Pirates Roam the World

Currently, Makoto Yukimura's manga "Vinland Saga," which deals with Vikings from the 10th to 11th centuries, has been adapted into an anime and is attracting a lot of attention. Last summer, in conjunction with the International Saga Conference held in Iceland, Minoru Ozawa from Rikkyo University and I invited Makoto Yukimura and collaborated with the staff of the University of Iceland to hold a manga symposium, which was a great success. Professor Atsushi Iguchi from the Juku's Faculty of Letters was also one of the panelists.

In that work, there is a very cool scene where Knútr—the King of Denmark who was later also called "Canute," King of England—says, "I am a Viking King." In this way, I think pirates probably have an image of being both "cool" and "terrifying."

Certainly, I feel that there is a mysterious charm to the existence of pirates. In writing my book "A World History of Pirates" (Chuko Shinsho), I researched pirates from various eras, and I found the diversity of pirate types to be extremely interesting.

I was originally interested in the history of international relations in the early 19th century, when Algeria was colonized by France. Under the Vienna System of that time, European countries reached an agreement to ban the so-called Barbary pirates of North Africa. Just like the ban on the slave trade, piracy was banned as a part of "civilization."

At the time, North Africa was part of the Ottoman Empire, but they had their own side of the story. Therefore, I started researching because I thought it would be interesting to look at history from the perspective of the conquered side, North Africa.

I am researching social transformation in a certain region of Indonesia. When the Dutch expanded their influence into Banten and Lampung—the westernmost part of Java and the southernmost part of Sumatra—in the 18th century, there was a lot of discourse regarding pirates.

Later, from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century in the West Kalimantan region, the Dutch again recorded a lot about pirates. By then, the Dutch East India Company had transitioned to direct colonial rule, but even when writing about the same pirates, the discourse differed slightly.

Even if the act of piracy itself is the same, I am currently researching because I believe the interest lies in how the "writing style" of the state or those in power looking at it differs.

When humans set out to sea and trade develops, people emerge to attack it. That is likely the beginning of pirates.

In the Mediterranean, galley pirates powered by human labor appeared, targeting merchant sailing ships that would stop moving when the wind died down. I imagine such things existed even before recorded history. The historian Philip Gosse said that piracy is "one of the oldest human activities."

However, I think it is easier to understand if we temporarily separate "pirates" from "piracy." What I just mentioned refers to the act of piracy—attacking ships or looting coastal towns.

On the other hand, when asked "What is a pirate?", it is quite difficult to answer. Whether everyone who commits acts of plunder at sea can be called a pirate becomes a difficult problem as soon as you try to define it.

That probably comes down to "who names them and calls them that." In the Malay maritime region, there were few full-time pirates; people who usually engaged in commerce or conducted politics as members of royalty would engage in acts of piracy at certain times.

It was a part of their lives, a part of their political and economic activities, but when a narrator emerges who calls such people "pirates," they are positioned as if they were professional pirates.

You cannot define it by whether they do it for a living; rather, I think the existence of the pirate emerges because someone appears who calls them that.

As Ota-san said, even if someone is engaged in agriculture as a member of a powerful family or royalty, going out to commit acts of piracy like seasonal labor—or, according to the discourse of later people, to prove one's manhood—can itself be called being a Viking.

The word "Viking" itself exists in Old English, and there has been debate for many years about what it means. Since "vík" (Old Norse vík) means "creek" or "inlet," I believe that "some act performed by entering an inlet" was called viking, and the people who did it were called víkingr, which became the English word "Viking."

Then, around the 9th century, people in Northern Europe suddenly became able to build fast Viking ships. Navigation techniques had already been quite developed before then, and Viking ships with very shallow drafts were built, leading them to engage in piracy with iron tools.

They would go to foreign lands, and if the opponent was strong, they would barter with items brought from Northern Europe. But if the opponent was weak, they would attack with weapons. That was business, and there was probably little remorse involved.

Later, people began to call them Vikings. At the time when Viking activities were actually taking place, the basic terms used were "heathens" or "Northmen," and the name "Viking" is thought to be a naming by people of a much later period.

What makes the perception of pirates difficult is that alongside the anti-social aspect of being roughnecks who commit acts of violence, there are also acts of piracy that were socially recognized depending on the era.

Attacking one's own kind makes one a mere roughneck, but when the target of the attack is a hostile "other," there is an aspect where attacking them is socially accepted.

