desire on the contrary to cultivate with
him the relations of amity in the manner already communicated in a let-
ter written to him by the Hon’ble the Governor […] 100

The links between the “Joasmee” and the Wahhabist/Suʿūd theocracy forced
the Bombay Government to tread on eggshells in its dealings with “Joasmee”
piracy. Even though it looked upon this alliance as an engine for the former to
commit more piracy, it was being extremely careful not to provoke the main
body of the Wahhabist/Suʿūd. Therefore the Bombay Government decided to
suspend further operations against “Joasmee” piracy until the second expedi-
tion in 1819, when the situation had changed, largely to its advantage.

99 BDUE SP 220/11808/1683-1691, Sauoodibn Abdul Azeez to Smith, recd. Bushire, December

16,1807; J.A. Saldanha, The Persian Gulf Précis, vol. 5 (Calcutta and Simla, 1903-8; reprint,
Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire: Archive Editions, 1986), 7.
100 BDUE P 371/1811/1498-1499, Hamilton to Sealey, Bombay, March 25, 1811. See also, BDUE
P 355/1810/2202-2203, Malcolm to Osborne, Camp near Bushire, March 30, 1810; BDUE
375/1811/3125-3126 , Board’s Resolutions, Minutes, June 7, 1811.
The Making of the ‘Joasmee’ Pirates 95

Conclusion

The second expedition was launched in November 1819. This time, British offi-
cials had been busy making thorough preparations since the beginning of the
year, without having to worry too much about the intentions of the main body
of the Wahhabist/Suʿūd, because their capital had fallen to İbrahim Paşa,
Viceroy of Egypt and the Sudan, in September 1818.101 The Bombay Diaries
reveal that British officials in the Gulf and the Bombay Government kept a
careful check on the progress of İbrahim Paşa’s expedition.102 As İbrahim Paşa
seized the advantage in the war, the British officials began to receive various
letters from the sheikhs of the Qawāsim begging forgiveness,103 but these sup-
plications did not check their preparations for accomplishing the noble cause
of suppressing this universal enemy.
Although the expedition did destroy the settlement of Ra⁠ʾs al-Khaymah, it
did not stop the piracy in this and neighboring regions but the extent to which
it was practiced certainly shrank.104 The best outcome of the campaign was
that Britain had demonstrated its military potential effectively enough assume
the position of the protector of this region.
Be that as it may, in many of the cases that the British officials suspected the
“Joasmee” and accused them of piracy it is impossible to judge whether the
Qawāsim were really involved. However, the vague boundaries of what consti-
tuted the Qawāsim, the political relationships in the Persian Gulf that were
subject to rapid change and never less than extremely complicated, the con-
tinuous hostility between the Qawāsim and the Āl Bū Saʿīd in which Britain
was reluctantly involved and the visible integration of the Qawāsim into the
Wahhabist/Suʿūd were factors enough for British officials to use their suspi-
cions of “Joasmee” piracy as an excuse to mount naval expeditions against the
Qawāsim.

101 Warden, “Historical Sketch of Wahabee,” 436.

102 Cf. BDUE P 310/1819/279-312; BDUE P 311/1819/941-948, BDUE P 312/1819/949-1013.
103 For example, in 1817, Sulṭān b. Ṣaqr, the shaykh of Shāriqah wrote to the Resident at Ban-
dar-e Būshehr that (…) the past offence occurred without my authority and sanction for
as Saood had then established his supremacy over my subjects, I lost the power of
restraint, and punishment. I still feel myself bound by the treaty established between us,
and the sincerity of my friendship remains unchanged (…) BDUE P 312/1819/1059, Sooltan
ben Suggur to Bruce, n.p., 2 suffer 1232 ah
104 Cf. OIOC IOR/R/15/1/143/132-134, Hamerton to Kemball, Zanzibar, February 10, 1854; MAHA
PD 159/1860/190-191, Rigby to Anderson, Zanzibar, March 28, 1860.
96 Suzuki

Archival and Manuscript References

BDUE Bombay Diaries held at the Arab World Documentation Unit, University of
Exeter, UK
MAHA Bombay Record Office, of the Central Archival Agency of the Government of
Maharashtra, India
OIOC Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library, UK
Lamʿ al-shihāb fī sīra Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, OIOC, OC Add. 23346
Petitions and Predation 97

Chapter 4

Petitions and Predation: The Politics of

Representation in Northwest India at the Turn of
the Nineteenth Century
Lakshmi Subramanian

Introduction

Recent scholarship on piracy in the Indian Ocean has emphasized the blurred
distinctions between privateering and piracy on the one hand and the idea of
legal pluralism on the other.1 In one sense the ambiguity was part of the early
colonial state’s unwillingness to share control over the sea as far as patrolling
and policing were concerned. However, this attitude was not always consistent
– the actuality of politics in India’s western littoral in the second half of the
eighteenth century complicated the exercise of representing coastal society’s
response to the changes that came in the wake of the growing expansion of
the English East India Company. A key constituent in the apparatus of colonial
power was the technology of representation.2 Who the pirate was, whose pirate
he was, whether he was an individual agent, a lone-ranger of the sea given to
spasmodic action, or whether he abided by a political conception of rights and
entitlement grounded in existing traditions of natural law and custom were
the questions that made up the exercise of representation; questions that were
asked and answered, not always in a systematic or even a nuanced manner.
That maritime violence was often unambiguously slotted under the category
of illicit predation and that such a discursive exercise was part of the politics
of representation is only now being acknowledged and understood. What also
needs to be acknowledged is the challenges presented by the colonial archive,

1 Anna Neill, “Bucaneer ethnography: Nature, Culture and Nation in the Journals of William
Dampier,” Eighteenth Century Studies 33, no. 2 (2000): 165-80. Also Lauren Benton, “Legal
Spaces of Empire: Piracy and the Origins of Ocean Regionalism,” Comparative Studies in
Society and History 47, no. 4 (2005): 700-24; Patricia Risso, “Cultural Perceptions of Piracy:
Maritime Violence in the Western Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf Region during a Long
Eighteenth Century,” Journal of World History 12, no. 2 (2001): 293-319.
2 Lakshmi Subramanian, “Of Pirates and Potentates: Maritime Jurisdiction and the Construction
of Piracy in the Indian Ocean,” in Culture of Trade: Indian Ocean Exchanges, ed. Devleena
Ghosh and Stephen Muecke (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), 19-30.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_006

98 Subramanian

of the reading strategies that we need to adopt if we are to read along the grain
and make sense of the form that archival representation adopted. This paper
is an attempt in that direction: to read the archive on piracy in late-eighteenth
and early-nineteenth century India in order to achieve a better understand-
ing of the dynamics of coastal politics contended between the English East
India Company and its principal rivals, notably the shadowy Maratha presence
along the western littoral. It will specifically look at petitions – undertaking the
taxonomy of these petitions to try to problematize the category of predation
in greater depth by subjecting the East India Company discourse to greater
scrutiny.

1 Towards a Political Geography

As a starting point, let us briefly attempt a political geography of the region

that forms the spatial unit of this paper. We shall be focusing on the Cutch-
Kathiawad section of the western littoral, referred to as the “Northward” in the
latter decades of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth century when predation
and acts of violence at sea (along the coast and on the high seas) increased
and attracted the attention of the English East India Company stationed in
Bombay, but also with a major settlement at Surat. The Northward was organi-
cally linked to the trade of south Gujarat and Bombay, supplying a range of
staples, most notably cotton and textiles, and actively participating in the trade
with West Asia. Politically Kathiawar came under the loose Maratha sphere of
influence from the middle of the eighteenth century, when bands of Maratha
warriors led by chieftains such as the Gaekwad organized tribute-extracting
expeditions in the course of which they established a loose foothold and
imposed tribute arrangements on local and regional power-holders. Kutch, on
the other hand, was relatively isolated from these political changes even as its
Rajput chiefs struggled to maintain their influence over the larger confederacy
or bhyad. Kutch and Kathiawad were connected by marriage alliances between
Rajput households whose presence also testified to older patterns of migration
and settlement.3
What characterized the political history of the Northward were two striking
trends: one was the emergence of middling and small independent states with

3 Howard Spodek, “Urban Politics in the Local Kingdoms of India: A View from the Princely
Capitals of Saurashtra under British Rule,” Modern Asian Studies 7, no. 2 (1973): 255-57. Also
see Howard Spodek, “Rulers, Merchants and Other Groups in the City States of Saurashtra,
India, around 1800,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 16, no. 4 (1974): 448-70.
Petitions and Predation 99

Bhuj
Ahmedabad

Mandvie

Cambay Baroda
Nawanagar

Okhamandal

Bhavnagar
Junagadh

Surat

The epicentre of
50 miles predation

Map 4.1 Gujarat

a maritime orientation that laid claims to sea space and cartaz politics,4 imi-
tating the practices of Maratha coastal chiefs in the Konkan, and the other was
a consolidation of specific coastal communities in strongholds like that of
Okhamandal,5 that adopted predation as a political resource and even offered
its services to rulers inland. In part this tendency could be attributed to the
pressure that the Maratha revenue missions put on local rulers, who responded
by taking recourse to a variety of extractive mechanisms, and in part to the
pretensions of the English East India Company and the inefficacy of its convoy
arrangements, that added yet another element to the scale of predation.

4 H. Wilberforce-Bell, The History of Kathiawad from the Earliest Times (London: W. Heinemann,
1916; reprint, New Delhi: Ajay Book Service, 1980), 135-48.
5 H. Wilberforce-Bell, The History of Kathiawad, 142-43. Alexander Walker’s correspondence
reveals important genealogical details of the chieftaincies in Okhamandal. See National
Library of Scotland, Walker of Bowland Papers, MS.13691. Miscellany of Memoranda, 1807-8
giving details of the genealogical connections between the rulers of Bate, Aramra, and Positra.
The chief of Dwarka was Moloo Manke of the Wagher tribe.
100 Subramanian

And yet the politics of representation chose to frame the story quite differ-
ently, choosing to overemphasize the predatory nature of coastal politics that
seemed to have no intrinsic ideological rationale. For the most part, official
chroniclers, even those with the advantage of hindsight, referred to the early-
eighteenth century exploits of the Company’s naval force, the Bombay Marine,
against the pirates of the Konkan (the Angrias) as enemies of mankind, just as
in later times they represented their adversaries, the Cooleys and Sangarians of
the Northward, as even more ruthless predators. Both Charles Low and John
Biddulph writing on the Bombay Marine and the pirates of Malabar reflect on
the greater resolve the Company decided to demonstrate against Indian
pirates, especially as by the 1740s European piracy had been contained and
undermined.6 The tendency to see Indian privateering and predation in even
harsher and more reductive terms increased, albeit on the grounds that the
politics of the Bombay Marine and the nature of engagement with Indian
states, especially those that claimed a maritime profile, made the issue of rep-
resentation more complex and compromised the Company’s stand in several
ways.

2 Politics, Ethnography, and the Littoral: The Company Offensive

From the 1740s when the Company settlement of Bombay decided to take the
offensive in defining its jurisdiction and rights over the littoral through the
enforcement of the Company pass system and the provision of a convoy ser-
vice for local shipping, lines were drawn between smaller coastal powers and
the Company over the question of jurisdiction. The Company insisted that it
was responsible only for those merchants who availed of themselves its col-
ors and, therefore, would take up their cause when attacked by other powers.
However, in fact, the Company was not particularly meticulous in extending its
convoy services, thereby forcing merchants to ask for the services other colors
as well. Under the circumstances, the rhetoric of unfair aggression or indeed
of its own self-definition as a responsible and benign guardian of fair trade
were exposed as hollow gimmicks. Equally flawed was the exercise of defin-
ing a miscellany of coastal powers as pirates. In the majority of cases these
were privateers, whose operations were part of a complex coastal economy
that absorbed and distributed cargoes ranging from cotton to arms, from sugar
to parts of a salvaged ship. A careful look at the available material therefore

6 C.R. Low, History of the Indian Navy, 1613-1863 (London, 1918); John Biddulph, The Pirates of
Malabar (London: Smith Elder & Co., 1907).
Petitions and Predation 101

suggests an altogether different picture – one of complex and confusing inter-

sections between coastal officers, merchants, marine men, and maritime labor
that doubled up as lascars and seamen, as pirates and mercenaries, working
for coastal chiefs, all of whom participated in a local market and economy in
which arms were bought and sold, ships were wrecked and salvaged for later
operations, licenses to trade between differently administered territories were
bought and sold, and in which piratical ventures were also organized to pay off
debts. Furthermore, it is also important to tease out differences even within
the Company’s official discourse. Not only was this layered as a result of the
incremental nature of the ethnographic project, it was also inflected by the
individual attitudes of administrators and Residents, and of military surveyors
and top officials, not to mention their native informants. Colonel Walker, for
instance, by and large tended to be suspicious of the interpretations of mili-
tary officers and to be more sensitive to the local economy of predation and
its dynamics. Like many of his other contemporaries, he too tended to isolate
states in the region, including that of Okhamandal, on which treaty obligations
could be imposed and to identify communities that lived and abided by codes
that were completely rationally constituted, even if these proved incompre-
hensible to the Company officials. Walker’s ethnography did not necessarily
find favor with the top officials and the tendency to look at pirate states and at
allegedly “criminally disposed” communities only reinforced the discourse on
the hierarchy of piratical violence.
The victories of the Bombay Marine against coastal powers along the south-
ern stretch of the littoral were followed up by a more vigorous inset of the
Company’s convoy as well as of the imposition of the Company’s pass and col-
ors over local shipping.7 Technically the Company was responsible only for
those merchants who had accepted its protection but, in fact, the reality on the
ground posed both challenges and contradictions. One important factor was
that a series of informal private arrangements between naval officers and
coastal interests, in conjunction with the financial constraints on the Bombay
Marine preventing it from deploying adequate convoy services, made it impos-
sible for the Company pass to circulate as the only legitimate and admissible
instrument of control. Under the circumstances, there was a tacit admission of
multiple circulating passes and this encouraged coastal chiefs along the littoral
to continue exercising the right to issue cowls or safe-conduct passes that they
saw as a customary entitlement. At the same time, the Company’s military
campaigns against coastal polities had the effect of pushing littoral peoples

7 Lakshmi Subramanian, Indigenous Capital and Imperial Expansion: Bombay, Surat and the
West Coast (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996).
102 Subramanian

farther toward the north, especially toward Okhamandal, the northwestern

promontory of Kathiawad, making it the epicentre of piracy by the latter
decades of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, neither of these develop-
ments persuaded the Company to adjust and fine-tune its rhetoric on piracy
nor did it produce a clear notion of what the Company regarded as its sover-
eign rights to the seas or of a universal law of the sea in the context of
non-European waters such as the Indian Ocean. For the most part the Company
insisted on its supreme right to issue passes, on never to accept those issued by
others, and on the absolute denunciation of theft whether on land or at sea.
Here, the Cooleys of the Northward were subjected to special scrutiny, espe-
cially from roughly the closing decades of the eighteenth century when
merchants complained about their increasing violence and petitioned the
Company authorities for redress. By this time, the Company was making steady
inroads into South Gujarat where it already had a foothold in the old trading
city of Surat and enjoyed powers of arbitration and of adjudication. Also the
Company had contracted important treaty arrangements with neighboring
kingdoms like those of Cambay and Bhavnagar, both of which were committed
to the elimination of piracy and privateering and this led in turn to claims and
counterclaims that the Company had to deal with.

3 Classifying and Reading Petitions

Petitioning the Company was neither new nor exceptional. As early as the late-
seven­teenth century, local merchants in Bombay and Surat had been accus­
tomed to use the arbitration channels provided by the East India Company.
The growing presence of the Company and the formal acceptance of its pro-
tection by substantial sections of the local population made petitioning even
more rampant, with the result that merchants and rivals had learned to articu-
late their claims and what they considered to be their rights and be very clear
about the Company’s responsibilities. The petitions that we shall study fall into
three broad categories: (1) Those from merchants addressing the risk of piracy
and the lack of effective safeguards; (2) those from coastal interests and chiefs
who objected to and debated the Company’s policy of undermining their
rights and entitlements; (3) those from pirates themselves, mostly in the form
of depositions that spoke of their life experiences and intentions.
The first category of petitions involved Indian merchants as well as European
traders and agency houses in Bombay, all complaining about the inadequate
convoy facilities set up by the East India Company and the escalating violence
of the Northward pirates. The charges did not always identify the specific
Petitions and Predation 103

pirates and their patrons but did emphasize the escalating scale of piratical
operations sponsored by a variety of agents. What is especially striking in the
merchant petitions is the insistence on restitution, that as English subjects
they saw as their lawful right. The Company did not disavow this obligation; in
fact, it insisted on restitution as a precondition for any negotiation with local
chiefs, especially those of Okhamandal, the principal nucleus of pirate politics.
Therefore, on March 15, 1796, the English Chief’s letter to the Okha chieftain
mentions that an English vessel named the Fatty Islam had been obliged by
inclement weather conditions to take shelter on the coast where it had been
unfairly seized. In spite of constant demands, the vessel had not been restored.
This was unacceptable; as the chieftain had no claims whatever on a vessel of
ENGLISH subjects.8 The Company was equally vigilant about resisting any
demands that the Marathas made regarding salvage and right to shipwrecks. A
letter from the Surat Chief in 1796 makes the point that,

The Marathas seize on every vessel belonging to the English that is appar-
ently or actually in distress near their ports as KarvaKiatty (Kathiawar?)
therefore, lawful property of their sarkar and the difficulty ruinous which
always attends recovery of such as are detained under those circum-
stances it becomes necessary to guard against any instance recurring of
aggression on the part of our merchants invalidating our claims to resti-
tution which an uncontrolled use of armed vessels may endanger as it is
we understand very difficult to discriminate friends from foes, where ves-
sels are so much upon the same construction and there remains no doubt
of pirates fitting out from Maratha ports.9

Also it was able to demarcate certain territorial limits within which it had
supe­rior rights and other claimants could not exercise the same rights of
surveillance.
Merchant petitions were also critical of the laxity of the convoy arrange-
ments and of the arbitrary exactions demanded by Company officers. For
example, in 1800, it was brought to the attention of the Surat Council that the
commodore of the Company’s vessel at the Surat bar had lately introduced a
new custom of recovering fines from passenger merchants amounting to one
rupee on each head upon their coming down from Bhavnagar to proceed to

8 Public Department Diary of the Bombay Government (hereafter PDD) of 1796, 51: “Letter from
Surat dated March 15.”
9 PDD of 1796, 361: “Letter from Surat accepting the Board’s arbitration of the Cooley boats affair
dated February 9, 1796.”
104 Subramanian

Bombay and, conversely, from Bombay to Bhavnagar.10 This additional levy

was very hard on them. While such cases were not new and in fact quite fre-
quently resorted to in the 1750s and 1760s, the Company authorities were quick
to condemn them after 1800 when a more systematic campaign against preda-
tion was stepped up. What also emerges from these petitions is the ad hoc
nature of the Bombay Marine’s politics that almost encouraged client mer-
chants to opt for a variety of strategies that included acceptance of multiple
passes, private security arrangements, and that in turn rendered the theoreti-
cal position of illegitimate trading untenable. Therefore in 1790, we come
across a petition from a Parsi inhabitant of Bombay complaining about the
losses he had suffered in Cooley attacks and also how the Company did not
organize effective and regular convoys, and how he like many others used
Maratha convoys when they had to. Three years later, serious charges were lev-
eled against the Company’s negligence and the exactions of the officers, but
also against Maratha commanding officers, forcing merchants to arm their ves-
sels and make private security arrangements.11 Not only do these instances
indicate the hollowness of the Company’s rhetoric about policing and protect-
ing merchants on the sea, they also raise the larger issue of what constituted
rights on the sea, and whether these were negotiable. These observations are
important in that they highlight how merchants were put in a position to nego-
tiate the situation and choose their options judiciously. They participated in a
situation in which there was a market for arms and ships and for passes. We
come across several representations that suggest how merchants too fitted out
piratical expeditions to service old debts, to procure cargoes for a grey market,
and also how they dealt in passes that were bought and sold. Evidently this was
a consequence of a situation in which legal and police controls were still fluid
and opaque and, while rhetorically the English Company maintained the sac-
rosanctitiy of its legal position, in fact, besides policing the seas and claiming
universal rights to its sovereignty, it was participating in a situation in which
local practices, customary rights, and economic compulsions intersected to
complicate the idea of legitimacy and predation. What was really at stake was
the question of the assuming the right to punish theft. Who had this right? Was
it permissible to attack enemy ships in wartime? What gave the Company the
sole and undisguised authority to intervene in maritime politics? There were
no easy answers, especially as the Company emphatically insisted on confining
its benevolence and protection only to those merchants who formally accepted

10 PDD, No. 146 of 1800, 43: “Petition from merchants dated January 10, 1800.”
11 PDD, No. 9 of 1790: “Consultation meeting of the Bombay Council of January 19, 1790” and
also PDD of 1793 : “Consultation meeting of March 1, 1793.”
Petitions and Predation 105

its protection. The complexities were revealed when the Company authorities
undertook more comprehensive ethnographic exercises, especially that con-
ducted by Colonel Alexander Walker, when a more layered appreciation of
coastal politics and the rationale that drove them was recorded.
The second category of petitions that we have referred to, give us a sense,
albeit incoherent, of what coastal chiefs saw as their legitimate sphere of influ-
ence. We need to keep in mind that, until the end of the first quarter of the
nineteenth century, the Company’s offensive, a mixture of force and diplo-
macy, did not yield immediate results because, notwithstanding professions of
peace and obedience, there was an escalation in maritime violence. How do
we categorize these events? Are we to see them simply as random expressions
of predation? Or are we to see them as part of an older conception of rights
and entitlements that might have emerged out of a process of dispossession
and displacement? Should we perhaps see them as a corollary of very specific
instances of state formation in the region in which privateering and the use of
maritime mercenaries were an established and effective strategy? To answer
some of these questions, we need to refer to two kinds of material: the first the
responses of coastal chiefs to the Company’s policies and the second deposi-
tions that pirates came up with when caught and interrogated.
Even a cursory look at some of these petitions suggests that the rajas of
Bhavnagar, the nawab of Jungadh, and the sultan of Porbandar, heads of the
principal chiefdoms in Kathiawad, saw maritime authority and the proceeds
from trade and licenses as important accessories to their political profile. Of
the three, from the very beginning Bhavnagar adopted a pro-Company stance,
allowing the Company to enforce its control over the littoral and accepting
its overall patronage. The nawabs of Junagadh and the sultan of Porbandar
did not exhibit the same enthusiasm for the Company connection and were
found to claim control over specific stretches of coast and also to direct pri-
vate individuals to attack shipping. In 1797, a deposition by Cooley prisoners
stated that the nawab of Junagadh had some gallivants that were employed
for piracy, but that the raja of Porbandar was more of a trader than a pirate.12
What subsequent reports and petitions also established is that the Maratha
presence in Gujarat from about the early eighteenth century was so minutely
worked into the revenue arrangements of even coastal principalities, that the
idea of clearly articulated rights to the sea were inextricably tied up with other
political arrangements. Recall how a letter written by the descendant of the
Mughal admirals of Surat (known as the Sidis, an ethnic group settled along

12 PDD, No.124 of 1797: “Letter from Police dated February 14, 1797” containing the deposi-
tions of cooley prisoners.
106 Subramanian

the western coast of India) to the English Chief of Surat in 1798 drew attention
to the nature of shared authority in Goga and Bhavnagar.

It is unquestionable that the above mentioned vessel is employed in the

trade of Gogo a port of the Peshwa and also that she belongs to D.
Bhagwan inhabitant of Bhavnagar but sir the Raja having 2 years ago
caused a breach in friendship and understanding with NawabYacoos
Khan by plundering 4 villages (loss being 50,000 Rs.) several times I wrote
to the raja for making good the losses which he agreed to do but never
actively obliging. It is for this reason I plundered the above vessel as an
indemnification, you further write that the vessel had English pass and
colours but neither of them were shown to Commander of the fleet the
people on board said she belonged to Bhavnagar – merchants have a cus-
tom of telling falsities.13

What the petition suggested was that merchants were no innocent bystanders
and participated in the politics of maritime competition and inter-pass rival-
ries, shrewdly adjusting their operations to a complex and layered political
economy that had emerged along the littoral. None of the participants, how-
ever, spoke of their rights in universalistic terms, not even the English and,
although the question of mare librum had been given up as early as the fif-
teenth century by the Portuguese, the definition of the other in legal terms had
not framed in clearly articulated terms of Christianity or civilization. One
appreciable shift in the register of representation happened at the end of the
eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Company
authorities dispatched several surveying expeditions to the northwestern lit-
toral, Okhamandal in particular, whose petty chiefs were major patrons of
small-time predation and operated within a larger economy of maritime pro-
tection, and whose politics extended into the mainland as well. These early
visits generated scattered information about the region and its political profile
and were followed by the Company’s decision to contract treaty arrangements
with the petty states and chieftains so as to put an end to certain kinds of
piracy.14
The confederacy of Okhamandal, constituted by the chieftains of Bate,
Dwarkla, Aramra, and Positra, was traditionally understood as a base to pro-
vide for the dreaded Sangodhar pirates and described as such by Alexander
Hamilton in the very first years of the eighteenth century. By the end of the

13 PDD, No. 131 A of 1798, 312: “Letter from the Sidi to the Chief of Surat (n.d.).”
14 Subramanian, Indigenous Capital.
Petitions and Predation 107

century, the region was associated with organized piracy that accommodated
a subset of functions ranging from privateering to random predation, from
expeditions organized by local Bania merchants and political bosses to ran-
dom predatory attacks by individuals. Politically and demographically, the
region represented a curious mix of coastal peoples (Sanganians, Wadellas,
and Kharwas) and of migrant groups with a complex relationship with Rajput
lineages. Not surprisingly, colonial ethnography focused special attention on
the pirate states in this region and the complex political economy in which
they functioned. Depositions and petitions referred to the passes that these
states enforced and also to the fact that the chiefs of Okhamandal treated the
Company pass with disdain. On February 14, 1797, in the wake of the Bombay
Marine’s action against the Cooley pirates, it was brought to its attention that
the rajas of Dwarka and Gomtee were employing sepoys doubling up as pirates,
who received Rs2 per month as a wage in addition to some millet. They were
supplied with vessels and gunpowder. The raja of Dwarka personally owned a
gallivant and a number of dinghies, while the raja of Bate fitted out five six ves-
sels along with private individuals to cruise both the littoral off Bombay as well
as off Muscat. It also maintained good relations with the rulers of Porbandar,
who also deployed armed vessels to safeguard trade. Other petitions also
referred to the expeditions that merchants sponsored in Okhamandal, either
independently or in association with the rulers of Cutch and Kathiawad.15
The self-representation of the Okhamandal chiefs, and occasionally of their
crews, came into greater focus in the wake of a major ethnographic survey
undertaken by Colonel Alexander Walker, the Resident of Baroda, who was
personally given the charge of pacifying the region in 1807. Unlike his superi-
ors, who chose to see all maritime action as predatory, he chose to make a
distinction not so much between piracy and privateering as between those
states and chiefs who participated in actual attacks on sea and those who
allowed individual predators or groups to fit out voyages from their ports. He
was equally mindful of the consequences of military action in the region that
had dispersed coastal groups and forced them to opt for violence and piracy.
Under the circumstances, there was no question of subscribing to the idea of
the “unreasonable pirate.”16 As the Resident saw it, there was no real alterna-
tive to effective, even if expensive, military action but, failing this, there could
only be a pragmatic resolution of the question by allowing claimants to retain
some of their entitlements. He therefore made it a point to identify instances
in which local chiefs forswore attacks on English property and to demonstrate

15 PDD, No. 124 of 1797, 343-44: “Letter from Police Superintendent dated February 14, 1797.”
16 Walker of Bowland Papers, MS13674: “Letter from Walker, December 29, 1807.”
108 Subramanian

how local chiefs had no sense of being obliged to restore goods taken, particu-
larly as they had had no such demands made on them in the past and also
because they could legitimately invoke the benefits of the customary pardon
or muluksharista.17
Walker’s observations clearly reveal the antecedents and historical precon-
ditions of coastal and maritime violence and questioned, albeit indirectly, the
received wisdom of the Cooley rover and the savage northern pirate. Time and
again, the Okha chiefs insisted that they be given the right to issue cowls and
that their politics was fueled by livelihood issues. None of these exhortations
cut any ice with his superiors in Bombay, who argued that compensation for
their clients had to be secured. They insisted the governments of the piratical
states were in “every view of reasonable construction equally answerable to
other nations.” In Walker’s eyes this was political suicide – enforcement of com-
pensation claims would only perpetuate the cycle of piracy. He also made the
point that many of the outstanding claims were obscure, ill-defined and/or the
parties either unknown or so vaguely specified that it would be “impossible to
fix on the actual thief.” The financial circumstances of the pirates were in any
case embarrassed. Most of them were in debt and their revenues were precari-
ous. The Resident was doubtful if the rajas of Beyt or Dwarka had actually
attacked Company-protected shipping and furthermore acknowledged their
efforts to try and expel from their domain various piratical groups who then
fled to Jackoo in Kutch. This port now began to emerge as the new epicentre of
piratical activity and recruitment. Therefore, Walker assumed not only were
the profits of the pirates wildly exaggerated, it was also important that the
Company at least initiate a dialogue and begin an engagement that gave the
states and chiefs an opportunity to enter into an agreement, perhaps even
accept a British agent. Forcing chiefs to pay back was not an option and would,
according to Walker, drive them to desperation. In subsequent suggestions he
made the point that, failing full military action, pirates would have to be
allowed to issue passes or cowls to those merchants not subject to the Company
and that this had been a traditional practice to which they had been accus-
tomed. Furthermore, merchants – both Arabs and Sindians farther north
– were also used to it.18 In fact, as late as 1817, Walker was still sticking to this
point as he wrote that the granting of protection to pirates might also be a use-
ful strategy as it would give them some kind of compensation in lieu of their

17 Walker of Bowland Papers, MS13674: “Walker to Bombay, December 29, 1807.”

18 Walker of Bowland Papers, MS13674: “Bombay to Walker, February 4, 1808.” Also see
MS13675: “Walker to Bombay dated January 23, 1808.”
Petitions and Predation 109

relinquishment of claims to the ownership of wrecks and vessels stranded on

their coasts, adding that this was a common practice of most nations.
Here it would appear that Walker was taking a position similar to that attrib-
uted to such thinkers as Antequil and Burke about non-European nations also
having laws of nations and notions of legality, in short a multiplicity of legal
orders that the British had to acknowledge. Where the similarity ended was
that Walker had no hesitation in recommending military force to quash piracy,
whether it was organized by a state or was an expression of random violence.
The representations of both the “states” and their wandering “subjects” who
participated in the loose circulating networks that connected Okhamandal
with Cutch reveal not so much an understanding of rights or even the law of
the seas as of older entitlements and adherence to customary practices of pro-
tection and privateering, including pardon and restitution. To this were added
instances of spontaneous defiance that were typical constituents of piracy.
Interrogations of intercepted crews invariably cited concrete material reasons
for their choice – large-scale dispossession in the wake of protracted maritime
conflicts and resentment against the immediate political dispensation. These
factors, combined with an understanding of grey markets, had prompted vari-
ous individuals to opt for predation. However, material considerations were
not the sole determinants – the nature and timing of various campaigns as
recorded in the depositions raise questions about the moral economy of pre-
dation. Just how these acts of defiance might be characterized is an important
challenge, raising as it does the possibility of error in reading a fragmented
archive of translated depositions.

4 Resistance and the Limits of Representation

This brings us to the last category of petitions and representations, namely:

The depositions of pirates captured and interrogated by the police authorities
of the East India Company. Like the petitions, these too bear conventional
marks of style and address, details, and emphases that are important not
merely to mining the details of the social world of piracy in the western littoral,
but also to inferring the logic the Company adopted in its technology of repre-
sentation. What was it the Company wished to foreground in its agenda? Was
it littoral piracy or was it a ruse to obfuscate its real intentions in Cutch and
Sind? These are questions that still might need to be asked, even as we persist
in understanding the phenomenon of escalating piracy in the first quarter of
the nineteenth century.
110 Subramanian

The depositions under consideration are those of the Nackwa brothers, Jech
Nackwa and Kassa Nackwa, both of whom were intercepted in 1813. The depo-
sitions are full of fascinating detail with allusions to their everyday practices
that help us reconstruct a life story of a “pirate” who doubled up as navigator,
mercenary, and local contact and whose politics was both autonomous and
part of a collective. My tentative argument is that the representation of some-
one like Jech Nakhwa, or indeed of other nameless predators, reveals the
complexity of coastal life in the early-nineteenth century that neither law, nor
discourse, nor military action could completely explain and eliminate. Was it
that maritime communities such as those to which pirates belonged were not
entirely amenable to the politics of representation and repression? In that
case, the logical consequence is that the mode of representation in terms of its
stylistic markers, repetitive inflections, and presentation of the same details,
has to be subject to greater scrutiny. This exercise is not to make any confident
generalizations but to explore the very inconsistencies in the Company’s
understanding and its political and ideological position. It is with this in mind
that I shall try here to dwell a bit on the depositions themselves and demon-
strate, how by reading the archive along its grain, we can gain partial access to
the complex world of coastal society and its agents and revisit the Company’s
position on maritime authority.
Both Jech Nackwa and Kassa Nackwa19 described themselves as pirates,
born into a family of seasoned pilots, who doubled up as expert navigators
when the season was fair and resorted to piracy in times of stress. They enjoyed
a certain degree of physical mobility as their depositions track their adven-
tures all along the littoral, moving fairly easily between the creeks in Kathiawad
and Cutch, negotiating with a number of fairly influential dignitaries like the
governors of Mandvie in Cutch, and mobilizing personnel for some of their
coastal expeditions. They were part of a social network constituted by their
community of muallims (religious teachers) and tindals (seamen), of local pirs
(Sufi masters) and fakirs, who occasionally interceded on their behalf, and of
local merchants whose commercial interests brought them into contact with
the pirates working in the grey market. Their skills and connections were prin-
cipally deployed by the amirs of Sind and officials in Cutch, although the

19 These men were identified as being among the most daring of the pirates and they were
captured in 1813. Their depositions were recorded before General Macmurdo. For a full
account of their depositions, see Secret and Political Department Diary of the Bombay
Government, No. 284 of 1813: “Consultation of August 18, 1813” and “Letter from Mac-
Murdo dated May 18, 1813.”
Petitions and Predation 111

alliances they contracted did not always endure. Both men referred to the
acquiescence and encouragement of local officials and merchants for acts of
piracy and provided details of the various individuals engaged in these opera-
tions. The following extract from one of these petitions makes this amply clear.

My family are originally natives of Bate, but have resided for about 20
years in Mandavee. My forefathers were all Pirates, and my father is the
only exception in the family for 7 generations – He navigated a boat
belonging to a merchant in Mandavee until his death. I became a pirate
and joined Jecha Nakwa many years ago, we used to carry most of our
Pirates to Verawal and the parts on that coast. At length the English came
and interfered after which those places would not receive us – I was in
Mandavee living quietly where a dispute broke out between that place
and Bhooj, and the jumadar Futteh Mohamad sent for and fined me at 5
cories per day – I remained in his service with little interruption for about
4 years from 1808 till 1812 during which I made many captures from
Mandavee for Bhoo – I found, however, that Futteh Mohamad always
took the plunder, and I got the blame – on one occasion I plundered a
large bag of dollars, and gave me a Pair of gold bracelets – he said he was
written about the plunder by the English – I therefore resolved to leave
him; people of my cast came and persuaded me to return, home where I
was entertained by Jokursa [?] who was then in charge of Mandavee and
in whose service I made one mercantile trip to Bombay.
 On Jokursa’s seizure and minister Sheoraz would not pay me my
arrears of 9 months and I threatened to plunder a Mandavee vessel, he
would not listen to my complaint. I therefore in company with Jea Pattan,
a resident of Moondra, seized pattamar in Mandavee creek and carried
her away; but landing about 4 coss from the port I sent back the pattamar
to Sheoraj and not knowing where to go, was found and carried to
Mandavee where I was kept in irons for about 2 months – at length my
cast interfered, and became security for my good conduct upon which I was
released, and having no means of getting food I resolved to go to Bhooj,
where I remained more than 2 months on 2 cories per day from the
jumadar.
 On my release from irons, I went to Joonagarh to visit a peer, and as
I had formerly much intercourse with the ports belonging to the Nawab
I went to Verawil where I met an old friend named Abla or Abdulla Mukadum
and his brother Hussan Mukaddam, the principal of the seafaring boat in
that port – these too urged me to pirate, and offered to receive any plundered
property that I might bring they also desired me to send my family, whom
112 Subramanian

they would protect – I refused these offers and embarked on a Porebunder

boat, but falling in with a Mandavee vessel, went on board, and soon as I
landed in Kutch proceeded to Bhooj, where I remained, as I said before
more than 2 months of Hussunia Neriadee having brought some rich
plunder to Bhooj, I was led away to attempt piracy after I had so long
given it up – I therefore took with me the following people and arrived at
Mandavee about the time the English gentlemen sailed – my compan-
ions were
1. Desil a langa or trumpeter of Bhooj
2. Poonja a Rajput of Bhooj
3. Natha a shara scindee of Bhooj
4. Allah Rakah a Nova scindee of Bhooj and
5. Momia a meanee of Bhooj
With these five me and a Seeden servant I embarked in the boat of a
Buddulla of Aramind [?] named Bhooja Sedee, and landed on the east
side of Bate, whence we took a small boat that was lying on the shore, and
rowed alongside a kumballia vessel at anchor boarded her, sent the boat-
men below, got under weigh, and next morning being off the Chiga hills,
we landed the crew, together with one of my men who was in the habit of
stealing everything he saw. This was the meana.20

A careful reading of this deposition along with that of his fellow mate immedi-
ately suggests the long-term consequences of coastal politics that put pressure
on local society, one manifestation of which was predation. At every point, the
pirates were quick to point out how the presence of the Company forced their
immediate patrons to go underground and encourage clandestine trading –
made possible by the topographical context. The narrative therefore time and
again stresses how local chiefs who contracted their services never fulfilled
their side of the bargain – they were robbed of virtually all incentive and, as
they had not been given a fair share of the plunder, forced to strike out on their
own and commit acts of depredation targeting Company vessels and Cutchi
shipping. The narrative is one of reclaiming the seas and their traffic as a mark
of protest against the new dispensation of the Company that had dispossessed
coastal groups, and against the immediate sense of deprivation that local
bosses did little to alleviate. This is not to suggest subaltern politics of protest
or resistance but merely to draw attention to the strains that the larger political
economy of the region was subjected to in the final years of the transition to

20 Secret and Political Department Diary of the Bombay Government, No. 284 of 1813: “Con-
sultation of August 18, 1813” and “Letter from MacMurdo dated May 18, 1813.”
Petitions and Predation 113

Company rule and that was expressed in sustained piratical operations. The
narrative does not invoke traditional rights or claims but signposts the exten-
sive support and intelligence from political bosses and merchants alike on
which they could draw.
For the Company authorities, by now resolute in their intention to eliminate
piracy, there was no longer any question of viewing the depositions as an exten-
sion of an alternative conception of rights or practice. If Walker had spoken of
piracy as the gift of Krishna and had attempted to understand the distinctions
between episodic and random attacks of individual pirates, Mcmurdo now
faithfully recorded the culpability of these dangerous men who were exploited
by the perfidious rulers of Cutch and Sind and whose incarceration was the
only answer to the problem. The interrogations that followed focused more
squarely on the chicanery of Fateh Muhammad of Bhuj and the rulers of Sind,
and not so much on the rights of sovereign nations to the seas. In any case,
what the Company envisaged was the commitment of all the smaller states in
Kathiawar and Cutch to jettison piracy and relinquish all claims to shipwrecks.
On the discursive level, the representation of piracy as more savage and ruth-
less became even more pronounced leading up to the campaigns against the
Joasmis (Al Qasimi tribes) of the Persian Gulf.

Concluding Observations

In conclusion, this essay has been an attempt to come up with a historical eth-
nography of the figure of the northern pirate and detect within it multiple
elements of representation and possibilities of exploring other modes of resis-
tance than we have so far tended to associate with protest in British India. It
would seem that, on one level, the incidence of maritime violence was struc-
turally linked to the politics of warfare and dispossession as well as to the pass
politics institutionalized by Europeans along the coast and adopted and
expanded by the Marathas. It would also appear that piracy was a part-time
occupation in that it commanded skills that could equally be deployable in
other maritime activities and also in that it was resorted to by groups that
found themselves out of employment in certain seasons. However, this was not
all because it is equally clear that Okhamandal became a nucleus of disaffected
maritime communities that found employment and whose activities were an
integral part of the sub-region’s political profile as well as of its local economy.
Within this larger circuit, we also have instances of individual agency, of actors
who broke free from the shackles of the existing political set-up to sail out with
a few faithful friends and attack ships on the high seas. Unquestionably, as well
114 Subramanian

as drawing on an older repertory of ideas about entitlement, they had at their

disposal skills, intimate geographical knowledge, and the technical compe-
tence to operate arms and overpower the Company vessels. Note how Nackwa
Kassow and Jeah Nackwa describe their decisions to attack and speak of their
ability to negotiate in markets and with rulers and how the displacement
caused by war and English military campaigns left them with little choice but
to plunder. Under the circumstances, they did not take refuge in an ideology of
rights but merely relied on a tradition of support and networks of solidarity
that had converged spatially. Even if Walker spoke about piracy as the gift of
Krishna, for the pirates themselves, it would appear to have been not only an
old and familiar line of activity but one that was actively endorsed by mer-
chants and rulers alike. It had even developed into a specialized occupation
based in Okhamandal, occasionally moving farther up the littoral, but drawing
on the former’s history and traditions.
By 1806, the fiction of representation was complete as the Company author-
ities sat in council to meditate measures against the northern pirates. There
was an inevitable tendency to compare them with the more benign pirates of
Malabar (the very same group that had been denounced as treacherous and
savage in the 1720s and 1730s) and to advocate a policy of ruthless suppression.
Consequently, even as the superintendent of the Marine stepped up measures
to intercept the Jackwa pirates and use pirates-turned-approvers to scour the
networks of small creeks, the language of representation changed. Admittedly,
in contrast to the Angrias, in terms of political status and location, the north-
ern pirates represented a very different social formation but were they formally
attached to a political confederacy, as the Angrias and other Maratha coastal
chiefs had been. They were in a sense loners and, as a senior official commented
“they lived in a loose state of society where the most solemn engage­ments had
no significance.” They were more ferocious, more ruthless, and more barba-
rous. The rhetoric had turned full circle and with it the geography of predation
too moved farther northwest to converge with the politics of Sind and the
Trucial Coast.

