Introduction
This essay examines how the category of “piracy” has influenced contests over political authority in the Indian Ocean. By considering European encounters with non-European maritime actors, particularly during periods of expanding commercial empires, the discussion focuses on two historical examples: Portuguese interventions in the sixteenth century and British campaigns against Gulf-based groups in the early nineteenth century. The analysis shows that labels of piracy often served to delegitimise alternative claims to maritime control, while reinforcing emerging notions of sovereignty and exclusive jurisdiction at sea.
The Portuguese Cartaz System and Early Modern Authority
In the sixteenth century, Portuguese forces introduced the cartaz, a form of safe-conduct pass required for vessels trading in the Indian Ocean. Ships without this document were routinely labelled as pirates and subject to seizure or destruction. This practice allowed the Portuguese Crown and its agents to assert a form of maritime oversight that extended beyond their limited territorial holdings. Local rulers and merchants who continued longstanding practices of tribute collection and convoy protection found their actions reclassified as criminal. The effect was to undermine existing systems of layered authority, in which multiple coastal polities exercised overlapping rights over sea lanes. By equating non-compliance with piracy, Portuguese authorities presented their own claims as the sole legitimate form of protection, thereby advancing a narrower conception of sovereignty centred on the right to regulate passage.
British Campaigns against the Qawasim and the Construction of Order
A second instance occurred after the Napoleonic Wars, when the British East India Company targeted the Qawasim confederation based along the southern shore of the Persian Gulf. British naval expeditions in 1809 and 1819 destroyed forts and vessels, justifying the operations by describing Qawasim activities as systematic piracy. In reality, the Qawasim had collected tolls from passing merchant craft in much the same way that land-based rulers levied duties on caravans. British records framed these collections as illegitimate violence against neutral trade. The resulting treaties of 1820 and later agreements imposed restrictions on maritime armament and required local signatories to accept British arbitration in disputes. These arrangements helped consolidate a regional order in which the Royal Navy became the principal guarantor of safe passage, displacing earlier pluralistic arrangements and tying local legitimacy to compliance with British-defined rules.
Implications for Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and Power at Sea
Both cases illustrate how the piracy label functioned less as a neutral description of criminal behaviour and more as a political instrument. Designating certain groups as pirates allowed European powers to deny them recognition as legitimate political actors capable of exercising jurisdiction at sea. This move supported the gradual extension of exclusive territorial sovereignty into maritime space, a development that contrasted with earlier Indian Ocean norms of shared access and negotiated protection. At the same time, the very act of suppression revealed the limits of such claims: enforcement depended on continuous naval presence and alliances with selected local leaders. Consequently, the category of piracy both shaped and exposed the contingent nature of authority, showing that control over sea lanes rested on sustained material power rather than abstract legal title alone.
Conclusion
The historical use of piracy labels in the Indian Ocean demonstrates that struggles over political authority at sea were intimately connected to processes of naming and exclusion. Portuguese and British practices recast established maritime customs as criminal acts, thereby advancing narrower models of sovereignty while marginalising alternative sources of legitimacy. These dynamics underscore that power at sea has long been constructed through discursive as well as military means, with lasting effects on regional political order.
References
- Benton, L. (2010) A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Pearson, M.N. (1987) The Portuguese in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Thomson, J.E. (1994) Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