I think the way this line is drawn between self and other characterizes the perception of piracy in each era.

In the literature called "sagas," which were later told as historical novels, episodes appear about how kings dealt with the Vikings within their own countries. In short, as kings expanded their royal authority, they incorporated these people into their own ranks. They took in those whose perception of "self and other" was ambiguous as a force to attack the "others" that Momoi-san mentioned.

Alternatively, there is a legend that a base for a legendary Viking army called Jomsborg was established in what is now Poland, and the people belonging to it were said to be very fearsome and strong; in later legends, they are called the "Jomsvikings." I feel that naming is very important.

In the Malay world, by around the 16th century, laws generally referred to as Malay Laws were established to determine various rules at sea. However, these laws have absolutely no rules regarding royal succession.

Therefore, anyone—whether an uncle or a younger brother—could claim to be the successor to the throne, and royal succession always resulted in battle. Then, the defeated group would usually go to another part of the Malay maritime region to form a new power.

The Malacca Sultanate also began when a prince named Parameswara, who lost a struggle for royal succession in Palembang, crossed the Strait of Malacca and settled in the land of Malacca.

By declaring "I oppose the King," attacking merchant ships heading toward that King is justified. They threaten them by saying, "If you don't want to be attacked, trade at my port," thereby drawing merchant ships to their own port. And if they overthrow the original King, they can then become the legitimate King.

In that way, many small kingdoms were formed. In the countries that left behind kingdom histories, the Malay word "perompak" (literally meaning raider), which refers to pirates, is never used for the King's actions. They justify it with all sorts of phrases, such as "The King secured a means of livelihood" or "He took action to feed his people." No matter the act, it is no longer written about using negative words.

That's interesting. Is that from the 16th century onward?

That's right. The kingdom histories I just introduced were written in the 19th century, but since similar events were occurring even in that era, it is highly likely they were perceived that way from around then.

It is interesting that this overlaps exactly with the era when England, centered around Queen Elizabeth, permitted acts of piracy.

Yes. Pirates appeared in the Caribbean region almost during this period (the 16th century). This happened in several stages, but first, when Spain discovered the "New World" and ruled it exclusively, English and French ships began smuggling, and later they started attacking Spanish ships transporting treasures.

This is the period when Drake flourished with the support of Queen Elizabeth, isn't it?

Yes. Eventually, as England established colonies in North America, pirates became a nuisance that hindered commerce and conversely became targets for elimination. This is the period of pirates as roughnecks and defectors from the state order, as depicted in Disney movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Also, pirates played a role like the vanguard of the navy. During the era of Elizabeth I, the navy's power was weak, so private ships were also given official permission to attack the ships and territories of enemy countries if a war began. Those were the so-called privateers.

In the era before the international order based on the modern sovereign state system was established, piracy was justified in various forms.

For the state, it must have been very helpful in terms of cost compared to maintaining a large-scale navy. For the pirates, too, there was a great advantage in operating as merchant ships normally and being able to obtain permission for plunder in times of need. So, it inevitably tended to be a symbiotic relationship.

That's right. However, eventually, the state's control over pirates became ineffective. Even after a war ended, pirates could not forget the taste of profit and continued their piracy. Sometimes they even began attacking their own country's colonies. I believe the movement to eliminate pirates from such situations emerged from the late 17th century to the 18th century. This is the period when Britain began establishing Pirate Acts and the like.

In any case, changes in the global power balance and the nature of pirates are linked. In an era of rival local warlords, various forces engage in piracy and criticize each other. In Western history, Ancient Greece and the medieval Mediterranean correspond to this.

On the other hand, once hegemony is established in a maritime region, pirates become targets for elimination. In the era of Ancient Rome's Pax Romana, piracy came to be seen as evil. It is what Cicero called "pirates are the common enemy of mankind." Even Rome conquered various countries in the process of expanding its hegemony over the Mediterranean, but that becomes justified.

Of course, the act of violence itself is not good, but I feel that "pirates" as an absolute evil, as spoken of after hegemony is established, also has a certain element of labeling.

In Southeast Asia, discourse viewing pirates as an absolute evil emerged from the beginning of the 19th century. When both the Dutch and the British appeared in this land as the power of colonial governments, they had by no means achieved hegemony, yet they began to say things like, "Pirates who bring harm to all people must be eradicated," or "We bring peace, civilization, law, order, and free trade here, and those who obstruct them will be eliminated."