Primary Sources

Walker of Bowland Papers, MS.13691. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

Public Department Diaries of the Bombay Government, Maharashtra State Archives,
Mumbai
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 115

Chapter 5

Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty: Changing

Perceptions of Piracy and Dutch Colonial
State-Building in Malay Waters, c. 1780-1830
Ota Atsushi

Introduction

The principal theme of this chapter is a discussion of the intertwined rela-

tionship between trade, piracy, and sovereignty in Malay Waters in the
transition period from the rule of independent sultanates to colonial rule. It
focuses on political developments in the coastal parts of West Kalimantan
and the Riau-Lingga Islands (Map 5.1). These areas were interrelated by strong
social, economic, and political ties extending across the sea, bringing them
into contact not only with the local people but also with the Dutch colonial
administration. During the period of under study, trade, migration, and piracy
were active in the Malay Waters, and they played a crucial role in the political
developments in both indigenous and Dutch colonial states. Focusing on their
changing perceptions of piracy, state, and territories among Company and
colonial officials of various ranks, local rulers, traders, elites, and their men,
the chapter argues that these perceptions changed as a consequence of the
interactions between European and local agents occasioned by piracy issues,
and these interactions led to the formation the new ideas of sovereignty and
colonial state-building.
In the following sections, I shall explain the background to the region during
the period under study, before discussing the divergent perceptions of piracy
held by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) officials and the local rulers and
elites before the inception of the Dutch colonial rule in 1818-1819. Having set
the scene, I examine the shifting attitudes of Dutch officials toward piracy in
the early colonial era, with a focus on their attempts to impose their concept of
state on the local politics. My purpose is to argue that the Dutch sense of state
and sovereignty was consolidated through their antipiracy policies in Malay
Waters, and these developments also encouraged local rulers to adopt new
perceptions of piracy and territory.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_007

116 Ota

Japan Sea

Hôki
Chugoku
Chikuzen Bingo Osaka
Aki Bicchu
Sakai
Suô Sanuki
Awa

Hizen
Buzen Iyo
Shikoku
Seto In
Tosa
Higo
Chikugo
Kyushu
Satsuma Sendai
Kagoshima
Satsuma

Map 5.1 Malay waters

1 Background

Trade had been pursued in Malay Waters since ancient times, but a really
strong upsurge in trade became perceptible in the mid-eighteenth century.
This expansion was closely connected to the increasing Chinese interest in
Southeast Asian products. Not only did the growing population in China need
rice from the Chao Phraya and Mekong deltas, people in more economically
advanced regions such as the Yangzi delta and the Beijing region were
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 117

developing an increasing taste for such Southeast Asian exports as edible

marine products like sea cucumbers and shark’s fins, as well as an interest in
such forest products as rattan, plus tin, pepper, and birds’ nests. In this varied
selection, the luxury foodstuffs were probably related to the growth of the food
service industry. In eighteenth-century Qing China, the imperial cuisine had
begun to trickle down to the wider strata of the society. Rattan was used for
many kinds of furniture, while tin was used for a variety of purposes such as tea
caddies and “paper” money burned in rituals. In short, these demands were the
outcome of the growing economy and the developing consumer culture.1
Responding to the growing demand in China, the trade in tropical products
boomed in Southeast Asia. Although Chinese traders sailed to a number of
ports, they preferred those outside the Dutch sphere of influence, undoubtedly
because they disliked Dutch customs and intervention and, more importantly,
because the Dutch were not interested in collecting these kinds of goods. To a
certain extent the market had also been cornered by British country traders
who operated their businesses to the east of India with the permission of the
East India Company and had been frequent visitors in Southeast Asian ports
since the mid-eighteenth century. Keen to facilitate the British tea trade in
Canton (Guangzhou), the only port open to Western traders in Qing China,
they also collected products in demand in China in Southeast Asia. To ensure
these outside traders were supplied with Southeast Asian products, Bugis,
Malay, and other Southeast Asian traders collected them in the various places
in which they were produced and brought them to transit ports.
As harbors frequented by Chinese, British, and Southeast Asian traders,
various ports such as Bangkok, Saigon, and Sulu, developed into transit ports
for the transaction of items destined for the China market. In Malay Waters,
Riau, the capital of the Johor sultanate, developed into a most important hub
in the mid-eighteenth century. Since the 1660s Riau had been receiving waves
of Bugis migrants, who fled their homeland, South Sulawesi, to many places in
the Indonesian Archipelago in the wake of their repeated wars with the VOC.
Friction arising from this significant Bugis migration had caused long struggles
with the Malay royal family of the Johor sultanate in Riau, but around the 1760s

1 Anthony Reid, “A New Phase of Commercial Expansion in Southeast Asia, 1760-1850,” in The
Last Stand of Asian Autonomies: Responses to Modernity in the Diverse States of Southeast Asia
and Korea, 1750-1900, ed. Anthony Reid (Basingstoke & London: Macmillan Press 1997), 57-81;
Anthony Reid, “Chinese Trade and Southeast Asian Economic Expansion in the Later
Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: An Overview,” in Water Frontier: Commerce and
the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750-1880, ed. Nola Cooke and Li Tana (Singapore: NUS
Press; London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 21-34; Leonard Blussé, “The Chinese Century: The
Eighteenth Century in the China Sea Region,” Archipel 58 (1999): 107-29.
118 Ota

both parties put an end to the struggles by establishing a dual system, under
which the Malay royal family assumed the hereditary position of the sultan,
whereas the influential Bugis families filled that of the raja muda (viceroy).
This system brought political stability to Riau and fast on its heels a trade
boom. Bugis migrants played an important role in collecting China-demanded
products from the eastern part of the Indonesian Archipelago, making use of
their age-old trade networks and their excellent skills in maritime navigation.2
With the boom in the Sino-Southeast Asian trade, the West Kalimantan
coast experienced a social transformation, largely the result of active migra-
tion. Since around the mid-eighteenth century, migrants from various places in
Insular Southeast Asia, such as Riau, Siak (East Sumatra), and Sulu, had come
to settle on the coast, especially around Sukadana, the most important coastal
port of the sultanate of Matan. Many of them were militant groups that were
actively seeking economic opportunities in the trade boom. They were usually
engaged in the exportation of marine and forest products from the inland
region, but once in a while they resorted to piracy. Importantly, in wartime
when requested they put their ships and crews at the disposal of the local rul-
ers to fight against their neighboring rivals. Raja Ali, an influential Bugis leader,
was among those who frequently visited and sojourned in Sukadana for pur-
poses of trade.3
In the early 1780s, in the reign of Raja Haji, the fourth raja muda, Riau
reached its zenith. The high-ranking VOC officials were irritated by the pros-
perity of Riau, that had posed a long-standing threat to their trade centered on
Batavia. In 1784, when a conflict erupted about the cargo of a stranded ship, the
VOC and Raja Haji fought a full-scale war, and the VOC finally conquered Riau,
with help of the Dutch navy. Sultan Mahmud of Riau was obliged to conclude
a humiliating treaty with the VOC, stipulating that he would expel important
Bugis members of the community and allow VOC troops to be stationed in
Riau. After the VOC conquest of Riau, Raja Ali, who had immediately assumed
the title of the raja muda from Raja Haji who had been killed in the war, took
refuge in Sukadana with his Bugis followers. When Sukadana began to gain
importance as a trade port under Raja Ali, entering into an alliance with the
neighboring sultanate of Pontianak, a rival of Sukadana, the VOC attacked and
conquered it in 1786. Raja Ali and his followers fled to Siantan Island, while the
sultan of Matan, who happened to be in Sukadana, fled into the inland taking

2 Carl A. Trocki, Prince of Pirates: The Temenggongs and the Development of Johor and Singapore,
1784-1885 (Singapore: NUS Press, 2007).
3 Ota Atsushi, “Pirates or Entrepreneurs? Migration and Trade of Sea People in Southwest
Kalimantan, c. 1770-1820,” Indonesia 90 (2010): 67-96.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 119

most of the town’s residents with him. The sultan settled in Gayong, a Dayak
village in the inland region, and made it his new capital.4
The Dutch dominance in Malay Waters was ephemeral. In 1787, Sultan
Mahmud of Riau, aided by Iranun pirates who had been roaming around
nearby waters, surprised the Dutch garrison in Riau and successfully expelled
it from the island. However, dissatisfied with their reward from the sultan, the
Iranun soon left Riau. Fearing possible Dutch reprisals, Sultan Mahmud took
refuge in the Lingga Islands, and other influential members of the sultanate
moved to other places in Malay Waters. Meanwhile, faced with mounting
problems – their defeat in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784), deteriorat-
ing VOC finances, and finally the British occupation of Dutch possessions in
Asia because of the political turmoil in their homeland – the Dutch were also
gradually disappearing as a presence in Malay Waters. The VOC withdrew from
Pontianak, its only post in Kalimantan, in 1791.5
Previous studies have generally assumed that the Malay Waters first suffered
a period of decline and stagnation between the VOC-Johor wars in 1784-1787
and the establishment of British Singapore in 1819. This period in the doldrums
was followed by skyrocketing trade and the development of British and Dutch
colonial empires.6 Elsewhere I have discussed the fact that, although a certain
level of trade downsizing was perceptible in this transition period, trade and
migration actually burgeoned under the weakened state control and the
absence of European powers. After the fall of Riau, trade was pursued with far-
flung places, ranging from Siak in East Sumatra and Terengganu on the east
coast of the Malay Peninsula, and with West Kalimantan ports including
Simpang, Ketapang, Kendawangan, and the Karimata Islands. Migrants played
a pivotal role in this commerce in the collection and trade of China-demanded
products.7
The Dutch returned to Riau and West Kalimantan in the years 1818-1819.
After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the Dutch returned first to Java
in 1816. Not long afterward, aware that the British were attempting to establish

4 Reinout Vos, Gentle Janus, Merchant Prince The VOC and the Tightrope of Diplomacy in the
Malay World, 1740-1800 (Leiden: KITLV, 1993); Raja Ali Haji Ibn Ahmad, The Precious Gift (Tuhfat
al-Nafis). An Annotated Translation by Virginia Matheson and Barbara Watson Andaya (Kuala
Lumpur & New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Ota, “Pirates or Entrepreneurs?”
5 Vos, Gentle Janus; J. van Goor, “Seapower, Trade and State Formation: Pontianak and the
Dutch,” in Trading Companies in Asia, 1600-1830, ed. J. van Goor (Utrecht: HES, 1986), 83-106.
6 P.J. Veth, Borneo’s Wester-afdeeling, geographisch, statistisch, historisch, voorafgegaan door eene
algemeene schets des ganschen eilands (Zaltbommel: Joh. Noman en Zoon, 1854-1856). This
work is still influential over a number of works today.
7 Ota, “Pirates or Entrepreneurs?”
120 Ota

a new foothold in Malay Waters, the Dutch approached Raja Ja⁠ʾafar, the Bugis
viceroy of the Johor sultanate based in Riau in 1818, only a few months after the
British had attempted to conclude a commercial treaty with him. Finding the
conditions offered by the Dutch more favorable, he decided to cooperate with
the Dutch and allowed them to reoccupy a part of Riau. Although Sultan Abdul
Rahman in Lingga claimed nominal authority, the viceroy Raja Ja’afar in Riau
was the real power behind the sultanate, and now the Dutch were staking their
right to these islands.8 The founding of Singapore in 1819 was a direct British
reaction to this development. Thomas Stanford Raffles concluded a treaty with
Tengku Hussain, a brother of Sultan Abdul Rahman of Lingga, and enthroned
him as sultan of Singapore, attracting a shower of fierce Dutch objections on
his head. The direct result of this contention was that the British obtained per-
mission to build a fort there.
The Dutch were also looking for a chance to return to West Kalimantan,
because they had noticed the penetration of British influence into North
Borneo. A request from the sultan of Sambas asking them to attack his rival
Pontianak in 1818 gave them the perfect excuse. The Dutch government in
Batavia immediately dispatched an expeditionary fleet to Pontianak in August
1818. However, when they arrived there, they lost no time in sealing a peace
agreement with Sultan Kassim of Pontianak. As this sultan had also specifi-
cally requested his Dutch “brothers” and “friends” to return, the Dutch had no
reason to attack Pontianak. Strangely enough, because of this agreement the
Dutch fleet now turned to Sambas, and attacked its port. After these events, all
the parties agreed that the Dutch colonial official Georg Müller would be
appointed Resident of Sambas and C.L. Hartman Resident of Pontianak and
Mempawa.9
If the Dutch were to counter the British advance into North Borneo, they
knew it was important to make their presence felt, but they were neither
strongly motivated to exert their influence exhaustively nor to exploit new ter-

8 Ota Atsushi, “The Business of Violence: Piracy around Riau, Lingga, and Singapore, c.1820-
1840,” in Elusive Pirates, Pervasive Smugglers: Historical Perspectives on Violence and Clandestine
Trade in the Greater China Seas, ed. Robert Antony (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
2010), 127-41.
9 P.H. van der Kemp, “De vestiging van het Nederlandsch gezag op Borneo’s Wester-Afdeeling
in 1818-1819,” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, tijdschrift
van het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië 76
(1920): 117-61; Mary Somers Heidhues, “The First Two Sultans of Pontianak,” Archipel 56 (1998):
289-93; J.N.F.M. à Campo, “Zeeroof: Bestuurlijke beeldvorming en beleid,” in Zeeroof en zeeroof-
bestrijding in de Indische archipel (19de eeuw), ed. G. Teitler, A.M.C. van Dissel and
J.N.F.M. à Campo (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 2005), 41.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 121

ritories by developing agriculture or other industries. The restrictions placed

on their financial resources and manpower, as they were busy in dealing with
rebellious Java during the 1820s, compounded by the lack of interest of the
Batavian government in these regions, meant the Dutch remained pretty indif-
ferent to them.10 Under the circumstances the Dutch authorities established
only nominal rule, and did their best to maintain a cordial relationship with
cooperative local rulers both in Riau-Lingga and West Kalimantan throughout
the 1820s. It was only after 1833 that the Dutch organized their own expeditions
against pirates in Malay Waters. Before then they had been very reluctant to
mount antipiracy expeditions, both costly and unpromising, that would prob-
ably stir up trouble with the British.11

2 Different Perceptions of Piracy in the Pre-colonial Karimata Sea

The VOC officials in West Kalimantan specifically declared two figures notori-
ous “pirates”: The aforementioned Raja Ali from Riau and Gusti Bandar, a
migrant leader settled in Sukadana. Gusti Bandar was a brother of the king of
Mempawa in West Kalimantan,12 and by 1768 he had won widespread notori-
ety as the leader of a large pirate band of various origins based on Pulau Payong
in the Riau Islands. Probably he had first acquired fame as an outstanding
pirate leader in the Riau Islands and had consequently attracted many follow-
ers from different places. In 1768 he migrated to Mempawa, possibly in search
of better opportunities. A VOC report states that he lived by piracy (van den
Roof leefden13) in river tributaries in the vicinity of Mempawa, “flying a black
flag.” Several years later he moved to Sukadana with his followers, where he
succeeded in establishing a close link with the royal family of Matan. He mar-
ried his daughter to Mohammad Jamaluddin, who later became the sixth ruler
with the title Sultan Mohammad Jamaluddin of Matan. Slowly but surely Gusti
Bandar built up an important position in the sultanate of Matan, and later he

10 Nationaal Archief (National Archives of the Netherlands), het Archief van de Ministerie
van Koloniën (hereafter MK) 2828: 111-12, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “in rade,”
June 26, 1829, No. 5.
11 Ota, “The Business of Violence.”
12 Nationaal Archief, het Archief van de Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (hereafter
VOC) 3624: 3-4, Walter Marcus Stuart en Jacob Klaagman, Pontianak to Governor-General
and the East Indies Council in Batavia (hereafter Batavia), January 10, 1782.
13 Dutch words roof and rover mean robbery and robber respectively in English. However, as
is clear in this case, the VOC officials often used these words with the meanings of “piracy”
and “pirates.”
122 Ota

strengthened his position to the point that a VOC official noted he was virtually
the ruler of Sukadana.14
It is not clear what sort of piratical activities Gusti Bandar pursued under
his black flag in Mempawa. A VOC report in 1778 says that, after he moved to
Sukadana, he attacked the Chinese gold-mining district in Landak upstream
from Pontianak. Resident Nicolaas Kloek, in charge of the VOC factory in
Pontianak, suggested to the Governor-General in Batavia that, as Gusti Bandar
and his men were disrupting the life of the Landak people, the Company
should take some measures to bring peace to the district.15 Initially the phrase
“to bring peace” seems to suggest that the Dutch intended to secure public law
and order, but in fact at that time the Dutch were much more deeply interested
in the trade in gold, supposedly from Landak, to Pontianak via the Landak
River. Meanwhile, the people in Landak were irritated by the meager payments
they received from the Sultan and traders in Pontianak. The VOC officials noted
that their annoyance was causing a decline in the gold trade in the upstream
regions, and that the majority of people now preferred to take their gold to
Mempawa that enjoyed a close relationship with Matan.16 As gold was the
most important trade item for the VOC factory in Pontianak, and its officials
worried about the damage their gold trade might suffer from Gusti Bandar’s
attacks, looking back on his career in his Mempawa period, they called him a
“pirate.”
Whatever they might have thought of him, the local people in Sukadana
most probably did not regard him as a pirate. The aforementioned Georg
Müller compiled the first detailed report on West Kalimantan societies, based
on his field research in 1822, and in this report he notes that, in the 1780s, Gusti
Bandar was the most important Malay chief and, as was Raja Ali, was closely
linked to the royal family of Matan.17 Referring to his activities, Müller only
remarks that he began rice cultivation on a large scale near the port of
Sukadana.18 Müller collected his information by interviewing members of the
royal family and other people in the sultanate of Matan. The absence of any
remarks about Gusti Bandar as a pirate in his report in all likelihood reflects

14 VOC 3524: 16, Nicolaas Kloek from Pontianak to Batavia, August 31, 1778; G. Müller, “Proeve
eener geschiedenis van een gedeelte der weskust van Borneo, Matan en andere etablisse-
menten op de westkust van Borneo,” De Indische Bij 1 (1843): 343-45.
15 VOC 3524: 16-17, Nicolaas Kloek to Batavia, Pontianak, August 31, 1778.
16 VOC 3598: 31-32, W.M. Stuart and J. Klaagman in Pontianak to Batavia, October 4, 1781.
17 The term “Malay” was also used broadly to address maritime migrants, whose ethnicities
actually included Javanese, Malay, Bugis, the Orang Laut, and others, but lived a seafaring
life in the coastal areas.
18 Müller, “ Proeve,” 343-45.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 123

the local perception of Gusti Bandar as an important member of the court

circle of Matan, but not as a specifically a piratical figure.
The divergence in the perception of local pirates between the Dutch and the
local people is even more obvious in the case of Raja Ali. As mentioned above,
Raja Ali had commenced his trading business in Sukadana before the fall of
Riau in 1784 and, after this event, he settled in Sukadana. The VOC officials at
the Pontianak factory specifically called him “Pirate Raja Ali” (Zee Rover Radje
Alie) during his residence in Sukadana. Interestingly, they were apt to call him
such when they reported to their higher authorities in Batavia that they had
not been able to receive tin from upstream because, they claimed, “Pirate Raja
Ali from Riau invaded and settled in Sukadana, and is blockading the river
there (de rivier daar geslooten hout).”19 It is not clear what his blockading of
the river meant exactly, but undeniably it seems that Raja Ali was disrupting
the VOC tin trade. Probably this was the principal reason these Dutch officials
called him a “pirate.”
The Bugis people saw the same situation in a totally different way. In the
1860s Raja Ali Haji Ibn Ahmad, a member of the Bugis family of the Johor sul-
tanate, compiled the dynastic chronicle, the Tuhfat al-Nafis. The chronicle
describes Sukadana during the period in which Raja Ali took refuge there as
follows:

Raja Ali moved to Sukadana where he built a settlement, complete with

palace, audience hall, and fortifications and promoted trade. The country
prospered with kapal, wankang and many other kinds of perahu coming
to business.20

As far as the Bugis were concerned, Raja Ali was engaged in trade promotion
and as a result Sukadana prospered. The author of the chronicle emphasizes
the aspect of commercial prosperity and Raja Ali’s peaceful, business-oriented
leadership, without mentioning any sign of piracy.
The local people also benefited from the settlement there and business ven-
tures embarked on by Raja Ali and his followers. On the basis of his field
research, Müller describes Raja Ali’s relocation and the situation in Sukadana
after his settlement in his report as follows.

19 VOC 3581, no pagination, W.M. Stuart, J. Klaagman in Pontianak to Batavia, September 26,

1780.
20 Raja Ali Haji, The Precious Gift, 187. Kapal and wangkang are particular types of local
ships, that were generically known as prahu.
124 Ota

After being driven out [of Riau] and roaming around friendless, Raja Ali
finally received a letter from his relative Endra Laya, the sultan of Matan.
The sultan granted him a piece of land in the southwest corner of
Sukadana near Telaga Tuju. Raja Ali, his family members, and his follow-
ers settled down there and began cultivation.
 Then Sukadana began to flourish again: fields were cultivated; trade
revived [with ships coming] from all corners, especially from newly
established Pontianak. A number of industrious residents settled there.21

Here again the author emphasizes the prosperity of Sukadana, attributing it to

the trade and agriculture promoted by Raja Ali and his Bugis followers. This
description is probably genuine reflection of the perception of the local people
whom Müller interviewed in the early 1820s.
To balance the picture it would be good to refer to a third party’s view of the
same situation. The British traveller John Leyden, who visited a number of
ports in Kalimantan in 1810, notes about Sukadana in the 1780s:

In 1786, they [the Dutch] attacked Sacadina, then governed by Raja Ali,
who had abandoned Rhio or Riauw. Sacadina at this time was a place of
considerable trade, and though frequented sometimes by Dutch vessels,
it had long been a subject of jealousy to that nation, from being the prin-
cipal haunt of the English and French traders on the island of Borneo.22

Leyden also makes no bones about the trade prosperity of Sukadana under
Raja Ali’s leadership. The Dutch jealousy he diagnoses is a very convincing
explanation of the reason they attacked Sukadana, a rival attracting not only
local ships but also English and French country traders.
These sources leave no doubt that only the Dutch had a very different per-
ception from others. The Bugis, Sukadana, and British people considered Raja
Ali to be a business-oriented leader, capable of successfully promoting trade.
In a nutshell, Raja Ali was a rival for the trade of the VOC, and therefore its offi-
cials in Pontianak chose to stigmatize him as “Pirate Raja Ali.”
Sultan Mahmud of Johor also attacked passing ships in Malay Waters after
he took refuge in the Lingga Islands in 1787. In their musings on this develop-
ment, Dutch and local sources again show interesting different perceptions of
piracy. From his base in Lingga, he and his followers launched attacks on

21 Müller, “Proeve,” 346.

22 John Leyden, “Sketch of Borneo,” Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap voor
Kunsten en Wetenschappen 7 (1814): 27-28.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 125

European and indigenous ships, seized their cargoes, and sold them. A number
of those who left Riau after the 1784-1787 wars and settled around the nearby
waters came under the protection of the sultan, and joined his raids.23
The VOC records were, of course, never hesitant to describe Sultan Mahmud
and his followers in very negative terms. Dutch officials noted that these peo-
ple were guilty of “plundering” (plundering), and therefore they were “itinerant
pirates” (zeerovers rondzwerven).24
In its descriptions of similar maritime raid, the Johor chronicle the Tuhfat
al-Nafis makes a distinction between those mounted by the ruler and those for
which other people were responsible. Writing of the time at which Malay and
Bugis princes of the sultanate commenced raiding, the author says:

[T]he Malay and Bugis princes had all gone, some to Trennganu, others to
Pahang or Kelantan and some had settled around the Bugis Straits, living
from hand to mouth, although a large number had turned to piracy
(kebanyakan merompak) in search of immediate return.25

Here the chronicle’s author uses the term merompak, literally “to plunder.” This
verb can be used to refer to any acts of plundering, but it is often used in the
meaning of “to commit piracy.” Another version of the same chronicle uses the
phrase “many pirates” (perompak perompak) in describing the same event.
Perompak is likewise literally a “plunderer,” but it often also refers to “pirates.”
In this instance, the chronicle’s author uses rather negative terms in his
recounting of their maritime raids.
This is unusual as the author because, as a rule, he carefully avoids such
negative terms to describe similar raids mounted by the sultan. Although the
author does admit that the sultan did lead raids,26 he explains why the sultan
organized raids as follows:

He [Sultan Mahmud] remained there [Lingga] with the Malays and

locally born Bugis, unceasingly trying to find a livelihood for his peo-

23 Vos, Gentle Janus.

24 VOC 3812: no pagination, E.G. Baamgarten in Melaka to Batavia, May 29, 1787; VOC 3761:
103-104, P. Walbeeck in Palembang to Batavia, July 8, 1787.
25 Raja Ali Haji, The Precious Gift, 187; For the Malay version, Raja Ali Haji, Tuhfat al-Nafis
(Kuala Lumpur: Yayasan Karyawan dan Dewan Bahasa dan Purtaka, 1998), 434.
26 According to Tuhfat al-Nafis, the governor of the VOC Melaka factory told a Johor envoy to
urge Sultan Mahmud “to forbid these evil acts of piracy (Sultan Mahmud hendaklah dila-
rangkan perkara yang jahat-jahat daripada perompak).” Raja Ali Haji, The Precious Gift,
187; Raja Ali Haji, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 452.
126 Ota

ple (memikirkan pencarian (segala) orang-orangnya), both Malays and

Bugis.27

Here the maritime raids under the command of the sultan are justified as pro-
viding a means of livelihood for his people. By putting this interpretation on
events, the chronicle’s author circumvents having to cast the sultan’s raids in a
negative light. Reynout Vos remarks that the British sources recount that the
sultan attracted various groups of people through the success of his raids, and
gained prestige as the “great” and “genuine king of all the Malays.”28 In Bugis-
Malay society, a ruler’s ability to organize successful raids was highly esteemed
and it was an important source of his charisma.

3 Colonial Rule, Piracy, and State in West Kalimantan

The inception of colonial rule marked a turning-point in the Dutch perception

of piracy in West Kalimantan. As I briefly explained earlier, their nominal colo-
nial rule began when Dutch Residents were appointed in Sambas, Mempawa,
and Pontianak in 1819. In the same year, the Dutch government in Batavia pro-
duced a document entitled “reasons for the possession of Borneo,” addressed
to the government of the homeland. This short document consists of only
three sentences:

A. To hoist the Dutch flag in the lands (landen) whose rulers request
Dutch protection
B. To suppress pirates to promote trade, and to bring peace and order to
the regions (gewesten) in which evil robbers and murderers have tor-
tured weak people.
C. To impose burdens (lasten) that are not onerous on them.29

This document was most likely compiled as a justification defending its

advance into Kalimantan by the Batavian government to its home govern-
ment. Therefore Article A states that the Dutch would advance only when
requested to do so by local rulers. This would enable the Dutch to avoid costly
military operations. Article C notes that it was planning to impose taxes and

27 Raja Ali Haji, The Precious Gift, 194; Raja Ali Haji, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 447.
28 Vos, Gentle Janus, 192-93.
29 MK 3081, 58-128: 3-4, Aantekeningen over het Eiland Borneo, no author, November 25, 1819.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 127

obligations, what the Dutch term lasten usually meant in the East Indies, on
the ordinary people. This is therefore a declaration that they were now pene-
trating into Kalimantan for different purposes than they had previously done.
They were now going to exploit, albeit in moderation, the people in a certain
territory by the imposition of taxes and obligations. This type of territorial rule
was a new idea previously never contemplated by the Dutch East India
Company, as its goal had always been to profit from the trade or the cultivation
of certain cash crops. The Dutch advance in the East Indies had now entered a
new phase, that of colonial rule.
It should be noted that one article out of the only three in this document
specifically refers to piracy. Suppression of piracy was therefore certainly one
of the pressing reasons for their plans for colonial rule. The suppression of
piracy was, they argued, essential to the promotion of trade and instituting
peace and order. In their view the suppression of piracy as an important step,
above all as this act was an obstacle to the promotion of trade, that was emerg-
ing as an integral element in empire-building in the era of the early-imperial
period. The suppression of piracy was equated, as Article B suggests, with
bringing peace and order, a symbol of civilization as long as this auspicious
situation was established using Western ideas, systems, technologies, and mili-
tary power, just as the Dutch were planning to do. Piracy was now seen to be an
obstacle to trade and an enemy of civilization. By claiming their intention to
eliminate piracy, the Dutch were able to justify their colonial advance into
Kalimantan.
What is missing in this document is just as worthy of attention. When its
Dutch compiler refers to the land of Kalimantan, he never uses terms such as
state and territory. Instead he opts for vague words such as “lands” (landen) and
“regions” (gewesten), that do not necessarily mean a country in which any type
of state existed. Dutch colonial officials never imagined that, around this time,
a state as a solid political community could exist in West Kalimantan, totally
overlooking the indigenous sultanates. I shall get back to this issue later.
In order to deal with piracy, that had now become a critical issue in Dutch
colonial state-building, the Batavian government decided to conduct some
research on pirates. In 1818 it ordered Commissioner Herman Warner Mun­
tinghe, who had been dispatched to Palembang and Bangka for negotiations
with the sultan of Palembang, to compile a report about pirates, their lairs, and
their (possible) alternative livelihoods in the surrounding waters. Muntinghe
obtained information about these things from Raja Akil, an influential local
128 Ota

chief in the Karimata Islands, who happened to be staying on Bangka when

Muntinghe visited it.30
Muntinghe’s piracy report, completed in 1818, contains interesting informa-
tion, but here it suffices to point out the following remark that Muntinghe,
who had become the most knowledgeable expert on Malay pirates, made in
another report in 1821.

I take this opportunity to make the following points to Your Highness, in

order to urge you to consider curbing piracy:
a. To expand the government’s influence in the fight against piracy, for
which purpose, [it is important] to make an alliance with some small
independent states (onafhankelijke Staten), [between the places] to the
north of Sambas and to the south of Pontianak, that often provide hiding-
place for pirates […]31 (emphasis added)

Here Muntinghe suggests that the Batavian government make an alliance with
independent states. This is a very different attitude from the aforementioned
Dutch reasons for taking possession of Borneo in 1819. Now colonial officials
had begun to conceive the idea that, if they were to combat pirates, they should
make alliances with independent states. In order to tackle the pirates, they
would need local counterparts because they realized that the Dutch colonial
government had neither the power nor the capacity to accomplish this task.
Their counterparts had to be states, probably because at that time the Dutch
people had begun to place much greater weight on the state than ever before.
The Dutch East India Company, previously the Dutch highest authority active
in Asia, had been bankrupted in the late-eighteenth century and in their home-
land the Dutch Republic had disappeared in 1795. After being occupied by the
French, they had obtained independence at the end of the Napoleonic Wars,
and had established the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, that was to be
their nation-state, in 1815. In Europe, nation-states were emerging as the main
players in international diplomacy and the only legitimate political bodies to
claim sovereignty over territory. Therefore, legally speaking, for the Dutch, who
had just obtained their own nation-state and were introducing a new type of
territorial rule to Kalimantan, those who were to be responsible for combatting
piracy in a certain territory had to be local states.

30 Nationaal Archief, de Collectie van Anton Reinhard Falck 94: 1r, H.W. Muntinghe in
Palembang to Batavia, May 25, 1818.
31 MK 359, 108: no pagination, Memorie van den Heere Raad van Indië H.W. Muntinghe over
Borneo, Batavia, August 31, 1821.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 129

In preparation for their search for local counterparts, Dutch officials had in
fact begun to look for indigenous states. As said above, in 1822 Georg Müller
was dispatched to make a report on West Kalimantan before the launch of full-
scale colonial rule. His report, the first information source about this region for
most Dutch people, consists of eight chapters. After the introductory three
chapters, three are dedicated to descriptions of two states, Simpang and Matan,
while the remaining two chapters are about two regions, Sukadana and the
Karimata Islands; indicating Müller had attempted to organize the informa-
tion on a geographical basis.32 He had a strong interest in states, reflected in
the minute detail with which he describes borders. Nevertheless, he undeni-
ably understood that West Kalimantan was not clearly divided into independent
states. For example, he explains that Simpang was a fief of the Matan sultanate
but it was gradually becoming independent of it, and in another place he notes
that the states of Simpang and Matan both claimed rights to the Karimata
Islands. Pertinently he clearly understood that the border between a fief and a
state was blurred, and that the sovereignty of two states could overlap in the
same territory. He also explains that, although Sukadana was a part of Matan,
it had a quite different history from the other parts. His analysis shows that he
obviously had clear idea about the complicated political landscape in West
Kalimantan, nevertheless he still presented it as if it consisted of states in the
European sense, demarcated by clearly delineated borders.
The next step in the Dutch advance into West Kalimantan was to approach
some state rulers, in this instance those of Simpang and Matan. The Dutch
colonial government concluded treaties with the panembahan (the title of the
ruler) of Simpang and the sultan of Matan in 1822 and 1823 respectively, clearly
stipulating that they were obliged to suppress piracy.33 Now the state rulers
were underlined as local counterparts, who were responsible for the suppres-
sion of piracy. What is not clear is how far the Dutch colonial officials were
convinced of the effectiveness of these treaties. They were well aware that the
power of these rulers was too small to curb piracy effectively, and that in fact
they surreptitiously protected pirates in return for a share in their booty.34 If
the truth be told, they probably wanted to leave the responsibility for the sup-
pression of piracy to indigenous rulers, purely as a cost-saving measure.

32 Müller, “Proeve.” The first three chapters are a general overview of Kalimantan, the history
of Dutch intervention in Kalimantan, and his trip.
33 MK 2477: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” July 20,
1824, No. 8; Barth 1897: 11-12.
34 MK 2787: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “in rade,” March 8, 1825,
No. 30; Müller, “Proeve,” 306.
130 Ota

Because of their limited financial and human resources, it was impossible for
the colonial authorities in West Kalimantan to mount effective antipiracy cam-
paigns. Their most important goal in concluding antipiracy regulations with
indigenous rulers was to show the home government that they were taking
steps to combat piracy.

4 Piracy Control and Non-state Figures

As Dutch rule gradually penetrated West Kalimantan, the ineffectiveness of

their antipiracy policy working in collaboration with local state rulers became
a more serious issue. Consequently, collaboration with influential non-state
figures presented itself as a feasible option. Raja Akil, Muntinghe’s informant
for his piracy report, became the most trusted collaborator of the Dutch colo-
nial authorities in West Kalimantan from around 1820.
Raja Akil was a son of Raja Musa, the leader of the Malays who had migrated
from Siak on the east coast of Central Sumatra, and settled in the Karimata
Islands. Raja Musa was a son of Sultan Mahmud Shah of Siak. He was driven
out of Siak by internal conflicts, and he and his followers took the seas living
from piracy. After years of roaming nomadic existence, they finally arrived in
the Karimata Islands in 1765. They established a settlement called Negorij
Nieuw-Siak (probably Negeri Siak Baru in Malay) on Selutu Island, while Raja
Musa himself settled in Kampong Serunai on Karimata Besar, both in the
Karimata Islands. Around these islands they exacted tolls with menaces from
passing ships.35 In short, Raja Akil was a scion of a pirate family active through-
out the Malay Waters.
By 1813 Raja Akil had become the new leader of the Siak community-in-exile
in Karimata. In this year it is known that he provided the British with military
assistance. The Malay chronicle Sejarah Bangka narrates that when the Dipati
of Belitung attacked an English ship, killed its captain, and sold his crews into
slavery in Belitung in 1813, Raja Akil led a punitive expedition against the Dipati
on behalf of the British.36 It is not clear whether the expedition was under-
taken at the request of the British or whether it was a spontaneous initiative by
Raja Akil. In any event, this case shows that Raja Akil, the leader of a militant

35 Müller, “Proeve,” 357-58, 365-72; Raja Ali Haji, The Precious Gift, 23; Ota, “Pirates or Entre-
preneurs?”
36 E.P. Wieringa, Carita Bangka, Het Verhaal van Bangka: Textuitgave met Introductie en
Addenda (Leiden: Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van Zuidoost-Azië en Oceanië, Rijksuni-
versiteit te Leiden, 1990), 31.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 131

group active throughout the entire expanse of the Malay Waters, not hesitant
to cooperate with European powers. Provision of military assistance was a
well-established custom among the maritime migrants in West Kalimantan;
after all his father had done the same for the sultan of Pontianak in the 1770s.37
As briefly noted earlier, Herman Warner Muntinghe came to Palembang in
1818 with a brief to negotiate with the sultan. The negotiations broke down,
and the Dutch launched a war against Palembang the next year. In his efforts to
cope, Muntinghe, now the Acting-Resident of Bangka, requested Raja Akil for
military assistance. The latter responded favorably to this request, and at the
head of his followers, he contributed to the Dutch victory. After this victory, in
reward for his trust and diligence, in 1820 the Dutch government granted Raja
Akil the naval rank of majoor and other chiefs were given lower-ranking titles
such as kapitein and 1ste luitenant.38
Besides organizing the granting of these titles, in June 1820 Muntinghe
decided that he would assign five prahus (local ships) belonging to Raja Akil
to serve under him in Bangka, and that the Dutch office in Bangka would pay
the cost of the maintenance of the prahus, 40 guilders per month each.39 The
duties assigned to these Bangka-based prahus are not clear, but it is known
that Raja Akil and his followers, probably in these very prahus, again joined a
Dutch military operation against Palembang in 1822. Raja Akil played a major
role in the battles in Muntok, fighting alongside the Dutch authorities and
the Bangka people, leading them the victory once again.40 He had provided
military assistance, in the time-honored custom of the maritime migrants
in West Kali­mantan, but this time he had done so within the framework of
the Dutch colonial administration, equipped with a naval rank and a stipend.
Muntinghe and the Batavian government were pleased to be able to make use
of the military power and skills of Raja Akil. He had a reputation not only for
his knowledge of piracy but also for his personal involvement in it.41 It seems
that early Dutch colonial rule was not always opposed to piracy; to the extent
it sometimes incorporated piracy into its system. However, this collaboration
was not yet highly institutionalized, but based on the personal ties between
Muntinghe and Raja Akil. After Muntinghe was called back to Batavia in 1823

37 Ota, “Pirates or Entrepreneurs?”

38 MK 2454: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” June 23,
1820, No. 7; Müller, “Proeve,” 372.
39 The government in Batavia immediately approved this decision. MK 2450: no pagination,
besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” October 20, 1819, No. 21.
40 Wieringa, Carita Bangka, 31.
41 Müller, “Proeve,” 373.
132 Ota

to be promoted to being a member of the Indies Council, Raja Akil and his
Malay followers returned to Karimata from Bangka.
Without wasting any time, the Dutch authorities in West Kalimantan again
approached Raja Akil. In 1823, Commissioner J.H. Tobias was sent to Pontianak
to be the highest authority in West Kalimantan, taking over C.L. Hartman, who
had been recalled to Batavia. Tobias was well aware of the necessity to curb
piracy, but he also realized that the Pontianak office did not have the financial
resources to achieve this goal. He had also been unable to obtain Batavia’s
approval to build military posts, that he thought would be effective in checking
pirates, at Sukadana and Karimata. In his dilemma, Tobias found in Raja Akil a
counterpart with whom he could collaborate, because “he had already aban-
doned his piratical life through his collaboration with the Dutch.”42
The Dutch office in Pontianak arranged that Raja Akil should be institution-
ally incorporated into its administrative system, following the example of
Muntinghe at the Bangka office a few years earlier. Deliberating on the Pontia­
nak office’s request, the Batavian government went accord that it would pay
the costs of establishing and maintaining a fleet under the command of Raja
Akil. As a first step, in June 1823 the government paid him 480 guilders to repair
his twelve ships.43 In September of the same year, it was decided that Raja
Akil’s ships should be sent to Batavia for repair, and the budget for maintaining
his fleet consisting of six prahus was expanded to 35,460 guilders a year.44
The fleet was assigned to patrol the coast of West Kalimantan, paying spe-
cial attention to the Karimata Islands, but it was allowed to sail independently,
without being placed under a superior (Dutch) naval command.45 Therefore,
although Raja Akil’s fleet was placed under the Dutch administrative system, it
was not completely incorporated into the Dutch navy, in spite of the naval rank
he held.
In September 1823, the Dutch Pontianak office, observing how poorly
equipped his fleet was, decided to appoint Raja Akil the Regent (local ruler) of
Karimata.46 Given the circumstances, this probably means that the Dutch offi-
cials arranged for him to obtain an income from this land and people. Obviously
they had decided that his first duty was to combat pirates. The Batavian

42 J.P.J. Barth, “Overzicht der afdeeling Soekadana,” Verhandelingen van de Bataviaasch

Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen 50 (1896): 12.
43 C.L. Blume, “Toelichtingen aangaande de nasporingen op Borneo van G. Mueller,” De
Indische Bij 1 (1843): 127-28.
44 MK 2472: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” September
14, 1823, No. 1.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 133

government approved these decisions.47 At this point the Dutch colonial

authorities made Raja Akil the local ruler of a certain territory, probably a
Dutch measure to save the cost of paying him a stipend. Instead he was given
the right to extract income from his land and population. They might also have
had in mind giving him a sound basis for legitimacy in the local politics.
Opinion about Raja Akil was very divided among Dutch officials. Lieutenant-
Governor Hendrik Merkus de Kock in Batavia rated Raja Akil’s fleet so highly
that he stated (even a little) downsizing of it would see a rampant upsurge in
piracy.48 Conversely, Müller’s estimation of him was extremely low. When he
headed for Sambas as the commissioner with a remit to negotiate with the
Sultan in July 1823, Raja Akil provided two prahus and their crews to join
Müller’s convoy. During the voyage Müller frequently complained about the
poor quality of the equipment and crews of his ships. He carped that the crews
were always gambling and smoked opium on board. Müller even went so far as
to say that they were thugs and the worst kind of people.49 His remark is not
surprising, as there is no denying that they were indeed maritime warriors and
pirates, who must have looked like thugs. Therefore, although the top end of
the government had a high opinion of Raja Akil, the lower-ranking officials,
who had personal contact with him – apart from Muntinghe – did not.
On balance, Raja Akil certainly did contribute to the Dutch antipiracy policy,
but not in a straightforward manner. He did sometimes successfully suppress
pirates, for example, when he attacked a pirate ship off Sinkawang with fif-
teen men on board, and sank it in April 1825.50 However, successes were rather
rare, and some Dutch officials had their doubts about Raja Akil’s efficacy.
Commissioner Diard, sent from Bangka to Pontianak, was a strong opponent
of the idea of making use of Raja Akil. In 1827, Raja Solong, one of Raja Akil’s
sons, was arrested because he had been caught loading plenty of weapons and
ammunition but only a scant amount of merchandise in his ship, contradict-
ing the information on his pass issued by the government for his trade between
Pontianak and Lampung. Diard firmly believed that Raja Solong was going to
sell the weapons and ammunition to pirates. He accused Raja Solong of having
been involved in piracy in and around the Bangka Strait, and he also pointed
out that Raja Akil provided some of the ships in Raja Solong’s fleet. Therefore

