Author:

Keywords:

TRANSPACIFIC - 833143;info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/833143, Angria, China, Ganges River Delta, Indian Ocean, Madagascar, maritime history, Ostend Company, Pacific, Pearl River Delta, piracy, pirates, sailors

Abstract:

This contribution investigates practices of piracy through the vantage point of previously unexplored shipboard documents, notarial archives, and testimonies from eighteenth century Southern Netherlandish sailors. These sources reveal how Southern Netherlandish expeditions from the port of Ostend to the Indian Ocean perceived and encountered Angrian, Chinese, and Madagascar pirates. Surviving crewmembers reported on pirates’ tactics and their enabling conditions. However, Southern Netherlandish sailors would also engage in maritime predation themselves, during wartime on the North Sea and as renegade traders in the Indian Ocean. We may therefore contrast Southern Netherlandish sailors’ perceptions and encounters with piracy in the Indian Ocean and their own practices of maritime predation, questioning the ambivalence between piracy as a practice and a label for condemnation.