In the late 17th and early 18th century, many of the Caribbean pirates "retired" to northeast Madagascar. There, they continued their piracy in the Indian Ocean and established communities there. This posthumously published book from David Graeber discusses these piratical communities and how they fit into the societies of Madagascar. More provocatively, Graeber claims that the political organization of these pirate communities actually influenced Enlightenment thinking because of their relative democratic structures.

The topic of the book is fascinating. The book itself, however, is less than exciting. Some of the most interesting aspects include:

a) The democratic practices of pirate ships where the captain was elected and decisions were made democratically except during battles in a form of piratical political science.
b) The challenges that pirates had in disposing of their booty and the type of value they could receive for their goods in a form of piratical economic analysis.
c) The role of local woman in Madagascar society and how they chose to become involved with pirates in order to offer them more independence and gave them the ability to run businesses
d) The books and stage works about the pirates of Madagascar and how they had become a topic of conversation during the Enlightenment period.
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The difficulties of the book include:
a) The lack of reliable sources discussing Madagascar in this period. The earliest part of the book discusses the sources available and assesses how reliable or unreliable they were. Particularly interesting was the role of the writings of Daniel Defoe who wrote a number of popular works about pirates.
b) The anthropological details are, in small doses interesting, but quickly become boring.
c) The overall amount of speculation throughout the book.

The book is fortunately short but would have been even more enjoyable as an extended essay instead. ( )

Na década de 90 Graeber passou um tempo como antropólogo em Madagascar. Esse livro póstumo surgiu de seu interesse na época pela ilha e assim acabou mergulhando no interessante projeto de mostrar como não apenas os piratas do século XVIII experimentaram políticas emancipatórias e sistemas de decisões democráticos (conversados, menos hierarquizados), como o intercâmbio entre esses piratas e a população costeira de Madagascar pôde fazer florescer comunidades igualitárias e emancipatórias onde as mulheres tinham um papel importante e ativo. Com isso Graeber quer desfazer a historiografia consolidada que, propositalmente ou estruturalmente, apaga as contribuições nativas e não-européias. E com isso mostrar como os piratas e os nativos de madagascar se misturaram e contribuíram para as discussões sobre o iluminismo. E mais que isso - colocaram em prática, contra a hierarquização excessiva européia, ideais de igualdade e emancipação. Assim, combate a (1) romantização dos piratas em detrimento da população local; (2) aceitação acrítica dos relatos sobre reis piratas (relatos, aliás, que muitos exploravam para conseguir força política ou afastar invasores); (3) a ideia de que o iluminismo é um desenvolvimento puramente europeu. ( )

I don’t know which was less likely: a new book by the late, great David Graeber, or a new book on pirates (of all things) by David Graeber. But there it was and I grabbed it. As usual, I was not disappointed. In Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia, Graeber uses northeast Madagascar as an example of complex societies being influenced by the egalitarian philosophies of 17th century western pirates. This is something only a David Graeber could tackle. Successfully.

Pirates were the talk of the whole world in the late 1600s and early 1700s. They were written up, romanticized and made into legends. They stole ships and made them into pirate battleships. They hid their loot all over the world, because it was very difficult to change it into cash. But the most important thing, at least for this book, is that they ran egalitarian societies both onboard and onshore when they tried to settle down. David Graeber spent two years in Madagascar, studying the numerous societies and the island’s history. This is the story of how they influenced each other.

It’s a short book (as Graeber books go). It was meant to be an essay in a collection of them, but it was too long. But also too short for a real book, so it languished until now (though it was published in French four years ago). It reveals the intensity Graeber applied to his anthropological side. He was an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics until his death at the age of 59 three years ago. And a big egalitarian.

Naturally, history books are not very forthcoming for the kind of detail Graeber insisted on. The most important such book is the biography of a legendary pirate that Graeber challenges from every angle. The grains of truth in it take considerable thought to distill. He concludes: “So the first real ethnographic accounts we have of Madagascar are really notes written by a spy in order to allow a con man to better fabricate accounts of his non-existent exploits.” To which I would add: In a nonexistent country called Libertalia. Good luck drawing conclusions from that. But Graeber could and did.

After some rousing text on pirates settling in Madagascar – as many as several thousand did, he says – the book turns its focus to the natives for most of the rest. The Malagasy lived in tribes, extended families really. Every village was independent. They were forever forming alliances and breaking them, going to war and pledging loyalty to each other. But they were also quite egalitarian compared to most other societies, then or now. There were the self-appointed kings, and everyone else. Some had three levels of the highest ranks, but most were simply a king and his people. Kings got removed, and intrigue brought new ones to the fore.

The pirates had an enduring effect on them. The natives immediately welcomed them and absorbed them by marriage. Pirates were valued assets because they came on huge ships from exotic foreign lands, were apparently very rich, somewhat educated, and mostly white – all of which made them stand out. And they represented international trade, the most valuable trait of all. Scheming women (women carried out most of the commerce but none of the politics) could and did marry them and made them king. So pirates settled into villages all over the northeast quarter of the island. “Each local group came to have their own local class of stranger-princes, or, as I’ve termed them, ‘internal outsider,’ who were foreigners to their Malagasy neighbors, but Malagasy to foreigners.”

The book is even more focused, however. Because just off the east coast of Madagascar is a long slim parallel island called Sainte-Marie, a microcosm of villages, tribes, politics and philosophies. Pirates hid in the coves and ventured onshore to trade. Graeber’s story then uses a framework of one man, Ratsimilaho, who became king at a very young age, proving himself not so much a warrior but as an organizer. He managed to assemble a confederacy called Betsimisaraka that endured for over thirty years. Thirty years of peace and stability, egalitarianism, and even respect. Complaints were handled by ad hoc committees. Punishments were relatively mild and sentences respected throughout the land. It was the same structure pirates employed on their ships, where captains held their rank by approval of the crew, committees managed all aspects of the voyage, loot was split up fairly, and life was not oppressive. The exact opposite of the lives they left behind in England or France or Spain.

There are lots of rumors but no certainty over Ratsimilaho’s family, how much of a role pirates played, where and how he was educated and what his influences were. But by the age of twenty, he was king and consolidating a whole confederacy. And unfortunately, his plans to pass it all on to his children failed totally. A worthwhile story in itself.

Malagasy wars were fought over trade, or broken promises. Graeber says “While most of the strategy of the war concentrated on maintaining or disrupting supply lines—making it, effectively, continuous with trade—actual combat was classically heroic, full of individual exploits, duels, exchanges of personal challenges and insults, much as one would expect to find in a Homeric, Icelandic, or Maori epic.” Battles would stop while the warriors witnessed an epic match between the greatest from each side. Oaths were made to the effect that once this war is over I will swear loyalty to you, or after this is over our peoples will unite. It was the stuff of myths.

Eventually, the pirates simply disappeared, having been absorbed by their new families. Madagascar is no longer a paradise of equality. It has been in a killer drought for years, and the only real equality is that most suffer the same way in a still largely agrarian society where cattle are the most valuable possession, and the most expensive to maintain.

As usual with David Graeber, the research is phenomenal. The details are impressive. The analysis is sterling. He manages to gain perspective on a complex island nation that does not have a written history, but innumerable tiny villages and outposts, each representing independent peoples. That they actually appreciated mixed marriages and valued the children produced by them, that they controlled the pirates and drove them off if they abused their privilege, and had heroic cultures based on word of honor - is all very utopian. If anything, this book proves it can be done, even with pirates.

David Wineberg ( )