47 Ibid.
48 MK 2476: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” April 17,
1824, No. 7.
49 Blume, “Toelichtingen,” 127-28.
50 MK 2484: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” June 25,
1825, No. 1.
134 Ota

he demanded that Raja Solong be sent to Batavia for interrogation, and that
Raja Akil also be investigated. He went a step farther and suggested that Raja
Akil’s fleet be disbanded. However, the Resident of West Kalimantan, Van der
Durgen Gronovius in Pontianak, vehemently opposed Diard. He claimed that
neither of these two men had ever been involved in piracy and did not need
be investigated. The Batavian government finally approved Van der Durgen
Gronovius’ claim, “in order to maintain a good relationship with Raja Akil.”51
The principal reason behind this government decision was unquestionably
its reliance on Raja Akil’s network with and influence on the pirates. For exam-
ple, in February 1828, Van der Durgen Gronovius decided to make use of Raja
Akil to resolve the turmoil in Siak, where the famous pirate leader Raja Orang
Timer Datu Sankus from Tampasuk in Sarawak had settled and begun to stir up
trouble. On this occasion Tungku Soling, a renowned pirate leader based on
Reteh on the east coast of Sumatra, and a nephew of Raja Orang Timer Datu
Sankus, requested Van der Durgen Gronovius allow him to settle in Pontianak
under the protection of Raja Akil, and that he be granted an amnesty for his
previous piratical behavior. As Raja Akil agreed to stand as a guarantor for
Tungku Soling, Van der Durgen Gronovius gave him permission to settle in
Pontianak and granted him an amnesty.52 He probably expected that Tungku
Soling would abandon piracy after he settled in Pontianak under Raja Akil’s
protection, and that consequently the waters around Reteh would be free of
the depredations of the notorious pirate leader. Before this period, the Dutch
authorities had never directly dispatched their own fleet to tackle the pirates
as the task was beyond them. Making use of collaborative local elites was the
only possible measure they could take to deal with piracy problems.
The Dutch attack on Matan in 1828 was a turning-point in local politics in
West Kalimantan. In December 1827, the sultanate of Matan and the Batavian
government had been plunged into a conflict about the cargo of a Dutch ship
stranded near Karimata. Sultan Mohammad Jamaluddin of Matan claimed his
right to the cargo, as was the local custom. However, when the sultan attempted
to seize the cargo, the leader of the Orang Laut community in Karimata, Batin
Galang, opposed to him. Several years prior to this event, Batin Galang had

51 MK 2803: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “in rade,” July 3, 1827, No.
3; July 6, 1827, No. 2; July 31, 1827, No. 16.
52 Tungku Soling relied on Raja Akil, because another of his uncles, Raja Mangsur, a member
the Siak community in exile in Karimata, was the best and most reliable follower of Raja
Akil. MK 2812: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “in rade,” April 18,
1828, No. 9; MK 2812: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “in rade,” April
29, 1828, No. 45.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 135

become “a reliable servant for the Dutch government” by “abandoning his

pirate life” after he had met Raja Akil in Karimata. The real motive behind his
subjugation to the Dutch authorities is dubious, but it is feasible that he chose
to secure his position by placing himself under the protection of the Dutch
government. Batin Galang refused to hand over the cargo to the sultan, trying
to protect Dutch rights to it. Infuriated the Sultan sent a fleet consisting of
twenty-two prahus, killed Batin Galang and his brother, and forcibly seized the
cargo, including merchandise and weapons, and took these to his capital,
Gayong.53
This development gave the Batavian government a good reason to inter-
vene. Upon hearing the news, Commissioner-General Léonard Du Bus de
Gisignies of the Batavian government immediately dispatched a fleet consist-
ing of one frigate, two schooners, and three gunboats, to Gayong in July 1828.
On the instructions of the Batavian government, Raja Akil’s fleet of nine pra-
hus accompanied this expedition. After their arrival at Gayong the fleets found
that the sultan had already fled to the inland. Profiting from the opportunity,
during expedition the Dutch fleet also destroyed pirate lairs and a large num-
ber of their ships.54
Even before the expedition to Matan, in April 1828 Du Bus de Gisignies had
conceived a plan to dethrone Sultan Mohammad Jamaluddin of Matan, who
“disturbed trade and peaceful local people,” and put Raja Akil, who “can secure
increasing tranquility and peace” in the region, on the throne instead, as the
Sultan of Matan and Simpang, a “feudal lord” loyal to the government.55
Although the government proposed that Raja Akil be given the title of sultan,
his position was that of its vassal, probably to allow the government to exert
stronger influence over him.
However, in December 1828 the Dutch authorities changed their minds. Du
Bus de Gisignies explained that the enthronement of Raja Akil in Sukadana
was a strategic measure to counter Sultan Mohammad Jamaluddin of Matan
and his sons, who had hidden themselves in the inland.56 Having made various

53 MK 2515: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” April 23,

1828, No. 1; Barth, “Overzicht,” 12-13.
54 MK 2515: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” April 23,
1828, No. 1; MK 2820: December 5, 1828, No. 38; Barth, “Overzicht,” 12-13.
55 MK 2515: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” April 23,
1828, No. 1.
56 MK 2820: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “in rade,” December 5,
1828, No. 38.
136 Ota

arrangements,57 on September 3, 1829 the government finally officially installed

Raja Akil as ruler of the newly established state of Nieuw Brussel, although
local people never referred to it the state by this name. He chose to call himself
Sultan Abdul Jalil Syah of Sukadana, the name that local people always used.
The territory of his state was confined to only a part of the sultanate of Matan,
consisting Sukadana (the town Sukadana and its surrounding area), Simpang,
and the Karimata Islands.58 Unlike other local states, this state created by the
Dutch authorities had clearly defined borderlines, as are described in the 1832
report of E.A. Francis.59
As usual with other local rulers, the Dutch government concluded a treaty
with Sukadana, stipulating that the sultan would be responsible for the suppres-
sion of piracy and the slave trade, the protection of trade, and the promotion of
industry.60 Here again the government considered the suppression of piracy to
be one of the most important responsibilities of a state ruler. Interestingly, in
the case of Sukadana, the Dutch colonial government even created a state, and
gave its ruler the responsibility of suppressing piracy. Indeed on several occa-
sions the government ordered Raja Akil to organize expeditions against piracy,
although their results were not always satisfactory.61
At this stage, the Dutch colonial officials began to form a different image of
local states. In the 1820s and 1830s, they had several maps made of West
Kalimantan. What is fascinating is that, apart from the location of big rivers
and sizable towns, these maps clearly indicate the territories of local states
delineated with unrealistically clearly defined borderlines (Map 5.2). However,
when we read the reports of Müller and Francis these borderlines do not seem
to have had any function in checking the movement of people and goods.

57 Raja Akil was first temporarily enthroned as the sultan of Matan on December 1828, with
remarks about possible later arrangements. On December 23, 1828, the Batavian govern-
ment proclaimed that Raja Akil had been raised to be sultan of Matan, Simpang, and the
subordinate areas. MK 2820: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “in
rade,” December 5, 1828, No. 38; MK 2820: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-
Generaal “in rade,” December 23, 1828, No. 20.
58 MK 2515: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “buiten rade,” April 23,
1828, No. 1; Barth, “Overzicht,” 13.
59 E.A. Francis, “Westkust van Borneo in 1832,” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië 4 no. 2
(1842): 1-34.
60 Barth, “Overzicht,” 16.
61 Information about further antipiracy campaigns conducted by Raja Akil is found in: MK
2812: no pagination, besluiten van de Gouverneur-Generaal “in rade,” April 29, 1828, No. 6;
Barth, “Overzicht,” 25-27.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 137

Map 5.2 Sketch of the interior of the Island of Borneo, 1835

These efforts in cartography were instead a reflection of the Dutch concept of

a state, that should be equipped with clearly delineated state borders.

5 Changing Perceptions of Piracy and Sovereignty in Riau-Linnga

An interesting point about the Tuhfat al-Nafis is that it repeatedly states that
the rulers of the Johor sultanate, that is, the raja muda at Riau and the sul-
tan at Lingga, sharpened their desire to suppress piracy and they did indeed
carry out antipiracy expeditions repeatedly after 1823. Their attitude was very
138 Ota

different to that of their predecessors, who had done very little in this direction.
Although the Tuhfat al-Nafis is a source created in the 1860s, its descriptions of
incidents of piracy after 1823 certainly carry different overtones to those before
this year. Phrases such as “[the rulers attempted] to eradicate pirates” (mem-
buang perompak; hapus perompak-perompak) rarely appear with reference to
these events in this source before 1823.62
This change in the local rulers’ attitude was in all likelihood an outcome of
their shifting relationship with the Dutch. One turning-point was a military
crash between the Bugis and Dutch soldiers in Riau in 1820. After Dutch sol-
diers killed a member of the Bugis elite, Daeng Ronggik, who ignored their
order to leave his keris (dagger) behind when he visited the Dutch Resident in
his office, 400 Bugis soldiers attacked the Dutch revenue office, and later bar-
ricaded themselves inside a fort. The Dutch army, reinforced by warships from
Malacca, arrested the culprits and expelled them from Riau. Immediately after
this incident, after consultations with Sultan Abdul Rahman at Lingga, Raja
Muda Raja Jafar in Riau discussed ways of repairing the relationship with the
Dutch with principal members of the Riau community. At this moment, they
decided to focus on “a matter about which the Dutch government had con-
stantly complained – ‘the extermination of the piracy’ (membuang perompak)
in their state.”63 This change seems to suggest that the Johor rulers wished to
repair worsening of their relationship with the Dutch and therefore began to
tackle piracy seriously.
The antipiracy campaigns organized by the Johor rulers targeted local minor
chieftains and their followers. The Tuhfat al-Nafis states that, whenever piracy
was unearthed, the chiefs of the guilty parties were dismissed, replaced, or
even arrested and taken to Batavia, accused of not stopping their men from
committing acts of piracy.64 In other words, the chiefs were considered
responsible for checking the piracy resorted to by their followers. By emphasiz-
ing the severity of the penalties handed down to the people proved to have
been involved in piracy, the chronicle obliquely implies that piracy was an evil
act.
Nevertheless, the frequent mentions of piracy conducted by local minor
chieftains and their followers in the Tuhfat al-Nafis does not mean that the hands
of the Raja Muda and the Sultan were not besmirched by piracy. The opposite
was true. The Dutch authorities repeatedly accused them of supporting minor

62 Raja Ali Haji, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 348, 367, and passim.

63 Raja Ali Haji, The Precious Gift, 229-31, 387; E. Netscher, “De Nederlanders in Djohor en
Siak 1602 tot 1865,” VBG 35 (1870): 260-61.
64 Raja Ali Haji, The Precious Gift, 243-44, and passim thereafter.
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 139

piratical chieftains in return for a share in their booty. The Dutch Resident of
Riau, Cornets de Groot, even claimed that, were they to destroy pirate lairs,
the sultan would lose a major source of income.65 In this way matter least, the
rulers’ attitude toward piracy had not changed from that held by their prede-
cessors, although, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Tuhfat al-Nafis never mentions
this connivance of the Johor rulers with the piratical chiefs.
Ignoring the involvement of the Johor rulers in piracy, the Tuhfat al-Nafis
emphasizes that the rulers were firmly resolved to suppress piracy. When this
source narrates the exploits of previous great rulers such as Raja Haji, Raja Ali,
and Sultan Mahmud, its author proudly describes their promotion of trade
and victories in wars, but it never mentioned any sort of antipiracy campaign
they had mounted. The suppression of piracy was not considered for the task
of rulers as they sat on their thrones. However, in its narrative of events after
1823, the author of this source does emphasize the suppression of piracy as an
important part of rulers’ achievements.
The change in the Johor rulers’ perception of piracy also brought about a
change in their concepts of their territory. In 1836, Raja Muda Raja Abdul
Rahman ordered his younger brother to mount an antipiracy expedition.
According to the Tuhfat al-Nafis, the expedition was carried out with serious
intent and achieved certain results.

Raja Abd al-Rahman sent his younger brother Raja Ali Engku Kelana to
inspect the seas for pirates and trouble makers. He had orders to eradi-
cate piracy (menghapuskan pekerjaan rompak itu) throughout Riau and
Lingga’s subject territories (segenap rantau jajahan Lingga dan Riau). […]
[The Convoy] toured all the Riau and Lingga domains (segala jajahan itu),
visiting both good and bad sea-people. […] The law for miscreants was
applied and people were arrested and taken to Riau. All their resources
which had been used for their illegal activities (berbuat jahat itu), their
heavy artillery and large perahu, were confiscated. Some of the chiefs
were dismissed because their crimes were so blatant.66 (emphasis added)

In this passage it is possible to catch a glimpse of how the Johor rulers consoli-
dated their concept of territory (jajahan) through their antipiracy operations.

65 For example, J.R. Logan, “The Piracy and Slave Trade of the Indian Archipelago,” Journal of
the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia 4 (1850): 157; Captain Koopman’s remark in June
1835 and Cornets de Groot’s remark in October 1835, quoted in Folio 401: 3 in Raja Ali Haji,
Tuhfat al-Nafis, 397.
66 Raja Ali Haji, The Precious Gift, 268; Raja Ali Haji, Tuhfat al-Nafis, 277-78.
140 Ota

As the text shows, they imagined a particular area of the sea, throughout which
they would conduct tours to eradicate “illegal” piracy, to be their “territory.”
However this maritime “territory” might have not been delineated with fixed
borders, in the way European administrators conceived of these boundaries.
However different it was from the western concept, it should be noted that
their concept of “territory” was consolidated through the indigenous rulers’
antipiracy expeditions. Specifying piracy as an “illegal” activity, the chronicle’s
author claims that its suppression was an honorable act of the rulers, although
their real purpose in mounting the expeditions was to create a better rela-
tionship with the Dutch authorities. At this point, through their antipiracy
expe­ditions, local rulers seem to have recognized their sovereignty over par-
ticular areas of sea.

Conclusion

Perceptions of piracy in Malay Waters between the Dutch and the local people
before European colonization diverged sharply. VOC officials were quick to
label their trading rivals pirates, even when no other party saw them as such.
They needed to call particular groups of people pirates, because they needed
scapegoats to explain their poor trade performances to the home government
as a result of “their obstructions.” The Bugis author of the Johor chronicle the
Tuhfat al-Nafis, probably as many other contemporary locals did, took a nega-
tive view of piracy as forcible plunder at sea, but he did not hesitate to justify a
state ruler’s plunder as an honorable measure that provided his people with a
livelihood.
When the Dutch attempted to establish their colonial rule, they focused on
piracy, because the eradication of piracy, that would benefit trade and bring
“peace and order,” was a justification for their advance into the territory of oth-
ers. Piracy now assumed a new meaning as an obstacle to trade and an enemy
of civilization. At this stage, the Dutch colonial officials had no anachronistic
conception of indigenous states as territorial political bodies. In their efforts to
claim sovereignty over Kalimantan, the Dutch officials felt their actions vindi-
cated if they could find local rulers to negotiate with and local people to impose
taxes on.
However, aware of the weakness of their government, Dutch officials had
to rely on local counterparts to tackle piracy. Initially, strapped for resources,
the Dutch officials thought that local states should be responsible for the sup-
pression of piracy. If they were to find such rulers, they needed to look for local
states in the European sense and therefore they called various kinds of local
political entities “states.” True to their European political conceptions, the
Trade, Piracy, and Sovereignty 141

Dutch imagined local states as territories with clearly defined borderlines, and
represented them as such in their reports and on maps.
Although the Dutch officials concluded treaties with state rulers and
requested that they eradicate pirates, they soon realized that the local rulers
were also weak and had no firm resolve to combat piracy. Consequently they
looked for a more feasible course of action, collaboration with such non-state
figures as Raja Akil, expecting him to collaborate the suppression of piracy.
Although the collaboration was not always effective in eradicating piracy and
lower-ranking Dutch officials were well aware of its shortcomings, their supe-
riors in Batavia continued to rely on him, probably because collaboration with
him was cost-effective and seemed enough to convince the home government
that they were making efforts to suppress piracy.
Eventually the high-ranking Dutch officials in Batavia enthroned Raja Akil
as Sultan of the newly established state of Nieuw Brussel (Sukadana). By this
action, they did indeed create a state in their sense. The non-state piratical
figure Raja Akil was now elevated to ruler of a state conceived of in the
European fashion. He made shrewd use of Dutch support to underpin his
authority. His state was properly defined with clearly delineated borders to
separate it from its neighbors and, the irony of the situation completely escap-
ing them, the new sultan was assigned to the task of suppressing piracy.
Feeling under increasing Dutch pressure, the sultan and raja muda (viceroy)
of the Johor sultanate began to think that they too should suppress piracy, by
so doing hoping to improve their relationship with the Dutch authorities. In
order to justify their suppression of piracy as one of the honorable duties of a
ruler, they emphasized the illegality of piracy. They also launched antipiracy
patrols, and the space within which they conducted these tours was consid-
ered their territory. Hence their claim to sovereignty was now even more
strongly connected to the idea of territoriality.
In the following decades, the rulers of the Riau-Lingga Islands lost their
independence, in spite of their cooperation in the suppression of piracy.
Pirates were still rampant, profiting from the almost non-existent border con-
trol throughout the Malay Waters. State control of the border and piracy was
still only a fiction.67
Nevertheless, it still should be noted that the concept of state and sover-
eignty had been consolidated through the ideas and practices adopted by the
Dutch officials and local rulers to deal with piracy issues in Malay Waters.

67 More effective border control only began to take shape after the late-nineteenth century,
as Eric Tagliacozzo has discussed in the Anglo-Dutch border in their colonies in Southeast
Asia. Eric Tagliacozzo, Secret Trades, Porous Borders: Smuggling and States along a South-
east Asian Frontier, 1865-1915 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).
142 Ota

Through their confrontations, negotiations, and compromises, not only the

Dutch officials but also the local rulers began to conceive and put into practice
the idea that a state should be responsible for the eradication of piracy in its
territory. Piracy became the enemy of all. This new perception emerged in
Malay Waters in the period under study: for Dutch officials it justified their
colonial rule, and for local state rulers a chance to survive under Dutch
authority.

Primary Sources

Koloniën / Kaarten en Tekeningen (MIKO), Nationaal Archief (National Archives of the

Netherlands)
Archief van de Ministerie van Koloniën (MK), Nationaal Archief
Archief van de Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC), Nationaal Archief
In the Name of Sovereignty 143

Chapter 6

In the Name of Sovereignty: Spain’s Tackling of

‘Moro’ Piracy in the Sulu Zone, 1768-1898
James Francis Warren

1 Trade for Bullion to Trade for Commodities: Sulu and China

As the British demand for Chinese tea grew in the late 1700s, country traders
based in India looked for alternatives to silver to pay for the tea. Selling Indian
opium to the Chinese provided part of the answer, but these traders also
exploited the great demand in China for the sea and jungle products of the
Malay Archipelago. Therefore, on their way to China the country traders could
stop at Jolo and exchange opium, fire arms and Indian textiles for pearl-shell,
tripang, bird’s nest, and other local products that they could sell in China.
Soon, Chinese traders based in Manila and Singapore as well as Bugis traders
from the south also began to arrive.
However, the sea and jungle products that were traded at Jolo needed to be
harvested. The key to my argument in this paper is that Sulu’s booming econ-
omy depended on the labour of people captured by Iranun and Balangingi
raiders, who were put to work in the zone as slaves. In short, the people collect-
ing tripang, pearl-shell and other products in various parts of the Sulu zone
were part of a larger economic system that also included the sultan and his
chiefs, slave-raiders, powerful merchants in London and India, country traders,
and consumers of opium and fine food in China. Indeed, these “new” products
helped to redress the British East India Company’s adverse trade balance with
China.
Furthermore, by fitting into the patterns of European trade with China, the
sultanate established itself as a powerful commercial centre. As the sultanate
organized its economy around the collection and distribution of marine and
jungle produce, there was a greater need for large-scale recruitment of workers
to do the labour-intensive work of procurement. Therefore, slaving activity
developed to meet the accentuated demands of external trade and Jolo became
the nerve centre for the coordination of long-distance slave-raiding.
By the 1780s, maritime raiding or “piracy” in Southeast Asian waters –
although common in the past – had begun to occur far more frequently than
colonial authorities cared to admit. The regularity of the Iranun sweeping the

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_008

144 Warren

120 E

Canipaan Maliud
Panitan

SULU SEA Tubug MINDANAO

Cotobato
Balambangan Cagayan de Sulu Zamboanga
Paitan
Tempasuk Sugut
Labuk Jolo
Kinabatangan Balangingi

Segama Sarangani
Sabahart

Sibuko CELEBES
Sambakung
Sangir

Bulungan SEA

Berau
Bangka
BORNEO Menado
Tontoli
M
ah

Kylie
ak

m Equator
a

River

Samarinda Dongala

Pasir
CELEBES
0 200 mi

0 300 km
Pulau Laut

KEY:6.1 
Map Taosug
The trading
Sulu and centres
Celebes Seas Land above 500 metres
Bugis trading centres
Raiding centres Land above 1500 metres

seas led the authorities in Singapore and other Straits settlements to refer to
the months of August, September, and October as the musim lanun.1 Driven
by the desire for wealth and power, the Iranun and Balangingi Samal surged
out of the Sulu Archipelago in search of slaves and within three decades (1768-
1798) their raids encompassed all of insular Southeast Asia. Their well-armed

1 James Francis Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and
Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State (Singapore: NUS Press,
1981), 154; Owen Rutter, The Pirate Wind Tales of the Sea-Robbers of Malaya (Singapore: Oxford
University Press, 1986).
In the Name of Sovereignty 145

prahus scoured the coasts of the Indonesian world and sailed northward into
the Philippines. In the course of these raids, they joined with other Iranun and
Samal speakers living at satellite stations on the coasts of Borneo, Celebes, and
Sumatra. Navigating with the monsoon, their prahus returned to Jolo loaded
with captives to be exchanged for rice, cloth, and luxury goods from the Taosug.
The raiding system enabled the sultanate to incorporate vast numbers of peo-
ple from the Philippines and eastern Indonesia into the Sulu population.
Traffic in slaves reached its peak in Sulu in the period from 1800 to 1848 and, as
I explained earlier, was founded on the basis of trade with China and the West.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Jolo market offered British-
manufactured brassware, glassware, Chinese earthenware and ceramics, fine
muslins, silk and satin garments, Spanish tobacco and wines, and opium from
India. There was a constant increase not only in the variety but in the quality
of these objects of trade. These luxury goods for personal adornment and plea-
sure and for the household were translated into power and prestige symbols by
the Sulu aristocracy to form the material basis of their social superiority. It is in
this sense that external trade became a vital element in the overall functioning
of the Sulu social system.
In the context of the world capitalist economy and the advent of the China
trade, it should be understood that the slave-raiding activities of the Iranun
and Balangingi, so readily condemned in blanket terms as “piracy” by European
colonial powers and later historians, was a means of consolidating the eco-
nomic base and political power of the sultan and Taosug coastal chiefs of Sulu,
and that functioned as an integral, albeit critical, part of the emerging state-
craft and socio-political structure(s) of the zone.

2 Containment

European traders joined with Taosug datus to spark one of the largest popula-
tion movements in recent Southeast Asian history in which hundreds of
thousands of individuals were sent into slavery within the zone. The turnover
in Iranun-Samal slave trafficking was in excess of several million dollars a year:
Human cargo and Chinese tea were as profitable as drugs and guns. Hence, all
these commodities became inextricably entangled in a deadly global trade.
One of the most intractable problems facing the Southeast Asian world in both
the eighteenth and the nineteenth century was connected with the huge num-
ber of captive people being taken to the Sulu Zone, destined never to return to
their original homes.
 146 Warren

Map 6.2 Iranun-Balangingi maritime raiding and the Malay Archipelago in the first half of
the nineteenth century
In the Name of Sovereignty 147

From the end of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, in
pursuit of captives the Iranun and Balangingi, crewing well-organized fleets of
large, swift prahus, earned the reputation of being daring, fierce marauders
who jeopardized the maritime trade routes of Southeast Asia and dominated
the capture and transport of slaves to the Sulu Sultanate. The biggest Iranun
slave raids, however, were directed against the Philippine Archipelago. The
annual reports of the alcaldes mayores and friars on these “moro” raids, and the
ruins of stone towers and forts built as far north as Ilocos, in northwestern
Luzon, are fearful reminders of the power of the slave-takers in this period.
Problems of distance and communication posed grave difficulties for the
Spanish, who could not prevent the Iranun from ranging over the poorly
defended coasts and straits of the archipelago. The Spanish were, in fact, too
weak to prevent the inland seas of the central Philippines from becoming a
“Muslim lake.” Control of these waters by the Iranun and Samal Balangingi
enabled them to penetrate up to 20 miles upriver to attack villages in the hin-
terlands of Leyte, Panay, and Negros.2 This relentless aggression was to be the
root cause of the migratory movement of Filipinos between Negros, Panay, and
Cebu for over half a century.
The Iranun and Samal Balangingi confronted the frontier villages of the
southern Visayas and Mindanao with some of their greatest demonstrations of
force. In 1770, the provincial of the Recollects wrote that no part of the Visayan
Islands had been left unscathed that year. In his province, the Iligan presidio
had staved off an attack by 180 prahus,3 but the besieged defenders were help-
less to prevent the raiders from burning the surrounding villages and churches
as they withdrew.4 After examining parish documents in 1779, the bishop of
Cebu stated that slave raids were the basic reason for declining parish enrol-
ments and the continued poverty of the churches in Caraga, Iligan, and Panay.5
The raids continued and the Filipinos’ condition grew worse throughout the

2 AGI, no. 46, GCG a Senor Secretario de Estado, Filipinas 490, 32.
3 The figures reported by friars and officials on the overall size and composition of raiding flotil-
las can be deceptive. The Spanish terms vinta, panco, or joanga were frequently used to refer
to any raiding craft (between 30 and 90 feet in length), irrespective of its construction and
use. The largest raiding flotillas rarely exceeded forty vessels. Their numbers were often in-
flated because each vessel either carried or towed an auxiliary dugout canoe for inshore opera-
tions. These craft were labeled kakap, baroto, or vinta by astute Dutch and Spanish observers.
Hence, forty prahus with their tenders becomes eighty plus.
4 AGI, El Provincial de Recollectos, a vuestra Magestad, June 5, 1771, Filipinas 685.
5 AGI, El Obispo de Zebu, a su Magestad, December 21, 1779, Filipinas 1027.
148 Warren

Visayas and northern Mindanao. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, it

was only at great risk that the hapless villagers could fish, cultivate their fields,
and communicate with neighbouring communities and provinces.6
The success of the slave-raiders of the Sulu Sultanate was due in part to the
deteriorating financial and military situation in the Philippines in the eight-
eenth century. Iranun marauding imposed a tremendous burden on the
treasury and the Filipino people, for the construction of coast-guard fleets and
the maintenance of forts, troops, and cannon.7 The government was forced to
solicit funds from religious corporations, private institutions and wealthy indi-
viduals to meet the persistent expenditure for the defence of the archipelago.
In this period, financial constraints and the advent of maritime trade between
Manila and Jolo prevented the Spanish from undertaking large-scale cam-
paigns against the Sulu Sultanate.8 In desperation, friars in coastal villages
were forced to mobilize the inhabitants of several settlements to build and arm
their own fleets of barangayan to defend themselves.9 The most notable
example was Father Julian Bermejo, the friar of Boljoon on southern Cebu.
From 1804 to 1836 he established a line of baluartes, small forts, that ran from
Tanog to Silbonga; created an early warning system that used flags to alert vil-
lagers to the approach of Iranun-Samal vessels; and organised rendezvous
points from where villagers could defend themselves. He also organized the
inhabitants of Argao, Dalaguete, and Sibonga to construct a fleet of ten baran-
gayan, that were ready to put to sea at a moment’s notice.10 The scheme was so

6 AGI, no. 4, July 5, 1814, Filipinas 510.

7 AGI, no. 234, GCG a Senor Secretario de Estado, December 12, 1772, Filipinas 493; AGI, no.
265, GCG a Senor Secretario de Estado y del Despacho Universal de Marina y Indias, Janu-
ary 12, 1773, Filipinas 493.
8 AGI, no. 7, GCG a Senor Secretario de Estado, June 4, 1806, Filipinas 510.
9 The barangayan were similar to Iranun raiding prahus or pancos, and constructed in the
same manner, but they did not exceed 55 feet in length, or 14 feet at the beam. See Emilio
Bernaldez, Resana historico de la guerra a sur de Filipinas, sostenida por las armas Espa-
noles contra los piratas de aquel archipielago, desde la conquista hasta nuestras dias
(Madrid: Imprenta del Memorial de Ingenieros, 1857), 44.
10 For a brief sketch of his life, see Elviro J. Perez, Catalogo bio-bibliografico de las reliogiosos
Augustinos de la provincia del Santisimo Nombre de Jesus de las islas Filipinas desde su fun-
dacion hasta nuestros dias (Manila: Santo Tomas, 1901), 376-78; José Montero y Vidal, His-
toria general de Filipinas desde el descubrimiento de dichas islas hasta nuestras dias, vol. 2
(Madrid: M. Tello, 1984), 501-4.
In the Name of Sovereignty 149

successful that by 1830 the Filipinos of southern Cebu and Bohol employed
seventy barangayan11 to protect their villages and tripang fisheries.12
Friars, such as Bermejo, played a critical role in preventing the Iranun from
establishing unconditional dominion over the coasts of southern Luzon and
the Visayan Islands. The friars were at one and the same time priests, soldiers,
and technical advisers, skilled not only in the use of artillery but in boat-
building, navigation, and first aid. At the same time, the threat of slave raids
sig­nificantly enhanced the friar’s authority and prestige, enabling him to foster
village dependence on the church and its representatives.
The actual implementation of village defenses rested almost entirely on the
Filipinos themselves as the Spaniards had few resources to spend on protect-
ing communities.13 Village curates and town friars were expected to organize
parishioners to build their own coastal defences – castillo and baluarte – and
fortify them from village donations and religious coffers. The conscripted vil-
lagers acted as telegrafistas, built and staffed the baluartes, and served on
coast-guard vessels against Muslim raiders. Forty-six out of sixty-five villages in
the bishopric of Cebu had a baluarte and/or fort and the Filipinos had built all
of them. Once erected, the watchtowers, earthworks, and palisades were also
at the mercy of the elements.14 Gale force winds on southern Luzon not infre-
quently left trails of disaster that swept away watchtowers and stockades,

11 On the whole, it is clear that well-organized and -equipped barangayan fleets were capa-
ble of defending themselves and defeating the Iranun-Samal raiders in coastal waters.
The division that was commanded by D. Pedro Esteban of Tabaco in Albay province was
much respected by the raiders for its courage. At the age of eighty, the embattled veteran
came out of retirement to capture nine pancos and sink eighteen smaller boats in 1818.
Estaban’s career in the coast-guard spanned thirty-six years: in 1782 he was given the rank
of provisional captain in the light navy for having captured two Muslim pancos; in 1788 he
was placed in command of the vinta squadron for Albay province; in 1796 he destroyed
thirty-seven pancos near Bacacay. Since that time he had lived quietly until he abandoned
his fields to command the squadron once more in 1818. See PNA, no. 8, Ereccion del Pueblo
Albay, 1772-1831.
12 MN, Coleccion Enrile, Tomo XVII, documento 16; MN, Coleccion Guillen, Tomo XIII, Fran-
cisco Osario, a GCG, August 3, 1834, Ms. 1740, 132.
13 Notes translated from the Spanish relative to the pirates on Mindanao, PRO, Admiralty
125/133.
14 There are ample references to the destruction of coastal defenses by natural forces. For
earthquakes, see HDP, Historical Data on Oslob, Cebu; HDP, Historical Data on Pasacao,
Camarines Sur, 4; by volcanic eruption, HDP, Historical Data on Libog, Albay; by typhoon
and hurricane, AHN, no. 27, GCG a Senor Secretario de Estado, December 5, 1844, Ultramar
5157; AHN, no. 11, GCG a Presidente del Consejo de Ministros, February 11, 1852, Ultramar
5163. Notices of the rebuilding of watchtowers and baluarte were sometimes placed in the
150 Warren

leaving coastal settlements defenceless, while torrential rains rusted cannon

and dampened what little gunpowder the villagers possessed.15
How to resume their original way of life without risking attack and enslave-
ment in the future was a dilemma that faced stricken villagers in the aftermath
of a large-scale slave raid. Some went to live in larger villages; some looked for
new village sites, often on elevated ground; others abandoned the coast alto-
gether for an equally harsh life in the “illegible, non-state spaces” of the
mountain fastness of the interior in which they were sometimes reduced to
eating tubers and grass to survive.16 The Spanish labeled these peripheral
people who were beyond the pale of Spanish authority remontados or “danger-
ous fugitives.”
To the Spanish, the Iranun, were also considered dangerous, and far worse.
Irrespective of whether there was war or peace around the globe, the Iranun
were simply the arch-enemy – “moros,” “piratas” and “contrabandistas.”17
Between 1762 and 1848, no one living in the coastal stretches of the Philippines
was safe. A Spanish writer described the wholesale misery inflicted by the
Iranun on the inhabitants of the archipelago over those eighty-six years, as a
chapter in the history of Spain in the Philippines “written in blood and tears
and nourished in pain and suffering.”18
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the paucity of the scale of the
effort that the Spanish devoted to antipiracy operations against the Iranun
reflected the lack of resources at Spain’s disposal and the priorities of those in
power in both Madrid and Manila. But the ideological message was always
clear in both the clarion call for political action to contain the Iranun and the
fervent Christian desire to eradicate Islamic “despotism,” “piracy,” and “slavery”
from Sulu.
The ultimate agenda was to reform and civilize the “moro” character in the
image of the culture of Catholic Spain. Before 1793, direct Spanish intervention
to stem the rising wave of slave-raids was virtually impossible. The low point in

Manila newspapers: “A telegrafo has been built in the pueblo of Lingayen, Pangasinan
province to replace the one destroyed in a storm,” Estrella de Manila, July 15, 1848.
15 MN, Coleccion Enrile XIII, Documento 9.
16 James Scott, “The State and the People Who Move Around,” International Institute Asian
Studies Newsletter 19, no. 3 (1999): 45.
17 See James Francis Warren, “Moro,” in Encyclopedia of Asian History, vol. 3, ed. Ainslie
T. Embree (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988), 39; Charles O. Frake, “The Genesis of
Kinds of People in the Sulu Archipelago,” in Language and Cultural Description (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1980), 314-8; Francisco, S.J. Mallari, “Muslim raids in Bicol, 1580-
1792,” Philippine Studies 34 (1986): 257.
18 Fernandez, History of the Church in the Philippines, 1521-1898, 203.
In the Name of Sovereignty 151

Spanish fortunes against the Iranun in the eighteenth century seems to have
been reached around 1789. The two enemies had come to realize the impossi-
bility of entirely driving the other out of the archipelago. But, the ferocity of
the incessant slave-raiding had ushered in a new era, taking on a permanent
and sinister character in which the Iranun usually arrived in the Luzon region
a month or two after the rice harvest ended and remained in neighboring
waters for up to six months. According to the detailed regional studies of
Norman Owen, Luis Camara Dery, and Francisco Mallari, the Iranun sunk or
captured boats, raided coastal towns, pillaged the villages of Southern Luzon,
and seized the cattle and people unfortunate enough to be living there.
However, in a cruel irony, they did not harry to death the defenceless survivors
who fled to the hills in order to encourage them to return and replant crops, in
time for the next annual raid.19 At this point, it seems that the Spaniards would
have settled merely for a truce and the cessation of Iranun raiding, in order to
reduce the strain on the treasury and the widening gulf and influence, from
their standpoint, between barbarism and civilization.
Spain chose to wage a defensive “sea-war” in Philippine waters. The official
assumption of the containment policy was that cruising, the construction of a
coastal defense network, and the local building of vintas and barangayanes
would deter slave-raiding. Hence, in this period, there was a proclamation that
the coast-guard flotillas be maintained at all cost and more vessels and coastal
fortifications built. From 1778 to 1793, the Spanish spent over a million and a
half pesos on establishing fleets of vintas and cannon-launches to patrol the
seas principally near Manila, but very little was spent on community defense
systems. The most obvious “solution” to the slave-raiding problem would have
been to launch a major offensive against the principal centres of Iranun
marauding and to occupy Jolo. But this pre-emptive strategy was apparently
not in the best interests of the administration in Manila that was in the ironic
position of developing a lucrative regional trade with Sulu – a trade that was
inadvertently predicated on the “piracy” it so religiously decried.
In the 1780s and 1790s, towns and villages throughout the Philippines expe-
rienced some of their worst crises, as various governors-general of the
Philippines, including Basco y Vargas and Marquina, attempted to turn their
attention to the Iranun and Samal Balangingi, who now posed a major threat
to the economy and population of the Philippines. New coastal fortifications
were built, town walls restored, and cruising prahus constructed all along the
coasts of Luzon and the Visayas, at the behest of the government and the friars.
But the Spanish, and their terrified colonial subjects, still relinquished long

19 Owen, Prosperity without Progress, 26.

 152 Warren

Map 6.3 Spanish colonial and community coastal fortifications in the Philippines

stretches of shoreline, the lower reaches of rivers and small coastal islands to
the Iranun and Samal Balangingi.

3 The Antipiracy Crusade and the Destruction of Balangingi

By the 1840s the Spanish had adopted a far more aggressive policy towards the
Muslim south. To protect Spain’s claim to sovereignty over the Sulu Archipelago
from political interference by other European powers, Narcisco Clavería
(Governor-General of the Philippines) authorized a punitive expedition
against Balangingi in 1845, and established a small fort and naval base on
Basilan.20 Although the expedition had been ill-prepared – lacking sufficient
troops, artillery, and scaling ladders – and ultimately failed, the Spanish man-
aged for the first time to reconnoitre the Samalese group of islands, and form a

20 PNA, Expediente 12, Jayme Simo, subteniente de Marina Sutil, a GCG, February 17, 1845,
Mindanao/Sulu 1836-1897; PRO, J. Farren to the Earl of Aberdeen, March 22, 1845, FO,
72/684, 184-6; Bernaldez, Resana historica de la guerra a sur de Filipinas, 151-53; PNA, Expe-
diente 7, Gobierno Militar y Politico de Zamboanga a GCG, August 27, 1846, Mindanao/
Sulu 1838-1885; PRO, Farren to Palmerston, December 27, 1849, FO, 72/761.
In the Name of Sovereignty 153

detailed picture of the topography, defences, and population of Balangingi.21

Armed with this information, Clavería devoted several years to organizing a
formidable naval expedition comprised of the best-trained and -equipped
colonial troops – an expedition that his honor and patriotism demanded he
command himself. As part of his programme to strengthen the military, he
ordered several steam vessels from the English, that were to prove indispensa-
ble in the upcoming campaign against Balangingi.
The governor’s expedition, consisting of three war-steamers, schooners,
transports, brigantines, a detachment of the Marina Sutil (a light, maneuvera-
ble naval force), and 500 troops, was fitted out in secret and left Manila for
Zamboanga on January 27, 1848.22 An auxiliary force of Zamboangueños joined
the expedition before the attack. At dawn on February 16, 1848, Clavería ordered
that no quarter be given as the steamers approached Balangingi Island. The
Balangingi were unprepared for the attack, with more than half their warriors
away on slave cruises. Those remaining were terrified by the kapal api (steam
gunboat) with its superior firepower and facility of movement. Nevertheless,
they fought ferociously, and at Sipac drove the attackers from the walls three
times before the Spanish were able to penetrate the outer defences of the kota
under cover of artillery fire.23 Once inside, the Spanish found Balangingi males,
who expected no quarter, killing the women and children in desperation. The
slaying stopped only after the Spanish commander promised clemency – the
men then put down their blood-soaked arms and surrendered.24
The Balangingi who died in the battle totalled 450, and another 350 men,
women, and children were taken prisoner. The Spanish liberated over 300
slaves from the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies.25 In the week following
the assault, the attackers razed to the ground the forts, seven villages and 150
vessels, as well as 7,000-8,000 coconut palms, and left Balangingi a wasteland,
unfit for habitation.26
In the aftermath of the battle, the Spanish systematically transferred entire
Samal populations to the Cagayan Valley in the interior of northern Luzon. The

21 PNA, Expediente 12, Sobre haber salido la expedicion contra Balangingi, February 17, 1845,
Mindanao/Sulu 1836-1897.
22 PRO, J. Farren to Viscount Palmerston, January 10, 1848, FO, 72/749; Bernaldez, Resana his-
torica de la guerra a sur de Filipinas, 155.
23 PRO, J. Farren to Viscount Palmerston, February 29, 1848, FO, 72/749; Bernaldez, Resana
historica de la guerra a sur de Filipinas, 156-62.
24 Bernaldez, Resana historica de la guerra a sur de Filipinas, 156-62.
25 Ibid., 163; Extract from the Straits Times, March 7, 1848, in PRO, J. Plumridge to H. Ward,
March 24, 1848, Admiralty 125/133.
26 Extract from the Straits Times, March 7, 1848.
154 Warren

first group of exiles deported to Luzon after the destruction of Balangingi num-
bered 350. In 1858, the Spanish seized hundreds of additional Balangingi
women and children (from neighboring islands that had been resettled), while
the remaining men were away on slaving expeditions. When the Samal raiders
returned with their prahus filled with Filipino captives, they were suddenly
forced to send negotiators to Zamboanga to arrange for the possible release of
their families. It was through a false promise of immunity that Julano Taupan,
a leading Balangingi chief, was persuaded to come to Zamboanga to claim his
family. The Spanish reneged on their promise for safe passage and he was
imprisoned. The women and children were now restored to their families upon
unconditional obedience to the Spanish crown; many Samal-Balangingi were
obliged to settle in or near Zamboanga under the watchful eye of the authori-
ties. The major chiefs, Taupan, Dando, and Tumungsuc, and their families were
sent to Cavite and later transferred to Fort Santiago in Manila. They were kept
under close surveillance in prison for some time before the Governor-General
decided to relocate them to Echague (formerly Camarag) in Isabella Province.
For the forcibly displaced Samal slave-raiders, the trauma of the 1848 con-
quest of Balangingi was immense, but its immensity was not adequately
understood by them until 1858. The primary message of the deportation sought
to invalidate the totality of the Balangingi way of life and replace it with
Spanish-Christian values – largely by under duress. They were to practice the
agriculture and arts of civilized “man” and learn to worship the true God. Islam,
that sanctioned slavery, was to be replaced by Catholicism. At the same time,
traffic in men, women, and children, the basis of the wealth of Sulu’s market,
was to be replaced by the lucrative profits derived from the surplus value of the
deportados labour for the tobacco monopoly in the Philippines. Clavería’s mid-
century decision to discipline and punish the slave raiders with kapal api “fire
ships” had marked the beginning of a new era of conflict with the Iranun and
Balangingi; an era which would signal the end of their way of life in less than
twenty-five years. This was the defining moment at which the slave-hunters
became the hunted.

