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frandroid"...what is worth a mention ashore is surely worth a word afloat."
So I've resumed reading Wilson's Pirate Utopias, where I learned that the events in the book Pirate Utopia published by Bruce Sterling were based on a REAL "pirate" republic!!
Not that that makes that novella that much better, but anyway! All an exciting prospect, and another book (Julien's) to look forward to reading. Hopefully I can find the original French edition.
Here's a money quote from the penultimate chapter of Utopias: « Islam, to a certain extent, was the Internationale of the seventeenth century——and Salé perhaps its only true "Soviet" » 🙃 (The first half of this idea is pursued in Robert Kaplan's book about the Indian Ocean——yes, the neo-con author)
One thing I find frustrating with this book is that it feels like a work that was stopped short. The subtitle is "Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes"—the people found in the pirate republic of Salé, one of the three pirate-controlled towns at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river at Rabat in present-day Morocco. They are treated as a whole so in fact, Wilson only looks at a single pirate utopia. In the last two chapters, he compares this one to Fiume, to Nassau, to the sunken Port Royal, and to the various places in Madagascar that emerged, including the fabled Libertalia, which gets a longer look/rebunking (!). But it feels tacked on. It feels like the subject was supposed to be wider, but after finishing the research on Salé, Wilson decided he was done and wrapped up the book.
Nonetheless, it's a very interesting look at Mediterranean piracy which often gets overlooked for the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean.
Two things mar the book/the utopia. The first one is Wilson brief but obviously shocking defense of pedophilia as practiced in Salé, as a form of criticism in contemporary "conservative" sexual standards. A known item from Wilson, but remains disgusting.
The other one is about slavery. Caribbean pirates were not above keeping pirates enslaved; what to do with captured slaves depended on the crew, the captain and circumstances. Slaving was not the main target though. But in the Mediterranean, pirates were capturing a LOT of people for ransom and slavery. That was a common tactic between Europe and the Ottomans, and pirates were only too happy to do the same. Wilson describes a raid that a Salé fleet conducted in Reykjavik (!!) and finding that there were not that much valuable goods save some salted fish, they kidnapped people instead and brought them back home to be sold.
Now it's not like I thought pirates were angels—they are killers. But in general they tried to use overwhelming force, guile and intimidation to get the other party to surrender. That other party could also choose financial loss over murder and capitalism.
Save for some known psychopaths (Charles Vane, Blackbeard, maybe Ed Low?) pirates were often not going out of their way to kill people. But enslaving people was a choice, and that's one that the Sally Rovers often made.
Eventually I will read Gabriel Kahn's Life Under the Jolly Roger to further disabuse myself of life under piracy =) but more books about Kurds await me in the meantime.
So I've resumed reading Wilson's Pirate Utopias, where I learned that the events in the book Pirate Utopia published by Bruce Sterling were based on a REAL "pirate" republic!!
The Republic of Bou Regreg was not a pure pirate utopia, but it was a state founded on piratical principles; in fact, it was the only state ever founded on these principles.*
...
*: Unless it be Gabriele d'Annunzio's infamous Republic of Fiume (1919), which financed its brief experience by piracy, and had a constitution based on the idea of music as the only force of social organization. See Philippe Julien, trans. D'Annunzio
Not that that makes that novella that much better, but anyway! All an exciting prospect, and another book (Julien's) to look forward to reading. Hopefully I can find the original French edition.
Here's a money quote from the penultimate chapter of Utopias: « Islam, to a certain extent, was the Internationale of the seventeenth century——and Salé perhaps its only true "Soviet" » 🙃 (The first half of this idea is pursued in Robert Kaplan's book about the Indian Ocean——yes, the neo-con author)
One thing I find frustrating with this book is that it feels like a work that was stopped short. The subtitle is "Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes"—the people found in the pirate republic of Salé, one of the three pirate-controlled towns at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river at Rabat in present-day Morocco. They are treated as a whole so in fact, Wilson only looks at a single pirate utopia. In the last two chapters, he compares this one to Fiume, to Nassau, to the sunken Port Royal, and to the various places in Madagascar that emerged, including the fabled Libertalia, which gets a longer look/rebunking (!). But it feels tacked on. It feels like the subject was supposed to be wider, but after finishing the research on Salé, Wilson decided he was done and wrapped up the book.
Nonetheless, it's a very interesting look at Mediterranean piracy which often gets overlooked for the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean.
Two things mar the book/the utopia. The first one is Wilson brief but obviously shocking defense of pedophilia as practiced in Salé, as a form of criticism in contemporary "conservative" sexual standards. A known item from Wilson, but remains disgusting.
The other one is about slavery. Caribbean pirates were not above keeping pirates enslaved; what to do with captured slaves depended on the crew, the captain and circumstances. Slaving was not the main target though. But in the Mediterranean, pirates were capturing a LOT of people for ransom and slavery. That was a common tactic between Europe and the Ottomans, and pirates were only too happy to do the same. Wilson describes a raid that a Salé fleet conducted in Reykjavik (!!) and finding that there were not that much valuable goods save some salted fish, they kidnapped people instead and brought them back home to be sold.
Now it's not like I thought pirates were angels—they are killers. But in general they tried to use overwhelming force, guile and intimidation to get the other party to surrender. That other party could also choose financial loss over murder and capitalism.
Save for some known psychopaths (Charles Vane, Blackbeard, maybe Ed Low?) pirates were often not going out of their way to kill people. But enslaving people was a choice, and that's one that the Sally Rovers often made.
Eventually I will read Gabriel Kahn's Life Under the Jolly Roger to further disabuse myself of life under piracy =) but more books about Kurds await me in the meantime.
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