Before that, the East India Company called all rivals who interfered with their trade pirates, but the idea of speaking of absolute justice was almost non-existent. However, by the beginning of the 19th century, Europeans began to use such discourse.

I see. In the early 19th century, the so-called Barbary pirates of North Africa were banned under the Vienna System for two reasons. One was the humanitarian issue of Christians being enslaved in North Africa.

The second was exactly the issue of free trade that Ota-san mentioned. It was the idea that pirates who threaten commercial activities in the free space of the sea are evil.

These two ideas emerged clearly in the 19th century, and I think that overlaps with Europe's transition from the era of so-called mercantilism to the era of free trade.

The reason why the Barbary pirates were preserved until the 18th century was that the powerful nations of Britain, France, and the Netherlands permitted it. If there were pirates in North Africa, other countries could not enter the region for commercial activities, so it was actually convenient for their own commerce.

The emergence of the concept of the high seas in modern times is also linked to the idea of free trade, isn't it?

That's right. I think the concept of the high seas basically has a background where latecomer countries rebelled against Spain's monopoly on commercial activities in the New World.

Current territorial waters come from the idea of claiming the sea as one's own as far as a cannon can reach, but the principle of freedom of navigation—stating that anything beyond that belongs to no one—was established in the 19th century under British hegemony.

While the struggle for hegemony among the Netherlands, France, and Britain was quite intense until the 18th century, free trade came to be encouraged and that ideology became established.

In reality, even in the 19th century, pirates were not easily eliminated in Southeast Asia. Even in the 1820s, cooperation between European powers and local pirates frequently occurred. Even the British, who went to take Singapore, brought a local lord named Temenggong—who was clearly engaging in piracy—into the system for the purpose of suppressing pirates.

The Dutch also took those they knew were pirates and put them into the Dutch Navy as heads of pirate suppression, giving them the naval rank of Majoor and eventually even appointing them as Sultans.

In that way, even though they knew they were committing acts of piracy, there were many examples where they deliberately left it to them to conduct governance without spending money. Even if they made declarations in their discourse to "eliminate pirates," in reality, they did not do so and instead tried to successfully fuse the local system with their own.

I see, that's interesting. There are periods of including and utilizing pirates and periods of excluding them, and it doesn't necessarily progress simultaneously worldwide.

In the Mediterranean, were they able to eliminate pirates quickly?

In the case of the Mediterranean, European hegemony had progressed quite substantially, so the North African pirates were suppressed in the early 19th century. The period of inclusion likely ended and moved toward exclusion at a relatively early stage.

It's not exactly that "history repeats itself," but I think that since the era of Ancient Greece, a cycle of inclusion and exclusion has ultimately been occurring. When considering why Vikings attract so much attention, I think there might be something special about them even within the long span of world history.

Unlike the Dutch who utilized Singaporean pirates for pirate suppression, late medieval Danish kings like Canute led the pirates themselves to conduct conquest and invasion.

Similarly, as a result of a Viking leader going to Paris and negotiating with the King, he became the Duke of Normandy and conquered half of England, and the Northmen who headed to Eastern Europe established the Kievan Rus'. I thought the fact that kings and leaders went out themselves might be what makes them different from other pirates.

Did the leader of the state, the King of Denmark, utilize external military force?

Rather than external forces, he mobilized forces from within his own country to conduct invasions. The King of Norway did the same thing. He gathered those who committed acts of piracy to attack England.

Ultimately, the Norwegian King Harald III, called "the last Viking" and "Harald Hardrada," fought against the English King Harold II near York and was defeated in 1066. That is regarded as the last battle of the Nordic Vikings. After that, royal authority was established, it became the so-called feudal era, and it became an era where people were rooted in the land.

Thinking about it that way, the Viking Age might have been an era when many people appeared who were not rooted in the land but were active through the sea. That seems to connect a bit with the story of Malacca that Ota-san mentioned.

I think they are very similar. This is true for 16th-century Malacca, but around the 18th century in West Kalimantan, Malaya, and throughout the Indonesian archipelago, the activities of people not rooted in the land became very strong.