4 Spanish Recovery and Expansion

By 1850, the European powers had begun to play a more direct role in the affairs
of the Taosug state. Sulu was still a major port sultanate, but increasingly
wedged between conflicting colonial interests. The sultanate was entering a
perilous period in its history, marked by exposure to superior Spanish naval
In the Name of Sovereignty 155

strength, fractious diplomacy with Manila, and a developing trade with Spain’s
principal colonial rival – Britain.
Fearing possible English or Dutch intrusion into the Sulu Archipelago, Spain
adopted a hard-line approach along the borders of its southern frontier and, in
1848, had destroyed the Iranun and Samal “pirate nests” on Balangingi with
steam gunboats. This act visibly weakened the Taosug and convinced them of
the necessity of English friendship and trade. The sultanate severed its long-
established commercial tie with Manila and welcomed the assistance of James
Brooke, the politically ambitious governor of Labuan, who sought to protect
Sulu from the Spanish embrace. A Treaty of Friendship and Commerce
between Britain and Sulu was negotiated by Brooke when he visited Jolo in
May 1849.
The Treaty was sent to England, approved, and ratified by the Queen on
October 31, 1849. However, Brooke’s absence from Labuan inadvertently post-
poned its formalization. The delay proved costly for the Sulu Sultanate. The
English government, under increasing pressure from the Spanish ambassador
at the Court of St James, sent instructions to Brooke not to proceed with the
exchange of ratifications.27 England’s temporary loss of official interest and
continued Dutch designs on the northeast coast of Borneo prompted the
Spanish to take decisive measures against the sultan for repudiating Spain’s
claim of sovereignty.28
In November 1849, slave raids conducted by the dispersed Samal Balangingi
provided the new governor of the Philippines, Don Antonio Urbiztondo, with
the pretext to invade Jolo and claim a monopoly on Sulu’s trade.29 The assault

27 CO, Bulwer to the Earl of Carnarvon, May 9, 1874, 144/42.

28 In 1849, Baron van Hoevell drew the attention of his compatriots to the immediate impor-
tance of James Brooke’s activities at Sulu and the trade of the northeast coast of Borneo.
Van Hoevell outlined Sulu’s tributary relationships with the various districts, listed their
products, and pointed out that Sandakan Bay would be the best place to establish a settle-
ment when they took possession of the coast. The Spanish could not allow the Dutch
Government to coerce the sultan into a treaty that would effectuate Van Hoevell’s views.
See W.R. van Hoevell, “Laboean, Serawak, de Noordoostkust van Borneo en de Sulthan
van Soeloe,” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie 11, no. 1 (1849): 66-83.
29 IOL, Governor of the Straits Settlements to the Sec. to the Government of India, April 4,
1851, F/4/2450 (13571), 10-11; Saleeby, History of Sulu, 104. At Bulan the Spanish troops
burned 250 houses and twenty vintas. The Samal of Bukutua surrendered and promised
to remain loyal to the Spanish Crown. After a series of skirmishes on Tunkil, about 1,000
houses and 106 boats were put to the torch. See Najeeb N. Saleeby, History of Sulu (Manila:
Filipiniana Book Guild, 1963), 104-5. Contributions toward the expenses of the expedi-
tions from the ayuntamiento, or municipal government of Manila, the religious orders,
156 Warren

on Jolo began on the morning of February 28, 1851.30 The fortifications and vil-
lages in the vicinity of Jolo were razed within forty-eight hours. But the Spanish
troops, hampered by dysentery, were unable to leave their garrison to occupy
the destroyed town. The result was a treaty concluded between the military
governor of Zamboanga and the sultan and his principal datus.
If this treaty had been observed it would have made the Sulu Sultanate and
its dependencies an integral part of the Spanish colony of the Philippines.31
As it transpired, it nullified the Brooke agreement and stated that no foreign
vessel would be allowed to trade in the Sulu Archipelago except at a Spanish
port properly opened for foreign commerce. The treaty called for the establish-
ment of a trading factory and naval station at Jolo to protect Spain’s commercial
interests and prevent future traffic in munitions.32 But neither side upheld the
provisions of the treaty. The sultanate continued to trade in arms, opium, and
textiles with other colonial powers, but especially at Labuan and Singapore.
Consequently, by mid-century the Spanish had formulated a strategic plan
to occupy key positions in the Iranun and Balangingi heartlands. The theory
now expressed by naval experts, knowledgeable about Iranun and Balangingi
slave-raiding, was to control “piracy” at the source, or at least check slaving by
establishing forward bases for Spanish naval operations and as places of refuge
for victims of Iranun and Balangingi predation.
The sultan’s stubborn assertion of autonomy had induced Spain to take ever
stronger measures to restrain the commercial activities of foreign nations with
Sulu. In 1855, when London’s protests were not yet firm enough to protect the
interests of the Straits traders, the Spanish had established an open port at
Zamboanga and issued a decree that all vessels engaged in trade with the Sulu
Archipelago must first call at the Spanish presidio.33 The arrival of the first
trading prahus at Labuan just after the establishment of Zamboanga’s customs
house was more than coincidental. The introduction of the customs house and
the differential duties not only drove away English and American whalers but

and private individuals amounted to nearly 10,000 pounds. See CO, Farren to Palmerston,
March 16, 1856, 144/8.
30 CO, Enclosure 2, no. 10, in Farren to Palmerston, March 16, 1856, 144/8.
31 In the treaty of April 19, 1851, the sultan and his datus recognized Spain’s sovereignty,
promised to assist in eradicating piracy, to fly the Spanish flag exclusively, and not to trade
or use fire arms without the permission of Spain. The Spanish promised to respect Taosug
customs and religion, to confer royalty on them, to confirm rights of succession upon
reigning families, to secure the authority of the sultan, and promote trade to the Spanish
ports. They allowed the sultan to issue passports and agreed to pay him 1,500 pesos yearly.
32 CO, Bulwer to the Earl of Granville, December 29, 1871, 144/35.
33 FO, H.M. Consul Farren, Circular to Manila merchants, June 6, 1855, 72/876.
In the Name of Sovereignty 157

also most Taosug and Samal prahus that had formerly visited Zamboanga.34
The Spanish established a garrison on Balabac Island in 1858 as a counter-
measure to Labuan aimed at preventing the growth of the Sulu prahu trade
that was beginning to reach the English settlement.35 Spanish gunboats began
to divert all craft sailing to Labuan and Brunei. In spite of their efforts, ever
larger numbers of Taosug trading boats visited Labuan every year.36 The occu-
pation of Balabac did little to change Zamboanga’s situation. Sulu rather than
Zamboanga would remain the important centre of foreign trade in the region,
while the Taosug would continue to act as regional distributors of imports to
their neighbors on Mindanao and elsewhere.

5 Cruising and Dispossession: The Blockade

The southerly shift of Samal migratory-raiding activity was intensified by the

destruction of Balangingi and the advent of flotillas of war-steamers in
Philippine waters. In 1860, under Governor-General Norzagaray, eighteen pre-
fabricated steam gunboats (canonero), were sent from England (around Cape
Horn) and assembled en masse at the Cavite shipyards. With the arrival of the
fleet of steam gunboats the Spanish Navy abandoned cruising among the
islands, and deployed the steamers in key straits in the archipelago through
which the Balangingi passed, and at several stations in the Sulu Sea.37 The
English vice-consul at Iloilo reported:

Of the steam gunboats which are replacing throughout the Archipelago

the heavy sailing boats (faluas) previously employed, Yloilo has been sup-
plied with two. These have in some measure promoted … communication
with neighbouring islands and provinces, and occasionally with Manila,
and are likely to prove much more effectual in repressing piracy than the
former gunboats. Recently they have had several encounters with the
pirates of the Sooloo Sea, in the immediate neighbourhood of Yloilo, and
have brought in five pirate pancos and other smaller boats, making away

34 CO, Bulwer to the Earl of Granville, December 29, 1871, 144/35.

35 CO, Bulwer to the Earl of Carnarvon, September 30, 1874, 144/43.
36 FO, Spenser St. John to the Earl of Malmsbury, May 31, 1859, 12/26.
37 AHN, no. 229, GCG a Ministro de Guerra y Ultramar, June 20, 1860, Ultramar 5179; Concas y
Palau, “Nuestras relaciones con Jolo,” 203-5.
158 Warren

with between two hundred and fifty to three hundred of these habitual
depredators of the Philippine coasts.38

The speed, firepower, and manoeuvrability of the canonero stemmed Samal

slaving. After 1860 their raiding prahus no longer prowled unchallenged. Samal
losses mounted. In less than three years, four flotillas were destroyed by the
steamers in the Visayas alone.39 When the canonero were encountered in
open sea, the Balangingi were annihilated:

In the channel between Tawi-Tawi and Borneo fifteen pancos were

sighted. Their numbers, movements, and course appeared suspicious,
and the Taosug on board, who were experienced in such matters, felt they
were Balangingi. The canonero Samar began pursuit. The chase lasted
two hours during which time the pirates made strenuous efforts to reach
the security of the Tawi-Tawi coast. When unable to do so, because we
had placed ourselves between them and the shoreline, the pancos hove to
as a group to fight. I then gave the order to sink them; a half an hour was
all that was necessary to accomplish it, during which time the ram and
cannon worked in unison to destroy them…. I continued steaming on
course towards Borneo amidst the debris and bodies that covered the
sea.40

The port of Isabella on Basilan was fortified by the Spanish and became their
principal steamship post in the south. From there and Balabac, nine or more
gunboats regularly patrolled the Sulu Sea. The appearance of steam gunboats
in the Visayas and the Sulu Sea and a series of expeditions conducted by the
Spanish Navy against Samal settlements on Tawi-Tawi from 1860 to 1864,41
forced the Balangingi to shift their predatory activities away from Philippine

38 PRO, Loney to Farren, July 10, 1861, FO, 72/1017.

39 AHN, no. 236, GCG a Ministro de la Guerra y de Ultramar, August 17, 1861, Ultramar 5182;
see also AHN, no. 192, July 2, 1861; AHN, no. 164, June 5, 1861, Ultramar 5182.
40 AHN, no. 3, El Comandante de la Goleta, Santa Filomena, a Commandancia General del
Apostadero de Filipinas, July 23, 1862, Ultramar 5190.
41 AHN, El Comandante de la Goleta, Santa Filomena, a Commandancia General del Apos-
tadero de Filipinas, July 18, 1862, Ultramar 5190; AHN, GCG a Senor Ministro de la Guerra y
de Ultramar, September 4, 1862, Ultramar 5290; AHN, El Sultan de Jolo a D. Vincente Roca,
September 21, 1862, Ultramar 5193; AHN, GCG a Senor Ministro de la Guerra y de Ultramar,
October 25, 1862, Ultramar 5192; AHN, GCG a Senor Presidente del Consejo de Ministros,
May 20, 1863, Ultramar 5194; PRO, Colonel Cavanagh to Sec. to the Government of India,
January 28, 1863, FO, 71/1.
In the Name of Sovereignty 159

waters, but Negros Oriental and Surigao suffered attacks along their coasts till
1875, and desultory raiding was still experienced in various parts of the
Philippines on the eve of the twentieth century.42
The Sulu Sultanate had become especially important to Britain during the
1860s because, in the hands of a strong power, the Sulu Archipelago would
have commanded the southeastern flank of the route between Singapore and
China, and because it was the mainstay of the commercial prosperity of
Labuan. The sultanate’s trade with Labuan and Singapore and a change of pol-
icy on the part of the British Foreign Office toward North Borneo and Sulu
forced Spain to strengthen its position.43 A hard-line attitude prevailed in
Manila, especially in naval circles, that war with the Sulu Sultanate was inevi-
table. Spanish leaders wished to delay no longer before a new sense of imperial
interest also provoked other powers to intervene.44 They were strengthened in
their determination by the British naval survey of the Sulu Sea begun in 1870.45
In November 1871, Spain renewed in earnest its efforts to conquer Sulu.
Spanish gunboats bombarded Samal villages in the Tawi-Tawi group and block-
aded Jolo. As the war in the waters of the Sulu Archipelago escalated, the
sultanate came to rely almost exclusively on Singapore’s market for assistance.
Although the movement of foodstuffs was initially disrupted, the Taosug man-
aged to obtain a steady supply of arms and provisions from the blockade
runners of the Labuan Trading Company. This Singapore-based firm managed
by Carl Schomburg and William Cowie (ex-admiral of the sultan of Riau
Lingga’s fleet and a Sumatran coal prospector) established a lucrative business
running munitions from Labuan to Sulu.46
After an ineffectual bombardment of Jolo in February 1872, the blockade
was temporarily suspended in favor of a more calculated and harsher policy.47
It was at this time that a small book written by Santiago Paterno, a naval com-
mander, first appeared. With insight into the sultanate’s economy and society,

42 PRO, Mr. Ricketts to the Earl of Clarendon, June 17, 1870, FO, 72/1246; PNA, Gobierno Polit-
ico y Militar de la Isla de Mindanao a GCG, 28 July 1872, Pirates (1); PRO, Ricketts to the Earl
of Derby, January 28, 1875, FO, 72/1423; PNA, no. 179, Gobierno Politico y Militar de la Isla
de Mindanao a GCG, December 2, 1877, Mindanao/Sulu 1858-1897; PNA, no. 34, Gobierno
Politico y Militar de Misamis a Gobernador Politico y Militar de Mindanao, November 19,
1880, Mindanao/Sulu 1860-1898.
43 Leigh R. Wright, The Origins of British Borneo (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press,
1970), chap. 2.
44 AHN, no. 41, GCG a Senor Ministero de Ultramar, February 1, 1873, Ultramar 5217.
45 CO, Bulwer to the Earl of Granville, June 12, 1872, 144/37.
46 St. John Hart, “The strange story of a little ship,” in The Wide World Magazine (1906): 350-1.
47 CO, Bulwer to the Earl of Granville, June 12, 1872, 144/37.
160 Warren

Paterno made fifteen recommendations to reduce the Taosug to submission

and gradually convert them from a trading aristocracy to peasant agricultural-
ists.48 Central to his thesis was the crucial role of the prahu both for pearl-fishing
and the redistributive economy of the Sulu Sultanate. Paterno argued that, if
Spain wanted to ensure its occupation of the Sulu Archipelago, it would have
to make greater use of steam power and introduce a cruising system that would
eliminate Sulu craft and the villages that built them once and for all.49
Shortly after the appearance of Paterno’s book, Rear-Admiral Juan Antequera
published a series of regulations for a systematic campaign to destroy all
Taosug shipping and, with it, a long tradition of seafaring and commerce. A
fleet of gunboats, that was insufficient to maintain a permanent blockade but
could wreak havoc and fear by destroying everything it encountered, began to
cruise the waters of the Sulu Archipelago. Whenever a trading, fishing, or pas-
senger prahu was encountered, the boat was seized and the crew sent to
Zamboanga or Manila to labor in irons on public works.50 Traders, fishers, or
passengers found armed were tried by military courts.51 On occasion no quar-
ter was given and prahus were simply rammed or sunk by gunfire. Punitive
expeditions were also undertaken against coastal villages on Jolo and Tawi-
Tawi. Cruisers shelled the villages before dawn, drove their inhabitants inland,
and burnt whatever remained to the ground.52 In this manner, Balimbing,
Ubian, and other villages built close to the sea were destroyed.53 From its
inception, the blockade had prevented Taosug merchants at Jolo from leaving
for Labuan, but the usual number of prahus from southern Palawan and
Cagayan de Sulu continued to arrive at the British settlement.54 The largest
amount of trade came from the boats of Maliud, Datu Kassim’s community.
But the Palawan prahus began to meet stiffening resistance from the Spanish
in 1873. The new strategy of relentless cruising that was employed by the steam
gunboats succeeded within two years in preventing most of these trading
boats from reaching Labuan.

48 D. Santiago Paterno, Sistema que conviene adoptar para acabar con la pirateria: que Los
Mahometanos de aa Sultania de Jolo ejercen en el Archipielago Filipino por el capitan de la
armada D. Santiago Paterno (Madrid: Imprenta de Miguel Ginesta, 1872), 39-42.
49 Ibid., 9.
50 CO, Bulwar to the Earl of Carnarvon, September 30, 1874, 144/43.
51 CO, Bulwar to the Earl of Kimberley, November 7, 1873, 144/41.
52 Capt. Knorr to Imperial Admiralty, Berlin, May 24, 1875, in CO, Earl of Derby to Lord Odo
Russel, February 12, 1876, 144/46.
53 Statement of Datu Jemulano, January 10, 1875, in CO, Report of Commander Buckle on the
State of the Sulu Archipelago, 144/45.
54 CO, Bulwer to the Earl of Carnarvon, September 30, 1874, 144/43.
In the Name of Sovereignty 161

No trade voyages could now be made from Maliud, on Palawan’s southeast

coast, without fear of encountering the Spaniards.55 One of the cruisers
attacked the prahu of Datu Kassim, as he was taking his wife from Maliud to
Sambilong on the east coast of Borneo; they had barely reached the safety of
the shore before the Spanish destroyed the datu’s boat. To escape the vigilance
of Spanish cruisers in the Sulu Sea, prahus now only dared sail along the coast
at night and fishing was necessarily confined to the shelter of mangroves.
Trading boats from the western side of Palawan could still reach Labuan by
standing straight out to sea, but were unable to take advantage of the coastal
route that was the safest passage in the southwest monsoon.56 Haji Mansur of
Cagayan de Sulu, another leading trader, was also attacked by the Spanish. In
July 1875, he left for Cagayan de Sulu in two prahus that had been awaiting his
return from a pilgrimage to Mecca in Labuan harbor.57 It was after calling at
one of the trading villages located at the southern end of Palawan that his pra-
hus ran into the Spanish war vessel The Santa Lucia, on its way to Zamboanga.
Contrary to the terse account that appeared in El Commercio reporting the
“total destruction by grape-shot of two native vessels,” Haji Mansur managed
to survive the encounter but almost his entire family perished in the brutal
incident.58
Although the cruising system destroyed many of the Sulu prahus that could
trade with Labuan, the ability of the Taosug to wage a defensive war against the
Spanish remained undiminished, as long as foreign trading vessels were able to
import munitions to the sultanate. The Spanish blockade force was inadequate
for the task. The squadron was small: A corvette, The Santa Lucia, plus four
steam gunboats, concentrated around Jolo Island; only once a fortnight were
gunboats able to visit adjacent islands such as Siassi or Lapac.59 Inadequately
maintained, it had been labeled a paper blockade by an English observer.

55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 CO, Acting Consul General Low to the Earl of Derby, January 3, 1876, 144/46.
58 The translation of the paragraph from the Manila newspaper Comercio reads: “We are
informed that, during the voyage, the said vessel [Santa Lucia] fell in, near Baneuran
Island with two piratical prahus manned by forty men altogether, whom she extermi-
nated with grape-shot, but not without their returning the fire although without causing
any loss or damage to our vessel.” Cutting from Overland edition of the Singapore Straits
Times, December 11, 1875, in CO, Acting Consul Gen. Low to the Earl of Derby, January 3,
1876, 144/46; Haji Mansur’s trading activities are briefly discussed by William Pryer in 1879
when the headman of Cagayan de Sulu visited Elopura. See CO, Diary of William Pryer,
August 11, 1879, 874/69.
59 CO, Commander Buckle to Vice-Adm. Ryder, February 28, 1875, 144/45.
162 Warren

Nevertheless, the development of the cruising system and blockade had

major impacts upon the Taosug economy and society. When the blockade was
first established, there was a severe rice shortage in Sulu, because the Taosug
had previously concentrated their activities and labor in the fisheries of the
archipelago, hence most of their paddy was imported and paid for with tripang
and mother-of-pearl shell. In their extreme need, a basket of pearl-shell worth
about $50 was exchanged for a bag of seed paddy worth about one-tenth that
sum,60 and when mother-of-pearl shell sold for as much as $250 per ton at
Singapore in the 1870s, the cargo of Straits-based vessels was often composed
of little else.61 For Sulu, whose fate was now precariously tied to the interna-
tional economy of Singapore, it was a cruel sort of trade.62 Cruising made it
impossible for many communities to fish for pearl-shell and gather tripang on
the shoals and reefs except at the risk of their lives; yet Straits traders insisted
on being paid in shell.63 The sultan took a defiant stance against Spanish pre-
tences by issuing hundreds of passes for the procurement of pearl-shell to
armed prahus. To Sulu, pearl-shell became the mainstay, or life-blood of com-
mercial activity with the Straits traders.64 Upon it rested the very survival of
the state.
While the Taosug depended on these merchant-adventurers for munitions
and trade goods they could not realistically expect them to supply staples on a
large scale. A major shift occurred in the internal economy of the sultanate in
order to correct the long-standing ecological imbalance – namely, from being
a rice-deficit region towards self-sufficiency in grain production. This process,
that had begun some time earlier when Sulu was denied regular access to
Manila’s rice trade after 1848, received a boost in the 1860s when the concerted
action of steam gunboats made it all but impossible for most Taosug to pro-
mote raid-related activities any longer. Many coastal communities now turned
toward their island hinterlands and, under the guidance of their datus, moved
into agriculture to fill the gap in rice production.

60 Ibid.
61 Hart, “The strange story of a little ship,” 352.
62 Datu Harun al Rashid observed: “The people of Sulu are very much in want of cloth,
opium, and Chinese tobacco which articles the ‘Toney’ takes them, but will receive noth-
ing in exchange but pearl shell, which the Sulus are obliged to go out and procure. This is
the reason that so many of them are captured.” CO, Statement of Datu Harun al Rashid in
Report by Commander Buckle on the State of the Sulu Archipelago, 144/45.
63 CO, Bulwer to the Earl of Carnarvon, September 30, 1874, 144/43.
64 PNA, Expediente 6, Secretaria de la Sultania de Jolo a Gobernador Militar y Politico de
Mindanao, February 27, 1867, Mindanao/Sulu 1839-1898.
In the Name of Sovereignty 163

This important process of economic transformation and environmental

change was briefly noted in the Diario de Manila. Obviously, the Spanish were
pleased with the success of what they considered the necessary adjustment of
the Taosug from a maritime to a sedentary way of life that had resulted from
the concerted actions of their steam gunboats:

Since 1861 … a degree of peace and prosperity has been maintained in the
Sulu archipelago thanks to the small squadron of gunboats stationed
there … their piratical expeditions have met with so many checks that the
people numbering in Sooloo and the adjacent islands upward of 200,000
… have to a considerable extent turned [to] labour and agriculture.65

Nevertheless, despite this transition, the Taosug still did not cultivate sufficient
rice to cope with the basic needs of their society. The onset of the blockade had
denied them access to their traditional sources of rice and sago – the northeast
coast of Borneo, Palawan, Cagayan de Sulu, and Mindanao – and intensified
their drive to grow rice on volcanic hillsides; more and more acreage was
brought under cultivation with the wholesale clearing of forests. Less than a
decade later, Siassi Island was described as “scarcely wooded” – “From the sea
until the top of this mountain the land has been completely denuded by the
natives whence they cultivate their rice and Chinese yams.”66 In just five years,
the feat of sustainability had been more or less accomplished. By 1875, an
English naval officer could write:

When the blockade was first established, the people were in great want
and misery… now the people have abundance of padi, fruit, [and] vegeta-
bles … having been compelled from necessity to cultivate their land, and
rely on their own resources.67

By 1875, the Governor Captain-General Jose Malcampo felt the occupation of

Jolo Island was an absolute necessity, if Spain was to establish its claim to
actual possession of the Sulu Archipelago.68 On February 30, the Spaniards
attacked and destroyed the town of Jolo from the land and sea, and in ensuing
weeks reduced the settlements of Maimbung and Parang, as well as Taosug

65 Translation from the Diario de Manila in CO, Bulwer to the Earl of Granville, December 29,
1871, 144/35.
66 Alfred Marche, Luzon and Palawan (Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1970), 272.
67 CO, Commander Buckle to Vice-Adm. Ryder, February, 28, 1875, 144/45.
68 CO, Ag. Consul-General Low to the Earl of Derby, February 29, 1876, 144/46.
164 Warren

strongholds on Tapul and Lapac, to ashes.69 The Spanish, this time committed
to the occupation of the part of Jolo Island they had conquered, established a
garrison and several forts, and began to rebuild Jolo along European lines as a
walled city. They remained there until 1899.
The sultanate’s continued survival beyond the pale of the Spanish Philip­
pines was in part attributable to the rivalry between the colonial powers
– Spain, Great Britain, and Germany. But by 1877, the interest of Germany in
the area, a more dangerous power than Spain in the opinion of the British
Foreign Office, made it seem imperative to Britain that the Spanish should be
allowed to occupy the Sulu Archipelago.70 The combination of Berlin’s strong
representations to the Spanish government over the illegal seizure of their
trading vessels and Britain’s interest in bolstering the legitimacy of Spanish
sovereignty in Sulu resulted in the Protocol of 1877. London and Berlin insisted
that the Sulu Archipelago remain open to world trade, and the Spanish had to
give way to the demands of British and German commerce and raise the block-
ade. In return, the two powers signed the Protocol which in effect meant they
recognized Spain’s occupation of Jolo.71
The signing of the Protocol in a distant European capital was a significant
turning-point in the history of the Sulu Sultanate. It did great disservice to the
Taosug and the integrity of their state. After several centuries of inconclusive
conflict, Spain finally had secured international recognition of its claim to the
Sulu Archipelago and was now free to pursue its war without fear of foreign
intervention. Consequently the fate of the sultanate and its relationship to the
Philippine Archipelago was fixed in the modern world system dominated by
western imperial interests.
In 1878, negotiations were begun with the Spanish governor of Sulu when
Datu Harun al Rashid convinced Sultan Jamal ul-Azam to end formal resist-
ance and restore peace in order to save the sultanate from ruin.72 In the treaty
of July 20, 1878, the sultan and his datus acknowledged Spanish sovereignty. He
agreed to assist the Spanish authorities to suppress piracy and was authorized
by them to collect duties on foreign vessels in Sulu’s ports occupied by Spain,
to issue passports, and provide licenses on muzzle-loading cannon. The sultan

69 Ibid. May 26, 1876.

70 FO, Report by Consul Palgrave on the Island and Archipelago of Sulu and their relations
with Spain, 24 Jan. 1877, 572/4.
71 For a copy of the text of this Protocol, see Saleeby, History of Sulu, 239-41.
72 Saleeby, History of Sulu, 124; Cesar A. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines (Quezon City: Uni-
versity of the Philippines Press, 1973), 242-98; Nicholas Tarling, Sulu and Sabah: A Study of
British Policy towards the Philippines and North Borneo from the Late Eighteenth Century
(Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1978), 95-143.
In the Name of Sovereignty 165

also agreed to use the Spanish flag. While the treaty stressed the submission of
Sulu to Spain, some Taosug never considered it more than a modus vivendi with
the Spanish and were to test the limits of the treaty constantly.

6 The Cant of Conquest

For several centuries, the Sulu-Mindanao region has been known for “piracy”;
in the early-nineteenth century, entire ethnic groups specialized in state-sanc-
tioned maritime raiding – Iranun and Balangingi – attacking Southeast Asian
coastal settlements and trading vessels sailing for the fabled Spice Islands, or
for Singapore, Manila, and Batavia. When people think of slavery in Southeast
Asia, they rightly imagine tens of thousands of peoples stolen from their vil-
lages across the region and sent directly to work in the large fisheries and
wilderness reserves of the Sulu Sultanate.
The alleged battle between savagism and civilization, with glory for the
Spanish and ultimately, tragedy for the Iranun and Balangingi as its inevitable
outcome, formed a major motif and metaphor of much of the official record
and the literature – published and unpublished – depicting the “Guerras
Piraticas” and “Malay Piracy” in the period under consideration here.
The Samal slave-raiders had suffered heavy losses with the large-scale intro-
duction of war steamers to the Philippines and had been driven from their
strongholds on Balangingi. They would never be able to regain their former
dominance in the face of the major defeat and entrapment that had taken
place. But the Balangingi were not totally prepared to succumb to the threat
the steamship posed to their future, or to the colonial frame of mind that cre-
ated and maintained that threat, portraying them as “savages” and “wildmen,”
who stood in the way of Christianity, progress and free trade.
The Spanish proponents of deportation and forced resettlement argued that
Spanish progress in the Philippines and their “manifest destiny” were depend-
ent upon the removal of the Balangingi as Muslim “savages” from the pathway
of Spanish civilization. The distant tobacco plantation in the Cagayan Valley
would serve not only as an economic outpost of empire, it was also meant
to be an agent of change among the banished seafarers. Farming was to be
encouraged and Christianity taught in order to acculturate and assimilate the
Balangingi mariners. The Spanish were determined to break down the social
structure, culture, and religion of the Samal slave-raiders, thereby transforming
them in the process into “Filipino” farmers and colonial subjects indistinguish-
166 Warren

able from their Yoggad neighbors, the original inhabitants of Isabella.73 United
with like-minded reformers and officials in Madrid, Spanish officers in Manila
quickly pushed through the removal policy designed to educate the Balangingi
in Christian beliefs and civilized ways, and erase any memory of “their
bloody occupation … [so they would] become docile Christian and peaceful
subjects.”74 These events surrounding the subjugation, surrender, and removal
of the Balangingi provide deep insight into Spanish attitudes and policy and
clearly displayed their ethnocentric approach to the Balangingi and long-held
antagonism toward Islam.

Conclusion

The second half of the nineteenth century proved to be a critical turning-point

in the history of the Sulu Sultanate, as it was in the history of the rest of the
non-western world. Everywhere challenges arose to confront the Sulu state’s
ability to survive. With increased cooperation among western colonial navies
and more effective use of steam vessels, the Sulu world began to shrink. The
destruction of Balangingi and Jolo by the Spanish between 1848 and 1852
placed serious constraints on the ability of the Taosug to retain control over
their principal source of slaves, the Iranun and Balangingi Samal. The western
grooved cannon and gunpowder, that had first attracted the Iranun and Samal
Balangingi to Jolo as clients and suppliers of captives, were now operating to
drive them apart. There was a progressive fragmentation of Samal groups
because of Spanish incursions and a corresponding disruption of the Taosug
economy. No longer could their swift fleets expect to find distant coasts unpro-
tected and towns defenceless: The era of long-range slave raiding in insular
Southeast Asia was over.
After the destruction of Balangingi in 1848, the Spanish initially used Samal
women and children as hostages to force their husbands and kindred to sur-
render and make peace. After a short time, the Spanish deported the Balangingi
to northern Luzon. They then assembled their steamers and regularly swept
the Visayas and the Sulu Archipelago from one end to the other. The scale of
the effort that Spain devoted to antipiracy operations against the remnant, dis-
persed Balangingi reflected the imposing resources at its disposal and the new

73 Margarita de los Reyes Cojuangco, Kris of Valour the Samal Balangingi’s Defiance and Dias-
pora (Manila: Manisan, 1994), 137.
74 PNA, El Gobernador Capitan General a el Alcalde Mayor de Tondo, June 15, 1859, Mind-
anao/Sulu 1859, uncatalogued bundle.
In the Name of Sovereignty 167

priorities of those in power in Manila, following the destruction of Balangingi.

Constant punitive campaigns ended with a series of sea battles off the coasts
of Samar and Mindanao and attacks on Balangingi bases to the south.
Prior to 1848, Spanish policy against the Iranun and Balangingi had been
based on principles of containment; periodic naval expeditions had been dis-
patched to destroy the shipping of the slave-raiders and their Taosug patrons.
However, by the mid-nineteenth century, the Spanish authorities had decided
to annex a number of the Muslim sultanates in the south, including Sulu. This
major shift in strategic thinking and foreign policy was meant to prevent the
British, Dutch, and Germans from expanding their colonial positions and
­territorial interests in the Philippine Archipelago and adjacent areas. The
mari­time raiding activities of the Balangingi would be severely curtailed by
the advent of steam gunboats but, in 1848, the Spanish also used slaving and
the destruction of the raiders’ forts on Balangingi as a pretext to declare war on
the Taosug and force the sultan of Sulu to sign a treaty acknowledging Spanish
sovereignty.75 By the 1860s, a Spanish fleet of war steamers remained on station
in key straits throughout the Philippines, putting a decisive end to the seasonal
raiding activities of the Balangingi slavers.
Spain was bent on reducing Sulu’s thriving commercial empire, but the sul-
tanate did not succumb easily. For the sultan, the trade in natural commodities
was the source of guns and munitions provided by the English and German
private traders; loss of the trade would result in a decline in his authority and
eventually conquest by Spain. The Spanish considered all Taosug who cooper-
ated with the private traders, or contrabandistas, to be either “smugglers” or
“pirates.” From 1871 to 1879 the Spanish navy’s gunboats periodically block-
aded Jolo and patroled Sulu waters, destroying all vessels sailing across the
Sulu Sea to and from Jolo and other islands in the archipelago. This systematic
search-and-destroy campaign waged by navy warships against both local and
inter­national shipping and coastal settlements led to the Spanish conquest of
Jolo in 1879, but Sulu’s autonomy in trade was to last till almost the end of
the Spanish regime in 1898. The Spanish naval campaign of the 1870s and the
large-scale immigration of Straits Chinese provided the necessary formula for
the economic and political collapse of the Sulu trading-raiding sphere. The
Spanish conquest of Sulu and the advent of steam-shipping lines on the eve of
the twentieth century introduced a new era in which much of the commercial
life and trade passed into the hands of immigrant Chinese.

75 Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898, 105-6.

168 Warren

List of Depositories

AGI Archivo General de Indias, Seville

AHN Archivo Historico Nacional, Madrid
CO Colonial Office, London
FO Foreign Office, London
HDP Historical Data Papers, Republic of the Philippines, Bureau of Public Schools
IOL India Office Library, London
MN Museo Naval, Madrid
Coleccion Enrile
Colleccion Guillen
PNA Philippine National Archives, Manila
PRO Public Records Office, London
Admiralty
In the Name of Sovereignty 169

Part 3
Piracy and State in East Asia

∵
170 Warren
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 171

Chapter 7

Piracy Prohibition Edicts and the Establishment of

Maritime Control System in Japan, c. 1585-1640
Fujita Tatsuo (translated by Ota Atsushi)

Introduction

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the second great unifier of Japan, proclaimed the follow-
ing edicts known as the “Piracy Prohibition Edicts,” on July 8, 1588 (hereafter
the 1588 Edicts). In these edicts he strictly prohibited piracy within a very large
area, in fact probably all the territory under his influence.1 Three major
points were:

𐆑𐆑 [Hideyoshi] was angered to hear that, in spite of his strict prohibitions of

piracy on the seas in various provinces, it had been perpetrated near Itsuki
Island between Bingo and Iyo provinces.
𐆑𐆑 The local officials in various provinces were to interrogate ship’s captains
and fishermen, and make all of them sign a written oath that they would
never perpetrate piracy. The daimyos (feudal lords) in each province were to
collect their papers and submit them [to Hideyoshi].
𐆑𐆑 If any person perpetrated piracy, evading the eyes of his master, [Hideyoshi]
would punish the latter. The domains of his master will be permanently
confiscated.2

The first sentence confirms that this set of Edicts was not the first prohibition
of piracy, as previous studies have assumed. Nor should it be thought that
piracy disappeared completely after these Edicts were issued. It was an uphill
battle to enforce strict obedience to the ban on piracy, especially in wartime. It

1 The fact that the first two edicts especially refer to “various provinces” suggests that they were
issued with a specific eye to the regions under Toyotomi’s influence.
2 Oumi Mizukuchi Kato-ke Monjo 近江水口加藤家文書 [Documents of the (Oumi
Mizukuchi) Kato family], Waseda Daigaku 早稲田大学. This set of edicts was written on
paper called “Otaka danshi” of 46 × 65 centimeters in size, in the typical style of Hideyoshi’s
vermilion-seal paper in his Kanpaku period. Several versions of the Hideyoshi’s Piracy
Prohibitions with a similar content were preserved among the feudal lords in Western Japan,
including the Shimazu, Otomo, Kato, Tachibana, and Kobayakawa families.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_009

172 Fujita

was obvious that, if it was to succeed in keeping maritime order in peace or

war, the Toyotomi regime and the daimyos would need to set up a certain num-
ber of official maritime checkpoints. Although the decrees did not make the
existence of the individual pirates themselves illegal, they did impose a strict
ban on piracy, narrowly defined here as attacks on ships that did not pay their
tolls and the expropriation of their cargoes.3 Although in medieval times it had
been a legal right of pirates to establish checkpoints in order to demand tolls
from passing ships, after the Edicts were promulgated, the setting up of private
checkpoints was strictly illegal.4
Previous studies have focused on the 1588 Edicts and their limited efficacy,
but they have not discussed these documents fully as a part of the gradual for-
mation of the piracy prohibition policy under the Toyotomi regime.5 In fact,

3 See Fujita Tatsuo 藤田達生, Hideyoshi to kaizoku daimyo 秀吉と海賊大名：海から見た戦

国終焉 [Hideyoshi and pirate daimyos: the end of the Sengoku Period in a maritime perspec-
tive ] (Tokyo: Chuo Koron Shinsha, 2012).
4 In order to emphasize this point, this chapter uses the term “piracy prohibitions,” instead of
the more customary “pirate prohibitions.”
5 It is noteworthy that, in the pre-war period, Tsuji Zennosuke stated that Hideyoshi proclaimed
the piracy prohibition in June 1588, when he issued an order to expel the Christian missionar-
ies in Hakata during his military campaign against the Kyushu daimyos. Unfortunately few
scholars have referred to this point since. Tsuji Zennosuke 辻善之助, Zoho kaigai kotsu shiwa
増補海外交通史話 [Historical episodes of international exchange: Enlarged and revised
edition] (Tokyo: Naigai Shoseki, 1930), 262. Works referring to Hideyoshi’s piracy prohibitions
include Fujiki Hisashi 藤木久志, Toyotomi heiwa-rei to sengoku shakai 豊臣平和令と戦国
社会 [Toyotomi peace ordinance and the Sengoku Period society] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku
Shuppankai, 1985), especially chap. 4; Fujita Tatsuo 藤田達生, “Kuniwake to shiokirei:
Toyotomi seiken no toitsu seisaku” 国分と仕置令：豊臣政権の統一政策 [Division and
punishment: Unification policy of the Toyotomi regime], Fubito ふびと 46 (1994): 1-17;
Yamauchi Yuzuru 山内譲, “Kaizoku-shu no tasogare: Kaitaiki no Noshima Murakami-shi 海
賊衆のたそがれ：解体期の能島村上氏” [Piracy in twilight: The Noshima Murakami fam-
ily in the dissolution period], Social Research ソーシャルリサーチ 20 (1994): 31-44; Miki
Seiichiro 三鬼清一郎, “Kaizoku kinshirei o megutte” 海賊禁止令をめぐって [About the
Piracy Prohibitions], Nagoya Daigaku Bungakubu Kenkyu Ronso 名古屋大学文学部研究論
叢125 (1996): 209-220; Fujita Tatsuo 藤田達生, “Kaizoku Kinshirei no seiritsu katei” 海賊禁
止令の成立過程 [Formation process of the piracy prohibitions], in Shokuho-ki no seiji kozo
織豊期の政治構造 [Political structure of Japan in the Oda-Toyotomi period], ed. Miki
Seiichiro 三鬼清一郎 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2000), 286-308, later also included in
Fujita Tatsuo 藤田達生, Nihon kinsei kokka seiritsushi no kenkyu 日本近世国家成立史の
研究 [A history of the state formation in early-modern Japan] (Tokyo: Azekura Shobo, 2001),
153-76; Kishida Hiroshi 岸田裕之, “Umi no daimyo noshima Murakami-shi no kaijo shihaiken
no kozo” 海の大名能島村上氏の海上支配権の構造 [Structure of the maritime rule of
the maritime daimyo Noshima Murakami family], in Daimyo ryokoku no keizai kozo 大名領
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 173

Map 7.1 Japan around 1600

国の経済構造 [Economic structure of daimyo domains] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2001),

