Since Milton published his (dubious) speculation that Barbary corsairs carried off a million Westerners to slavery in North African, numerous websites have popped up citing his view as if it were historical truth. The historical record supports up to fifty thousand captives in Barbary, which is far shy of the sensationalistic claims that a modern public--wanting to think that Islam has always had it in for them--is willing to believe. War hawks frequently trot out the Tripolitan Wars as an example of how the United States today ought to treat Muslim opponents today. (Bomb them.) A book like Pirate Utopias, in which Wilson studies a Barbary community with a genuine interest in its people and no political burdens, is a much needed breath of fresh air.
Wilson examines the Sallee Republic, an independent pirate public, or more correctly as he points out three pirate republics, as the three factions were autonomous and even waged war on one another, in order to understand who these people were, what motivated them, and why so many Europeans were willing to turn renegade and join them. The Muslim motivation -- retaliation against European, especially Spanish raids and marauding, religious zeal, and a lust for profit, are actually well documented and understood, although generally ignored by most readers and writers. Wilson covers that, but where he performs a real service is in examining the renegades. By an understanding of the opportunities and freedoms in the Sallee Republic and the oppressions and poverty in Europe, he makes a compelling case why a rational Westerner might choose to throw in his lot with the rovers.
Wilson engages in a fair amount of speculation which he properly identifies as such, but some of his conclusions are not persuasive. If they had been accompanied by more contextual research they could have been more compelling. For example, his conclusion that cannabis was used by the corsairs rests on rather weak evidence drawn from local sources. While the emphasis on local sources is commendable and essential, in this case he fails to locate the cannabis question in the larger Muslim world. Portions of the Islamic world did indeed some to accept cannabis use on the grounds that it was not forbidden by the Qu'ran. It can be reasonably supposed that corsairs--who did not take kindly to outside authorities telling them what to do--may well have accepted cannabis use as one of the pleasures to which they were entitled. As Wilson illustrates, a portion of the corsairs spent their winters partying in the cabarets of the city. On the other hand, as Wilson also points out, those rovers from the old city of Salé were conservative and pious, and although he does not go into their lives in detail, we can assume that they probably disapproved of the rowdy past times of some of the other rovers.
This points out once again the need for contextual studies and materials to provide a greater understanding of just how the various factions of Sallee rovers and their renegade compatriots lived, which would in turn provide a deeper understanding of the complex processes and different communities and personalities involved in the corsair republic(s). Pirate Utopias is an interesting book that opens up a subject worthy of much greater research, and it can only be hoped that either the author of some other person will take up where he left off.
All in all, Pirate Utopias is a very readable and interesting book, one that points out important issues and distinctions, and which raises questions worthy of further exploration. A small book, it is readily digestible to even individuals new to the realm of pirate studies and enjoyable for the casual reader who would like to know more about a colorful piece of history. I wish I had been able to lay my hands on this book several years ago.
~M. Kei, author of
The Sallee Rovers (Pirates of the Narrow Seas, Book 1)
(fiction)
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