MARITIME HISTORY CA 3
Piracy: An Organized Trade in the Western Indian Ocean
“What are kingdoms but great robber bands, and what are robber bands but small kingdoms?”
For people who live near the intersection of land and the World’s oceans and seas, there is a
continuity between the two. They move as easily between the land and the water as the people
of the hinterlands do on land. Their cultural, political, and economic lives are deeply tied up with
the sea, and so is thievery. In the Western Indian Ocean during the medieval period, piracy was
considered as normal as thievery on land. In fact, more often than not, pirates were seen as
in-laws, integral parts of the society, and not out-laws. This essay is an attempt to understand
how piracy in the Indian Ocean World was organized and why it was not considered
dishonorable. The essay examines the relations of piracy with commerce and the community of
the Western Indian Ocean by borrowing ideas from the articles ‘A Trade of No Dishonor: Piracy,
Commerce, and Community in the Western Indian Ocean, Twelfth to Sixteenth Century’ by
Sebastian Prange and ‘Horse Trade and Piracy at Tana (Thana, Maharashtra, India): Gleanings
from Marco Polo’ by Ranabir Chakravarti.
Much of the European literature on the Indian Ocean World portrays its pirates as pests, who
are without any concrete sense of agency or history. They see them as unorganized groups
plundering the merchants, kidnapping people and demanding ransom, and attacking coastal
towns. While piracy did involve all of these activities, it was far from unorganized. According to
Marco Polo, piracy was a communal activity. The pirates even took their wives and children to
the sea. Certain seafaring communities practiced piracy as a means of earning their livelihood.
Around the Malabar coast were seasonal pirates who lived both on land and the sea during
certain periods of the year. The seasonality of their pirate activities depended on the pattern of
monsoons that defined the sailing seasons. The Mukkuvar caste of the Malabar coast is an
example of such a community. According to Duarte Barbosa's description, they would stay on
land during the winters and earn money through fishing. And during the summers, they would
resort to piracy. Piracy is often resorted to in a coastal area during a period of pressure,
economic and political. For instance, the land in the Southern Konkan coasts is infertile. Despite
heavy rainfall, the land only yields scrubs, bushes, and bamboo. These ports were not linked up
to any economically rewarding hinterland either. Therefore, piracy became an important
supplement to the economic lives of the coastal people in this region.
The Malabar pirates were autonomously organized, caste-contained communities. Theirs were
among the earliest democratic and gender-neutral spaces in the world. They practiced a form of
autonomous political organization wherein they were ruled by their own rulers. For instance, the
Mukkuvars were led by headmen known as arayals. Piracy was a caste-based occupation
where all people belonging to a certain caste engaged in this activity. The pirates also had
strong ties with the world of commerce and trade. They were said to exist “in profound
symbiosis” with the world of trade rather than as constituting its antithesis. The merchants and
Piracy: An Organized Trade in the Western Indian Ocean
“What are kingdoms but great robber bands, and what are robber bands but small kingdoms?”
For people who live near the intersection of land and the World’s oceans and seas, there is a
continuity between the two. They move as easily between the land and the water as the people
of the hinterlands do on land. Their cultural, political, and economic lives are deeply tied up with
the sea, and so is thievery. In the Western Indian Ocean during the medieval period, piracy was
considered as normal as thievery on land. In fact, more often than not, pirates were seen as
in-laws, integral parts of the society, and not out-laws. This essay is an attempt to understand
how piracy in the Indian Ocean World was organized and why it was not considered
dishonorable. The essay examines the relations of piracy with commerce and the community of
the Western Indian Ocean by borrowing ideas from the articles ‘A Trade of No Dishonor: Piracy,
Commerce, and Community in the Western Indian Ocean, Twelfth to Sixteenth Century’ by
Sebastian Prange and ‘Horse Trade and Piracy at Tana (Thana, Maharashtra, India): Gleanings
from Marco Polo’ by Ranabir Chakravarti.
Much of the European literature on the Indian Ocean World portrays its pirates as pests, who
are without any concrete sense of agency or history. They see them as unorganized groups
plundering the merchants, kidnapping people and demanding ransom, and attacking coastal
towns. While piracy did involve all of these activities, it was far from unorganized. According to
Marco Polo, piracy was a communal activity. The pirates even took their wives and children to
the sea. Certain seafaring communities practiced piracy as a means of earning their livelihood.
Around the Malabar coast were seasonal pirates who lived both on land and the sea during
certain periods of the year. The seasonality of their pirate activities depended on the pattern of
monsoons that defined the sailing seasons. The Mukkuvar caste of the Malabar coast is an
example of such a community. According to Duarte Barbosa's description, they would stay on
land during the winters and earn money through fishing. And during the summers, they would
resort to piracy. Piracy is often resorted to in a coastal area during a period of pressure,
economic and political. For instance, the land in the Southern Konkan coasts is infertile. Despite
heavy rainfall, the land only yields scrubs, bushes, and bamboo. These ports were not linked up
to any economically rewarding hinterland either. Therefore, piracy became an important
supplement to the economic lives of the coastal people in this region.
The Malabar pirates were autonomously organized, caste-contained communities. Theirs were
among the earliest democratic and gender-neutral spaces in the world. They practiced a form of
autonomous political organization wherein they were ruled by their own rulers. For instance, the
Mukkuvars were led by headmen known as arayals. Piracy was a caste-based occupation
where all people belonging to a certain caste engaged in this activity. The pirates also had
strong ties with the world of commerce and trade. They were said to exist “in profound
symbiosis” with the world of trade rather than as constituting its antithesis. The merchants and