365-91; Yamauchi Yuzuru 山内譲, Setouchi no kaizoku: Murakami Takeyoshi no tatakai 瀬戸
内の海賊村上武吉の戦い [Pirates in the Seto Inland Sea: The battles of Murakami
Takeyoshi] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2005); Nakano Hitoshi 中野等, “Iwayuru ‘kaizoku kinshi rei’
no igi ni tsuite” いわゆる「海賊禁止令」の意義について [Meanings of the so-called ‘piracy
prohibitions’], in Higashi Ajia kaiiki ni okeru koryu no shoso: Kaizoku, Hyoryu, Mitsuboeki 東ア
ジア海域における交流の諸相：海賊・漂流・密貿易 [Aspects of exchanges in maritime
East Asia: Piracy, drifting, and smuggling], ed. The Kyushu University 21 Century COE Program
九州大学21 世紀COE プログラム (Fukuoka: Kyushu Daigaku, 2005); Fujita, Hideyoshi to
174 Fujita

the Toyotomi regime launched its piracy prohibition policy, that was closely
linked to its ambition to establish a new type of state, before the Edicts had
even been formulated. This chapter explores the purpose for which the
Toyotomi regime issued a series of minor piracy prohibitions prior to their cul-
mination in the 1588 Edicts, what effect they had on the Seto Inland Sea, and
the consequent transformation of the maritime control system at the turn of
the seventeenth century.
This chapter focuses on Japanese pirates in the waters around Japan, because
these were the people against whom the antipiracy policies of the Toyo­tomi
regime were directed. Maritime violence perpetrated by the Portu­guese and
other foreigners on Japanese ships near Nagasaki and outside Japanese waters
was to become a crucial security issue for the Tokugawa regime. However this
does not fall within the scope of this chapter because the Tokugawa’s mari-
time control system was established for fear of possible attacks by foreign
ships and a recurrence of another Christian rebellion after the suppression of
the Catholic Rebellion of Amakusa and Shimabara (1637-1638). Consequently,
it was not a reaction to Portuguese and other foreigners’ piratical attacks in
and outside Japan. In order to deal with this sort of threat, the Toyotomi and
Tokugawa regimes attempted the series of edicts of what was known as the
seclusion (sakoku) policy in the 1630s, the last of which (1639) specifically men-
tions the expulsion of the Portuguese.6

1 The Division of Shikoku and the Murakami Pirate Family

(1) Enforcement of Punishment

The year, in which the 1588 Edict was issued, falls in the middle of the process
of unification by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. After the death of his former master Oda
Nobunaga in 1582, Hideyoshi took over the former’s uncompleted project to
unify Japan that had been split up into the large and small domains of numer-
ous warlords (sengoku daimyo) for about hundred years. By defeating some
daimyos in battle and forcing others to accept his authority in a series of high-
handed negotiations, Hideyoshi expanded his influence from the Kinki

kaizoku daimyo; Kuroshima Satoru 黒嶋敏, Umino bushidan: Suigun to kaizoku no aida 海の
武士団：水軍と海賊のあいだ [Samurais on the sea: between navy and pirates] (Tokyo:
Kodansha, 2013).
6 For the conflicts between Portuguese, the Dutch, and the Tokugawa authorities over maritime
violence in early-seventeenth-century Japan, see Adam Clulow, The Company and the Shogun:
The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014),
128-42.
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 175

(Kansai) region around Kyoto to the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu regions in
the west, and to the Kanto and Ouu regions in the east and the northeast. In
1590, having been sworn the oath of loyalty by all the influential daimyos,
Hideyoshi finally unified Japan except for Ryukyu (present-day Okinawa) and
Ezo (present-day Hokkaido).
After the division (kuniwake) of Shikoku in 1585, imposed after his military
conquest of this region, Hideyoshi granted the whole of Iyo province, that has
the longest shoreline on the Seto Inland Sea, to Môri Terumoto, the most pow-
erful daimyo in the Chugoku region. Terumoto appointed his uncle, Kobayakawa
Takakage, ruler of the province. Meanwhile, Ankokuji Ekei and the brothers
Tokui Michiyuki and Kurushima Michihusa, all of whom had collaborated
with Hideyoshi, were granted domains in Wake and Kazahaya counties respec-
tively. In a nutshell, all of Iyo province was granted to daimyos who had pledged
themselves to Toyotomi.7
Hideyoshi’s grant of Iyo to these daimyos was in fact an implementation of
his policy for dealing with newly conquered territories, that he had adopted
from Nobunaga, who first seized control of the Kinki region and thereafter
attempted to expand his authority to other regions. Before the regimes of these
two men, it had been the custom that, when a ruler of a certain region was
defeated in a war, as long as he acknowledged his subjugation and swore his
loyalty to his victor, he was allowed to keep his castle, domain, and retainers.
The Oda and Toyotomi regimes rejected this custom and confiscated the castle
and domain of the losing party that they would then assign to their own retain-
ers or to other daimyos who had collaborated with them. Their purpose was to
exert their control more firmly over newly conquered territories.
Hideyoshi also strengthened his control over his new territories by issuing
“punishment orders” (shiokirei; Hideyoshi’s term kuniokimoku). Their principal
purpose was twofold: the destruction of the castles of former rulers (shirowari)
and the surveying and measuring of arable lands (kenchi). The former was an
attempt to pre-empt the possibility of former rulers fomenting rebellions;
while the latter was to determine the exact area of the arable land and the yield
it could be expected to produce. Hideyoshi was especially concerned about the
latter as these data would allow him to calculate the economic strength of each
daimyo by assessing his resources. In future under the watchful eye of the ruler,
the daimyo would unable to accumulate secret power using the profits obtained
from crops grown on unregistered lands. All in all, it seems feasible to conclude
that Hideyoshi’s “punishment orders” were just one of the instruments he

7 See Fujita, Nihon kinsei kokka seiritsushi.

176 Fujita

Eba Jima
Takehara
Itsuki Jima
Nojima

Shimonoseki
Itsuki Nada Hiuchi Nada
Genkai Nada Aki Nada Kurushima Kurushima Chanl.
Kazahaya
Kaminoseki Wake
Yuzuki Nii Ôshima
Tachibanayama (Dôgo)
Yashiro Jima Kutsuna
Kafuri Hakozaki
Iyo Nada Islands
Hakata

Ôtsu
Uwa
Kurose

Bun
go
Cha
nne
l
Tawaraishi

Map 7.2 The western part of the Seto Inland Sea

wielded in his grand design of creating a new centralized power, definitively

ending the earlier dismembered state.
Another purpose of the kenchi system was to clarify the statuses of people
properly. Before this time, the lives of a great number of people had been occu-
pied by a great number of roles, in which they would be warriors, farmers,
fishermen or whatever else the times required. The Toyotomi regime feared
that these part-time warriors/farmers/fishermen might take up arms and raise
a revolt or resort to piracy in the slack seasons of their legitimate economic
pursuits. When they were registered by officials during a census, they had to
make a choice of one of the occupations to define their social and economic
status, and consequently many of them in coastal areas were registered as
farmers. On August 14, 1585, Hideyoshi ordered Hachisuka Masakatsu and
Kuroda Takataka, the commanders of his Shikoku regional army, to sequester
the castles in Iyo from their former masters and see they were handed over to
Takakage as soon as possible. They were also required to take hostages from
the former rulers who were to be transported to his castle in Osaka as a pledge
of the latter’s loyalty. On 18 August, when he gave him the command to seques-
ter the castles in Iyo, Hideyoshi also handed Takakage the authority to issue
“punishment orders.”
In spite of Hideyoshi’s rigid attitude, the new ruler, Kobayakawa Takakage,
who took possession of Yuzuki Castle and formally commenced his rule in
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 177

September 1585, was circumspect in his treatment of the previous rulers and
the influential members of the Iyo elite. Because the Kôno family, the former
rulers of Iyo (Iyo Shugo) and the Saionji family, the rulers of Uwa county, acqui-
esced in the new regime and had not taken up arms against Takakage, he did
not relocate their domains to other places. Kôno Michinao surrendered his
castle at Yuzuki and retired to the castle town of Dôgo, and Saionji Kimihiro
was allowed to continue to live in his castle at Kurose. Apparently Takakage
treated Michinao and Kimihiro as guest military commanders. Michinao’s
retainers were allowed to remain in Yuzuki Castle from where they supported
Takakage’s rule of Iyo. Important members of Kimihiro’s entourage were also
not evicted from their castles. In his strategy behind the implementation of
these policies, Takakage was probably offering them a chance to regain their
daimyo status sometime in the future, depending on their conduct.8 It seems
to have paid off because, when Takakage joined Hideyoshi’s expedition to
Kyushu, the Kônos supplied him with reinforcements and also mobilized
Saionji Kimihiro‘s retainers.
In contrast to his careful attitude toward the Kôno and Saionji families,
Takakage did not hesitate to impose “punishment orders” strictly in other
places in Iyo. He requested Murakami Takeyoshi and his son, Motoyoshi, who
were retainers of the Kônos, to surrender their Mushi and Nakato Castles,
located at the strategic points on the Kurushima Channel, in November 1585.9
Although the Noshima Murakami family based on Noshima Island (hereafter
the Murakami family) had maintained a good relationship with the Môri fam-
ily, Takakage was unyielding in his imposition of their “punishment order”,
probably bearing in mind that the Murakamis were the most formidable
pirates in the Seto Inland Sea. Takakage also took rapid and strong measures to
implement the shirowari, not only with respect to the castles of the local elites
loyal to the Chôsokabe family based in Tosa, the strongest daimyo family in
Shikoku before Hideyoshi’s expedition, but also not sparing those of the Kôno
and Murakami families. By the spring of 1586, with only ten castles remaining,
the shirowari had been almost fully implemented.

8 This is an educated guess on the grounds that Kobayakawa Takakage in fact thanked the Kôno
family for its support during Hideyoshi’s military campaign in Kyushu in 1587, and he did
indeed mobilize the troops of Saionji Kimihiro and his commanders from the Hoketsu and
Doi families during the same campaign.
9 Murakami-ke Monjo 村上家文書 [Documents of the Murakami family], 76, in “Miyakubo-
cho shi” 宮窪町史 [A history of Miyakubo town], unpublished documents housed at the
Yamaguchi-ken Monjokan 山口県文書館. Hereafter the information from the Murakami
documents is indicated by the archival numbers of “Miyakubo-cho shi.”
178 Fujita

After this had been accomplished, between 1586 and 1587, the Môri and
Kobayakawa families acted jointly to carry out the kenchi and reshuffle the
domains in Iyo. Tamaki Yoshiyasu, a retainer of the Môris, presided over the
kenchi there. On the basis of his kenchi report, Kobayakawa Takakage went
ahead with the implementation of the shirowari. For example, on 1 September
1587, he ordered that Azuma Ukonnosuke, one of the principal retainers of the
Murakami family, be dispossessed of Nii Ôshima Island and that henceforward
he be granted 40 kan of land in the vicinity of Yugeiwa Castle of the Kurushima
family instead.10 Situated on Nii Ôshima was Ôshimaura, an important transit
port in which vessels could wait for wind and tide and, moreover, also probably
a typical gateway port (fudaura) with a checkpoint. In all likelihood, Takakage’s
hidden agenda was to confiscate the island in order to seize the port and the
checkpoint.
In spite of the strict attitude adopted by the Môri and Kobayakawa families
toward pirates-related local elites, the principal castles on the sea lane along
the Iyo coast (Iyo Jinori Kôro), such as Nii Ôshima Castle, were left alone and
continued to function as private checkpoints (bansho), even after the 1588
Edict. A checkpoint had been established on Nii Ôshima Island during the rule
of Fukushima Masanori in the late sixteenth century, and it even retained this
function during the Edo period. In view of the important role of Masanori in
the Japanese invasion of Korea, the checkpoint had probably been built with
war in mind. These checkpoints were important places from which to keep a
look-out for deserters in the Seto Inland Sea, and the one on Nii Ôshima was
probably manned by pirates. I shall come back to this point later.

(2) Pirates
Hideyoshi’s shirowari orders issued after his division of Shikoku affected not
only the bona fide castles of daimyos, but were especially directed toward those
used as pirate bases. This would seem to indicate that the Toyotomi regime
already had concrete plans to eradicate piracy by the time of the Shikoku divi-
sion, when it incorporated the Seto Inland Sea into its territory. How did the
Murakami family, the most influential pirates in the Sea, react to this policy?
Murakami Takeyoshi and his son, Motoyoshi, acquiesced in Takakage’s
request to abandon their castles at Mushi and Nakato. Their compliance was

10 Previous studies have considered different years to have been those of the kenchi in Iyo.
See, for example, Doi Akitomo 土居聡朋, Murai Yuki 村井祐樹, and Yamauchi Haru-
tomo 山内治朋, ed., Sengoku ibun: Setouchi suigun hen 戦国遺文：瀬戸内水軍編
[Docu­ments in the Sengoku Period: Navies in the Seto Inland Sea] (Tokyo: Tokyodo Shup-
pan, 2012).
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 179

probably linked to the fact that Kurushima Michifusa, a family member and
strong rival who had deserted them to collaborate with Hideyoshi, had returned
to reside in Kurushima Castle that was at rather too close quarters for their
­liking. It seems likely that Takeyoshi and Motoyoshi were now ready to ack­
nowledge that Michifusa had established his position as a daimyo under the
Toyotomi regime. Nevertheless, this did not stop them from making frequent
piratical raids from their base in Noshima Castle. The following Portuguese
text vividly describes how the Jesuit missionary P. Gaspar Coelho and his party,
who visited Noshima Castle in 1586, observed their piratical activities:

After departing from Muro, the Vice-Provincial [Coelho] continued his

journey, and his party arrived on an island. Japan’s largest pirate group
lived on the island, where they had built a large castle, [and they were]
possessed of a number of followers and ships and large amounts of land.
[From this island] they frequently attacked [their prey]. [The leader of]
the pirates was Senhor [Lord] Noshima [Murakami]. Because he had for-
midable power, [people in the] coastal areas paid him annual tribute, [as
they were] afraid of his assaults and depredations.
 [Our fellow] priests and monks have to pass through the sea with
many islands on ships, hence they are constantly exposed to the danger
of piratical abduction. Therefore the Vice-Provincial considered that
they should negotiate with the person [Lord Noshima] about the issu-
ance of a pass, with which they would be able to avoid depredations and
damage when captured by his piratical followers.
 As we were about two miles away from his castle, on the way to Iyo, the
Vice- Provincial ordered one of the Japanese monks to visit him [Lord
Noshima] with presents [to open] negotiations, in order to request that
he treat them generously so that they could pass freely with his signed
pass. He [Lord Noshima] received him warmly in his castle showing great
respect. He said, with some hesitation, probably in order to sell his favor
highly, “You missionaries won’t need the goodwill of a humble man like
me, when you visit the ruler Kanpaku [Hideyoshi] enjoying his favor.”
However, after the monk’s repeated entreaties, he presented him with a
silk flag with his family crest and signature. This was the greatest favor
that he could bestow on the monk.11

11 Luís Fróis, Historia de Iapam, vol. 5, trans. Matsuda Kiichi 松田殻一 and Kawasaki
Momota 川崎桃太 (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1977-1980), 198-99.
180 Fujita

This text leaves no doubt that the Murakami family still retained the right to
issue a pass (in this case a pass-flag), an indication that they still maintained
power and authority as the largest pirate group in the Seto Inland Sea, despite
the fact they were gradually being more subjugated by the Môris, and, indi-
rectly, subject to the Toyotomi regime.
If the truth be told, it seems almost impossible that the Môri family could
have prohibited the Murakamis from carrying out piratical raids, because they
were greatly in the latter’s debt. The Môris had encouraged the Murakamis to
participate in a number of wars holding out promising of suppressing their
rivals, the Kurushima family. Nevertheless, they eventually acceded to Hide­
yoshi’s request to allow the Kurushimas to return. However, this situation
changed rapidly after Hidehoshi’s division of the Kyushu region in 1587.

2 Unification of Western Japan and the Piracy Prohibition Edicts

(1) The 1587 Edict

The Toyotomi regime launched its full-scale military campaign against Kyushu
in 1586. Although Hideyoshi attempted to use the Môri family as his vanguard,
bombarding them with a host of orders, he also interfered in their rule of their
territory, especially those aspects to do with eradicating piracy.
Hideyoshi’s letter of April 10, 1587 addressed to Môri Terumoto is an impor-
tant piece of evidence, as it has a strong bearing on his idea of prohibiting
piracy. In this letter he explicitly orders that maritime checkpoints in the Seto
Inland Sea be abolished.12 Accordingly, the Môris issued regulations on 1 June
of the same year; the first edict of which reads “the abolition of checkpoints,”
both on land and at sea in the Chugoku region.13 The dating would seem to
suggest that the Môris’ efforts to prohibit piracy in the Seto Inland Sea were
almost certainly a response to Hideyoshi’s pressure.
It is known for certain that Hideyoshi did exert increasing pressure on the
pirates in the Seto Inland Sea to stop their depredations after his division of
Kyushu in 1587. The following letter from Hideyoshi addressed to two of his
reliable retainers, Asano Nagayoshi (later Nagamasa) and Toda Katsutaka, on
June 15, 1587, illustrates just how seriously Hideyoshi took the prohibition of
piracy.

12 Môri-ke monjo 毛利家文書 [Documents of the Môri family], 949.

13 Migita Môri-ke monjo 右田毛利家文書 [Documents of the Migita Môri family], no.
1006, in Murai et al., Sengoku ibun, 358-59.
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 181

[I] assure you of the following. As [I] ordered, not only castles but also
smaller residences and buildings in Chikuzen, Chikugo, and Hizen prov-
inces should be destroyed without exception. Although [I] have ordered
that no piracy and banditry be perpetrated in [these] provinces, [I] have
heard that Fukabori Sumimasa, a felon living on the coast of Takaki
county in Hizen province, has been attacking commercial vessels, be they
Chinese, European, or [Japanese]. A hostage should be taken from the
Fukaboris and their residence should be destroyed as soon as possible.
Their lands should be given to the [new] master [Ryûzôji Masaie] (italics
by the current author).14

The italicized parts make no bones about the fact that Hideyoshi had already
issued certain piracy prohibition edicts before this particular one (hereafter
the 1587 Edict). The Fukabori Sumimasa mentioned in the above letter was a
pirate leader based at Tawaraishi Castle in Nagasaki, from where he was carry-
ing out indiscriminate assaults on passing vessels. The Toyotomi shirowari
orders likewise obtained to this castle.15 The above-mentioned Portuguese text
also touches upon Sumimasa and the 1587 Edict.

A person talking about us to the Kanpaku [Hideyoshi] also said that the
great pirate leader called Fukabori near Nagasaki was raiding for plunder,
[and] inflicting enormous damage on the people in Nagasaki. [So that]
he [Hideyoshi] immediately sent a letter to the ruler of Hizen province,
ordering him to destroy [Fukabori’s] castle, to take a hostage from him,
and to impose a strict penalty on him.16

This letter removes any doubts that the 1587 Edict was issued after Hideyoshi
had heard about the damage caused by the Fukaboris in and around Nagasaki.
The Edict forced the Fukabori family not just to hand over a hostage and to
acquiesce in the shirowari, it also had to abandon its independence by subju-
gating itself to the Ryûzôji family.

14 Kobayakawa-ke monjo 小早川家文書 [Documents of the Kobayakawa family], 1-286. In

fact, Hideyoshi issued the shirowari order to the entire Kyushu region, with the exception
of Satsuma, in May 1587.
15 Although the Fukabori family was in danger of forfeiting its family status as well as its
lands, it did manage to hang on to them by the skin of their teeth through the mediation
of Nabeshima Naoshige, and it kept the status of a principal subject of the Nabeshima
domain in Saga under the name of the Fukabori-Nagashima family during the Edo period.
16 Fróis, Historia de Iapam, vol. 1, 309.
182 Fujita

(2) Piracy Pursued by the Murakamis

Immediately after the division of Kyushu, the Toyotomi regime and the
Murakami family clashed. In the aftermath of a piracy incident that contra-
vened the 1587 Edict, pirates in the Seto Inland Sea were forced to change the
nature of their pursuits decisively. The following letter of 8 September 1587
from Hideyoshi addressed to Kobayakawa Takakage mentions the incident and
the penalty he imposed.

[I] heard that the Noshima [Murakamis] have recently carried out pirati-
cal raids. Because this is an inexcusable crime, in principle [I] should
punish them. However, as it took place in your domain, you are undoubt-
edly the person to do this. Should there be any mitigating circumstances,
Murakami Motoyoshi should come to Osaka immediately in order to
­convey these [to him]. If you are unable to deal [with the Murakamis],
[I] shall send troops.17

It is noteworthy that Hideyoshi not only states quite unambiguously that

piracy was “inexcusable,” but he also orders Murakami Motoyoshi to present
himself before Hideyoshi if he had any mitigating circumstances to offer, and
declares he will send a detachment of his troops if Takakage does not punish
him. Hideyoshi was now determined to suppress piracy by tough measures.
For his part, between July and September 1587, in an effort to appeal for
more lenient treatment, Murakami Motoyoshi attempted to negotiate with
Hideyoshi’s immediate retainers, including Asano Nagayoshi, Masuda Naga­
mori, Toda Katsutaka, and Fukushima Masanori. When Motoyoshi received
a letter from Asano Masakatsu on July 8 announcing that they had mounted
an exhaustive search for the alleged pirate leader Seiuemon-i, a retainer of
the Murakami family who was missing,18 Motoyoshi presented Nagayoshi
with 200 moku silver and a sword. Masakatsu received four silver coins.19 The
Murakamis seem to have spent considerable amounts of money and treasure
in their attempts to alleviate their situation.
The Murakamis feigned ignorance of the piracy in their domain. As they did
not reply to their questions about incidents of piracy, Masuda Nagamori and
Toda Katsutaka sent a letter on July 27, warning them that, if they discovered
proof of the Seiuemon-i’s involvement in the piratical incidents, the punish-
ment would affect not only him but would also extend to Motoyoshi himself.

17 Kobayakawa-ke monjo, 1-286.

18 Murakami-ke monjo, 104.
19 Ibid. 105.
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 183

They also urged the Murakamis to punish the “felons” before Hideyoshi found
out about them, and to maintain peace at sea.20 In short, the Toyotomi regime
threatened the Murakamis, who pretended ignorance, insisting that they
should take tough measures against the pirate Seiuemon-i. Within the space of
a month, the situation had deteriorated even further. In spite of Motoyoshi’s
attempts to deal with the problems without fuss, the incident was reported to
Hideyoshi by Asano Nagayoshi and Masuda Nagamori.21 The letter from him
on September 8 quoted above was his response.22 Nagamori and Fukushima
Masanori both sent letters to Murakami Motoyoshi on September 30, advising
him to make the excuse that he had done nothing criminal.23 Unfortunately,
whether Motoyoshi did actually go to Osaka to see Hideyoshi still remains a
mystery.
This piratical incident that occurred immediately after the issuance of the
1587 Edict was the probable reason for the Piracy Prohibition Edicts in 1588,
discussed at the beginning of this chapter. The repeated issuance of piracy
prohibition edicts was unquestionably an inextricable part of Hideyoshi’s
deter­mination to achieve the unification of Western Japan, the theme of the
next section.

(3) New Stage of Hideyoshi’s Rule of Western Japan

In order to understand the background to the abovementioned piratical inci-
dent in early July 1587, the activities of the people involved in June and July
1587 immediately after Hideyoshi’s division of Kyushu deserve some attention.
After Hideyoshi heard the news of the surrender of Shimazu Yoshihisa, one of
the most influential daimyos in Kyushu, in Satsuma Sendai on May 3, he
decided to grant him an amnesty. He moved his troops up north on May 18, and
arrived in Hakozaki on June 7. In this place he carried out the final division of
newly conquered Kyushu, and set to work to restore Hakata in order to make it
into a military base for his expedition to China.24

20 Ibid. 180.
21 Murakami Motoyoshi often contacted Asano Nagamori and Toda Katsutaka, about efforts
to deal with the matter of piracy without making any fuss. Murakami-ke monjo 181.
22 Nagayoshi and Nagamori had expected that their report of the piratical incident to Hidey-
oshi would not create a serious problem. The result was contrary to their expectations,
however, and Hideyoshi sent the abovementioned letter to Kobayakawa Takakage.
23 Murakami-ke monjo, 247, 203, 179.
24 For Hideyoshi’s division of Kyushu, see Fujita Tatsuo 藤田達生, “Toyotomi seiken to ten-
nosei: Kyushu kuniwake kara Juraku gyoko e” 豊臣政権と天皇制：九州国分から聚楽
行幸へ [The Toyotomi regime and the Emperor system: From the Kyushu division to
184 Fujita

In his letter on June 15, 1587, Hideyoshi ordered Asano Nagayoshi and Toda
Katsutaka to execute the shirowari in Kyushu. These two men had also played
a central role in the handling of the piratical incident in the Murakami terri-
tory. Moreover, again it was these two men who were dispatched to Iyo in
mid-August and mid-July of the same year as the officials in charge of oversee-
ing the kenchi.
It is important that, on this occasion, Toda Katsutaka was specifically sent to
the islands in Kazahaya county, including the Kutsuna Islands – the base of
pirates operating between Aki Nada (the open sea) and Iyo Nada. He super-
vised the shirowari and kenchi of those maritime castles there that were pirate
bases. Immediately afterward, he was appointed daimyo of South Iyo, and took
possession of Otsu (later Osu) Castle. Hence, Toda Katsutaka, one of Hideyoshi’s
most trustworthy retainers, was assigned his most important task – to curb the
power of the pirates in his new domain in South Iyo. This shows how seriously
and scrupulously Hideyoshi made attempts to suppress piracy and to maintain
safety on the seas.
Around the same time, the Môri family was also caught up in the Toyotomi
regime’s reshuffle of the daimyos in Western Japan. After the surrender of the
Shimazu family, Hideyoshi asked Môri Terumoto and his uncle, Kobayakawa
Takakage, if they were willing to move to Northern Kyushu. They naturally
expressed some hesitation about leaving their home domains. Accordingly
Hideyoshi sent them each a different letter. In his letter to Terumoto, Hideyoshi
declared that he would confiscate his domains of Bingo and Iyo provinces and
a part of Bicchu and Hôki provinces, and grant him Buzen, Chikuzen, Chikugo,
and Higo provinces in Kyushu instead.25 In his letter (presumably) to Takakage,
Hideyoshi suggests that, instead of Iyo, he should take possession of Chikuzen
and Chikugo provinces and part of Higo province.26 Obviously, in spite of their
resistance, Hideyoshi was urging one of these two men from the same family to
agree to a relocation from his old domains to newly conquered Kyushu. Finally,
Takakage chose to sacrifice himself and to move there.
This reshuffle was a part of the Toyotomi policy devised to restore order to
the newly conquered regions. Hideyoshi attempted to persuade either the
Môris or the Kobayakawas to go to Northern Kyushu and, in return, expected
them to function as his intermediaries with other Kyushu daimyos. This fol-
lows the same pattern as his order to Tokugawa Ieyasu to move to Edo

Emperor’s visit to Juraku], Rekishigaku Kenkyu 歴史学研究 677 (1995): 17-32, later
included in Fujita, Nihon kinsei kokka seiritsushi no kenkyu, 58-86.
25 Môri-ke monjo, 955.
26 Ibid., 951.
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 185

(present-day Tokyo) in 1580 after his conquest of the Kanto region (the region
around Edo), from where he expected Ieyasu to intermediate between him and
daimyos in the Kanto and Ouu (the Northeastern region). The installation of
these families in the newly conquered regions was expected to work in tandem
to ensure the stabilization of either end of the Japan Archipelago under the
Toyotomi rule.
The most important feature of the division of Kyusyu is that Hideyoshi did
not interfere in the territories of incumbent influential daimyos like the
Shimazu. His circumspection was prompted by fears of a prolonged war and
concomitant complicated postwar settlements. Therefore, the most difficult
part of his program was the dividing up of Chikuzen, Chikugo, Buzen, and Higo
provinces, over which the Ôtomos, Ryûzôjis, and Satsumas, the most influen-
tial Kyushu daimyos, had been unable to assert their authority. Hideyoshi took
the bold step of placing the Môris and the Kobayakawas in these provinces.
Replicating the rapid relocation of the Kobayakawas from Iyo to Northern
Kyushu, the Murakami family was likewise moved to Northern Kyushu, adroitly
detaching them from the Seto Inland Sea, their traditional sphere of influence.
A letter from Kobayakawa Takakage to Murakami Takeyoshi and Motoyosi on
July 24, 1587 indicates that, by that date, the Murakamis were obliged to have
moved their base to Suô Yashiro (Ôshima) Island that was a part of the territory
of the Môris in the Seto Inland Sea. Takakage also noted in the letter that he
was busy building his new base at Tachibanayama Castle,27 probably an
excuse for his turning a blind eye to the relocation of the Murakamis. Takakage,
who had narrowly avoided the Môris’ move to Kyushu, probably had had his
hands tied in this affair. Aware of this situation, Hideyoshi would have had no
compunction in implementing a high-handed policy toward the Murakamis.
The next year the Murakamis were moved again to Chikuzen Kafuri, on the
coast of Genkai Nada, in Takakage’s territory. Records of the Môri domain note
that Hideyoshi forbade the Murakamis to live on the shores of the Seto Inland
Sea. Hideyoshi’s order that the Murakamis move to Chikuzen in 1588 was the
nail in the coffin of their influence in the Seto Inland Sea.
In conjunction with the move of the Murakami family, the eclipse of the
Kôno family also deserves examination, because the Murakamis were origi-
nally retainers of the Kônos, the previous rulers of Iyo, as noted above. In July
1587 Kôno Michinao left his place of retirement in Dôgo to travel to Aki
Takehara, to see Hideyoshi on the latter’s return journey to Osaka after his vic-
tory in Kyushu. It is very likely that Michinao attempted to establish a
master-retainer relationship with Hideyoshi and thereby be reinstated as the

27 Murakami-ke Monjo, 33.

186 Fujita

ruler of Iyo. At this moment he still had two alternatives. The first was to move
from Iyo to Chikuzen under the protection of Takakage; the second was to
obtain the position of the ruler of Iyo after Takakage had vacated it. He chose
the second, staking his family’s fortune on this gamble.
All came to naught as Kôno Michinao died on 9 July. One accepted view is
that he died of an illness. However, as Nishio Kazumi has discussed, it is
unlikely that Michinao would have traveled from Dôgo to Takehara if he had
been seriously ill.28 At the time Môri Terumoto must have been afraid that
Michinao’s direct appeal to Hideyoshi would ruin the results of their difficult
diplomatic negotiations that had just managed to avoid the relocation of the
Môris to Kyusyu in exchange for Takakage’s surrender of Iyo. As Nishio has sug-
gested, Hideyoshi’s letter addressed to Terumoto and Takakage on 8 July, in
which he urges the two men to be “resolute” in their rule of the Chugoku region,
must have also affected Terumoto’s decision.29 Several documents from the
Edo period do in fact suggest that Michinao committed suicide. All things con-
sidered, it is highly likely that Michinao was forced to commit a suicide, as a
consequence of a conspiracy engineered between Hideyoshi and Terumoto
during their political negotiations.
It is also likely that Terumoto deserted the Murakamis, prioritizing the sur-
vival and prosperity of his family. It was very opportune for him that the
abovementioned piratical incident had taken place in Murakami territory. He
probably decided to incorporate the Murakamis, who had just lost their mas-
ters the Kôno, into the Môri navy.
It was also a very significant step for Hideyoshi not to allow the Kôno family,
a typical medieval daimyo clan that had ruled their territories for centuries, to
reinstate themselves in Iyo, a strategic place in his plans to rule Western Japan
(Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu). As he himself mentions in his letter, he con-
sidered Iyo to be geopolitically important as it was strategically placed to keep
a watch on both Shikoku and Kyushu. Iyo has a long and heavily indented
coastline that faces the sea from Hiuchi Nada in the east to the Bungo Channel
in the west. From Iyo it was also possible to maintain a watch on the neighbor-
ing provinces of Sanuki, Awa, and Tosa in Shikoku.

28 Nishio Kazumi 西尾和美, “Kôno Michinao no shi to Toyotomi seiken” 河野通直の死と

豊臣政権 [The death of Kôno Michinao and the Toyotomi regime], Matsuyama Shinon-
ome Joshi Daigaku Jinbun Gakubu Kiyo 松山東雲女子大学人文学部紀要 10 (2002):
144-64, later included in Sengoku-jidai no kenryoku to kon’in 戦国時代の権力と婚姻
[Power and marriage in the Sengoku Period] (Osaka: Seibundo, 2005), 260-96. Nishio is
also the scholar who has determined the date of the death of Kôno Michinao on July 9.
29 Môri-ke monjo, 953.
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 187

Another reason that Hideyoshi was averse to seeing any revival of the for-
tunes of the Kôno family was that it seemed an obvious conclusion that, under
their rule, their retainer Murakami family would also go from strength to
strength as pirates in the Seto Inland Sea. Hideyoshi must have reasoned that,
if he allowed this to happen, his settlement of the strategic areas around the
Seto Inland Sea would be doomed to total failure.
Another important medieval family, the Saionji, that had been allowed to
remain in its Kurose Castle in the Uwa area as mentioned before, also had its
power destroyed when Toda Katsutaka assassinated Saionji Kimihiro in
December 1587. Clearly, medieval daimyos and the rulers in Iyo were faced
with a serious crisis of survival after Hideyoshi’s division of Shikoku. Hideyoshi
did not allow many of them to retain their old power.
Toyotomi regime’s in Western Japan now entered a new stage. Once he had
decided to eradicate the medieval powers like the Kônos and Saionjis, he
appointed the Môris, who were transformed into a daimyo clan under his influ-
ence in the process of unification, to assume the role of watching the daimyos
of Western Japan. Hence, the Môris were transformed into one of the powerful
clans that supported the Toyotomi regime. These strategic plans spelled the
end of the Kôno family, and its navy (the Murakamis) was incorporated into
the sphere of influence of the Môris.30

3 From Maritime Castle to Maritime Watch-house

(1) Invasion of Korea

After the unification of Japan, leaving aside Ezo and Ryukyu, in 1590, Hideyoshi
set as his next goal in the conquest of Chosŏn Korea and Ming China. He dis-
patched his forces to Korea in 1592-96 and 1597-98. Although the Japanese
forces initially occupied large parts of Korean Peninsula, including the capital
Hanseong (present-day Seoul), they soon had to withdraw to the southern-
most part of the Peninsula because of the arrival of Ming reinforcements,
disrupted supplies, and the guerilla warfare waged by Korean militias. Soon
after Hideyoshi died in 1598, the Japanese forces entirely withdrew without any
territorial acquisitions or any changes in the diplomatic relationship with
Korea, although they did take a number of Korean craftsmen to Japan by force.

30 See also Fujita Tatsuo 藤田達生, Tenka toistsu: Nobunaga to Hideyoshi ga nashitogeta
“kakumei” 天下統一：信長と秀吉がなし遂げた「革命」[Unification of early-modern
Japan: “Revolution,” achieved by Nobunaga and Hideyoshi] (Tokyo: Chuokoron Shinsha,
2014).
188 Fujita

This section examines how the Toyotomi regime established official watch-
houses (bansho) in order to effectuate its maritime control after its leader’s
unification of Japan. The watch-houses in Kaminoseki and Shimonoseki in Suô
province, important nodes in the Seto Inland Sea, will serve as examples.
Murakami Takemitsu, a member of the Murakami pirate family, had estab-
lished a checkpoint near his castle at Kaminoseki before September 1588. From
this stronghold he exacted tolls from passing ships.31 It was at this watch-house
Takemitsu welcomed Shimazu Yoshihisa, the daimyo who had sworn his ­loyalty
to the unifier, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, on his way back from Kyoto in Septem­ber
1588. From this it can be inferred that, by then, this Kaminoseki watch-house
had become an official checkpoint acknowledged by the Shimazus (and indi-
rectly by the Toyotomi regime). It is a known fact that the Toyotomi regime did
manage official watch-houses, making interesting use of the pirate network, in
the period before and during its invasion of Korea.
The following letter written by the lord of Kai province, Kato Mitsuyasu,
during the first invasion of Korea in 1592-1593, indicates that watch-houses
played an official role in the Seto Inland Sea. When he dispatched a messenger
from Korea to his home province, he had the messenger carry this letter
addressed to the guards at the checkpoint in Shimonoseki, requesting them to
allow him safe passage.

I am sending this person to Kai province as my messenger. (…) Please

examine this letter, and let him pass through the checkpoint without any
hindrance. (…) From now on, when I send messengers I shall always use
this seal only. Please let them pass [whenever you see them carry a letter
bearing this seal].32

This letter is evidence that official checkpoints in the Seto Inland Sea were
being used to check people arriving from Korea in wartime.
The following letter signed by Hideyoshi during his first invasion of Korea
clearly indicates that he also attempted to keep a look-out for deserters from
the battlefields in Korea in the Seto Inland Sea. He ordered daimyos to distin-
guish between deserters and the messengers sent by daimyos in Korea to their
home territories, by issuing official transit passes.

31 In September 1588, Murakami Takemitsu welcomed Shimazu Yoshihisa in his castle in

Kaminoseki on the latter’s way back from Kyoto.
32 Osu Kato-ke Monjo 大洲加藤家文書 [Documents of the Ôsu Kato family], Tokyo
Daigaku Shiryo Hensanjo 東京大学史料編纂所.
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 189

I order you all most strictly [that], if you find any deserters among my
men, inform them that they will be punished as soon as they arrive at any
place. If daimyos’ men are upon some business in their home territories,
the daimyos should send them with transit passes. I strictly adjure all
lords not to shelter any deserters.33

Letters with a similar content are found in the records of various different
daimyos. They seem to indicate that desertion from the battlefields in Korea
among the followers of daimyos was a serious problem for the Toyotomi
regime.
As said, these cases are evidence that a number of official checkpoints were
operating at nodal points in the Seto Inland Sea, from where they kept a look
out for suspect ships and for army deserters. Interestingly, these checkpoints
were manned by erstwhile pirates after they had been promoted to obanshu
(watch-house officials) on the government side.
Asked to assist in organizing a powerful navy, the daimyos of Western Japan
who were required to mobilize men for the invasions of Korea showed a
marked preference for ex-pirates. For example, on his way to visit Kato Yoshiaki
to request his protection, Aoki Rihei, an ex-retainer of the Murakamis, was
invited by Kuroda Takataka to take charge of his crewmen. Apart from Rihei,
about another twenty members of the Murakami entourage were taken on as
retainers of the Kurodas at one time.34 It takes little stretch of the imagination
to understand that the sudden increase in the sea traffic between Hizen Nagoya
and Korea must have occasioned a strong demand among daimyos for ex-
pirates in their capacity as expert seamen.35

33 Mizukuchi Kato-ke Monjo 水口加藤家文書 [Documents of the Mizukuchi Kato fam-

ily], Tokyo Daigaku Shiryo Hensanjo 東京大学史料編纂所.
34 Kuroda kashinden ryaku 黒田家臣伝略 [Summarized records of the Kuroda retainers],
Fukuoka Kenritsu Toshokan 福岡県立図書館.
35 Having discussed late medieval Japanese piracy, Peter Shapinsky argues that “Hideyoshi
and other early modern Japanese authorities shaped their governance by revitalizing
agricentric, terracenric ideologies.” Putting this plan into effect, according to Shapinsky,
“Hideyoshi articulated a vision of maritime sovereignty couched in the ancient, Ritsuryô
conception of the seas as territories inseparable from the lands of the domains and prov-
inces under the control of political center.” Peter D. Shapinsky, Lords of the Sea: Pirates,
Violence, and Commerce in Late Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japan Japanese
Studies, The University of Michigan, 2014), 248. It is true that Hideyoshi gave some pirate
lords territorial domains and placed others under land-based daimyo, but this policy does
not seem to have incorporated pirate lords immediately into the terracentric political
order. Hideyoshi and West Japan daimyos were well aware of the usefulness of pirate lords
190 Fujita

For their part, the pirates had a chance to gain large benefits as they had offi-
cial permission to loot the battlefields in Korea. Supplied with this new source
of income, they would no longer have had to resort to piracy in Japan, thereby
running the risk of severe punishment. Engaging in battles in a foreign country
was a wonderful opportunity to plunder at will, free from the constraints of
state control. For example, a record of the investigation that Chinese officials
in Zhejiang province carried out into Shimazu activities in the region includes
the following interesting information. As a part of the post-war arrangements,
on the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu the Shimazus were put in charge of the repa-
triation of Chinese captives. According to the Chinese captive Mao Guoke,
endorsing his claim that pirates had prevented them from going back home,
Ieyasu and Shimizu Yoshihiro had captured the pirates and sent eleven of
them to China as a token of their respect for the Ming dynasty.36 This seems to
suggest that, during the Japanese invasions of Korea, a considerable number of
pirates (including non-Japanese) were busy plying their nefarious trade.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the invasions of Korea provided pirates, who
had been badly hit by the strong prohibition on piracy since 1585, with a won-
derful opportunity. Under Toyotomi influence, the daimyos of Western Japan
recruited pirates either as crewmembers or as their ship’s masters for their
invasions of Korea. The upshot was that these pirates were detached from their
old masters and hometowns. This change ushered in a new dawn for pirates.
They now became a part of the samurai class, shedding their former mixed
status as fishermen supplemented by various other sidelines.

