Being a former student of terrorism studies has a few advantages, not least a small collection of books on non-state violence throughout history. Earlier this year I was writing a research prosposal when I came across a truly great tome called Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns by Janice Thompson. A few passages will be quotes below for your pleasure:
QuoteAnother factor complicating the categorization of the corsairs is the unconventional form of political authority under which they operated. The Barbary states, as part of the Ottoman Empire, were ostensibly ruled by the sultan's appointees, the pashas. Yet in reality, by the turn of the seventeenth century, these states were under the control of senior military officers acting through their elected leaders, the beys and deys. "Barbary and Turkey acted independently," so that "states which were at peace with Turkey were not necessarily at peace with Barbary, and vice versa." Malta was ruled by the military order of the Knights of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, who elected their leader, the grand master. But "the Grand Master owed feudal vassalage to whoever should be the ruler
of Sicily, the King of Spain and later the Bourbon Kings." He was also subject to the authority of the pope and later, to that of the king of France.
QuoteWhat was new was not only the scale and scope of the piracy that emerged in the seventeenth century but the political nature of organized piracy. In several instances, groups of pirates formed communities or quasi-states based on the democratization of politics and violence. This organized piracy presented a threat not only to property but to the developing national state and its way of organizing politics and society.
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Instead of executing people in droves, states found it more productive to impose forced labor on the misbehavers. The need for labor at home, in the military, and in the colonies meant that "incarceration in workhouses, galley slavery and transportation to bleak, colonial areas served a much more rational end than did execution." Prerevolutionary France sent seven times as many convicts to the colonies as it executed. Some states that had no colonies sold their convicts to others. "In the eighteenth century German authorities sent some of their prisoners to North America as slaves, while somewhat later, Prussia sent convicted felons to Russia to labour in Siberia."
It is not surprising, then, that resistance to European states and society was fierce nor that it took the form of an attack on property. Piracy was not simply or always an economic crime—the theft of private property. It was also a political act—a protest against the obvious use of state institutions to defend property and discipline labor.
QuoteA fundamental difference between the Madagascar pirates and others was that the former came close to constituting an independent nation. Madagascar pirate ships operated under a consistent set of rules specifying the rights and duties of the crews. These rules more or less expressed the laws of the Madagascar "commonwealth." But there was more:QuoteAnother strong sign of an evolving nationalism was the loyalty pirates showed to their fellow outlaws. In fact, pirates were more loyal to each other than they were to their country of origin or to their religion or even to their own race. The evidence for this abounds. English, American and French pirates sailed together and fought effectively together in Henry Every's crew, despite the fact that France was at war with England and her colonies. Irish Catholics and Protestant Scots worked alongside each other without friction
aboard scores of pirate vessels, despite the religious antagonisms that divided their nonpirate countrymen.
These pirates also developed their own customs, language, food, and flag. An East India Company petition to the British government noted that most of these pirates were English and warned "that if the present generation of pirates onMadagascar should become extinct, 'their Children will have the same Inclination to Madagascar, as these have to England, and will not have any such affection for England.' "
QuoteAt one point, rumors circulated in Europe that a French pirate had established a socialist republic in Madagascar. Piracy in this period had not only a strong antiauthority aspect to it but was also often rooted in a rejection of the class system of European society. For example, in trying to recruit a merchant seaman, one pirate captain is reported to have said:QuoteThey villify us, the scoundrels so, when there is only this difference: they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage; had ye not better make one of us, than sneak after the arses of those villains for employment?
Clearly, Europeans viewed the Madagascar pirate "commonwealth" as a formidable quasi-state. And their fears were not without foundation. In the words of one pirate captain, "I am a free prince and have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred sail of ships and an army of a hundred thousand men in the field."
QuoteThis historical overview of European piracy reveals just how culpable states were in perpetuating it. The tediously repetitive process went like this: The state would authorize privateering, which was legalized piracy, during wartime. When the war concluded, thousands of seamen were left with no more appealing alternative than piracy. The state would make some desultory efforts to suppress the pirates, who would simply move somewhere else. With the outbreak of the next war, the state would offer blanket pardons to pirates who would agree to serve as privateers, and the process would start all over again.
QuoteIn this period, large-scale piracy was a European problem. It was Europeans who organized piracy. It was Europeans who were the main targets of piracy. And it was Europeans who provided the economic and legal infrastructure that supported piracy. At the heart of these matters was the process of state-building. Privateering reflected state rulers' efforts to build state power; piracy reflected some people's efforts to resist that project.
QuoteIt is not clear whether piracy is a crime under international law or, if it is, when it was outlawed. A defining characteristic of the pirate is that his violent acts are not authorized by a state. Thus, if piratical acts are divorced from state authority, and therefore responsibility, they do not come under the rubric of international law, which deals only with sovereign states. Whether or not piracy is a violation of international law, it is agreed that states do have the right, if not the duty, "to discourage piracy by exercising their rights of prevention and punishment as far as it is expedient."
Piracy is a unique practice that, under international law, states have the right but perhaps not the duty to prosecute. States can prosecute foreigners for committing acts of piracy against foreigners, but there is no liability implied in not doing so.
QuoteChinese pirates made costly attacks on British and Portuguese ships in the China Seas at the beginning of the nineteenth century. One pirate, at the peak of his career, employed seventy thousand men organized in six large squadrons. The emperor's efforts to buy him off failed, and imperial fleets sent against him were defeated three times in two years. In 1810, the huge pirate fleet fell victim to a mutiny by its admirals. One squadron of 160 ships and eight thousand men surrendered to the emperor, who pardoned them. Eventually the leader of the pirate fleet took advantage of a general pardon and surrendered as well. "The government gave each pirate money for starting life ashore," gave the pirates two towns to live in, and bestowed an imperial commission as a major on the former second-in-command of the pirate fleet.