In Southeast Asia, the 15th to 17th centuries are called the "Age of Commerce," and very rare products such as high-grade spices like nutmeg, mace, and pepper, and high-grade wood like agarwood, were important export commodities. Since the production areas and shipping ports for such high-grade products are limited, kings who could control them became very strong. Then, states emerged aiming to rule the areas around the production sites and the ports.

Such independent kingdoms were once weakened by the Dutch East India Company, but soon after, many small states appeared again in Southeast Asia. Then, from the middle of the 18th century, the middle class expanded in China, and people who became wealthy strongly desired Southeast Asian products. The targets were slightly unusual items such as bird's nests, shark fins, and sea cucumbers from Southeast Asia.

You mean high-end ingredients?

No, it's a bit different; they are called "middle-class luxuries"—items that are high-end but not priced as out of reach as nutmeg or mace. However, they were rare because they could not be obtained within China, and until then, they had only been eaten in the imperial court.

However, since these products can be found almost anywhere in Southeast Asia, monopolizing the production areas or shipping ports had almost no meaning. The people who harvest these products do not settle down but move from port to port. Moreover, since they are often harvested in inconvenient, remote areas, they cannot expect protection from a king, so they arm themselves and form small political forces. This became very active from the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century.

I see. So that's how it is.

Collecting such products requires a lot of manpower, and since there is both competition and conflict, rowers and military force are also necessary, so it becomes an era where many pirate-like groups emerge.

Sometimes they would form states, and other times they would maintain a delicate relationship with a state, receiving benefits such as tax exemptions or being given land to live on, and would cooperate. I think there are eras when groups that maintain a certain level of autonomy or distance find it easy to be active.

When you consider that a situation like a geographical transportation dead-end gave birth to those people of the sea, it makes sense why Northern Europe produced the Vikings.

In Norway and Sweden, transportation between villages was extremely inconvenient. A key geographical feature of Northern Europe is that while it's not much trouble if you follow the waterways, land routes are very difficult. That is precisely why small groups were scattered about; they possessed military force and formed small fleets of three or four ships.

Furthermore, by moving freely and swiftly in small ships with excellent mobility, they generated economic or commercial advantages. About 60 people would row a small, light ship, and they would carry it across land when moving between waterways.

That is amazing.

In Southeast Asia, the islands are quite close to each other. Is there no sense that "if we cut off this waterway, we'll have this region by the throat"?

That is actually quite difficult. If you try to control the area near the mouth of a river system downstream, the people upstream will simply cross the watershed and move to a different river system.

It is the same in that pirate ships are small and highly mobile. They hide in inlets or river mouths immediately and cannot be found. Europeans, frustrated by this, created detailed maps of coastlines and river mouths. There is an aspect where cartography developed as a byproduct of anti-piracy measures.

I think one of the charms of pirates lies in the fact that they are thieves of the "sea." Because the stage of their activities was the ocean, they are elusive, with power being decentralized or mobile.

Today, the ocean is a finite world, but before the modern era, it was an infinite expanse where you couldn't be caught if you escaped. I suspect the free image of pirates was cultivated from that. I think one reason modern people are drawn to pirates is that sense of freedom.

Going out into unknown seas by ship is also the theme of the work I introduced at the beginning, "Vinland Saga." "Vinland Saga" is a story based on records and legends of Norsemen settling in North America about 500 years before Columbus.

The protagonist of that manga has a claim: "I don't want to kill people anymore, so I will flee from King Canute. I want to create a peaceful paradise where I escape to."

Legends frequently appear from the early Viking Age stating that "Icelanders are the descendants of powerful clans who fled from the tyranny of King Harald Fairhair, who tried to impose oppressive rule over Norway, to create a free country in Iceland."

So, while Viking activities may certainly be evil, there is always an element of going out to sea and aiming for freedom. That is likely what fascinates people across eras.

Are there no stories or legends in Southeast Asia that celebrate such pirates?

Nothing local comes to mind, but there are stories created by Europeans that romanticize Malay pirates. Joseph Conrad's "Almayer's Folly" (1895) and Emilio Salgari's "Le Tigri di Mompracem" (The Tigers of Mompracem, 1900) both highly romanticize pirates.

In "Almayer's Folly," a British ruler rescues and raises a pirate's daughter, but she believes all along that she is being imprisoned rather than protected, and dreams of being rescued one day. Then, a local Malay pirate actually comes to rescue her, and she goes with him.