(2) The Battle of Sekigahara

As soon as Hideyoshi died in 1598, Murakami Takeyoshi and his son, Motoyoshi,
returned to the Seto Inland Sea. They initially based themselves on Eba Jima
(island) near the Môri’s castle in Hiroshima, but soon afterward moved to
Takehara in Aki province and made Chinkaisan Castle their base. These reloca-
tions were probably facilitated by the death of Kobayakawa Takakage in 1597
and the end of the invasions of Korea the next year.

and their retainers, and this is why the former employed the latter in their forces dis-
patched to Korea. The incorporation of ex-pirates into the land-based political order
could not be accomplished overnight. It was done by absorbing them as crewmembers or
their ship’s masters under daimyos, as discussed in the following section of this chapter.
36 “Ti bao woshi songhuan chaguan qingzhi kan chu shu” 題報倭使送還差官請旨勘處
疏, in Fuzhe zou shu 撫浙奏疏, ed. Liu Yuanlin 劉元霖, Toyo Bunko 東洋文庫. A version
edited by Watanabe Miki 渡辺美季 is accessible online http://nippon.zaidan.info/seika-
butsu/2005/00340/contents/0006.htm (accessed on August 10, 2017).
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 191

In September 1600, not long after the return of the Murakamis to the Seto
Inland Sea, the Battle of Sekigahara was fought between those daimyos under
the leadership of Ishida Mitsunari who attempted to uphold the Toyotomi
regime, and those daimyos who were dissatisfied with Mitsunari’s leadership,
and united under Tokugawa Ieyasu, both sides competing for the hegemony
in the central politics of Japan. Among the daimyos in Iyo, Tôdô Takatora
and Kato Yoshiaki joined on the Tokugawa side, while Ankokuji Ekei, Ikeda
Hideuji, Ogawa Suketada, and Kurushima Yasuchika, who had taken over
command from his father, Michifusa, after the latter’s death in the second
invasion of Korea, joined the Ishida-Toyotomi side. The Môris, who entered
Osaka Castle in support of the Ishida-Toyotomi side also sent their troops to
Awa, Sanuki, and Iyo provinces, in order to regain control of the Seto Inland
Sea areas and assume the mantle of champions of Western Japan under the
Toyotomi regime.37 Under the banner of the resurgent Kônos, in the absence
of Kato Yoshiaki, the Môris attacked Masaki Castle. Murakami Motoyoshi was
appoint­ed to the vanguard in the recovery of the Kôno’s former territory of Iyo,
but he was killed in a fierce battle, in an attack by led by Tsukuda Kazunari,
who was defending the castle in the absence of Yoshiaki.
As a result of their defeat at the Battle of Sekigahara, the Môris were harshly
punished by having to cede a large part of their territory, the provinces of Aki,
Suô, Nagato, Bingo, Izumo, Oki, Iwami, and a half of each Bicchu and Hôki,
retaining only the two provinces of Suô and Nagato. In the wake of the expro-
priation of their territory, the Noshima Murakami and In’noshima Murakami
families were unable to preserve their family structure and were disbanded.
As a part of the postwar settlements, the territories of the Iyo daimyos on
the Ishida-Toyotomi side were confiscated. Only Kurishima Yasuchika escaped
this appropriation because of the mediation of his wife’s uncle, Fukushima
Masanori, and of Ieyasu’s aide, Honda Masanobu. He was relocated to the
mountainous Bungo Mori in Kyushu. Table 7.1 shows the movements of the
family members and the retainers of the Murakamis who were forced to find
new masters immediately after the Battle of Sekigahara.
After the Division of Shikoku, although the Murakamis had been recognized
as the navy of the Môris, they in fact enjoyed a large degree of autonomy. After
the Battle of Sekigahara, however, the Murakamis served the Hosokawas, the
Tôdos, and Kishu Tokugawas as crewmembers. The Noshima Murakamis had
to accept a large reduction in their territories, and thereafter they served the

37 Mitsunari Junji 光成準治, Sekigahara zenya: Seigun daimyo tachi no tatakai 関ケ原前
夜：西軍大名の戦い [Eve of the Battle of Sekigahara] (Tokyo: Nippon Hoso Kyokai,
2009).
 192 Fujita

Table 7.1 Those hired by other feudal lords among the family members and the retainers of the Murakamis

Name Origin New Master

Murakami Mototake The head of the Noshima The Môri family. Mototake founded
Murakami family the Murakami Zusho family with
the stipend of 1,500 koku rice.
Murakami Kagechika A member of a branch The Môri family. Kagechika founded
family of the Noshima the Murakami Ichigaku family.
Murakamis
Kurushima Yasuchika The head of the Kurushima Yasuchika became the first lord of
Noshima family the Bungo Mori domain, which
produced 14,000 koku rice.
Murakami Yoshisuke → (son) The head of the In’noshima Murakami Zusho family subject to
Murakami Motomitsu Murakami family the Môri family
Murakami Kihei Motoyoshi A member of the The Môri family
In’noshima Murakami
family
Shima Matabei and his Members of the In’noshima Mori lord of Bungo with the stipend
younger brother, Shima Murakami family of 400 koku rice
Zenbei
Murakami Kagehiro → (son) Members of the Kasaoka The Hosokawa family of the Buzen
Murakami Kagenori Murakami family under the Kokura domain
Noshima family
Murakami Yoshikiyo A member of the Kuru- Lord of Wakayama with a stipend of
shima Murakami family 4,220 koku rice
Murakami Yoshitsugu → A member of the Kuru- Lord of Wakayama after serving
(grandson) Murakami shima Murakami family Kobayakawa Hideaki and Hosokawa
Kagefusa Tadaoki
Hagiyama Sobe’e, Yamashita Tôdô lords Retainers of the Kurushima
Kisaburo, Yamasita Kansuke, Murakami family
Honjo Sin’uemon, Kanda
Denzaemon, Kanda Kiza-
emon, Hagita Ichisuke,
Tamiya Chohachi, Honjo
Sakichi (each with the salary
around 100 koku rice)
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 193

Môris as ship’s masters. Their relatives and retainers were disbanded and
served the Môris and the Mori lord of Bungo.
Nevertheless, pirates were still rampant in the Seto Inland Sea, even in the
early seventeenth century. This is made quite clear in a letter written from Môri
Terumoto addressed to Murakami Mototake and his uncle, Kagechika.38 The
purport of this letter is that Terumoto ordered these two men to make a thor-
ough investigation of the piratical incident that had taken place off Suô Yashiro
Island, insisting that the incident was “a matter of grave concern.” The letter
makes it obvious that, piracy was considered a crime and it was still rampant
in the early-seventeenth century. Therefore the Môris expected the Murakamis
to patrol the seas in order to suppress any outbreaks of it. There is absolutely
no doubt that piracy did not disappear with the issuance of Hideyoshi’s Piracy
Prohibition Edict, and maritime peace was still far from being accomplished.

(3) Establishment of Watch-houses

As the Tokugawa regime consolidated what had been an official checkpoint
system under the Toyotomi regime was transformed into a new maritime sur-
veillance network. The trigger was the Catholic Rebellion of Amakusa and
Shimabara (1637-1638), that led to the strict prohibition of Christianity and the
trade ban on all foreigners except the Dutch and the Chinese.
In 1640, the government official Kagatsume Tadasumi executed all the mem-
bers of the Portuguese embassy who had been sent to request the lifting of the
trade ban issued the previous year. Soon after this execution, he summoned
the Kyushu daimyos to Shimabara and Kokura, and ordered the erection of
ocean watch-houses (tômi bansho) to monitor the arrival of foreign ships. He
gave the same order to the daimyos in the vicinity of Murotsu in Harima prov-
ince. After this, maritime defense facilities like ocean watch-houses were
established in ever-growing numbers in the coastal areas of Western Japan,
including Kyushu and the Seto Inland Sea region.39
Furthermore, in 1667 the government conducted a survey of coastal villages
in nine provinces in Kyushu and the Seto Inland Sea region. The survey col-

38 “Murakami-ke monjo|” 村上家文書 [Documents of the Murakami family], in Murakami-

ke monjo chosa hokokusho: Imabari-shi Murakami Suigun Hakubutsukan hokan 村上家文
書調査報告書：今治市村上水軍博物館保管 [Report of the documents of the
Murakami family: Held at the Murakami Navy Museum] (Imabari: Imabari-shi Kyoiku
Iinkai, 2005), 67.
39 Fujita Tatsuo 藤田達生, “Mura no samurai to heino bunri (jo), (ge)” 村の侍と兵農分
離：伊賀の事例を中心に（上）（下） [Village samurai and the warriors-farmers separa-
tion in Iga Province, pt. 1-2], Jinmin no rekishigaku 人民の歴史学 133 (1997): 1-10; 134
(1997): 22-32.
194 Fujita

lected all kinds of information related to maritime defense, registering ocean

watch-houses, lighthouses, as well as the number of ships and captains in each
village. In Iyo, for example, the survey was carried out from April 1 to May 13,
and it recorded eighteen ocean watch-houses, forty ship watch-houses, two all-
night lighthouses, 2,687 ships and 8,328 crewmembers (Table 7.2).40 This
evidence shows that a very extensive maritime defense system had been suc-
cessfully established in a very short time.
Clearly the government was attempting to establish a workable system of
maritime control for fear of possible attacks by foreign ships and a recurrence
of a Christian rebellion. Furthermore, it was also grappling with the tense
international situation in the wake of the collapse of the Ming dynasty. This
presented the daimyos of Western Japan, who had been appointed to take
charge of the maintaining this system, with a very onerous political task. They
had the responsibility for setting up an effective defense system. If they were to
succeed, they had to mobilize all the upper- and lower-class samurais (hanshi
and goshi respectively) and conscript farmers (nôhei). Furthermore, they had
to organize a construction program to build yet more ocean watch-houses.41
In the Wakayama domain, the daimyo had first undertaken a number of
attempts to establish the maritime defense system in 1644. He had constructed
ocean watch-houses, signal-fire beacons, and all-night lighthouses at the nodal
points in the coastal areas. He had organized coastal villages into forming
defense units and created units of conscripted farmer (between the ages of 15
and 60) for maritime patrols. Villages were under an obligation to provide sol-
diers for the defense of their land.42
In the Tosa domain, under the leadership of the prime minister (roju),
Nonaka Kenzan, goshis were mobilized for the maritime defense at the same
time as the construction of the ocean watch-houses in Kashiwajima, Asizuri,
Yozu, and Tsuro in 1644. Just as in the Wakayama domain, Kenzan made enthu-
siastic use of goshis, as he judged that the defense of the long coastline relying
only on hanshis would be impossible.43

40 “Saikai junkenshi” 西海巡見志 [Record of a survey in western provinces], in Saikai

junkenshi, Yoyou Jinkaishu 西海巡見志・予陽塵芥集 [“Record of a survey in western
provinces” and “Topography of Iyo province”], ed. Iyo Shidan Kai 伊予史談会 (Mat-
suyama: Ehime Kenritsu Toshokan, 1985).
41 See note 39 and Fujita, Hideyoshi to kaizoku daimyo.
42 Fujita, Hideyoshi to kaizoku daimyo.
43 Ibid.
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 195

Table 7.2 Maritime control system in Iyo in 1667

Territory of Hitotsuyanagi Naoharu, the Lord of Komatsu

Facilities Number Remarks

Seki ships (medium-size warships) 1 30 rowers

Kohaya ships (small warships) 3 6-10 rowers
Cargo ships 2 10 tan sail and 11 tan sail
Horse ships 4
Crewmembers 30

Territory of Matsudaira Sadafusa, the Lord of Imabari

Facilities Number Remarks
Seki ships 16 18 rowers
Kohaya ships 4 4-8 rowers
Cargo ships 2 9 tan sail and 10 tan sail
Crewmembers 40

Territory of Matsudaira Yasuhisa, the Lord of Matsuyama

Facilities Number Remarks
Seki ship 1 42 rowers
Seki ship 1 40 rowers
Seki ships 29 38-66 rowers
Kohaya ships 41 8-30 rowers
Small ships 11
Water ships 35
Cargo ships 18 5-18 tan sail
Lighters 25
Crewmembers 372

Territory of Kato Yasuoki, the Lord of Ôsu

Facilities Number Remarks
Seki ship 1 46 rowers
Seki ships 10 34-62 rowers
Kohaya ships 9 4-20 rowers
Cargo ships 7 70-700 koku loads
Crewmembers 162

Territory of Date Munetoki, the Lord of Uwajima

Facilities Number Remarks
Seki ships 26 38-77 rowers
196 Fujita

Table 7.2 Maritime control system in Iyo in 1667 (cont.)

Kohaya ships 40 14-30 rowers

Cargo ships 15 10-17 tan sail
Crewmembers 218

Territory of Date Sôjun, the Lord of Yoshda

Facilities Number Remarks
Seki ships 10 20-64 rowers
Kohaya ships 8 8-20 rowers
Cargo ships 4 10-15 tan sail
Small ships 2
Crewmembers 100

The Entire Province of Iyo

Facilities Number Remarks
Ocean watch-houses 18
Ship watch-houses 40
Lighthouses 2
Ships 2,687
Crewmembers 8,328

In the Iga territory of the Tôdô domain, in spite of its mountainous location,
a system to mobilize goshi in cases of emergency was up and running by 1646.44
These examples show quite clearly that the national defense system in the
mid-seventeenth century consisted of the general mobilization of able-bodied
men, including conscripted farmers, both on the coast or in mountains, in
Western Japan. In fact, if the maritime ban were to have any effect at all, it was
essential to establish a military system that could respond to any emergency.
Aware of the problem, the feudal lords in Western Japan devised the policy of
a general mobilization in case of a national emergency. This was their response
to the Tokugawa policy of organizing the national defense system as quickly as
possible in the 1620s and the 1630s. It is noteworthy that, in order to consoli-
date the defense system, the government also ordered daimyos to compile a
Shumon Aratame cho (registration of religious institutions), to provide maps,

44 “Shoho san-nen shogatsu nanoka-zuke Nagayaza okite” 正保三年正月七日付長屋座

掟 [Regulation of Nagayaza dated January 7, 1646], in Iga-koku Ahai-gun Kawahigashi-
mura “Kasuga Jijja shozo monjo” 伊賀国阿拝郡川東村「春日神社所蔵文書」 [Docu-
ments of Kasuga Jinja, Kawahigashi Village, Ahai County, Iga].
Piracy Prohibition Edicts 197

and to construct ocean watch-houses and inaugurate a goshi mobilization sys-

tem in the most influential domains in Western Japan. The exercise of rigid
control of land and people was an indispensable adjunct to the establishment
and maintenance of the national defense system.
These policies led directly to a thorough prohibition of piracy. As noted
above, piratical incidents did still occur in the Seto Inland Sea in the early-
seventeenth century, but by the mid-seventeenth century there are no longer
any records of pirate raids; one successful outcome of the consolidation of the
maritime defense in the domains in West Japan on the orders of the Tokugawa
government.

Conclusion

On the evidence of what has been discussed in it, this chapter concludes that
the piracy prohibition policy of the Toyotomi regime was carried out in stages,
and the 1588 Edict was not one single watershed, as has been assumed. The
piracy prohibition only came fully into effect at the turn of the seventeenth
century, after having passed through the following four stages:
The first was the slighting of the castles of the former rulers (shirowari) and
the surveying of arable lands (kenchi) in 1585. Maritime castles were slighted,
coastal lands were measured, and pirates were forbidden to establish maritime
checkpoints at will. At the same time, those fishermen who were also involved
in piracy were registered as farmers in coastal villages.
The second stage was the repeated issuance of piracy prohibition edicts in
1587 and 1588. As a result, the Murakamis who were pivotal in piracy were relo-
cated away from the Seto Inland Sea, banished to Chikuzen in Kyushu, a sign
that the Toyotomi regime was successful in expelling pirates from the Seto
Inland Sea.
The third stage was Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea. Pirates were signed up as
maritime experts, in order to keep a look-out at official maritime checkpoints
for battlefield deserters. Some of them also served daimyos when requested,
lured by the promise of a generous remuneration.
The fourth was the Battle of Sekigahara. Murakami Motoyoshi, a well-known
pirate leader, and his retainers were killed in the battle. During the postwar
settlements, the Tokugawa regime confiscated the territories of those Iyo
daimyos who had participated on the Toyotomi-Ishida side, and Kurushima
Yasuchika, the only influential pirate leader who escaped the appropriation,
was relocated to Bungo Mori in Kyushu. Others suspected of being under the
198 Fujita

influence of the Murakamis were placed under other daimyos like the Moris as
crewmembers or their ship’s masters.
During the Edo period the status of a naval sailor was accorded only to crew-
members belonging to each feudal lord. In peacetime, the maritime control
system was left in the hands of the hanshi (upper-class samurai), goshi (lower-
class samurai), and the farmers in coastal areas. The piracy prohibition edicts
were issued in this period in which the maritime control system underwent a
transformation from one in which pirates controlled checkpoints, to one in
which they were turned into official checkpoints, supported by the system of
ocean watch-houses. Piracy finally disappeared in the mid-seventeenth cen-
tury, when the maritime control system had been established on a national
level.

Primary Sources

Kobayakawa-ke monjo 小早川家文書 [Documents of the Kobayakawa family].

Kuroda kashinden ryaku 黒田家臣伝略 [Summarized records of the Kuroda retainers],
Fukuoka Kenritsu Toshokan 福岡県立図書館.
Môri-ke monjo 毛利家文書 [Documents of the Môri family].
Mizukuchi Kato-ke Monjo 水口加藤家文書　[Documents of the Mizukuchi Kato fam-
ily], Tokyo Daigaku Shiryo Hensanjo 東京大学史料編纂所.
Murakami-ke Monjo 村上家文書 [Documents of the Murakami family], in “Miyakubo-
cho shi” 宮窪町史 [A history of Miyakubo town], unpublished documents housed
at the Yamaguchi-ken Monjokan 山口県文書館.
Osu Kato-ke Monjo 大洲加藤家文書 [Documents of the Ôsu Kato family], Tokyo
Daigaku Shiryo Hensanjo 東京大学史料編纂所.
Oumi Mizukuchi Kato-ke Monjo 近江水口加藤家文書 [Documents of the (Oumi
Mizukuchi) Kato family], Waseda Daigaku 早稲田大学.
“Shoho san-nen shogatsu nanoka-zuke Nagayaza okite” 正保三年正月七日付長屋座掟
[Regulation of Nagayaza dated January 7, 1646], in Iga-koku Ahai-gun Kawahigashi-
mura “Kasuga Jijja shozo monjo” 伊賀国阿拝郡川東村「春日神社所蔵文書」
[Documents of Kasuga Jinja, Kawahigashi Village, Ahai County, Iga].
“Ti bao woshi songhuan chaguan qingzhi kan chu shu ” 題報倭使送還差官請旨勘處
疏 [Report on a Requested Investigation by a Chinese Official Returning from a
Mission to Japan Accompanied by a Japanese Ambassador], in Fuzhe zou shu 撫浙
奏疏 [Memorials to the Emperor by the Governor of Zhejiang Province], ed. Liu
Yuanlin 劉元霖, Toyo Bunko 東洋文庫.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 199

Chapter 8 Toyooka and Murakami

The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas by the

Naval Forces of China, Macao, and Britain
(1780-1860)
Toyooka Yasufumi and Murakami Ei

Introduction

Owing to the trade in tea, porcelain, raw silk, silver, and opium, the China Seas
has been an important maritime area in the world’s economy since the six-
teenth century. In the 1780s, trade in the South China Sea was threatened by
pirates from the war-torn area known later as Indochina, who battled against
both the Qing maritime forces and Macau warships. Piracy continued until the
1860s, when the British Royal Navy suppressed pirates operating on and around
the Chinese coast. This chapter describes piracy and its suppression on the
Chinese coast by the Chinese and European authorities between 1780 and 1860.
The word “piracy” in this chapter refers to the unauthorized threats, vio-
lence, murder, robbery, and kidnapping perpetrated on boats, either at sea or
off the coast. In this research, Chinese, Portuguese, and English sources have
been used. In the European sources, pirates, as a matter of course, were also
called “freebooters” and “ladrones.” On the other hand, there was no exact
equivalent in traditional Chinese for the terms “pirate” or “piracy.” In tradi-
tional Chinese sources, there is no specific term indicating violence committed
in or on Chinese waters. Regardless of whether they operated at sea or on land,
bandits were refered to as bandits in traditional Chinese thought. When it was
necessary to emphasize that the violence was perpetrated not on land but on
water, the Chinese character indicating “ship” or “sea” was used along with the
character indicating bandits (e.g. boat bandits 艇盜, sea bandits 洋盜).1 There­
fore, “pirates” is used as a comprehensive phrase in this chapter.
As discussed in other chapters of this volume, from the eighteenth century
on, the Western powers aggressively suppressed the people called pirates in
the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and maritime Southeast Asia. This hap-
pened at a time when Great Britain was also extending its influence into the
China Seas. In this case, was the situation in the China Seas the same as in

1 A term “haidao 海盗” in contemporary Chinese was created to translate a “pirate” in English.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_010

200 Toyooka And Murakami

other areas? The stated aim of the historical study of the Guangdong area by
Dian H. Murray describes this situation before 1820. Murray explains that at
this time, pirates evolved in war-torn Annam, and European fleets had been
unable to suppress the more powerful among them. She claims that the “invin-
cible” pirates finally voluntarily surrendered to the Qing authorities in
Guangdong.2
Japanese, Taiwanese, and Chinese scholars have also analyzed piracy before
1820 using Chinese sources; these scholars have recognized the piracy problem
as a rebellion against the Qing dynasty during the first half of the nineteenth
century.3 Looking at the European side, Fox has analyzed the post-1830s sup-
pression of the pirates by the British Royal Navy.4 Concentrating on one
particular place, Fairbank has described the piracy problem around Ningbo 寧
波in great detail.5 In general, previous works have claimed that the sledgeham-
mer pirates of the 1810s were comprehensively defeated by the British Royal
Navy. The deficiency in this fragmented story of Chinese pirates is that it does
not really reveal who these pirates were, or what piracy suppression meant in
the China Seas at the nineteenth century. Another note of caution: Chinese
pirates before 1820 and after 1830 have been investigated in strikingly different
contexts. The former have been treated as a regional activity in late-imperial
China, while the latter have been a part of Sino-British diplomatic history after
the Opium War. So far, it is still not clear how the British influenced the socio-
economy of the south-eastern Chinese coast.
In this chapter, we shall investigate long-term piracy and its suppression
throughout the nineteenth century, the relationship between socio-eco-
nomic conditions and piracy on the China coast, the role of the Qing central

2 Dian H. Murray, Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1810 (Stanford: Stanford University
Press,1987).
3 Katsuta Hiroko 勝田弘子, “Shindai kaiko no ran” 清代海寇の乱 [Pirates in the Qing era],
Shiron 史論 19 (1968): 27-49; Su T’ungping 蘇同炳, “Haidao caiquan shimo” 海盜蔡牽始末
[A story of the pirate Cai Quan], Taiwan Wenxian 臺灣文獻 25, no. 4 (1974): 1-24; 26, no. 1
(1975): 1-16; Zhang Zhongxun 張仲訓, “Qing Jiaqing nianjian Minzhe haidao zuzhi yanjiu”| 清
嘉慶年間閩浙海盜組織研究 [A study on the organization of the pirates in Zhejiang and
Fujian during the Jiaqing period], in Zhongguo haiyang fazhan shi lunwen ji bianji weiyuanhui
中國海洋發展史論文集 [Essays in Chinese Maritime History], vol. 2, ed. Zhongguo haiyang
fazhan shi lunwen ji (Taipei: Zhongyangyan jiuyuan sanmin zhuyi yanjiusuo, 1986), 161-98;
Zheng Guangnan 鄭廣南, Zhongguo haidao shi 中國海盜史 [History of Chinese pirates]
(Shanghai: Huadong ligong daxue chubanshe, 1998).
4 Grace Fox, British Admirals and Chinese Pirates 1832-1869 (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench &
Trubner, 1940).
5 John K. Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports,
1842-1854 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953).
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 201

Beijing

Tianjin

Shanghai
Jiangsu
Ningpo Shipu
Qing Zhejiang Yushan
Wenzhou
Quanzhou Fuqing
(Jingjiang)
Meizhou
Fujian
Yuegang
Taiwan1
Guangdong Guangzhou Amoy
Xiangshan
Vietnam
(Annan) Macao
Lingding

Map 8.1
Coastal areas of
China

government, Chinese local authorities, and Western powers – the Macau gov-
ernment, the English East India Company (EIC), the British government, and
the Royal Navy, in the restoration and maintenance of public order in coastal
areas. Through this investigation, we hope to show how the various authorities
engaged in the suppression of pirates to protect commercial interests.

1 The Area without Pirates: Qing Maritime Administration Up to the

Eighteenth Century

Before the emergence of the pirates in Annan during the last decade of the
eighteenth century, traders and fishermen on the Chinese coast had enjoyed
an era of public security under the rule of the Qing authorities. This period of
calm had been created by resolving the issue of the wokou 倭寇, that can be
202 Toyooka And Murakami

directly translated as “Japanese bandits.” Rather misleadingly in fact, as these

pirates were armed merchants engaged in the Sino-Japanese silver smuggling
trade. Ming officials recorded that the “Japanese bandits” actually included few
Japanese.6 This implies the smuggling crews were composed of both Chinese
and Japanese, and moreover that at least the majority of smugglers on China
coast were Chinese.
The trade in Japanese silver was illegal because of a strict prohibition issued
by the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), anxious to place severe restrictions on private
foreign trade in a determined bid to maintain security on China’s maritime
border.7 Paradoxically, smugglers supplying silver in Ming territory, in which
silver was used as currency, were armed to fight against Ming authorities, if
need be.8
At the beginning of the Sino-Japanese silver trade during the first half of the
sixteenth century, the local Ming authorities conspired with the silver traders,
but by the latter half of the 1540s, the Ming central government looked upon
smuggling as a problem for national security, and began to destroy the bases of
this Sino-Japanese trade in Zhejiang 浙江. Smugglers resisted the attacks of
the government and, as a result, beginning in 1553, the wokou wrought violence
in the Ming coastal regions.
It was the ban on maritime trade that created the wokou; hence, the lifting
of that ban eliminated the need for smugglers. When the Ming government
partially lifted the maritime ban in the Fujian port of Yuegang 月港 in 1567,
the activities of the wokou immediately dwindled.9 On the East Asian seas,
maritime violence was tightly intertwined with commercial interests.
One successor of the wokou was the Zheng 鄭 family. In the late 1620s,
Zheng Zhilong 鄭芝龍 (1604-1661), a south Fujianese armed merchant, was
leader of the Sino-Japanese maritime traders based in Hirado, Nagasaki. Fluent

6 Ming shizong ( Jiajing) su huangdi shilu 明世宗（嘉靖）肅皇帝實錄 [Veritable records of

the Jiajing emperor of the Ming], vol. 350, renshen [5th day] of the 7th lunar month of 28th
year of Jiajing [July 28, 1549].
7 Danjo Hiroshi 檀上寛. “Mindai kaikin gainen no seiritsu to sono haikei” 明代海禁概念の
成立とその背景：違禁下海から下海通番へ [The formation and background of the Ming
cynasty’s concept of maritime exclusion: From a prohibition on voyages in foreign waters to
a prohibition on voyages for trading with foreigners], Toyoshi Kenkyu 東洋史研究 63, no. 3
(2004): 421-55.
8 Ueda Makoto 上田信, Umi to teikoku 海と帝国 [Sea and empire] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2005),
90-91.
9 Okamoto Takashi 岡本隆司, Kindai Chūgoku to kaikan 近代中国と海関 [China and the
maritime customs system in modern times] (Nagoya: Nagoya Daigaku Shuppannkai, 1999),
47.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 203

in the south Fujianese dialect, Mandarin, Japanese, Portuguese, and Dutch, he

monopolized Sino-Japanese trade by ruling the Fujian coastal area in the vicin-
ity of Yuegang. Zheng Zhilong’s power expanded in the upswing in economic
prosperity of the early seventeenth-century East Asian maritime world. In
1628, he “surrendered” himself to the Ming Fujian authorities and was given
the rank of a military officer, a sign that the Ming government was tolerant of
Zheng’s maritime control.
Zheng Chenggong 鄭成功 (1624-1662), a son of Zhilong also known as
Koxinga, inherited his father’s maritime resources and entered into competi-
tion with another beneficiary of the silver-based economic heyday in Northeast
Asia, the Manchurian Qing.10 The Qing government responded by labeling
Koxinga a “haizei” 海賊, meaning “traitor on the sea.” Koxinga drove the Dutch
East India Company out of Taiwan and founded the Dongning 東寧 kingdom
there in 1661. Koxinga’s kingdom was more than just a pirate family; it was a
properly functioning state that promoted the development of Taiwan, and
encouraged trade with Japan, Southeast Asia, and China. However, the Qing
dynasty’s own maritime ban weakened the Koxinga kingdom’s trading activi-
ties and these successors of the wokou were eventually obliterated by a Qing
military campaign in 1683.11 The Qing’s maritime ban meant the stoppage of
silver imports that ushered in a deflationary recession in China.12In a nutshell,
the Qing eradicated the successor of the wokou by imposing oppressive meas-
ures that adversely affected the Qing economy.
With Koxinga out of the way, the Qing government decided that the Ming
dynasty’s strict maritime ban was to blame for the smuggling by pirates. The
Qing therefore moved to abolish the ban, establishing four maritime customs
organizations in the coastal provinces for the collection of taxes in the 1680s.
Only a few goods were prohibited from export, including gunpowder, sulfur,
armaments and timber.13 The government’s intention was simply to levy
taxes, rather than control trade through an adjustment of tariffs. Now govern-
mental obstacles to the silver trade with foreign states had been removed,
smuggling did decrease, but not necessarily because of the Qing policies alone.
As there were no highly profitable contraband goods available at that time,

10 Kishimoto Mio 岸本美緒, Higashi Ajia no kinsei 東アジアの「近世」 [“Early modern

period” in East Asia] (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1998).
11 Hayashida Yoshio 林田芳雄, Teishi Taiwan shi 鄭氏台湾史 [History of Taiwan in
­Koxinga dynasty] (Tokyo: Kyuko Shoten, 2003), 159-217.
12 Kishimoto, Higashi Ajia, 241-44.
13 Qinding daqing huidian zeli 欽定大清會典則例 [Qing collected regulations], vol. 114,
35-36, 1768.
204 Toyooka And Murakami

there were no special incentives to participate in smuggling or piracy in East

Asia. This situation persisted until the emergence of cheap opium smuggling
in the 1820s. The Qing dynasty’s domination of the Chinese coast at the end of
the seventeenth century had eradicated all economic reasons for large-scale
piracy but, as said, this situation would change by the end of the eighteenth
century.

2 Pirates from Annam, the Depression, and Qing Maritime Forces

In the latter half of the 1790s, pirate groups from northern Annam suddenly
appeared in Chinese waters. It was well known that many Chinese people had
emigrated to Annam and become involved in the commercial and agricultural
development of the Mekong Delta.14 Fishermen and seamen also lived on the
Vietnamese coast. Therefore the pirate groups were a mixed bag consisting of
Chinese fishermen and seamen living on the Vietnamese coast, Chinese pirates
on the southern China coast, and a handful of Vietnamese.
The outbreak of the Tây Sơn Uprising in 1771 and the civil strife that came in
its wake prompted each side to mobilize Chinese fishermen as naval forces.15
These ad hoc forces were given weapons and ships but fatally underpaid, and
the results could be described as predictable. They began to raid ships in
Chinese waters, especially on the western side of the Leizhou Peninsula 雷州
半島 at the end of the 1780s.16
From 1794, pirates from Annam began to venture to the eastern side of the
Leizhou Peninsula and attacked ships in Guangdong waters. In 1795, they
reached Zhejiang waters and began to cooperate with local pirates.
Consequently, piratical activities created disturbances along the entire south-
eastern coast of China.17
In 1802, the civil war in Vietnam ended with the victory of Nguyễn Phúc
Ánh, the first emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam. The pirates subse-
quently lost their bases and moved to Guangdong and Fujian. After 1805, the

14 Li Tana, Peasants on the Move: Rural-Urban Migration in the Hanoi Region (Singapore:
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1996); Sakurai Yumio,“Eighteenth-Century Chinese
Pioneers on the Water Frontier of Indochina,” in Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chi-
nese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750-1880, ed. Nola Cooke and Li Tana (Singapore: Row-
man & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 35-52
15 Yano Jin’ichi 矢野仁一, “Kakei-jidai no Teitō no ran ni tsuite” 嘉慶時代の艇盗の乱に
ついて [Pirates in the Jaqing period], Rekishi to Chiri 歴史と地理 18, no. 2 (1926): 1-6.
16 MQSLGB, vol. 2, 180, Memorial of Fukanga 福康安, QL56.3.22.
17 Katsuta, “Shindai Kaikō no ran,” 27-49.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 205

450,000

400,000

350,000

300,000

250,000

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

0
1736
1741
1746
1751
1756
1761
1766
1771
1776
1781
1786
1791
1796
1801
1806
1811
1816
1821
1826
1831
1836
1841
Figure 8.1 Revenue of Fujian customs 1736-1841 (tael).
Source: Huang Guosheng, Yapian zhanzhengqian de dongnan
sisheng haiguan (Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Chubanshe, 2000), 419-442.

pirates in Guangdong frequently attacked merchant ships and villages along

the coast,18 and local pirates from Fujian even landed in Taiwan and besieged
its capital.19 It is important to note that these pirates were “professional pirates,”
who made money by plundering and/or extortion of protection fees from mer-
chant ships and no longer the armed merchants of the seventeenth century.20
At this time, the violence spilling over from Annam was causing chaos in the
China’s coastal region.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the intrusion of pirates caused a remarkable com-
mercial downturn in Qing coastal areas, and concomitantly the circulation of
commercial goods along the Fujian coast declined rapidly after 1793. Figure 8.1
indicates the annual revenue of the Fujian Maritime Customs. As mentioned
above, the Qing maritime customs were organizations designed for tax collec-
tion, therefore the revenue of Fujian Maritime Customs was related to the
amount of coastal trade in Fujian.21 This revenue decreased by 40 percent
between 1793 and 1795. The Zhejiang Maritime Customs also experienced a

18 Murray, Pirates of the South China Coast, 80-98.

19 Su, “Haidao caiquan shimo.”
20 Murray, Pirates of the South China Coast.
21 Fan I-Chun, “Long-distance Trade and Market Integration in the Ming-Ch’ing Period,
1400-1850” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1992), 239-41.
206 Toyooka And Murakami

similar trend during this decade. The situation became so bad that Kuilun
魁倫, 22 the superintendent of the Fujian Maritime Customs reported that the
number of merchant ships entering the harbor of Fujian in 1795 was reduced
by half from the previous year because of the presence of a pirate fleet from
Annam.23 As merchants were apprehensive about their ships being attacked
by pirates, they abstained from shipping their goods. In other words, the com-
mercial distribution on the Chinese coast was severely hit by pirates from
Annam.
These circumstances greatly affected maritime circulation, and were the
cause of a serious economic depression in the coastal areas, that in turn aggra-
vated the problem by driving more people into piracy. The difficulty was
compounded because the local Qing authorities often requisitioned large mer-
chant-ships to convert them into warships, another blow to the local economy.
Yang Xingfeng 楊幸逢, a contemporary Taiwanese tourist, has left a descrip-
tion of the situation along the Fujian coast:

Magistrates and even local authorities cannot fight against the pirates;
moreover, they are demanding that merchants pay bribes or additional
taxes on merchant ships. This malady is increasing. In Fuzhou, the capital
of Fujian, merchants who own ships do not use them to trade. Twenty
shipping agents in Xiamen (Amoy) have already gone bankrupt, and
only a few agents now remain. Some still use ships to trade, but they
will want to give up their ships if the ships break, because keeping ships
brings immeas­urable loss to them. Eventually, no one will want to con-
struct new ships. If the authorities cannot make a decision on the present
pirate problems, the government will have no way to recover the revenue
of maritime customs, and people cannot earn a living. In consequence,
it is inevitable that more and more people are going to throw themselves
into piracy.24

Piracy was destroying the area’s economy, forcing the local Qing authorities to
tackle the problem: Maintaining security and protecting local commerce was
one of the orthodox raisons d’être of these authorities.25 Of the two, security

22 Kuilun, Nayanceng 那彦成, and Wesibu 倭什布 (see below) were Manchu bannermen.
The ethnic identity of Qing’s governors in China proper was not an important factor in
decision making at the time.
23 ZPZZCZ, No. 0358-017, Memorial of Kuilun, QL60.3.14.
24 JJDLFZZ, No.3-166-8964-20, Petition of Yang Xingfeng, JQ12.9.
25 Ota Izuru 太田出, Chūgoku kinsei no tsumi to batsu: hanzai, keisatsu, kangoku no shakai-
shi 中国近世の罪と罰: 犯罪・警察・監獄の社会史 [Crime and punishment in early
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 207

was more important than economic protection, therefore the Qing authorities
often charged additional taxes and commandeered merchant ships to sup-
press pirates to raise sufficient revenue to be able to provide it.26 Although
Qing officials claimed that the protection of trade was the norm, the measures
that they enacted sacrificed commerce to security. In their dilemma, the
authori­ties irrevocably knew that they had to tackle the piracy problem; but,
the execution of this policy ultimately hindered commercial activities on the
China coast.27 In the early 1800s – several years after the intrusion of pirates
from Annam – local Qing authorities finally launched a serious campaign for
the suppression of the pirates. During the last five years of the 1790s, the stock
of silver owned by the Qing central government’s Board of Revenue had been
almost entirely depleted, bled to provide the expenses incurred in suppressing
the rebellion of the White Lotus Society in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Hubei.28
Their dire straits compelled the local authorities to find financial resources
and prepare armaments. In Zhejiang, Ruan Yuan 阮元, the governor of
Zhejiang, and Li Changgeng 李長庚, its admiral, utilized local funds to con-
struct new warships and organize a local army in order to fight against the
pirates (commencing in 1800). In Zhejiang and Fujian, Cai Qian 蔡牽 was the
most notorious pirate leader and he just happened to hail from the same region
as Li Changgeng. Li’s struggle and death in battle with Cai have been described
in romantic terms by contemporary writers.29
In Guangdong, after 1804, the governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi,
Nayanceng, called for (semi-coerced) contributions from privileged salt-trad-
ers to prepare maritime military equipment. Nayanceng also led local villages
in organizing vigilante committees to pass on the costs for local security and
defense against pirates to the private sector.30 Around 1810, the local Qing
coastal authorities did finally manage to destroy major pirate groups in the
coastal areas, either by armed suppression or by negotiations for the pirates’

modern China: A social history of crime trends, police, and prisons] (Nagoya: Nagoya
Daigaku Shuppannkai, 2015).
26 JJDLFZZ, No.3-166-8964-20, Petition of Yang Xingfeng, JQ12.9
27 Jennifer W. Cushman, Fields from the Sea: Chinese Junk Trade with Siam during the Late
Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell
University, 1993), 124.
28 Shi Zhihong 史志宏, Qingdai hubu yinku shouzhi he kucun tongji 清代戸部銀庫收支
和庫存統計 [Statistics of silver flow and the stock of the Board of Revenue in the Qing
period] (Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Chubanshe, 2009), 116-280.
29 Zhao Lian 昭槤,“Lizhuanglie zhanji” 李壯烈戰蹟 [Li Zhangkeng’s struggle], Xiaoting-
zalu 嘯亭雜錄[Miscellaneous recordings at the Whistles Pavilion], vol. 3 (ca. 1825).
30 NWYGZY, vol. 11, 40-48.
208 Toyooka And Murakami

surrender. It was a situation in which the Qing had not lost effective maritime
forces against piracy, and the pirates’ leaders had failed to win the support of
the general public who had been disenchanted by the former’s indiscriminate
plunder. Consequently, before the outbreak of the Opium War, local Qing
authorities had not yet lost either their grip on their financial resources or the
military competence to suppress pirates or rebellions in order to maintain
public security.31

3 Pirates on the Pearl River and the “Europeans”

The Qing government was the only organization with the authority to exercise
force to maintain local public security of the Chinese waters. However, in the
smaller area of the Pearl River Delta, the situation was different. There, the
Portuguese Residents of Macao and other Europeans were able and willing to
participate in the suppression of piracy as well.
Macao, a Portuguese settlement, had been established as a base for the
Portuguese Empire’s China Sea trade in the sixteenth century. Qing and Macao
authorities first entered into diplomatic relations in 1651 when the Qing con-
quered Guangdong. The “procurador” (procurator) of the Macao senate and
the magistrate of Xiangshan 香山, as representatives of their respective gov-
ernments, negotiated many subjects on numerous occasions,32 and the topic
of the suppression of pirates had already been raised. In 1793, the Xiangshan
magistrate requested that Macao collaborate in the suppression of the pirates
encroaching from Annam.33 However, this collaboration failed to bear fruit.
Irritated because Macao had asked for a reduction in its rent for the Macao
Peninsula and also by the arbitrary attacks Macao made on “suspect” merchant
ships from Fujian, the Qing local authorities in Guangdong halted negotiations
with it.34 Granting a remission in rent for Macao was beyond the competence

31 Ruan Heng 阮亨, Yingzhou Bitan 瀛洲筆談 [A chronological record of Ruan Yuan], vol. 1
(1820), 1-4.
32 A.M. Vale, Martins do, Os Portugueses em Macau (1750-1800): Degredados, Ignorantes e
Ambiciosos ou Fiéis vassalos d’El-Rei? (Macau: Instituto Português do Oriente, 1997), 67-98.
33 DAM, Cx.19, doc. 22, 48. COT, vol. 1, No. 157, 159. QAZD, vol. 1, No. 933, 934.
34 Anders Ljungstedt, A Historical Sketch of the Portuguese Settlements in China, and of the
Roman Catholic Church and Mission in China; a Supplementary Chapter, Description of the
City of Canton (Boston: James Munroe, 1836; reprint, Hong Kong: Viking Hong Kong Pub-
lications, 1992), 131-33; Huang Qinghua 黃慶華, Zhongpu guanxi shi, 1513-1999 中葡關係
史 (1513~1999) [History of Sino-Portuguese relations, 1513-1999] (Hefei: Huanhshan
Shushe, 2005), 465-66.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 209

of local authorities so, if the local authorities had intended to continue with
the negotiations, they would have had to inform the Qing central government
to solicit its approval. This would have been out of the question because the
Qing central government had placed a blanket prohibition on collaboration
with foreign powers, on the grounds that the Qing was the “most powerful
celestial dynasty” and would not make any compromises with “barbarians.”35
In other words, the Guangdong authorities could not inform Beijing about the
real situation in their cooperation with Macao and other European forces.
In 1804, the Macao and Guangdong local authorities again recommenced
discussions on collaborating to suppress pirates. The influx of straggler pirates
from Tây Sơn into the Pearl River Delta posed an increased critical danger to
Macanese security. The pirates constructed their bases offshore of the Macao
Peninsula, just at a time at which Macao was taking in many poor Chinese
immigrants as dockworkers. This upsurge in immigrants was caused by popu-
lation pressures that had been growing in the Qing territory since the middle
of the eighteenth century. The poor Chinese in Macau and the pirates were
both seen as potential threats, and the Macao authorities were apprehensive
that the “Chinês maus” (Bad Chinese) among the Chinese immigrants would
conspire with the pirates to ruin their city.36
In the spring of 1804, the Macao authorities began to work in tandem with
the local Qing army. They used a ship named the The Nancy, that had been
purchased from the EIC. They were also armed with funds collected by the
contributions made by Macanese merchants, the sale of opium, and even a
public lottery.37 To strengthen its position with the local Qing authorities, the
Macao government withdrew its claim for the remission of rent. The residents
and merchants of Macao were unanimous in their support of the government’s
efforts to protect their lives and property.
The Qing Guangdong local authorities constructed a complex arrangement
with Macao, but this was not widely known at the time. For instance, Wesibu,
the governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi, reported to the Qing central
government in Beijing that the Guangdong authorities had rejected the pro-
posal to cooperate to suppress piracy in Macao.38 Wesibu’s report actually
meant no more than that the Guangdong authorities had refused to transmit
Macao’s request to Beijing. The involvement of Beijing severely disrupted the

35 MQAWDW, No.415, Edict of the Jiaqing emperor 嘉慶帝, JQ10.12.7.

36 Ángela Guimarães, Uma relação especial: Macau e as relações luso-chinesas, 1780-1844 (Lis-
bon: Centre de Invesstigação e Estudos de Socciologia. 2000), 123-25.
37 DAM, No.1104, Cx. 24, Doc.32. DAM, No. 1348, Cx. 29, No. 31.
38 MQAWDW, No. 414, Memorial from Wesibu, (responded in JQ13.3.3).
210 Toyooka And Murakami

discussion between the Qing local authorities and the Macao government. At
the same time, “real” reports from local authorities about negotiations with
foreigners caused the Qing central government acute embarrassment. In its
official statements, the Qing dynasty portrayed itself as the strongest dynasty.
The upshot was that all Qing authorities recognized that information about
the local authorities’ negotiations with Macao was beyond the pale.
Before 1808, although the anti-piracy collaboration between Macao and the
Guangdong authorities was maintained, they had been unable to find a solu-
tion to the problem. Meanwhile, another menace had appeared on the scene
to challenge the Macao and Guangdong authorities and the British forces.
In the Pearl River Delta, a select committee of supercargoes of the EIC, that
had the largest share in the Canton trade, also made an attempt to participate
in clearing the seas of pirates. One particular incident lay behind their efforts.
On December 6, 1806, John Turner, the chief mate of the country-trader’s ship
The Tay, was captured by pirates off Macao, and his captors demanded that a
ransom be paid for his release.39 After reporting to Bengal that Turner had
been captured, the Canton Committee insisted on mounting a military expedi-
tion to China for three reasons: Their first point was that the Qing authorities
lacked both the consistent will and the adequate equipment that would be
needed to suppress the pirates. The second matter it raised was that the
Portuguese in Macao were also deficient in the equipment necessary to con-
front the pirates. Their third point was that fierce pirates often attacked coastal
villages in the “hinterland of the trade” to disrupt supplies.40
The reports of John William Roberts, the president of the Committee of
Canton Factory of the EIC, insist that pirates were “the most serious additional
risk to the lives and property of every European visiting China in the future.”41
In spite of these reasons, George Hilaro Barlow, who was the Acting-Governor-
General of the Presidency of Fort William in Calcutta, rejected the proposal for
an expedition to the Pearl River for the following reasons: The pirates did not
disturb the Company’s trade; maintaining local security was the duty of the
Chinese authorities; and no expeditions were permitted unless there had been
a request from the Qing authorities.42 After the release of Turner on May 22,
1807, the Canton Committee agreed that Chinese pirates were not harming the

39 J. Turner, “Account of the Captivity of J. Turner, Chief Mate of the Ship Tay, Amongst the
Ladrones,” Naval Chronicle 20 (1808): 456-72; IOR/F/4/216/4750, J. Roberts to Barlow, April
29, 1807, 4.
40 IOR/F/4/246/5559, J. Roberts to Barlow, March 9, 1807, 16-19.
41 IOR/F/4/216/4750, J. Roberts to Barlow, April 29, 1807, 5.
42 IOR/F/4/216/4750, Barlow to J. Roberts, April 23, 1807, 34.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 211

EIC’s commercial activity on the South China coast. Nevertheless, it submitted

further requests, asking that a squadron from India be dispatched for the pur-
pose of suppressing piracy. Again this was rejected by Barlow.43 Having
continued to submit request until the winter of 1807, the Canton Committee
decided to stop its petitions.
Barlow’s response was an embodiment of the EIC’s view of security on the
Chinese coast. The EIC recognized that what should be protected by the British
forces was only the Company’s trade, not the local people or other Europeans,
including the Macanese. Their belief was that the local pirate problem should
be solved by the local Chinese government or the residents of Macao, a signal
that the EIC was not willing, or indeed able, to intervene in local situations on
the Chinese coast. In fact, the annual financial reports of the Canton Factory
show that the EIC suffered no remarkable losses in its Chinese trade after 1800
(Figure 8.2),44 largely because the pirate groups operating in Chinese waters
simply did not possess ships that were either large or efficient enough to cap-
ture European vessels.
This begs the question: Why did the select committee of the supercargoes of
the EIC at Canton, contrary to the guidelines of the EIC, request an expedition
from India? The answer can be found in the process of the request for the occu-
pation of Macao by the British Royal Navy in September of the following year.
The Canton Committee requested that the governor-general of India send a
squadron to offer protection against a possible attack by France, Britain’s
enemy during the Napoleonic Wars, in the spring of 1808. At that time, the
Canton Committee asserted that the Qing government would accept the occu-
pation of Macao by the Royal Navy, as long as the Royal Navy helped in the
suppression of pirates.45 In other words, the suppression of pirates was not the
purpose of the Canton Committee; instead, the Canton Committee only
needed a naval expedition to occupy Macao. Another factor also prompted the
Committee to seek an expedition under the pretext of suppressing pirates; the
Macanese merchants, who were significant competitors of the Committee in
the gradually expanding opium trade (Figure 8.3).
Opium was one of the most important commodities handled by the Canton
Committee of the EIC and it encouraged country traders to bring opium
from India (as a means of payment) to secure silver. Indian opium was the

43 IOR/F/4/246/5559, J. Roberts to Barlow, August 25, 1807, 1-19.

44 Earl H. Pritchard, “The Struggle for Control of the China Trade during the Eighteenth Cen-
tury,” Pacific Historical Review 3, no. 3 (1934): 280-95.
45 Hosea B. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, vol.
3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926-1929), 86.
212 Toyooka And Murakami

14000000

12000000 ■Import to China

10000000 ■Export from China

8000000

6000000

4000000

2000000

0
1764
1767
1770
1773
1776
1779
1782
1785
1788
1791
1794
1797
1800
1803
1806
1809
1812
1815
1818
1821
1824
1827
1830
1833
Figure 8.2 Total transaction amount of the EIC’s Canton Trade (tael).
Source: Pritchard, “The Struggle for Control of the China Trade,”
280-95; Hosea B. Morse, The International relations of the Chinese
Empire, vol. 1 (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1910), 92.

