Pirates of Empire: Colonisation and Maritime Violence in Southeast Asia

278 Pages·2019·5.835 MB·English

by  Stefan Eklöf Amirell

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Pirates of Empire
The suppression of piracy and other forms of maritime violence was a
keystonein the colonisation of Southeast Asia. Focusing onwhat was seen
inthenineteenthcenturyasthethreemostpirate-infestedareasintheregion–
theSuluSea,theStraitofMalaccaandIndochina–thiscomparativestudyin
colonialhistoryexploreshowpiracywasdefined,contestedandusedtoresist
or justify colonial expansion, particularly during the most intense phase of
imperialexpansioninSoutheastAsiafromc.1850toc.1920.Indoingso,it
demonstrates that piratical activity continued to occur in many parts of
SoutheastAsiawellbeyondthemidnineteenthcentury,whenmostexisting
studiesofpiracyintheregionendtheirperiodofinvestigation.Italsopoints
to the changes over time in how piracy was conceptualised and dealt with
by each of the major colonial powers in the region, Britain, France, the
Netherlands,SpainandtheUnitedStates.ThistitleisalsoavailableasOpen
AccessonCambridgeCore.
Stefan Eklo¨f Amirell is Associate Professor in History at Linnaeus
University, Sweden. He is also the President of the Swedish Historical
Association and Sweden’s delegate to the International Committee of
HistoricalSciences(ICHS/CISH).AmonghispreviousworksarePiratesin
Paradise: A Modern History of Southeast Asia’s Maritime Marauders and
severalarticlesonpiracyinSoutheastAsia.
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Pirates of Empire
Colonisation and Maritime Violence
in Southeast Asia
Stefan Eklöf Amirell
LinnaeusUniversity
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DOI:10.1017/9781108594516
©StefanEklöfAmirell2019
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:EklöfAmirell,Stefan,1968-author.
Title:Piratesofempire:colonisationandmaritimeviolenceinSoutheastAsia/
StefanEklöfAmirell.
Description:Cambridge,UnitedKingdom:CambridgeUniversityPress,2019.|
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2019008719|ISBN9781108484213(hardback;alk.paper)|
ISBN9781108706100(pbk.;alk.paper)
Subjects:LCSH:Piracy–SoutheastAsia–History–19thcentury.|Piracy–Southeast
Asia–History–20thcentury.|Maritimehistory–SoutheastAsia–History–19thcentury.|
Maritimehistory–SoutheastAsia–History–20thcentury.|
Colonies–Asia–History–19thcentury.|Colonies–Asia–History–20thcentury.
Classification:LCCHV6433.786.S64E352019|DDC364.16/4–dc23
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Contents
List of Maps page vi
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 Piracy inGlobal and SoutheastAsian History 21
2 The Sulu Sea 42
3 The Straitof Malacca 96
4 Indochina 161
Conclusion 209
Epilogue:Piracy and theEnd of Empire 232
Bibliography 236
Index 257
v
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Maps
1 Map of SoutheastAsia page 4
2 Map of theSulu Sea 43
3 Map of theStraitof Malacca 97
4 Map of Indochina 162
vi
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Preface
Professionally, my interest in piracy began in the 1990s when I was doing
research for my PhD thesis in Southeast Asia. Piracy and armed robbery
against ships was relatively common in the region at the time, and just about
everyweektheregionalnewspapers reportedaboutcommercialvesselsbeing
attackedbypiratesintheStraitofMalacca,theSouthChinaSeaorIndonesian
ports. To be honest, many of the incidents were trifling affairs that hardly
seemed to justify the dramatic label ‘piracy’. However, some of the attacks
wereseriouscrimes,includingwell-organisedoperationsinwhichlargeships,
such as oil tankers and bulk vessels, were hijacked at sea and their crews, in
some cases, ruthlesslyshot orhacked to death and thrown overboard.
Piracy,Icametorealise,wasnotathingofthepast,andtherealitywasafar
cry from the romantic image of Treasure Island or Pirates of the Caribbean.
Asahistorian,moreover,Ibegantowonderwhetherpiracy,whichseemedto
have been so prevalent in Southeast Asia in precolonial and early colonial
times,hadreallybeenstampedoutinthenineteenthcenturyandonlyrecently
returned,orifithadinfactneverdisappearedbutonlytemporarilymovedout
of sight.
My attempts to make sense of contemporary piracy in Southeast Asia
resulted in a postdoctoral research project at the Centre for East and South-
East Asian Studies at Lund University in Sweden and eventually, in 2006, a
bookaboutthemodernhistoryofpiracyinSoutheastAsia,perhapssomewhat
romantically entitled Pirates in Paradise. The focus was on the period from
1975to2005,whichmeantthatIwentfurtherbackintime thanmoststudies
of contemporary piracy published around the same time. Nonetheless, the
question of what happened in the period from the middle of the nineteenth
century until the last quarter of the twentieth century remained largely unex-
plored,not only by me butalso by most other members ofthe small commu-
nity of pirate historians.
The present study is an attempt to fill that gap. Although the period under
study is long, going back to theonset ofthe European maritimeexpansion in
Asia, the focus is on the period from around the middle of the nineteenth
vii
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viii Preface
century,whenmostexistingstudiesofthehistoryofpiracyandotherformsof
maritime raiding in Southeast Asia end their period of investigation, until the
beginning of the twentieth century, when piracy, for the most part, had been
efficientlysuppressed inthe region.
Aboveall,thebooksetsouttorelatethephenomenonofmaritimeviolence
to the intensified colonisation of Southeast Asia in the second half of the
nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth century. In doing so, it
compares the policies and interests of the five major colonial powers in the
region at the time, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United
States.Thebookalsoaims,asfaraspossible,tohighlighttheperspectivesof
thosewhowereaccusedofpiracyorinotherwayswereaffectedbytheefforts
of the colonial powers to establish maritime security and commercial and
political hegemony in maritime Southeast Asia. The book thereby draws
attention to the central role that ‘piracy’, however defined, played, not only
in the extension and legitimisation of empire, but also in the anti-imperialist
critique of colonial expansion in thenineteenthand early twentiethcenturies.
ThetitlePiratesofEmpirehasbeenchoseninordertocapturesomeofthe
ambiguityandthemultiplemeaningsattachedtothelabelpiracyinSoutheast
Asia’sageofempire.Piracywasamultifacetedandoftenusefulconcept,both
for those who advocated imperial expansion and for those who resisted it,
whether in Southeast Asia, Europe or the United States. The concept also
changed its meaning and use over the long history of the overseas European
expansion. Hopefully this book will contribute to a better understanding of
howtheimperialpastanditspirates–whetherAsian,EuropeanorAmerican–
all took part in shaping the global maritime security regime that still is a
cornerstone ofglobal commerce andthe internationalpoliticalorder.
The spelling of personal and place names follows, as far as possible, the
Internet edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. All translations into English
fromthecitedsourcesandliteratureare,unlessotherwisestated,bytheauthor.
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