'One That's More Torrid': The Pirates of Madagascar

Malabar Coast

The Malabar coast was a vital part of the spice trade and silk roads, dating back to trade between the first human civilizations in the Mesopotamian and Indus River Valley regions, respectively. It also possesses a rugged coastline, with a variety of thriving ports and small islands frequented by merchant vessels during known monsoon cycles, making it an archetypal topography for pirates over almost a millennia.

Marco Polo noted, in the thirteenth century: "‘You must know that from Malabar, and from a neighbouring province called Gujarat, more than 100 ships cruise out every year as corsairs, seizing other ships and robbing the merchants. For they are pirates on a big scale’" (qtd. in Campbell, "Piracy in the Indian Ocean World" 787).

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