This edited work explores piracy and surreptitious activities such as privateering, war-making, slave-hunting and raiding, focussing on Southeast Asia in the early modern period. Readers will discover nine essays studying the different sub-regions of the Malay Archipelago and adjacent seas and exploring the nature and historiographical perception of piracy, maritime conflict and surreptitious activities. The authors probe the linkages between these occurrences with war and economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in particular, and look at the transition into the nineteenth century.

The introduction surveys the study of piracy in this period and chapters explore topics relating to Siak and Malay raiding, Dutch privateering, Chinese links to hostilities and surreptitious activities in the Melaka-Singapore region as well as raiding and piracy in the Malukan Archipelago. Later chapters explore Maguindanao "piracy" in the early eighteenth century, the seafaring world of the Sulu Sultanate and activities of Iberians in the adjacent seas connected to the region.

The authors contribute to the literature by complementing studies that favour a closer discussion of the 'formal' and 'informal' sectors in history. This book opens up the subject area for delving into the various geographical locales and participating groups, as well as their possible linkages with one another.

This volume will be of interest to students and academicians of Southeast Asian studies and those with a general interest in maritime piracy.

Autorentext
Dr Sim is currently lecturing at an institute in the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has published on the Portuguese in the East / Far East in the eighteenth century. He is the author of Portuguese Enterprise in the East: Survival in the Years 1707-57. On the trade activities and network in the East, Dr Sim is also interested in the other groups operating in the region, most notably the diaspora Chinese, during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Inhalt

Contents.- Preface.- Foreword.- Contents.- List of Contributors.- Chapter 1: Introduction: Studying piracy and surreptitious activities in Southeast Asia in the early modern period.- Chapter 2: Siak, piracy and early modern Malay warfare.- Chapter 3: From self-defence to an instrument of war: Dutch privateering around the Malay Peninsula in the early 17th century.- Chapter 4: Violence and piratical/surreptitious activities associated with the Chinese in the Melaka-Singapore region, 17801840.- Chapter 5: War-making, raiding, slave hunting and piracy in the Malukan Archipelago.- Chapter 6: An exploration into the political background of the Maguindanao piracy in the early 18th century.- Chapter 7: Revisiting the political economy and ethnicity of the Sulu Sultanate and its entanglement with the seafaring world.- Chapter 8: Iberians in the adjacent seas: A survey of their piratical and smuggling activities in relation to war and political economy of the South China Sea.- Chapter 9: The Portuguese in the adjacent seas: A survey of their identities and activities in the eastern Indian Ocean and Burman sea.- Maps.- Glossary.- Index.