a brief note on European pirates and African states during the 'golden age of piracy.'

a pirate stronghold and kingdom in 18th century Madagascar.

For most of its history, maritime trade in the Indian and Atlantic ocean world was characterized by ‘competitive chaos’.

Europeans visiting both regions had to contend with preexisting trade networks and cooperate with local rulers. The labeling of individuals as pirates was a means of advancing the economic and political goals of the European states operating in the oceans, and piracy was thus a manifestation of the rivalry and disorder that periodically impacted commerce in these dynamic zones of exchange.

Along the African coast, repeated attempts by the Portuguese, and later by the Dutch, and English to monopolize maritime commerce failed, as the mainland regions remained under African control, with each state choosing their trading partners.

During this age of mercantilism, European skippers were often encouraged by their home governments to raid the shipping of enemy powers indiscriminately. Many of these pirate raids occurred in the southern Atlantic and were against Iberian ships. For example, Between 1522 and 1539, over 300 Portuguese ships were captured by French privateers (read: pirates) who had been given letters of marque which granted them permission to attack enemy vessels.¹

On the African coast, local rulers were under no obligation to respect Portugal's monopoly over external trade and could trade with anyone who served their interests. In the coastal region of Senegal facing the island of Cabo Verde, the Wolof people of the region regularly traded with pirates on the island rather than the Portuguese who controlled most of it, and had learned to "speak French as if it was their native language". In the early 17th century, the two groups reportedly made off with as much as 200,000 cruzados of goods a year, at the expense of the Portuguese.²

19th-century engraving of a French shipwreck near Rufisque, Senegal.

On the coastline of African states, all foreigners, pirates or otherwise, were compelled to respect African laws and the strict policy of neutrality. Failure to respect these laws resulted in negative and often disastrous consequences for the visiting traders, including a ban from trade, and even the risk of enslavement of the European sailors by Africans who'd take them as prisoners on the mainland until they were ransomed.

In 1525, a French privateer reached the coast of the kingdom Kongo to trade for copper and redwood, an action that was in violation of the Portuguese monopoly. After failing to follow the standard procedures of trade, King Afonso of Kongo sent two of his ships to fight with the French ship. The battle ended with several French sailors being captured and taken to Kongo where most were "taken down in irons" and "put in prison," some of them died, while others were retained as artisans.³

Conversely, a similar fate befell the Portuguese traders who reached the Bijagos islands in modern Guinea, whose inhabitants sheltered pirates (presumably French) and allowed them to set up a "lair and coastal strongpoint" inorder to seize loot from passing ships. The Africans of the Bijagos islands regularly confiscated the goods of the Portuguese sailors, they were also known to "take the white crew as their prisoners, and they sell them in those places where they normally trade for cows, goats, dogs, iron bars."⁴

Even in exceptional cases when Europeans became involved in coastal conflicts involving pirates and African states, the results were pyrrhic at best.

In 1724, about two years after the defeat of the notorious pirate 'Black Bart' near Cape Lopez (in Modern Gabon), a combined Dutch and British force turned its attention against the most powerful supporter of pirates on the Gold Coast (in modern Ghana), an Akan ruler named Jan Konny (John Conny/John Canoe) who controlled the region of Axim and resided in the Prussian-built fort Fredericksburg. While they were successful in defeating John Conny, trade to the fort from the interior declined as the mainland kingdom of Asante avoided the merchants who had driven away their ally.⁵

The pirate ‘Black Bart’ (Bartholomew Roberts) at Ouidah in modern Benin, with his ship and other captured ships in the background.

The impact of European piracy on Africa's coastal societies was therefore negligible and wasn't different from the 'official' trade.⁶

However, one notable exception was the region of north-eastern Madagascar where several hundred pirates found refuge in the late 17th century. In the secluded harbors of the island's northeastern coast, these pirates formed communities whose interactions with their Malagasy hosts influenced the emergence of the kingdom of Betsimisaraka.

The history of the Betsimisaraka kingdom and the European pirates of Madagascar is the subject of my latest Patreon article.

Please subscribe to read about it here:

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View of the coast of the Bijagos islands showing local mariners in large boats receiving European ships. ca. 1885.

1. Afonso I Mvemba a Nzinga, King of Kongo: His Life and Correspondence By John K. Thornton pg 113, A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820 By John K. Thornton pg 52

2. The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670: A Documentary History edited by Malyn Newitt pg 83

3. Afonso I Mvemba a Nzinga, King of Kongo: His Life and Correspondenc By John K. Thornton pg 112-115, 204-205)

4. The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670: A Documentary History edited by Malyn Newitt pg 216-217)

5. Pirates of the Slave Trade: The Battle of Cape Lopez and the Birth of an an American Institution By Angela C. Sutton

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