14000

12000
… The EIC comprehended

10000 ― Passed Macao customs

8000

6000

4000

2000

0
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828

Figure 8.3 Opium import to China (chest).

Source: Vale, Os Portugueses em Macau, 132; Morse, The International
relations of the Chinese Empire, vol. 1, 210.

monopoly of the EIC that set an upper limit of 4,800 chests in a number of
sales to maintain the price floor in 1801. Because the Qing government prohib-
ited the import of opium, the EIC did not officially trade in opium; however,
the country traders used EIC as a remitter. In other words, there was a trade
triangle whose sides were composed of opium, Chinese commodities, and
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 213

silver. The Macanese merchants had handled the opium that was exported by
local Indian kings to China and Macao since the 1760s; hence these Macanese
merchants were the rivals of the country traders who were deeply implicated
in the EIC and the Chinese opium trade. Moreover, the Portuguese govern-
ment of Macao was determined that opium should be taxed, and that opium
in Macau must be handled by the Portuguese merchants in 1802. This meant
that the opium that was handled by country traders was taxed by the Macau
government and was commissioned by Macanese merchants. All this blew up
at an unfortunate moment at which the Qing authorities strengthened the ban
on the opium trade because the new emperor, Jiaqing, had initiated his own
direct rule in 1799 and ordered a strict ban on the export of silver.46 Macao
was an exception to the ban and was therefore the only route through which
to import opium into China. The disappointed country traders were unable
to make the profits that had earlier been predicted. The upshot was that the
interests of the Canton Committee suffered because of the Macao government
and the Macanese merchants. At that moment, Roberts, the president of the
Committee, chose to mediate the opium trade, in the context of the request by
the Canton Committee for the expedition from India.
Why did the Committee not set this conflict with Macao before the gover-
nor-general in Calcutta? In Europe, Macao was recognized as a legitimate
Portuguese colony, and Portugal was an exceedingly important ally of Great
Britain against France. Occupying the colony of an ally for the purpose of
destroying the commercial activity of the citizens of that ally because they
were business competitors was not considered an appropriate action by the
British government authorities. The Committee therefore changed its tactics
in the spring of 1808 and requested an expedition for the suppression of pirates
and for protection against a possible attack by France.47 This time the Earl of
Minto, the new governor-general of India, decided to dispatch an expedition to
Macao.48
A British Royal Navy squadron from India commanded by Rear-Admiral
William O’Brien Drury landed in Macao and occupied forts on the Macao
Peninsula in September 1808, but was met with fierce opposition from both the
Macao and Guangdong authorities and, as a consequence, the squadron

46 Inoue Hiromasa 井上裕正, Shindai ahen seisakushi no kenkyū 清代アヘン政策史研究

[A study for anti-opium policy of the Qing government before the Opium War], (Kyoto:
Kyoto Gakuzyutsu Shuppannkai, 2004), 35-41.
47 Morse, The Chronicles, vol. 3, 86.
48 IOR/H/60/84. Papers concerning the Portuguese; Memoirs dealing with the Portuguese
Settlement in India and China, their occupation by British troops and the British expedi-
tion to Macao. Dispute between the British and Portuguese at Macao. 1807-09, 607-09.
214 Toyooka And Murakami

retreated in December.49 Hence this pretentious attempt by the Committee

was unsuccessful, and the brains-behind this attempt, Roberts, was dismissed
as president of the Committee in 1809. Following this abortive mission, the EIC
scrapped any naval expeditions to China from its agenda. When an officer on a
country ship was captured by pirates in September 1809, the EIC paid his ran-
som immediately. This time, there was no discussion about the possibility of
participating in the suppression of pirates. Although in 1809 and 1810, the Qing
Guangdong authorities sounded out the Hong merchants (merchants author-
ized by the Qing government to handle foreign trade) about possible British
participation in the suppression of pirates,50 the Canton Committee adopted a
passive stand. Consequently, no British power involved itself in the suppres-
sion of pirates on the Pearl River before the 1840s.
Regardless of the British occupation of Macao from September to December
1808, piracy depredations on the Pearl River continued in the 1800s. As men-
tioned above, the piracy problem on the South China coast did not damage EIC
trade. Although it went unscathed, both Macao and the Qing Guangdong
authorities had a common enemy in the region’s largest pirate group, com-
manded by Zhang Baozai 張保仔, that frequently raided coastal villages and
small ports on the Pearl River Delta since the beginning of 1809.51
Macao and the Qing local authorities decided to collaborate against this foe;
they reached an arrangement regarding expenditure and the terms of coopera-
tion for the suppression of the pirates in November 1809.52 This venture was
successful, and they defeated the pirate group on the Pearl River on December
11.53 As Macao and the Qing local authorities had negotiated many issues,
including pirate suppression, it was not difficult for the parties to achieve a set-
tlement when the appropriate conditions were met.
In January 1810, the second largest pirate group, commanded by Guo Podai
郭婆帶, surrendered to the Qing Guangdong authorities.54 In the same month,
Zhang Baozai was once again defeated by a united Qing-Macao squadron. By

49 IOR/R/10/32, Narrative of the Proceedings of the Select Committee on the Arrival of a

Detachment of British Troops at Macau, 1808.
50 FO1048/9/9, Order to linguists from acting Canton prefect, JQ13.8.4. FO1048/9/11, Order to
Hong merchants from the acting Canton prefect, JQ13.8.4.
51 Yuan Yonglun 袁永綸, “Jinhaifenji” 靖海氛記 [An account of the suppression of piracy
in the Guangdong Waters] (ca. 1820), in Tian ye yu wen xian: Hua’nan yanjiu ziliao zhongxin
tongxun 田野與文獻: 華南研究資料中心通訊, ed. Xiao Guojian 蕭國健 and Bo
Yongjian 卜永堅, 46 (2007): 6-29.
52 Murray, Pirates of the South China Coast, 133.
53 Guimarães, Uma relação especial, 145-46.
54 Murray, Pirates of the South China Coast, 139.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 215

the end of January, Zhang had asked the Macao authorities and Miguel de
Arriaga, the “ouvidor” (the chief justice of Macao), who was in charge of nego-
tiations with foreign parties, to mediate in the negotiation of the conditions of
his surrender. Meanwhile, the Qing Guangdong local authorities were seeking
a way to negotiate with Zhang through the offices of an opium trader in Macao
named Zhou Feixiong 周飛熊.55 Zhou was an influential person in the Macao
Chinese community, and he had connections with the Macao government.
Zhou and Arriaga had probably made a connection, and therefore both the
Qing authorities and the pirate groups looked forward to negotiations medi-
ated by the Macao authorities.
On February 21, representatives of all three groups (Zhang, Macao, and
Guangdong) held a meeting about the conditions of surrender, but they failed
to reach an agreement. Even when Zhang resumed his attacks on coastal
­villages, he continued to negotiate with the authorities.56 Eventually, a final
arrange­ment between the pirate and the Macao and Guangdong authorities
was concluded in April.57 Zhang surrendered on the coast of Xiangshan pre-
fecture, and later participated in a campaign for the suppression of pirates
along the western coast of Guangdong.58
“Pacifying” by persuading a bandit to surrender and giving him an official
post in exchange, was a common ploy of the Qing government in its efforts to
rein in the cost of the suppression of a predator. During the negotiations on the
Pearl River in the spring of 1810, the Qing local authorities offered both Zhang
and Guo official military posts. In return, the Qing authorities required them to
destroy other pirate groups, and to do this under the supervision of the Qing
authorities. Zhang and Guo had been defeated by the Qing-Macao united
squadron, so they had no other option but to fight against the pirates who had
not yet surrendered. By adopting this tactic Zhang and Guo survived.
Wushier 烏石二, a former Annam Navy general, and the leader of the last
major pirate group on the West Guangdong coast, was arrested by the com-
bined Zhang, Guo, and Qing Navy on June 14, 1810. In the battle, the actual
fighting was done by former pirates only, with the Qing Navy acting as an
invigilator.
Many famous pirate groups on the Fujian and Zhejiang coasts had already
been destroyed by the Qing authorities, and some pirate leaders had surren-
dered to the Qing authorities before the end of 1809. With Wu’s capture, the

55 Yuan, “Jinhaifenji,” 8-24.

56 Murray, Pirates of the South China Coast, 141.
57 Guimarães, Uma relação especial, 146-56.
58 ZPZZJW, No. 04-01-03-0044-007, Memorial from Bailing, JQ15.6.7.
216 Toyooka And Murakami

piracy problem along the South China coast finally came to an end.59 Reports
of damage caused by piracy on the China coast rapidly decreased after 1810.60
As mentioned above, maintaining security and protecting local commerce
was one of the orthodox raisons d’être of these authorities. Therefore the Qing
authorities were responsible for the suppression of pirates along the entire
south-eastern coast of China. Although Macao did collaborate with the Qing
authorities, it limited its activities to the waters in its vicinity. As said, the EIC
had no influence on the suppression of the pirates at that time, even on the
Pearl River where it had a vested interest. Generally speaking, foreign influence
was limited on the China coast before the 1810s.
The Qing dynasty was the only authority that maintained local security
and still succeeded in suppressing pirates during the first decade of the nine-
teenth century. The Qing dynasty ambition to maintain public order was not
the only factor involved in the disappearance of pirates from southeastern
Chinese waters in the early 1810s. A far more significant factor was that there
were no incentives to continue pirate activities at that time, and, in the 1820s,
the pirates had begun to take up a much more profitable business – opium
smuggling.

4 Opium Trade and the Rise of Piracy

By 1810, piracy in South China had ended but its eclipse did not mean that the
Qing Dynasty had recovered complete control of the coastal areas. The pri-
mary factor that undermined its success was the advent of opium.
At the end of the eighteenth century, the opium trade around Guangzhou
began to expand. The mouth of the Pearl River, that functioned as the center of
the opium trade, was also where pirates of the Jiaqing period pursued their
depredations. Fishermen who joined the pirates also began to participate in
the opium trade. According to a proclamation by the Governor of Guangdong
in 1826, small, fast ships, called fast crab boats, that carried many oars and were
well-armed, were conducting the opium trade around Lingding, located at the

59 Wen Chengzhi 溫承志, “Ping hai jilue” 平海紀略 [Record of pacifying the sea], in Zhao-
dai congshu: Kui ji cui bian, 昭代叢書：癸集萃編, vol. 10, comp., Shen Maode 沈楙悳
(1849).
60 Toyooka Yasufumi 豊岡康史, “Shindai chuki Kanton enkai jumin no katsudo” 清代中期
広東沿海住民の活動,1785~1815 年 [Activities of maritime people on the Cantonese
coast in mid-Qing China, 1785-1815], Shakai Keizai Shigaku 社会経済史学 73, no. 3
(2007): 303-20.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 217

mouth of Pearl River. The bulk of these piratical activities were carried out by
these fast ships;61 pirates became increasingly engaged in smuggling and only
tended to resort to other activities when smuggling did not bring in enough.
Joining the economic trend, some of the residents in the coastal areas of South
China made a career change from being pirates to being opium smugglers.
The opium trade continued to expand until the 1830s. However, during 1836-
1837, large-scale regulations were implemented against opium in Guangdong
and along the coastal areas of China. After Commissioner Lin Zexu had ordered
the confiscation of opium owned by foreign merchants, the British govern-
ment retaliated and the First Opium War broke out.
The First Opium War ended in a bitter, unilateral defeat for the Qing. Taking
advantage of the conflict, piracy had begun to rise again; for example, pirates
were running rampant in southern Fujian.62 As the war caused havoc, people
turned to piracy on a large scale.
After the war, instead of decreasing, the frequency of piratical activity along
the coast intensified. Zheng Gaoxing, the Admiral of the Qing naval force in
Fujian, observed that people who constituted the pirate bands were composed
not only of fishermen who had been struggling to make a living but also of sea-
men who had lost their jobs and resorted to robbery;63 obviously, in their
battle to survive lower-class people in the coastal areas became pirates when
faced with economic hardship. The composition of the pirate bands had not
changed drastically from what it had been in the Jiaqing era, the majority were
from the coastal trades of fishermen and seamen.
Looking at their geographical origins, according to the memorial that
reported the arrest of pirates along the coast of Fujian on July 1, 1847, the pirates
were reported to have come from Tongan 同安, Maxiang 馬巷, Jingjiang 晉江,
Nanan 南安, Fuqing 福清, Huian 惠安 in Fujian Province, and from Jiaying
嘉應 prefecture in Guangdong Province.64 In short, most pirate bands were
composed of Fujianese (mainly from southern Fujian) and Cantonese pirates.
Moreover, as will be discussed later, Portuguese, British, and American people
were also members of these pirate bands.
Why was there a rise in the number of pirates during this period? The answer
might lie in the changing composition of the people who were trading. It is
important to note that Western ships had now begun participating in the

61 The Chinese Courier (Canton), vol. 2, no. 5, September 1, 1832.

62 JJDLFZZ, 3-64-3951-41,42, DG26.6.22, Memorial of Yiliang 怡良.
63 GZDXF, vol. 4, 700 (002026), Memorial of Zheng Gaoxiang 鄭高祥, XF2.4.11.
64 GZDDG, vol. 19, 556-60 (010507), Memorial of Xu Jishe 徐繼畬, DG27.6.27.
218 Toyooka And Murakami

coastal trade, and their role in the China-Southeast Asia route was growing.65
Moreover, because of the impact of the Great Depression throughout China,66
the volume of trade did not immediately increase after the treaty ports opened.
The upshot of this was that the commercial opportunities available to Fujian
and Cantonese ships substantially decreased. It seems reasonable to assume,
that having to contend with these dwindling trade opportunities, the seamen
to turn to piratical activities.
However, it is even more important to examine the changes that occurred in
trade at this time. On March 26, 1844, Liu Yunke 劉韻珂, the governor-general
of Fujian and Zhejiang, pointed out the declining role of smuggling in the
small ports around Amoy.67 The fact that trade was becoming increasingly
concentrated in and around the treaty ports caused a decline in the function of
small ports, whose volume of trade had been growing from the beginning of
the nineteenth century at the expense of main ports such as Amoy, where the
opium trade had flourished until just before the First Opium War.
Therefore, it is feasible to assume that people living in coastal areas who
were unable to enjoy the profits gained through trade in the small ports either
engaged in trade in the treaty ports or became pirates. As mentioned above,
pirates also joined the opium trade and, because opium-smuggling boats were
armed, it was easy for them to become pirates.
By this time the pirates were becoming a major impediment to trade in the
region as they did not have the power to maintain order or stability. Moreover,
Western countries such as Britain utterly refused to submit to the pirates’ rules.
Faced with such a precarious economic situation, controlling the pirates
became a significant issue for both the local Qing authorities and the foreign
powers.
Suppressing this new generation of pirates proved to be an insurmountable
challenge for the Qing naval forces. Before the First Opium War, the Qing naval
squadron’s ships in Fujian had not been built and repaired as the regulations
required.68 Zhang Jixun 張集馨, who arrived in Zhangzhou 漳州 as the daotai

65 Miyata Michiaki 宮田道昭, Chugoku no kaiko to enkai shijo: Chogoku kindai keizaishi ni
kansuru ichi shiten 中国の開港と沿海市場：中国近代経済史に関する一視点 [The
open­ing of China and the market in the coastal area: A perspective on the economic his-
tory of modern China] (Tokyo: Toho Shoten, 2006), 87-88
66 Lin Man-houng, China Upside Down: Currency, Society, and Ideologies, 1808-1856 (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center), 124-33.
67 YZDS, vol. 7, 410, Memorial of Liu Yunke, DG24.2.8.
68 Zhou Zifeng 周子峰, “Yapian zhanzheng zhiqian Fujian haifang jianlun” 鴉片戰爭之前
福建海防簡論 [A study on the coastal defense of Fujian before the Opium War], in
Yapian Zhanzheng zairenshi 鴉片戰爭的再認識 [A reappraisal of the Opium War], ed.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 219

(circuit intendant) of Tingzhou 汀州, Zhangzhou, and Longyan 龍岩prefec-

tures after the fall of Amoy on August 26, 1841 during the Opium War, reported
that the Qing naval forces in Fujian considered business their primary mission
and did not bother to suppress piracy. Furthermore, the naval forces were not
very different from the pirates because, when the naval forces recruited sol-
diers, pirates would immediately enroll.69
The First Opium War made the situation worse. The British reported that
they captured twenty-six war junks of the Qing naval forces carrying more
than 128 cannons in Amoy. They seized more than 500 guns in total.70 The
already lackluster Qing naval forces in Fujian were heavily damaged by the
British Army’s occupation of Amoy. Subsequently, their post-war ability to sup-
press pirates was fundamentally crippled.
The upshot was a reversal in the power of the naval forces and the pirates. In
July 1847, a report by Layton, the British Consul in Amoy, states that within the
previous three years, Lin Kan 林坎, a Fujianese pirate, had sent several writ-
ten challenges to the admiral of the Qing naval force in Fujian, Dou Chenbiao
竇辰彪, and had personally attacked the admiral’s flagship.71 This seems to
suggest that, by then, the Qing naval forces had lost their authority completely.
Pertinently, if the naval forces and the pirates had engaged in a direct con-
frontation, there was a strong possibility that the navy would have been
defeated. According to the British consul’s report in 1849, some of the Qing
naval forces had actually been defeated by the pirates near Yushan 漁山 in
Zhejiang province.72 Because the Qing naval forces were virtually powerless,
their chances of playing a major role in restoring order in the coastal areas
would have been very slim indeed.
At this critical juncture, the Royal Navy decided to intervene. Although the
navy had played an active role in subduing the pirates during the Opium War,
afterward it had adopted a noninterventionist policy. This policy had eventu-
ally to be abandoned because of pirate attacks on foreign ships, particularly
attacks on vessels involved in the opium trade. The worst incident took place
on February 7, 1847 in Shenhu 深滬 Bay, approximately 60 km from Amoy. Two
ships belonging to a British firm were attacked by Cantonese pirates. The

Lin Qiyuan 林啟彦 and Zhu Yiyi 朱益宜 (Hong Kong: Zhongwen daxue chubanshe,
2003), 142.
69 DXHJL, 63.
70 William D. Bernard, Narrative of the Voyages and Services of the Nemesis, from 1840 to 1843;
and of the Combined Naval and Military Operations in China, vol. 2 (London, Henry Col-
burn, 1844), 124, 134.
71 FO228/71, Layton to Davis, No. 63, July 24, 1847.
72 FO228/98, Layton to Bonham, No. 13, June 9, 1849.
220 Toyooka And Murakami

opium and the proceeds on board were plundered, and more than thirty crew-
members were murdered.73
Some Qing officials were suspected of having been involved in the incident.
Perhaps because of their collusion, the Qing investigation into this matter
made little headway. Consequently, the British decided to employ their own
warships to suppress the pirates in the vicinity of Amoy. In March 1847, in an
attempt to suppress the pirates around Amoy, the sloop, HMS Scout, seized
three pirate ships and captured eighty-nine men. Eighty-six of the captives
were handed over to the Qing government, of whom eighty were sentenced to
be beheaded. This suppression of the pirates was welcomed by the merchants
and citizens of Amoy.74 Local Qing officials also repeatedly expressed their
gratitude.75
In 1848, the British Admiralty became aware of the outrages perpetrated by
the pirates along the Chinese coast. The reports that reached its ears decided it
to change its policy, and instead of the previous ad hoc measures, it recom-
mended the consistent suppression of pirates in collaboration with the British
consuls and Qing officials. Dealing with the pirates had become an officially
endorsed pursuit; the suppression of any piratical activity would be rewarded
by the British Exchequer.76 It would mean Britain joining continuous efforts
to suppress piracy along the Fujian coast.
Meanwhile, in Amoy, the alliance between local Qing officials and the Royal
Navy continued to strengthen. In response to a request from the British consul,
the provincial government agreed that, in cases in which the owner of a pirate
ship was unidentifiable and her cargo was captured by a Royal Navy ship, the
government would convert the cargo into cash and give it to the officers, men
and marines of the British warship.77 The alliance between the Royal Navy and
the Chinese merchants in Amoy also continued to flourish. In June 1849, HMS
Pilot, that was suppressing piratical activities on the western coast of Taiwan,
was able to continue her activities after following a lead obtained from a mer-
chant junk.78 A sure sign that Chinese merchants were willing to help the
British suppress pirates in the area.

73 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 243-46; FO228/70 Layton to Davis, no. 15, February 9, 1847.
74 FO228/70, Layton to Davis, no. 38, March 29, 1847.
75 FO663/52, Heng Chang, The Taotai to Layton, British Consul, DG27.6.12; FO663/52, Heng
Chang to Layton, DG27.7.21; FO663/52, Heng Chang to Layton, DG27.10.28; FO663/52, Heng
Chang to Layton, DG28.5.28.
76 Fox, British Admirals, 101-05, 137.
77 FO663/52, Heng Chang to Layton, DG27.12.29.
78 FO228/98, Encl. No. 11 in Layton to Bonham, No. 13, June 9, 1849.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 221

A clear pattern had developed; the Qing officials (local civil officials and
officers in the naval forces) and the merchants of Amoy forged an alliance with
the Royal Navy, its object to combat the Fujianese and Cantonese pirates.
Although this pattern of confrontation between the pirates and the alliance of
Qing officials and merchants had existed since the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury, now the involvement of the Royal Navy strengthened the official-merchant
side. The impact of the Opium War might have lain behind this desire for
regional cooperation: Officials and merchants in Amoy had been forced to rec-
ognize the power of the Royal Navy, while the British wanted to secure the area
against piracy to ensure safe passage for their trade, making an alliance a logi-
cal development.
Because the Qing government was unable to deal with the resurgent pirates
on its own after the Opium War, it worked together with merchants to aid the
Royal Navy based in Amoy and succeeded in both eliminating the large-scale
pirate fleets along the Fujian coast by the end of the 1840s and in suppressing
the pirate bands, relying on the superior skill of the seamen and the modern
technology that improved the efficacy of ships and equipment. How did the
Fujianese and Cantonese pirates react when they were faced with suppression
by the Royal Navy?

5 Rise of the Cantonese Pirates and the End of the Pirate Era

During the first half of the 1850s, after an uprising by the Xiaodaohui 小刀會
(Small Sword Society) in Amoy in May 1853, the coastal people of Fujian and
Guangdong provinces revolted in Shanghai and Guangdong. Because Fujianese
and Cantonese pirates participated in these rebellions and all the revolts
erupted around treaty ports, it was assumed that the forces that had been
excluded from trade were now attempting to capture the treaty ports in which
trade had become more concentrated. Of these revolts, the uprising of the
Small Sword Society in Amoy is particularly instructive in mapping the move-
ments of Fujianese and Cantonese pirates.
The Small Sword Society in Amoy was a rebel group led by the Singaporean
Chinese. These rebels occupied Amoy and formed the core of the revolt,79 that

79 For details on the Small Sword Uprising in Amoy, see Sasaki Masaya 佐々木正哉, “Kanpō
san nen Amoi Shōtōkai no hanran” 咸豊三年厦門小刀会の反乱 [The revolt of the
Small Sword Society in Amoy in the third year of Xianfeng], Tōyō Gakuhō 東洋学報 45,
no. 4 (1963): 87-112; Huang Jiamo 黃嘉謨, “Yingren yu Xiamen Xiaodaohui shijian” 英人
與廈門小刀會事件 [British and the incident of the Small Sword Society in Amoy],
222 Toyooka And Murakami

was supplied with men and goods from Singapore and aided by piratical forc-
es.80 The revolt depended on its sea power, that essentially consisted of
Fujianese pirates.
This posed a problem for the Qing government. Because the Small Sword
Society rebels obtained their supplies by sea, the government made the strate-
gic decision to impose a blockade. Aware of his fleet’s limitations, the admiral
of the Qing naval force in Fujian proposed a joint attack on the rebels and a
collaborative recovery of Amoy to the British consul.81 His suggestion fell on
deaf ears as the Royal Navy chose to observe neutrality on the grounds the
Small Sword Society did not oppose Britain. Therefore, the Qing officials had to
try to end the rebellion without the Royal Navy’s assistance. As the Qing lacked
the necessary naval power to expel the rebels from Amoy itself and the British
were unwilling to help, the Qing turned to other measures. With their backs to
the wall, the Qing naval forces chose to use west-coast boats, Cantonese pirates,
to assist in quelling the revolt.82
On account of the involvement of the Cantonese pirates, the siege of Amoy
made headway both on sea and on land in October. On November 11, the Small
Sword Society’s fleet escaped from Amoy, that could then be occupied by the
Qing army.83 Viewed from one particular angle, the defeat of the Small Sword
Society can be considered a victory by the Cantonese pirates over the Fujianese
pirates.
After losing its base and being dispersed, the Small Sword Society faced a
stark choice: Either plunder along the coast or die. Its exigencies sealed its fate
because it now became a target for the Royal Navy, that had originally observed
neutrality. In November 1853, immediately after the fall of Amoy, ships belong-
ing to the Small Sword Society were deemed pirate ships and were suppressed
by the Royal Navy.84 Therefore, although the Royal Navy refrained from eject-
ing the Small Sword Society from Amoy, it did contribute to suppressing the
latter’s remaining forces before they could become a major piratical concern.

Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan 中央研究院近代史研究所集刊 7

(1978): 309-54; Murakami Ei 村上衛, Umi no kindai Chugoku: Fukkenjin no katsudo to
Igrisu/Shinchō [Maritime history of modern China: Local Fujian actors and British and
Chinese Empires] 海の近代中国：福建人の活動とイギリス・清朝 (Nagoya: Nagoya
Dai­­gaku Shuppankai, 2013), 248-55.
80 CM 9. 443, August 11, 1853, 130.
81 FO663/56, Admiral She to the British Consul, XF3.5.4; FO228/155, Encl. No. 2 in Backhouse
to Bonham, No. 38, June 18, 1853.
82 FO228/155, Backhouse to Bonham, No. 60, August, 31, 1853.
83 FO228/155, Robertson to Bonham, No. 93, November 14, 1853.
84 FO228/155, Robertson to Bonham, No. 103, December 1, 1853.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 223

With the assistance of these activities, the Qing government was able to gain
an advantage over the rebels, and the remnants of the Small Sword Society fled
to Southeast Asia.
The Fujianese pirates were finally weakened not only because of the more
consistent suppression of piracy by the Royal Navy but also because of their
defeat by the alliance of Qing naval forces and Cantonese pirates as well as the
expansion of the latter. At this point, the influence of the Fujianese pirates,
who had played a major role along the coast of China ever since the Song
period, began to decline drastically.
In contrast to the decline of the Fujianese pirates after the fall of Amoy, the
Cantonese pirates saw a gradual increase in the power, largely attributable to
their relationship with westerners after the opening of the treaty ports. The
Cantonese pirates, who had maintained relations with westerners even before
the opening of the treaty ports, could boast superior western technology and
were supplied with western munitions. For example, the west-coast boats cap-
tured at Meizhou Island 湄洲島 in September 1858 were equipped with
cannons made in Britain.85 At this point the Cantonese pirates gained undeni-
able superiority over other groups because of their access to advanced western
equipment.
The westerners did more than supply the Cantonese pirates with their tech-
nology and goods, they also sometimes sailed on Cantonese pirate ships. For
instance, British and Germans were among the crew of the pirate ships sup-
pressed off Meizhou Island in July 1860.86 This was not an isolated incident;
there were many cases of Westerners sailing on such pirate ships. Moreover,
there were some cases of Portuguese ships indulging in piracy alongside the
west-coast boats.87
The situation became even more complex because the Cantonese pirates
occasionally disguised their ships as western ships and would fly the Union
Jack for this purpose.88 Because they employed these methods to disguise the
nationality of their ships, they were able to some extent to avoid becoming
targets of the Royal Navy.
Forging a relationship with the foreigners also enabled the Cantonese
pirates to secure their safety of their bases. On December, 2 1851, Yurui, the
governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang, pointed out that Macao and Hong

85 ADM125/3, Vansittart to Seymour, October 5, 1858.

86 FO228/285, Encl. No. 1 in Gingell to Bruce, No. 68, September 6, 1860.
87 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 341-42.
88 Gerald S. Graham, The China Station: War and Diplomacy 1830-1860 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1978), 284.
224 Toyooka And Murakami

Kong in Guangdong as well as Shipu 石浦 and Wenzhou 溫州 in Zhejiang,

served as bases for the pirates.89 Of these locations, Macao and Hong Kong
were particularly well-known lairs, and it was there that the Cantonese pirates
made contact with westerners. Shipu and Wenzhou were also notable because
they were situated between the treaty ports of Ningbo and Fuzhou. The disper-
sion of their locations meant that the Royal Navy, based in the treaty ports, was
faced with a difficult task when it wanted to reach these lairs and suppress
piratical activities. The situation worsened when Ningbo, itself a treaty port,
became a pirate base after the opening of the treaty ports because the Qing
local authorities was not equal to the task of controlling the Portuguese and
Cantonese.90
Another key element in the expansion of the Cantonese pirates was their
careful manipulation of their relationship with the Qing officials. The Canton­
ese pirates and the officials might have forged an alliance because many
officers in the Qing naval forces in Fujian, including the admirals, were Can­
tonese. For example, Dou Chenbiao, who was originally a pirate and later
served as an admiral of the Fujian naval force, that he entered in 1841, for nine
years, was Cantonese.91 Zheng Gaoxiang 鄭高祥, who succeeded Dou as admi-
ral, was from Chaozhou in Guangdong province.92 Their shared heritage might
have made these officers more receptive to the prospect of cooperating with
the Cantonese pirates. Consequently, the increase in the number of Cantonese
in the naval force in Fujian was probably connected to the simultaneous
expansion of the Cantonese pirates along the coast there.
These pirates actively participated in crushing not only revolts such as that
of the Small Sword Society in Amoy, discussed above, they also had a hand in
putting down major insurrections like the Taiping Rebellion. Furthermore, by
the beginning of the 1850s, the west-coast boats were being used in various
locations as a countermeasure to piracy. In Amoy, because of the continued
deterioration of the Qing naval forces, these boats were also used to suppress
pirates even after the defeat of the Small Sword Society.93 The Cantonese
pirates were happy to pursue their own piratical activities while helping the
authorities suppress non-Cantonese pirates.
To cut a long story short, the Cantonese pirates shrewdly took complete
advantage of their relationships with both westerners and local Qing author­-

89 GZDXF, vol. 3, 473-77 (001377), 2, Memorial of Yurui 裕瑞, XF1.10.10.

90 Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy, 343-46.
91 QGLDQ, vol. 2, 666.
92 GZDXF, vol. 4, 501-02 (001916), Memorial of Ji Zhichang 季芝昌, XF2.2.21.
93 FO228/171, Parkes to Bowring, No. 61, September 21, 1854.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 225

ities. As a result, they were able to establish secure bases in treaty ports and
perpetrate piratical activities throughout a wide-ranging area along the coast.
Needless to say, this situation could not continue as long as the Cantonese
pirates suppressed other pirates with official endorsement but continued to
pursue their own piratical activities. They also became quite expensive part-
ners. According to a report by Henry Smith Parkes, a British consul, in December
1858, the crews of west-coast boats and the mixed force of Qing naval forces as
well as those on the west-coast boats employed by the government were
demanding almost the same amount of money from merchants.94 The inevita-
ble conclusion has to be that the naval forces not only employed Cantonese
pirates, they also acted like pirates themselves by demanding payment for pro-
tection backed by the threat of force (a protection racket). Furthermore, on
February 13, 1855, Winchester, a British consulate interpreter in Amoy, was told
that a squadron of west-coast boats formerly employed by the circuit intend-
ant of Amoy had set sail eight days earlier and had captured two Taiwanese
and two Quanzhou junks.95 It seems that no sooner had the Cantonese pirates
been dismissed from official service than they immediately returned to pirati-
cal activities.
In short, the Cantonese pirates were increasingly obstructing trade in the
treaty ports. A report from the captain of a ship owned by Jardine, Matheson &
Co. states that two fleets of vessels in a convoy that departed from the Gulf of
Quanzhou were captured off Meizhou Island by a piratical fleet composed of
heavily armed west-coast boats and Quanzhou junks.96 Against such large
numbers of well-equipped opponents, it was difficult to ensure the safety of
the junk trade even in groups formed into convoys.
In the mid-1850s, the piratical activities of the Cantonese pirates had
reached their zenith and had spun almost completely beyond the control of
authorities. The Qing government, recognizing the problem but unable to
tackle the pirates alone, looked for other measures.
After the enthronement of the Xianfeng Emperor in March 1850, the Qing
central government adopted a more anti-foreign stance, and consequently its
relationship with Britain deteriorated. Consequently, the cooperation between
the Royal Navy and the local Qing government was no longer reported to the
Qing central government by the governor-general or the governor in Fuzhou.
This situation did not necessarily deter cooperation on the local level. Even
in provincial capitals such as Fuzhou and Guangzhou, local Qing authorities

94 FO228/171, Parkes to Bowring, No. 86, December 12, 1854.

95 FO228/188, Winchester to Bowring, No. 30, February 13, 1855.
96 JM/B7/5, Millar to JM, November 28, 1853.
226 Toyooka And Murakami

and the Royal Navy did work together. In Amoy, an alliance between local Qing
authorities and merchants and the British Consul and the Royal Navy had
already been formed against the pirates, as discussed above, and in the 1850s it
was reinforced. The local Qing officials, unable to control the Cantonese
pirates, responded positively to proposals from the British consul and Royal
Navy seeking cooperation against the pirates.
On March 30, 1857, when the circuit intendant of Amoy was informed that a
fleet of junks carrying rice from Taiwan had been captured by west-coast boats
near Amoy, he requested the dispatch of British warships to help. George
Morrison, the British consul in Amoy, complied with this request, and the
sloop HMS Camilla set sail to take charge of searching for and suppressing the
pirates.97 This sends a clear signal that a cooperative relationship had been
formed, linking Chinese merchants and British warships through local Qing
officials and the British Consul.
The Cantonese pirates were dealt a serious blow by this systematic coopera-
tion between the Royal Navy and local Qing authorities. This local system then
combined for the suppression of pirates in the seas off Guangdong following
an alliance between the Royal Navy and local Qing authorities around Hong
Kong during the mid-1850s.98 Furthermore, during the Arrow or Second
Opium War, when the Royal Navy was deployed on a large scale along the coast
of China, Admiral James Hope, Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies and
the China Station, allowed his subordinates to suppress the pirates via the
British consuls.99 All these cumulative efforts led to a decline in the activities
of the Cantonese pirates during the second half of the 1850s.
In 1860, the Qing forces expelled the Cantonese pirates from the vicinity of
Fuzhou because the former had clashed there with the local Fujianese.100
Then, on November 19, 1860, a fleet of west-coast boats tried to invade Fuzhou
but were defeated and suffered great losses.101 This series of defeats and humil-
iations sealed the decline and marked the end of the golden age of Cantonese
pirates in the coastal area of Fujian.
Subsequently, although Cantonese pirates remained active along the coast
of Guangdong and Zhejiang, Royal Navy suppression expanded. In June 1860,
HMS Encounter, with other British ships, French warships, and the Qing army,

97 FO228/233, Morrison to Bowring, No. 20, April 3, 1857.

98 Graham, The China Station, 285-86.
99 ADM1/5735, Hope to ADM (Paget), No. 254, December 27, 1859.
100 GZDXF, vol. 26, 107-9 (012597), Memorial of Qingrui 慶瑞, XF10.6.25.
101 GZDXF, vol. 27, 660-63 (013345), Memorial of Qing Rui XF11.10.24;” FO228/289 Incl. 1 in
Medhurst to Bruce, No. 95, November 23, 1860.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 227

attacked Cantonese pirates assembled in Zhoushan and burned 200 junks.102

During the first half of the 1860s, Cantonese pirates’ activities in Zhejiang were
also suppressed. Thereafter, although some piratical activity did continue in
Guangdong, large-scale Cantonese pirate groups had virtually disappeared
from the seas.
The activities of the Royal Navy had a large beneficial influence on the
regional order. It became critically important that British warships be anchored
in treaty ports because they were a substantial deterrent to pirates. In fact, the
pirates did not even attempt to capture Amoy when a warship was stationed
there, realizing it would have been an impossible task. A naval presence
ensured the security of the treaty port of Amoy.
The presence of the Royal Navy meant that pirates were unable to disrupt
trade by foreign ships in the treaty ports. Ships involved in the opium trade
moved to the treaty ports and their neighboring areas, thereby establishing a
concentration of foreign vessel trade in the treaty ports. This signaled the end
of the decentralization of trade in southern Fujian, which had begun at the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
Although the treaty ports provided safe-havens, the pirates who attacked
Chinese junks in the vicinity of Amoy had not yet been eliminated. Because
the Royal Navy could only suppress piratical activities on the high seas and
could not encroach on the territorial waters of China, the Qing government
was responsible for maintaining public peace in its territorial waters. A report
by the British consul Morrison in May 1859 indicates that the depredations of
piratical villages continued unchecked. Local Qing authorities had asked the
consul to cooperate in suppressing this piracy, but he declined because the
Royal Navy was not permitted to pursue its activities in “inland seas.”103 Despite
all the efforts of the Qing and British alike, the suppression of piracy was far
from complete.
The question that now arises is why the Qing local authorities did not do
more to eliminate the pirates around Amoy. Simply put, once the trade in the
treaty ports had been stabilized and become concentrated there, the rebellion
suppressed, and the Cantonese pirates restrained, these small-scale pirates no
longer posed any great threat to local Qing authorities in Amoy. Consequently,
they were content to tolerate these pirates to some degree as a local nuisance.
Finally, by the end of the 1850s, the Qing government was able to restore
public order in southern Fujian, in some ways analogous to the order estab-
lished at the end of the seventeenth century. This was accomplished by

102 ADM1/5790, Incl. in Hope to Paget, No. 409, October 24, 1862.
103 FO228/265, Morrison to Bruce No. 6, May 30, 1859.
228 Toyooka And Murakami

concentrating trade in Amoy and employing various methods to eradicate

large-scale piracy. It was difficult for the Qing authorities to intervene any more
deeply in local matters because they had insufficient military forces to back
them up. Furthermore, at this point in time the priority of the suppression of
pirates was quite low. The Qing Empire was now having to confront major
rebellions that threatened the stability of the state as a whole. Although there
was a time lag, similar restorations of public order were achieved in other
treaty ports after the 1860s.
The Qing government was obliged to cooperate with Britain in suppress-
ing piracy because of the Treaty of Tianjing (Tientsin) and the Convention
of Beijing that concluded the Arrow War. The terms of this treaty can be
understood as a ratification of the ongoing cooperation between local Qing
authori­ties and the British on the local level as they existed in Amoy, and the
expansion of this system of cooperation to all treaty ports.
During the 1860s, the age of pirates, that had begun at the end of the eight-
eenth century in the coastal areas of South China, came to an end, succumbing
to the increasingly effective suppression of large-scale piratical activities. The
centralization of trade and the development of the system based on the
Foreign Inspectorate of Customs in the treaty ports ushered the coastal area in
a new age.
At the same time, the British Royal Navy acted with more restraint. After
1868, Britain began to rein in British military intervention104 and after 1869 the
number of overseas stations was reduced.105 However, just at this juncture, in
1868, as the construction of China’s first steam gunboat at the Jiangnan Arsenal
and Dockyard illustrates, the modern Chinese navy had begun to take shape.106
This development gave the Qing government the capacity to restore order in
the coastal areas of China on its own. The new order forged in this process was
more stable than that of the early Qing period, mainly because of the techno-
logical superiority of the modern naval forces and the introduction of the
maritime customs system.

