#39 - Pirates of Empire

 As August winds down my focus tends to shift inland, I love the beach and the sun during the summer. But I also love the fall leaves and scarf weather. So, before we shift back to normal programming to coincide with most folks’ return to school, let's have one last hurrah with a fun read. It’s a pirate’s life for me, dear reader.

This week I will be talking about Pirates of Empire: Colonisation and Maritime Violence in Southeast Asia by Stefan Eklöf Amirell, published in 2019. This book is open access! You can download it from Cambridge University Press for free. I have always been rather interested in piracy, I’ll admit it mostly started with Captain Jack Sparrow, but I had read Treasure Island as a child, too. As an adult I find pirates interesting because of the reasons they flaunted social and legal convention. I found it interesting to see what drove men (and women!) to piracy and what drove later people to read fiction about piracy. But in this book, Pirates of Empire, the story is a little different. Going in, I had thought this book would focus on piracy in Southeast Asia during similar times to piracy in the Caribbean, as in the 17th and 18th centuries. Instead, the book focuses on a later period - 1850 to 1920, and with a different group of empires - Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, the United States, etc. It describes piracy, or rather maritime raiding, as a way of life and expression for the people of Southeast Asia to protest and fight back against (although also sometimes fight for) colonialism in the region. 

Stefan Eklöf Amirell is a professor at Linnaeus University in Sweden where he focuses on Global History including Sweden’s role in it, and also Colonial & Postcolonial Studies in Southeast Asia. He is currently researching the American frontier during the 19th century, focused on Hugh Lenox Scott who served in the American Plains, Cuba, the Southern Philippines, as well as on the US-Mexico border. I do wonder if Mr. Scott crossed paths with Bourke and his scale armor or a rogue Niles of Rensselaerville, NY….

The book is divided into four chapters, the first is a brief overview of piracy’s role in global history and specifically Southeast Asian History. The other three chapters are divided into different regions: the Sulu Sea, the Strait of Malacca, and Indochina. Each of these chapters are organized in extremely (aka repetitively) similar fashion but featuring different empires. This made reading part of the book rather difficult and slow because it felt like reading the same thing three times. On the other hand, the repeated pattern of indigenous raiding leading to imperial punishment and excuses for inhumane violence leading to the accession of European/Western control really makes clear Amirell’s point that the imperial powers used piracy as an excuse to control and expand their empires in Southeast Asia. Piracy in this region was really more of maritime raiding, a traditional form of warfare rather than outlaws with boats. Rival groups would raid enemies for loot and slaves, but the Western powers would translate this to anarchy and savagery, giving them the excuse to take violent and decisive control of the groups involved. You know, as the benevolent and civilized ones.

This is really only true for this time period, however. Amirell focuses on this late period - 1850 to 1920 to cover a period of time that has little secondary sources, but also to differentiate the piracy of the mid to late 19th century from the piracy of the previous centuries which were much more like the stereotypical Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean. Appropriate because many of the pirates from this early period were indeed European. Although, China has its own history of piracy which I would love to read more about in the future. All in all Pirates of Empire is an exhaustive and detailed look at piracy in Southeast Asia during the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. I am intentionally avoiding a detailed analysis of the history because the topic is so very much not one I am familiar with, but it was still a worthwhile read about an underserved region and subject. If you are somewhat familiar with the history of imperialism in Southeast Asia, I would definitely recommend the book because it is so detailed. 

And finally, a small ending here about open access. As someone who functions outside the support of a university or institution, open access literally has saved me. Most secondary sources I read start around $35 a piece, and often are closer to $100. I would not be able to do what I love without open access resources like at Cambridge University Press, Project Muse and others. This was another reason why I wanted to discuss this book on the blog, because Pirates of Empire is available for anyone to download and read.