"Le Tigri di Mompracem" is a story where a beautiful white woman, forced to live a very secluded life, falls in love with a Malay pirate who tries to take her away, and she follows him. Again, the pirate is romanticized as a symbol of freedom and a figure who rescues women forced into confined lives.

That's interesting. I think it's a theme that today's feminists might enjoy (laughs).

There are several versions of "Le Tigri di Mompracem"; it originated in Italy, but it has been made into movies, novels, and TV series in places like the UK, so it is relatively famous among Europeans.

Humans really do love adventure, don't they?

When you go on an adventure, there are things you can "acquire." For example, it might be women, gold and silver treasures, or high-end products like nutmeg and pepper, but in the case of Northern Europe, I feel it was, above all, the high level of cultural power—including treasures—that Southern Europe possessed.

Another thing is that rum is inevitably associated with Caribbean pirates (laughs). For Vikings, mead is very famous.

I wonder if there was something for Southeast Asia. Probably palm wine (arrack) was involved.

Regarding pirates and alcohol, it seems that because water would spoil during long voyages on the open sea, alcoholic beverages like wine were loaded.

In addition to such habits, it seems it was a daily occurrence in the Caribbean for pirates to return to port after finishing a job and have a boisterous party.

After all, the sea is surrounded by water, but you can't drink it.

Yes. Also, I think the element of freedom I mentioned earlier is related to the image of pirates being optimistic and hedonistic.

Adventure certainly involves risk, so I don't think people would venture out unless there was a benefit somewhere. When Islamic pirates attacked Christian countries, there were certainly religious aspects, but there was also the practical side of acquiring new land for themselves. I think piracy was actually quite profitable.

In Southeast Asia as well, the things carried by ships are far more valuable than what can be taken from the land. So, if you can attack and take those, you can gain great wealth. And if you can go to a new land, build a port, and make it a commercial hub, that also becomes political power.

And adventure always comes with the element of "risking one's life." The aspect of being side-by-side with death might be something that modern people living in cities rarely get to experience.

That's true. Also, in the records of the 18th-century pirate Bartholomew Roberts, there is something called the "Pirate Code," which shows an egalitarian order that would have been impossible in the class-based society of Europe at the time, such as choosing the captain by vote.

In that sense, I think once you became a member of the pirates, it was a matter of competing on merit.

It was an opportunity to escape a class-based society.

The sea has become something completely managed in the 21st century, but in modern terms, I think places like cyberspace are where pirate-like things are likely to be born.

I wonder if hackers and others are performing pirate-like acts in cyberspace against the existing order.

I see. It's the world of "Ghost in the Shell."

Of course, even today, pirates appear in unmanaged waters. Somali pirates are famous, but Somalia is a so-called failed state, and it cannot crack down on pirates that a state should normally regulate.

They approach tankers in fishing boats loaded with automatic rifles and mortars, board the stopped tankers, and take the crew away. In the modern era, where violence is state-managed under the sovereign state system, pirates—who theoretically should not exist—are born from the "fraying" of the political order.

They still appear at the borders around the Strait of Malacca, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

The reason they can't be cracked down on is that local bosses are involved with the pirates. And the ones who attack are truly fishing boats. So they can hide immediately, or they can insist they are just fishing boats.

As long as there is this much disparity between rich and poor, and there are ships carrying wealthy cargo passing in front of poor fishermen, I feel it is quite difficult to completely crack down on them.

That's true. In the world of imagination, we can romanticize and imagine pirates as much as we want. Human imagination expands infinitely, so I think if people advance into space in the future, pirate-like things will be born there.

If so, just as pirates were born over and over in the Mediterranean, being included and then excluded, does that mean pirates will never disappear every time humans go to some unknown territory?

For pirates, this is the first time in history that the sea has been so thoroughly managed, so there is no doubt the situation is different than before.

In the world of literature, one archetype that always depicts pirates as villains but "attractive enemies" is Captain Hook in "Peter Pan."

That became famous through the Disney movie, but having pirates on the island where children want to have an adventure means that a story isn't interesting unless you assume an enemy that you must defeat.

However, if such beings exist, people will be kidnapped or suffer damage. I think we must objectively and calmly acknowledge that humans are always seeking such things.

In a sense, I think that might be close to the essence of what pirates possess. They are attractive, but they remain enemies nonetheless.

Yes. Even if pirates as realistic entities decline, I think stories of pirates will continue to fascinate us.