104 Fox, British Admirals, 67.

105 Peter Burroughs, “Defense and Imperial Disunity,” in The Oxford History of the British
Empire III, The Nineteenth Century, ed. Andrew Porter (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), 332-33.
106 On the Chinese Steam Navy, see Richard N.J. Wright, The Chinese Steam Navy 1862-1945
(London: Chatam Publishing, 2000).
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 229

Conclusion

Pirates in the late Qing period obviously influenced the economic conditions
in the coastal areas and, conversely, the rise and fall of piratical activity was in
turn influenced by economic changes. The pirates whose depredations had a
negative effect on trade were constantly confronted by the Qing government
and merchants. This dichotomy became more complicated after the treaty
ports opened, when foreign powers such as Britain began to get involved, bol-
stering the strength of the side of the Qing government and merchants.
During the early nineteenth century, the Qing government itself suppressed
piracy in cooperation with the Macao authorities. Britain (the East India
Company) had no influence on the suppression of the pirates at that time.
However, the power of the Qing naval forces declined during the First Opium
War, after which they were no longer in a position to control piracy. This situa-
tion was relieved by the arrival of the British Royal Navy. After the late 1840s,
the Qing government was able to suppress the Fujianese and Cantonese pirates
by resorting to the power of the British fleet.
Thereafter, the Qing government accomplished the restoration and reorga-
nization of order in the coastal area with the assistance of the Royal Navy, a
move that represented lesser financial burden than that needed to pacify the
Chinese pirates.
After the early nineteenth century, Britain itself began to suppress piracy in
the coastal areas around the South China Sea. Recent studies regard this pro-
tection of trade routes by the British Empire as part of an offer of international
public goods. However, it is imperative to recognize another aspect of this
development: The Royal Navy increasingly served as a substitute for the local
authorities in the suppression of piracy. As discussed in this chapter, this influ-
enced trade relations and the situation on the local level, while the new order
that emerged not only strengthened the Qing government but also trans-
formed the roles of people living in the coastal regions.

Abbreviations (Historical Sources)

ADM125 Great Britain Admiralty, China Station. The National Archives, Kew, UK.
COT Jin Guoping and Wu Zhiliang ed. Correspondência oficial trocada entre as
autoridades de Cantão e os procuradores do senado: Funo das chapas sinicas
em Português. Macau: Fundação Macau, 2000.
DAM Documentação Avulsa de Macau. Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisboa,
Portugal.
230 Toyooka And Murakami

DXHJL Zhang Jixin 張集馨. Dao Xian huanhai jianwen lu 道咸宦海見聞錄 [The
record of the official world during the Daoguang and Xianfeng reigns].
Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981.
FO Foreign Office Archives, the National Archives, Kew, UK.
GZDQL Gongzhongdang Qianglong chao zouzhe 宮中檔乾隆朝奏摺 [Secret palace
memorials of the Qianlong Period], 75 vols. Taipei: National Palace
Museum, 1982-1988.
GZDJQ Gongzhongdang Jiaqingchao zouzhe 宮中檔嘉慶朝奏摺 [Secret palace
memorials of the Jiaqing Period]. National Palace Museum. Taipei, Repub­
lic of China.
GZDDG Gongzhongdang Daoguangchao zouzhe 宮中檔道光朝奏摺 [Secret pal­ace
memorials of the Daoguang period]. National Palace Museum. Taipei,
Republic of China.
GZDXF Gongzhongdang Xianfengchao zouzhe 宮中檔咸豐朝奏摺 [Secret palace
memorials of the Xianfeng period]. National Palace Museum, Taipei,
Republic of China.
IOR India Office Records, British Library, London, UK.
JJDLFZZ Junjichu dang’an lufu zouzhe 軍機處檔案錄副奏摺 [The record book of
the Grand Council copied vermillion rescript memorials]. The First
Historical Archives of China. Beijing, People’s Republic of China.
JM The Jardine Matheson Archives, University Library, Cambridge, UK.
MQAWDW Mingqing shidai Aomen wenti dang’an wenxian huibian 明清時代澳門問題
檔案文獻匯編 [Documents related Macao in the Ming-Qing period].
Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1999.
MQSLGB Mingqing shiliao geng bian 明清史料庚編 [Histori­cal materials from the
Ming and Qing periods: 7th set]. 10 vols. Taipei: Institute of History and
Philology, Academia Sinica, 1960.
NWYGZY Na Yencheng 那彦成. Nawenyi gong zou yi 那文毅公奏議 [Memorials of
Nayencheng]. 80 vols. Compiled by Rong’an 容安, 1830.
QAZD Fang Liu 劉芳 and Wenqin Zhang 章文欽, ed. Putaoya Dongpota
dang’anguan cang Qingdai Aomen Zhongwen dang’an huibian 葡萄牙東波
塔檔案館藏清代澳門中文檔案彙編 [Collecção de documentos sínicas do
IAN/TT referentes a Macau durante a dinastia Qing]. Macau: Fundação
Macau, 1999.
QGLDQ Qin Guojing 秦國經 ed. Qingdai guanyuan Lilli dang’an quanbian 清代官
員履歷檔案全編 [Entire archives about personal history of officials during
the Qing period]. 30 vols. Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe,
1997.
The Suppression of Pirates in the China Seas 231

YZDS The First Historical Archives of China ed. Yapian zhanzheng dang’an shil-
iao 鴉片戰爭檔案史料 [The collection of the archives on the Opium War].
7 vols. Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe 1992.
ZPZZCZ Gongzhong zhupi zouzhe caizhenglei 宮中硃批奏摺財政類 [Vermillion
rescript memorials, finance]. The First Historical Archives of China.
Beijing, People’s Republic of China.
ZPZZJW Gongzhong zhupi zouzhe junwulei 宮中硃批奏摺軍務類 [Vermillion
rescript memorials, military]. The First Historical Archives of China.
Beijing, People’s Republic of China.

Abbreviations (Era Names of the Qing)

S Shunzhi 順治 (1644-1661)
KX Kangxi 康熙 (1662-1722)
YZ Yongzheng 雍正 (1723-1735)
QL Qianlong 乾隆 (1736-1795)
JQ Jiaqing 嘉慶 (1796-1820)
DG Daoguang 道光 (1821-1850)
XF Xianfeng 咸豐 (1851-1861)
TZ Tongzhi 同治 (1862-1874)
GX Guangxu 光緒 (1875-1908)
XT Xuantong 宣統 (1909-1911)
232 Conclusion Conclusion

Conclusion
Ota Atsushi

In the Introduction I raised several questions about antipiracy campaigns and

state sovereignty in early-modern Europe and Asia. Now it is the time to return
to them bearing in mind the arguments in the preceding chapters.
The First Part has dealt with privateering and the state politics that advo-
cated the abolition of privateering in Europe. By the early eighteenth century
European states had established a common legal framework to control pri-
vateering. Within (and sometimes beyond) this framework, states, whether
European or Maghribi, remained actively involved in “premodern” privateer-
ing in the Mediterranean until the 1820s, usually considered the “modern”
era. As private business and state diplomacy were inextricably intermingled,
consuls and merchants mediated international relationships, sometimes re­-
sorting to violence, without necessarily adhering to the instructions of their
governments. In Britain, an aggressive type of free trade policy, supported by
com­mercial and industrial interests contributed to the abolition of privateer-
ing in 1856. This process went in parallel with the suppression of indigenous
maritime raiding in Asia.
The Second Part has discussed antipiracy campaigns in the Asian seas. In
the early-nineteenth century Persian Gulf, British officials called the Qawāsimi
pirates as an excuse to mount naval expeditions against them, because the lat-
ter were in the process of being integrated into the powerful Wahhabist/Suʿūd,
and they were in conflict with the Āl Bū Saʿīd, a clash in which Britain became
reluctantly involved. In Northwest India at the turn of the nineteenth century,
the English East India Company was not keen to suppress piracy, although
local states were poised to take steps to deal with it. In early-nineteenth cen-
tury West Kalimantan, the Dutch authorities declared the suppression of
piracy, making it one of the goals of their colonial rule, but in fact they collabo-
rated with a local ex-pirate leader to tackle with piracy. In the Philippine
Islands, the Spanish suppressed piracy rigorously, and it was the deportation of
ex-pirate members to inland areas that finally brought the suppression to an
end.
The Third Part has discussed antipiracy politics in East Asia. In Japan, the
Toyotomi regime took steps to curb piracy as early as the late sixteenth century,
while its successor, the Tokugawa regime, established the maritime control
system that strictly prohibited piracy in the early seventeenth century. In
China, after the Opium War the Qing government relied heavily on the British

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_011

Conclusion 233

Royal Navy, first to suppress pirates and later to maintain political and com-
mercial order in the coastal areas.
From these diverse and complicated developments, we can draw the follow-
ing conclusions. Firstly, as is shown in the Mediterranean, European state
diplomacy was not fully separated from private commercial interests until the
early nineteenth century; a situation that made it difficult to enact a state
monopoly of violence in the form of the abolition of privateering. Therefore, in
this sense state sovereignty was still being contested in the emerging modern
nation-states in early nineteenth-century Europe. Secondly, as the cases in the
Persian Gulf and Northwest India indicate, the Europeans were not particu-
larly concerned about tackling local piracy, at least in the early phases of their
presence in Asia. Thirdly, the cases in the Persian Gulf and West Kalimantan
make it clear that the European authorities sometimes created pirates simply
by designating particular groups as such. By this subterfuge, when they carried
out military actions against them Europeans were able to avoid the responsi-
bility entailed in a formal war. Hence, the existence of piracy gave some
European states a good excuse to pursue their expansionistic, free trade impe-
rialism policy, and to justify their colonial rule, under the guise of the battle
against piracy. Fourthly, as the cases of the British and Dutch antipiracy cam-
paigns in Asia indicate, the decision as to who were pirates was arbitrary and
contingent upon local political situations. Basically, the rivals of and/or obsta-
cles to the colonial authorities were chosen to be dismissed as pirates. Fifthly,
the majority of the European antipiracy campaigns in Asia were not launched
in a clear dichotomy structure like Europe vs. Asia or state vs. non-state. The
case of West Kalimantan has indicated that the Dutch authorities were not
able to carry out effective antipiracy campaigns owing to their limited re-
sources, as a result of which their antipiracy practices were a mixture of the
objectives of colonial states, an ex-pirate leader, who was first incorporated
into the Dutch Navy and later raised to the rank of sultan, and local rulers of
indigenous states. Sixthly, the deportation of ex-pirates was the most effective
measure to exterminate piracy, as shown by what happened in Tokugawa Japan
and the Spanish Philippines. Consequently antipiracy politics did not end in a
flourish of arms, but entailed long-term follow-up policies.
Reviewing these points, it is difficult to support the pervasive idea that the
norm of the responsibility of the state to quash piracy was formed in Europe
and was transmitted to areas beyond it. European states did not put the
antipiracy norm fully in practice until the early nineteenth century. It would
seem that they did cast antipiracy politics in a firmer mold as a result of their
experiences of their rather arbitrary antipiracy campaigns in Asia.
234 Ota

Turning to the issue of state sovereignty and the state monopoly of vio-
lence, the cases in Japan and China provide interesting points of discussion.
One important factor behind the antipiracy politics of the Toyotomi and
Tokugawa regimes in Japan seems to have been the fact that the legitimacy of
their rule rested on their claim to be a unifier of the state. Military supremacy
was therefore crucial to their legitimacy and consequently they did not admit
non-state violence that might have threatened state unification and hence
their legitimacy.1 The upshot was that Japan under the Toyotomi and Tokugawa
regimes unswervingly pursued a state monopoly of violence, although it was
not a nation-state in the modern European sense. In China, the use of foreign
military power to quash domestic opponents had been a long-standing tradi-
tion, although it had often led to the collapse of dynasties in Chinese history.
The Qing government, however, successfully maintained its authority for more
than half a century, because the British authorities lacked the will to threaten
the authority of the central government. The British concentrated on estab-
lishing their trade bases in the coastal area because the large China market was
attractive enough without military conquest and political rule. The latter must
have seemed unrealistic given the vastness of China. For these reasons, the
lack of capability in the Qing government to suppress piracy did not become
a problem for its sovereignty. Therefore, the antipiracy politics in China did
not emerge from any anxiety about state sovereignty in relation to a state
monopoly of violence, as was the case in Europe and Japan. The presence and
patrol­ling of the British Navy near the coast was not an issue of sovereignty
in China, as it would have been to modern nation-states.2 Nevertheless, the
Qing government seems to have become more aware of a potential threat from
the British Navy and therefore tactically pursued a diplomatic path that would
keep British influence away from the central government. As a result, the Qing
government, backed up by the military power of the British Navy, successfully
stabilized the authority of the central government.

1 Arano Yasunori has argued that the Toyotomi and Tokugawa regimes claimed Japan’s military
supremacy even in East Asia in order to emphasize the legitimacy of their rule of Japan. They
did so by creating an imaginary “Japanocentric international order” in East Asia. Arano
Yasunori, “The Formation of Japanocentric World Order,” International Journal of Asian Studies
2, no. 2 (2005): 206-08.
2 Okamoto Takashi has argued that China became aware of the issue of sovereignty in the early
twentieth century through the diplomatic negotiations with Russia and Britain over rights to
Outer Mongolia and Tibet respectively. Okamoto Takashi 岡本隆司, Chugoku no tanjo:
Higashi Ajia no kindai gaiko to kokka keisei 中国の誕生：東アジアの近代外交と国家形
成 [The birth of China: International relations and formation of a nation in modern East Asia]
(Nagoya: Nagoya Daigaku Shuppankai, 2017), 353-80.
Conclusion 235

As discussed so far, the development of and factors behind antipiracy poli-

tics in the different areas under study were diverse, but it is still possible to
point out that they did have a shared relationship with a new phase of state-
building and/or a new international relationship. In Europe, the state monopoly
of maritime violence was important to modern nation-state building of its
component countries. Free trade imperialism also marked a new phase in
imperialism, buttressing state use of naval power outside Europe, in order to
remove obstacles to trade, typically maritime plunder. In Northwest India and
West Kalimantan, indigenous states were actively involved in antipiracy cam-
paigns in order to stake their initiative role in the local politics to counter the
English East India Company and to create a better relationship with the Dutch
authorities under the latter’s expanding influence. In Japan, the Toyotomi and
Tokugawa regimes established a more centralized state authority than before,
and in China the Qing government stabilized its central authority as a conse-
quence of its new relationship with the British. Piracy was the form of violence
that proved extremely difficult for states to control and therefore, when states
dared to tackle with piracy, it was often when they were progressing toward a
new idea in their process of state-building, either intentionally or unintention-
ally. As these developments evolved, various European and Asian, and state
and non-state agents involved in antipiracy politics became more aware of the
state monopoly of violence and state sovereignty through their conflicts and
negotiations. The result was the emergence of a “modern” antipiracy norm,
that also impacted on the emergence of the new international order in Asia in
the period under study (in the case of Japan, a new national order in its terri-
tory and territorial waters). The new norm was not the imposition of a
European concept but a result of intermingled negotiations and compromises
between European and Asian agents on different levels. In this way antipiracy
politics in Europe and Asia became more strongly interconnected and they
impacted on each other more strongly than has been previously argued.
The number of antipiracy campaigns rose remarkably after the period
under study, boosted by more organized state control and refining of interna-
tional law, advanced technology, and international cooperation. However,
piracy still obviously exists in many places in the world. As easier access to
high-tech weapons and transportation has made the global movement of
piracy easier, a successful antipiracy campaign in one place soon leads to the
removal or dispersion of piracy to other locations. The lesson of history is, as
surveyed here, that as long as there are states lacking in the capacity and/or the
will to exert effective maritime control, and there are people who will continue
to enjoy profitable clandestine business because of deficient maritime control,
piracy will be a never-ending story.
236 Ota
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Index Index 261

Index

1587 Edict 180-183, 197, see also piracy exile to Echague 154
prohibition edicts exile to Luzon 153-154, 166
1588 Edict 171-172, 174, 178, 183, 197, see also Balangingi Island 153
piracy prohibition edicts destruction 153
1820 General Peace Treaty 69-70, 75 Barbary 6, 19n1
Barlow, George Hilaro 210-211
Abū Ẓabī 90 Batavia 118, 120-123, 126-128, 131-135, 138, 141
acts Bate 99, 106-107, 111-112, see also Okha or
British Parliament Okhamandal
Act of 1759 54 Batin Galang 134
American Act 50 Battle of Lepanto 21n9, 22
Bounty Act of 1825 63 Battle of Sekigahara 190-191, 197
Cruisers and Convoy Act 50 Beijing 116, 201, 209, 228
Prize Act of 1649 49 Belitung 130
Admiralty courts 51, 63 Bengal 210
High Court of Admiralty 49-51, 64 Bermejo, Fr. Julian – anti-piracy activities
Vice Admiralty Court 49, 64 148-149
Aki province 190-191 Beylerbeyi 20, 21n7, 22, 31
Aki Takehara 185-186, 190 Bhavnagar 99, 102-106
Āl Bū Saʿīd 76, 83, 86-90, 93, 95, 233 Bicchu province 184, 191
ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb 93 Biddulph, John 100
Aleppo 38 Bingo province 171, 184, 191
Algeria 19-41 birds’ nests 117, see also trade
Amoy 201, 206, 218-228 Bitchin, Ali 31-32
Angrias 100, 114
blockade runners 159
Ankokuji Ekei 175, 191
Cowie, William 159
Annan 201
Shomburg, Carl 159
Antequera, Juan 160
Bombay 98, 100, 102, 104
Aoki Rihei 189
Diaries 73, 78, 87, 92-93, 95-96
Arrow War 226, 228, see also Second Opium
Gazette 92
War
Government 69, 78, 87, 93-95, 102, 104, 112
Asano Nagayoshi (Nagamasa) 180, 182-184
Marine 69, 100-101, 104, 107
border 15, 129, 136-137, 140-141
Bacri, David 35-39
British 8-9, 11, 13, 15, 117, 119-121, 124, 126, 130,
Balangingi Samal 12, 144, 166
Balearic Islands 25 233-236
Bandar-e ʿAbbās 85, 87 Admiralty 49n19
Bandar-e Būshehr 77-78, 80, 88, 92, 95 country trader 117, 143, 210-213, see also
Bangka 127-128, 131-133 country trader
bansho 178, 188, 193, see also checkpoint Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort
Banū Khālid 86, 90 William 210-211, 213
Banū Maʿīn 86 Empire 59-60, 119
al-Baṣra 77, 86, 89, 90 international public goods 229
Balangingi 143, 145-147, 151-158, 165-167 Royal Navy 10-11, 13, 47, 50, 53-54, 199-201,
Deportados 154 211, 213, 219-229, 233-235

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004361485_013

262 Index

Brooke, James 62, 155-156 Convention of Beijing 228

Bugis 117-118, 120, 122-123, 125-126, 138, 140, Cooleys 100, 102
143 corsair 19n2, 25-29, see also pirates and
Bungo Channel 186 privateers
Bungo Mori 191-192, 197 country trader 143, 210-213, see also British
Busnach, Naphtali 35 country trader
Buzen province 184-185 Cowie, William 159, see also blockade
runners
Cai Qian 200, 205, 207 Cowls 101, 108
Canton 117, 208, 210-211, 213-214, 216-219, Crimean War 56-58, 58n45
221-227, 229, see also Guangzhou Cutch 98, 108-109, 113, see also Kutch
Factory 210
trade 210, 212 daimyo 171-172, 174-175, 177-179, 183-191,
Catholic Rebellion of Amakusa and 193-194, 196-198, see also feudal lord
Shimabara 174, 193 Declaration of Paris 6, 40, 43, 45, 57, 57n41,
checkpoint 172, 178, 180, 188-189, 193, 197-198, 57n42, 58, 59n45, 65, see also Paris
see also bansho Declaration Respecting Maritime Law
Chikugo province 181, 184-185 deserter 178, 188-189, 197
Chikuzen Kafuri 185 Deval, Pierre 39
Chikuzen province 181, 184-186, 197 Dey 33n5, 35, 38-41
China 116-119, 143, 145, 159, 183, 187, 190, Dôgo 177, 185-186
199-219, 221-223, 226-228, 235 Dongning kingdom 203, see also Taiwan
expedition to 210-211, 213-214 drogman (dragoman) 37
Chinese 116, 121, 181, 190, 193, 199-202, Du Bus de Gisignies, Léonard 135
204-217, 219-229 Durgen Gronovius, van der 134
traders 117, 143, 202, 207, 220, 226 Dutch 115, 119-121, 124, 126-142, 174, 193, 203,
Christian 20-25, 35-37, 150, 154, 166, 172, 174, 233-234, 236
194 East India Company 64n55, 115, 127-128,
Christianity 12, 165 see also VOC
prohibition of 193 Dwarka 99, 101, 108, see also Okha or
civil law 51, 64 Okhamandal
civilizing mission 7, see also mission of
civilization Eba Jima (island) 190
Chôsokabe family 177 Edo (Tokyo) 184-185
Chugoku 175, 180, 186 EIC 12, 72, 77, 86, 88, 201, 209-214, 216, see
Clavería, Narcisco 152-154 also English East India Company
coastal defences 149, 218, 228-229 English East India Company 12-13, 72,
Cobden, Richard 56-57, 57n42, 61, 62n50, 65 97-106, 112-114, 117, 143, 201, 210-214, 216,
Coelho, P. Gaspar 179 229, 232, 235, see also EIC
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 37 Ezo (Hokkaido) 175, 187
Coleridge, Samuel T. 69
colonial rivalry 164 fast crab boat 216
Spain, Britain, Germany 164 ferman 30
commodities 143, 145, 167, 221-222, see also feudal lord 3, 5, 13, 135, 171, 192, 196, 198, see
trade also daimyo
Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle 39 fishermen 85, 171, 176, 190, 197, 201, 204,
contraband 6, 51, 53, 54n31, 56, 57n41, 57n42, 216-217
203 Foreign Inspectorate of Customs 204, 228
contrabandistas 150, 167 Fourth Anglo-Dutch War 119
Index 263

France 26, 30, 35, 37-41, 43, 46n11, 53-58, hostis humani generis 23
55n33, 211, 213
Francis, E.A. 136 İbrahim Paşa 95
“free ships, free goods” 53, 56-57 imperialism 59-61
free trade 12, 15, 60-62, 65, 233 Indian Ocean 52, 88, 97, 102, 199
for Cobden 61 “individual enmity” 55-56
Imperialism of Free Trade 59-61, 234, 236 Indochina 199, 204
French warships 226 In’noshima Murakami family 191-192
Fujian 200-208, 215, 217-226 international law 1, 6, 236
Governor of 225 Iranun 12, 119, 143-152, 154-156, 165-167
Ishida Mitsunari 191, 197
Governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang
Itsuki Island 171
218, 223, 225
Iyo Nada 184
maritime custom 205-206
Iyo province 171, 175-179, 184-187, 191, 194-197
Southern 202-203, 217
Fujianese 202-203, 217, 219, 221-223, 226, 229 Janissaries 40, see also ocak
Fuzhou 206, 224-226 Japanese 13, 174, 179, 181, 187, 189-190, 200,
fudaura 178 202-203
Fukabori Sumimasa 181 bandits, see Wokou
Fukaboris 181 Jardine, Matheson & Co. 225
Fukushima Masanori 178, 182-183, 191 Jesuit 179
Johor 119, 124-125, 138-140
Gaekwad 98 Jolo 143-145, 148, 151, 155-164, 166-167
Galata 37
Gayong 119, 135 Kaminoseki 188
gold 122 Karimata Islands 119, 128-130, 132, 134-136
goshi (upper-class samurai) 194, 196-198 Kato Yoshiaki 189, 191
Grotius, Hugo 28 Kazahaya county 175, 184
Guangdong 201, 204-205, 207-208, 215, 217, kenchi 175-176, 178, 184, 197
221, 224, 226-227 Kendawangan 119
authorities 200, 208-210, 213-215 Ketapang 119
Governor-general of Guangdong and Kinki (Kansai) 174-175
Guangxi 207, 209 Kloek, Nicolaas 122
Knights Hospitalers, see Order of St John
Guangzhou 117, 201, 225, see also Canton
Kobayakawa family, Kobayakawas 171, 178,
Gujarat 98-99, 102, 105
184-185
Gusti Bandar 121-123
Kobayakawa Takakage 175-178, 182-186, 190
Kokura 192-193
Hakata 172, 183
Kôno family, Kônos 177, 185-187, 191
Hall, William Edward 1 Kôno Michinao 177, 185-186
Hanseong (Seoul) 187 Korea 187-190
hanshi (upper-class samurai) 194, 198 the Japanese invasion of 178, 187-191, 197
Hartman, C. L. 120, 132 Koxinga 203, see also Zheng Chenggong
Hasan Paşa 22 Kuku 31
Hayreddin Paşa 21-22 Kulugli 34
Hirado 202 kuniokimoku, see punishment orders and
Hizen Nagoya 189 shiokirei
Hızır, see Hayreddin Paşa Kuroda Takataka 176, 189
Hong Kong 224, 226 Kurodas 189
264 Index

Kurose Castle 177, 187 Matan 118, 121-124, 129, 134-136

Kurushima Castle 179 Mediterranean 8, 10, 19-41, 51n24, 233-234
Kurushima Channel 177 Melilla 21
Kurushima family, Kurushimas 178, 180 Mempawa 120-122, 126
Kurushima Michifusa 175, 179 mercenary 1, 3
Kurushima Yasuchika 191-192, 197 Mill, James 56
Kutch 98, 108, 112 Ming 2, 5, 187
Kyoto 175, 188 dynasty 2, 5, 190, 194, 202-203, 205
Kyushu 175, 177, 180-181, 183-186, 191, 193, 197 mission of civilization 12, see also civilizing
the division of 180, 182-183, 185 mission
Môri family, the Môris 177-178, 180, 184-187,
La Calle 38 190-193, 198
Labuan Trading Company 159 Môri Terumoto 175, 180, 184, 186, 193
Landak 122 Morisco 25
Latin America 52n27, 60 Moro 12, 143, 147, 150, see also Iranun and
laws of Oléron 51, 51n24 Balangingi
League of Armed Neutrality 54 mother of pearl, see trade – pearl shell
Lesbos 21 Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb 93
lettre de marque (letter of marque) 23, 49, Lamʿ al-shihāb fī sīra 93
58 Müller, Georg 120, 122-123, 129, 133, 136
Leyden, John 124 Muntinghe, Herman Warner 127-128, 130-133
Libya 19, 21-22 Murakami family, Murakamis 174, 177-178,
Lin Zexu 217 180, 182-189, 191-193, 197-198
Lingding 201, 216 Murakami Kagechika 192-193
Lingga 119-121, 124, 126, 137-139, 141 Murakami Mototake 192-193
Livorno 35 Murakami Motoyoshi 177-179, 182-183, 185,
London 28, 143, 156, 164 190-191, 197
Louis XIII 38 Murakami Takemitsu 186
Louis XIV 27n32 Murakami Takeyoshi 177-179, 185, 188, 190
Louis XVI 28 Mushi Castle 177-178
Lyden, John 124
Nagasaki 174, 181, 202
Macao 13, 201, 208-216, 223-224, 229 Nagato province 191
Chinese 209, 215 Najd 78, 84, 86, 90, see also Nujd
government 208-210, 213-215, 229 Nakato Castle 177-178
Maghribi 10, 19-41, 233 Napoleonic Wars 54-55, 63, 119, 128, 211
Mainwaring, Henry 24 Napollon, Sanson 38
Malay 7, 9, 12, 62-63, 115-122, 124-126, 128, Nation
130-132, 140-141 the capitalized singular 40-41
traders 117 nation-state 1, 7, 14-15, 44, 128, 234, 236
Mami Arnault 22 Nguyễn dynasty 204
Manchester School 56-57, 60, 62, 65 Nii Ôshima Island 178
Manila 48, 143, 148, 150-151, 153-157, 159-167 Nine Years War 52
Maratha 98-99, 103-105, 113 Ningbo 200, 224
chiefs 99 non-state violence 1, 5, 7, 14, 44-45, 52, 235
Marseille 23 Norzagaray, Governor General 157
Masqaṭ 78n37, 85, 89 Noshima Castle 179
Masuda Nagamori 182-183 Noshima Island 177
Index 265

Noshima Murakami family 177, 179, 182, in Southeast Asia 61-63

191-192, see also Murakami family pirates
Nujd, see Najd “Abadella Ben Ahmed” 79
Cantonese 217, 219, 222-227, 229
obanshu (watch-house officials) 189 Chanchia 79
ocak 31-34 Ladrones 199, 210
Okha protection fee 205
chiefs 103, 108 “Rehma ben Jaber,” see “Shaikh Rehma,”
Okhamandal 99, 101-103, 106-107, 109, 113-114 Raḥmah b. Jābir 79
Oda Nobunaga 174-175 Sweedee 78, 86
Opium War 13, 233 Uttobee 78
First 200, 208, 213, 217-219, 221, 229 Pontianak 118-120, 122-124, 126, 128, 131-134
Second 226 Portuguese 13, 15, 174, 179, 181, 193, 208, 210,
Oran 21 213, 217
Orang Laut 122, 134 Empire 208
Order of St John 21, 24 prahus 12, 123, 131, 133, 135, 145, 147-148, 151,
Order of Saint Stephen 24 154, 156-158, 160-162
Osaka 176, 182-183, 185 privateering 1, 4-6, 10-11, 233
Castle 176, 191 abolition of 6, 10, 40-42, 57-58, 58n45, 62,
Ôshimaura 178 233-234
Ôtomos 185 characteristics of 49-52
Ôtsu (Ôsu) Castle 184, 195 definition of 43, 43n2, 46, 46n11
role of 47-48
Palembang 127, 131 privateers 5
Palmerston, see Temple, Henry John Jacobite 52
Paris 28 Protocol of 1877 164
Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law prizes 46, 48-51, 64
40, see also Declaration of Paris punishment orders 175-177, see also
Palmerston, see Temple, Henry John shiokirei
Parkes, Henry Smith 225
Paterno, Satiago (anti-piracy strategy) Qawāsim (Sing. Qāsim) 11-12, 69-74, 77,
159-160 80-82, 84-91, 93, 95, 232, see also
Pax Britannica 70, 74 “Joasmee”
Pearl River Delta 208-210, 214 al-Qāsimī, Sulṭān Muḥammad 71
pepper 117 Qing 2, 10, 14, 117, 199-201, 203-205, 208-210,
Pérotin-Dumon, Anne 2, 7, 45 212, 216-217, 222-223, 225, 227-229, 233
Persian Gulf 11, 80, 82, 84-91, 94-95, 233-234 central government 13, 15, 200, 203,
Philippine Islands 233-234 206-207, 209-210, 213, 216, 220, 225,
piracy 227-228, 235-236
as a political label 45, 63 local authorities 200, 206-210, 213-216,
Dutch perception of 122-124, 126, 140 220-228
in the European legal context 44, 46 naval forces 199, 215, 217-219, 222-226, 229
local perception of 125-126, 139 Quanzhou 201, 225
prohibition edicts 13, 171, 180-181, 183, 193, Quasi-War 55n33
197-198, see also 1587 Edict and 1588
Edict Raffles, Thomas Stanford 120
suppression of 6-7, 11-12, 15, 127, 129, Raja Akil 127, 130-136, 141
136-137, 139-141, 233, 235 Raja Ali 118, 121-124, 139
in Europe 52 Raja Ali Haji Ibn Ahmad 123
266 Index

Raja Haji 118, 139 shirowari (destruction of castles) 175,

Raja Jaʾafar 120 177-178, 181, 184, 197
raja muda 118, 141 Shomburg, Carl, see blockade runners
Raja Muda Raja Abdul Rahman 139 Siak 118-119, 130, 134
Raja Musa 130 Siantan Island 118
Raja Orang Timer Datu Sankus 134 Siassi Island 161
Raja Solong 133-134 environmental change 163
ransom 210, 214 Simpang 119, 129, 135-136
Raʾs al-Khaymah 11, 80-83, 85, 88, 91-93, 95 Singapore 119-120, 143-144, 156, 159, 162, 165,
rattan 117 221-222
reprisals 43n2 Chinese 143, 221
Reteh 134, 137 Sino-Japanese trade 202-203
Riau 115, 117-121, 123-125, 137-139, 141 Slave 12, 143-145, 147-151, 153-156, 165-167
Roberts, John William 210, 213-214 galley 27
“Rule of the War of 1756” 53-54, 54n31 slave-raiding 145, 150, 154, 165
Ryukyu (Okinawa) 175, 187 slave-raiding locations 147
Ryûzôji family, the Ryûzôjis 181, 185 Ilocos 147
Ryûzôji Masaie 181 Leyte 147
Mindanao 147
Ṣaqr b. Rāshid 88 Negros 147
Saionji family 177, 187 Panay 147
Saionji Kimihiro 177, 187 Surigao 159
sakoku 174, see also seclusion policy Visayas 147-148, 151, 157-158, 166
Samal 144-145, 147-149, 151-155, 157-159, Slavery 145, 150, 154, 165
165-166
Small Sword Society 221-224
Sambas 120, 126, 128, 133
smuggling 5, 51n24, 202-204, 216-218
samurai 190, 194, 198
sovereignty, 1-4, 6-7, 10, 12-15, 28, 63, 115, 129,
Sarawak 134
137, 140, 233-235, see also state
sea cucumber 116
sovereignty
seclusion policy 174, see also sakoku
Spain 12, 150-152, 155-156, 159-160, 163-167
Seiuemon-i 182-183
state
Sejarah Bangka 130
Selim 1 21 building 13-15, 115, 127, 236
Seto Inland Sea 174-178, 180, 182, 185, 187-191, diplomacy 10, 234
193, 197 Dutch concept of 127-129, 137
Seven Years War 28, 53-54 monopoly of violence 1-2, 6, 10, 13-15, 42,
Shapinsky, Peter D. 2, 5, 189 234-236
Shāriqah (Sharjah) 71, 81-82, 95 sovereignty 2, 4, 52, 64, 152, 155-156, 164,
shark’s fin 116 167, 235-236, see also sovereignty
Shikoku 175-178, 186 steam gunboat 153, 155, 157-158, 160-163, 167,
division of 174-175, 178, 187, 191, see also 228
kuniwake canonero 157
Shimabara 193 kapal api 153-154
Shimazu family, the Shimazus 171, 184-185, steamships 58n45
190 Strait of Hormūz 87, 89
Shimazu Yoshihiro 190 Straits Chinese 167
Shimazu Yoshihisa 183, 188 Immigration 167
Shimonoseki 188 Sukadana 118, 121-124, 129, 132, 135-136, 141
shiokirei 175, see also punishment orders Sultan Abdul Rahman 120, 138
Index 267

Sultan Abdul Jalil Syah 136, see also Raja 164-165, 167, 190, 199-200, 202-203,
Akil 205-208, 210-214, 215-221, 223-225,
Sulṭān b. Ṣaqr b. Rāshid 76, 88 227-229
Sultan Kassim 120 beeswax 35
Sultan Mahmud 119, 124-126, 139 bird’s nest 143
Sultan Mohammad Jamaluddin 121, 134-135 brassware 145
sultanate 143, 145, 147-148, 154-156, 159-162, by neutrals 46-47, 53-58, 54n31, 55n33,
164-167 57n41, 65
Sultanate of Johor 12, 117, 119-120, 123, 137, by the United States 55-56, 58
141, see also Johor earthenware 145
Sulu Archipelago 12, 117-118, 144, 152, 155-156, fine food 143
159-160, 163-164, 166 fire arms 143, 145, 156, 159
Sulu Zone 143, 145 garments 145
Suô province 188, 191 glassware 145
Suô Yashiro (Ôshima) Island 185, 193 gun 145, 167
Suʿūd, see Wahhabist/Suʿūd gunpowder 203
leather 35
Taiwan 201, 203, 220, 226 luxury goods 145
Dongning kingdom 203, 205 muslins 145
Taiwanese (people) 200, 206, 225 olive oil 35
Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles-Maurice de 39 opium 143, 145, 156, 162, 199, 204, 209,
Taosug 145, 154-167 211-213, 215-218, 220, 227
Tarling, Nicholas 7, 62 pearl shell 143, 162
Taupan, Julano – a leading Balangingi chief porcelain 199, 226
154 raw silk 199
tax 127, 203, 205-207, 213 rice 145, 162, 226
Tây Sơn Uprising 204 salt 207
Temple, Henry John, third Viscount Palmer- silk 143, 199
ston 61, 62n50, 65 silver 143, 199, 202-203, 207, 211-213
territorial water 6, 236 sulfur 203
territory 2-3, 6, 115, 121, 127-128, 133, 136, tea 117, 143, 145, 199
139-141, 171, 175, 184-186, 191, 196, 236 textile 143, 156
local concept of 139-140 tobacco 145, 162, 165
tripang 143, 162
Thomson, Janice E. 1, 3, 5-6, 9, 15, 44, 52
wheat 35
tin 117, 123
wines 145
Tlemcen 22
traders 143, 145, 156, 160, 162, 167, 201-202,
Tobias, J.H. 132
207, 213
Toda Katsutaka 180, 182-184, 187
Treaty of Friendship and Commerce 155,
Tôdô Takatora 191
see also Brooke, James
Tokugawa 174, 191, 196-197 Treaty of July 20, 1878 164
regime 5, 13-14, 174, 193, 197, 232-235 Treaty of Westphalia 14, 28
Tokugawa Ieyasu 184-185, 190-191 treaty port 200, 218, 221, 223-225, 227-228
Tosa 177, 186, 194 Tuhfat al-Nafis 123, 125, 137-140
Toyotomi 171, 175, 181, 184-185, 190-191, 197 Tungku Soling 134
regime 5, 13-14, 172, 174-176, 178-180, Tunis 19-22, 39-40
182-184, 187-189, 191, 193, 197, 232-235 Turgud Reis 21
Toyotomi Hideyoshi 5, 171-190, 193, 197
Trade 5, 7, 115-119, 122-124, 127, 133, 136, 139, Uluç Ali 21
143, 145, 147-148, 151, 155-157, 159-162, Urbiztondo, Don Antonio 155
268 Index

ʿUtūb 78-79, 89-90 West Kalimantan 12, 115, 119-121, 126-127,

Uwa county 177, 187 129-134, 233-234, 236
Western
Venice 26, 28 power 199, 210
Vietnam 201, 204 ship 217, 223
Vietnamese (people) 204 wokou 202
VOC 117-119, 121-125, 140, see also Dutch East
India Company Yuegang 201-203
Yuzuki Castle 176-177
Wahhabism 78, 90, 93
Wahhabist/Suʿūd 79, 81, 88, 90-91, 93-95, 232 Zamboanga 153-154, 156-157, 160-161
Wake 175 Zhang Baozai 214
Walker, Alexander 101, 105, 107-109, 113-114, Zhejiang 190, 200-202, 204, 207, 215, 219, 224,
114 226-227
War of 1812 55 Governor of 207
War of the American Independence 48, 63 Governor-general of Fujian and 218, 223
War of the Spanish Succession 52 Maritime Custom 205
watch-houses (bansho) 187-189, 193-194, Zheng family 203, see also Dongning
196-197 Kingdom
Weber, Max 1 Zheng Chenggong 203
Wellsted, James R. 92 Zheng Zhilong 5, 202-203
Wenzhou 201, 224 Zhoushan 227