PIRATES IN THE PEARL RIVER DELTA
DIAN H. MURRAY*
This study of “Pirates in the Pearl River" was a multiarchival research project whose goal was to piece together information on a group of Chinese non-elites who had hitherto escaped the attention of historians and to turn our attention seaward from the Chinese mainland in order to place our understanding of land-sea relations within a broader ecological context. The research drew upon documents written in Chinese, Vietnamese, French, Portuguese, Japanese and English and involved visits to archives in Washington, D.C.; Taipei, Taiwan; Beijing, China: Macao, Hong Kong; and London.
Almost at its outset my investigation revealed a significant growth of piracy within the Pearl River Delta and along the entire South China coast from Chekiang to Vietnam between 1796 and 1810. Within Kwangtung province alone a confederation of several thousand pirates and a fleet of 1,200 junks dominated delta and coast alike forcing all who set sail, regardless of whether they were merchantmen, fishermen, salt distributors or opium smugglers, to purchase passports for immunisation against attack.
The military prowess of the pirates was such that they successfully fought the Ch'ing government fleet, in the form of the Kwangtung provincial water force, to a standstill and involved themselves in both battles and negotiations with the Western foreigners then on the scene.
Yet, during 1810, at what seemed to be the height of their power, the pirates disappeared almost overnight from the sea. It then became my mission to understand both their rise and fall. Initially, I had intended to investigate the entire phenomenon and to account for all of the pirate activity along the southeast littoral. In the end, however, I discovered that just as there were economic macroregions within which life was lived on the continent, so, too, were there similar regions or 'water
* Professor Murray, of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, is author of Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1870 (Stanford University Press, 1987). This talk was delivered to the Society on August 1st, 1983.
PIRATES IN THE PEARL RIVER DELTA
DIAN H. MURRAY*
This study of “Pirates in the Pearl River" was a multiarchival research project whose goal was to piece together information on a group of Chinese non-elites who had hitherto escaped the attention of historians and to turn our our attention seaward from the Chinese mainland in order to place our understanding of land-sea relations within a broader ecological context. The research drew upon documents written in Chinese, Vietnamese, French, Portuguese, Japanese and English and involved visits to archives in Washington, D.C.; Taipei, Taiwan; Beijing, China: Macao, Hong Kong; and London.
Almost at its outset my investigation revealed a significant growth of piracy within the Pearl River Delta and along the entire South China coast from Chekiang to Vietnam between 1796 and 1810. Within Kwangtung province alone a confederation of several thousand pirates and a fleet of 1,200 junks dominated delta and coast alike forcing all who set sail, regardless of whether they were merchantmen, fishermen, salt distributors or opium smugglers, to purchase passports for immunisation against attack.
The military prowess of the pirates was such that they successfully fought the Ch'ing government fleet, in the form of the Kwangtung provincial water force, to a standstill and involved themselves in both battles and negotiations with the Western foreigners then on the scene.
Yet, during 1810, at what seemed to be the height of their power, the pirates disappeared almost overnight from the sea. It then became my mission to understand both their rise and fall. Initially, I had intended to investigate the entire phenomenon and to account for all of the pirate activity along the southeast littoral. In the end, however, I discovered that just as there were economie macroregions within which life was lived on the continent, so, too, were there similar regions or 'water
* Professor Murray, of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, is author of Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1870 (Stanford University Press, 1987). This talk was delivered to the Society on August 1st, 1983.
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