WEBVTT - Part Two: Pirates, Libertalia, and the Betsimisaraka Confederation 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:02.920 Whoso Media. 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.360 Hello, and welcome to cool people who talk about pirates sometimes. 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:10.520 I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and I'm talking to a 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:14.280 cool person about pirates sometimes whose name is Molly. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:16.840 Hi, Molly, Hey, Margaret. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.639 I suppose you have a last name, Molly Crabapple, Molly Krabapple. 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:23.560 If you've listened to part one, you know who Molly 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.319 Crabapple is. If you're listening only to part two, you 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.800 might still know who Molly Crabapple is because her stuff's 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.760 a lot of places, and if you don't, you should 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.559 look it up. But Molly Crabapple is a like a 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:41.159 conflict journalist with art and it's cool. Thank you, our 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.800 producer of Sophie Hi, Sophie Hi, our editor who I 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.360 forgot to shout out last time. I'm so sorry. Rory 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.680 is Rory Hi, Rory Hi, Riy you have to say 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:54.480 hi to Rory too. All those we can't continue, Hey, Rory, 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.600 my brain doesn't work right? And are they? Musical was 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:01.200 written for us by unwoman. So this is part two 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:06.520 about the real Libertalia, rather the cool shit that indigenous 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.280 rebels were doing in Madagascar and how it relates to 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.759 the sometimes cool and complicated shit and sometimes terrible shit 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.759 that pirates from the rest of the world were doing 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.479 in Madagascar, and how cultures come together and do weird 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.320 and interesting things and sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not. 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.600 And there's no clear moral line to easily draw in 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:30.839 this week's episodes, but it sure ain't boring. So there's 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.800 this pirate haven in Madagascar, except instead of a cool 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:39.400 anarchist utopia, it's a slave trade port, and in order 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:41.480 to fence their stolen goods. I guess it's one of 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:42.840 those things where it's like when you're just like kind 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:44.520 of in the crime world, you're just like fucking around 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.039 with people who are bad also, you. 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:48.960 Know, yeah, yeah, pretty much like the. 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.120 Jain Collective was totally working with the mafia. And it's 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:58.160 like very narrowly hidden subtext. You know, it's just cool 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:00.480 people do crime and bad people do crime. Crime is 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:05.440 not a useful metric by which to judge morality. This 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.880 slave trade port, sorry, this pirate haven in Madagascar wasn't 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:13.399 really operating under the European model of settlement in slavery, 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.440 but more like the Arab and indigenous model, which doesn't 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.280 make it Again. Whatever I've said, my piece about that 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.440 they were actually coordinating with locals to purchase war captives 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:28.280 and sell those into slavery. And everyone is intermarrying, and 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.120 it wasn't wildly distinct from local culture in a lot 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:33.880 of ways at the time. This doesn't make it good, 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.679 but it certainly better than the legal settlements. Rather than 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.880 like leading slave raids, various conflicts between various groups would 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.799 lead to small scale warfare which produce captives who could 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.960 be sold into slavery. And so at this point it's 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.799 worth talking about the Malagasy culture of northeast Madagascar itself. 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:59.720 Madagascar overall was not actually particularly egalitarian, but definitely not 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.640 a modern state structure or anything like that. And honestly, 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.320 it's funny because this, like not a galitarian society, is 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.160 so much more a galitarian than the societies that probably 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:13.000 anyone who's listening to this lives in. Currently, there was 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.800 an established class of priests, and there was a growing 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.440 class of warriors who are above everyone else too. Those 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.960 are the things that like keep it from being moregalitarian. 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.080 And what's the what religion are the priests doing? 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:26.760 Yeah, so it's really interesting. It depends on what part 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.680 of the island you're on. They're doing different indigenous practices. 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.120 But even though there's no qur'an in sight, most of 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.640 the rest of the island is doing what they would 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.560 call Islam, but it does not map to other people's 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:45.280 understanding of Islam particularly And then in the northeast part, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.760 it's Jewish in that same way where it's also not. 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:51.520 Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's like a folk memory of what 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.920 being Jewish might have been this. Yeah, it's like, yeah, 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:56.440 like this faint trace of something. 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.280 Yeah. And David Graeber, who was Jewish, was kind of 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:01.800 also been like and I think that they, you know, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.440 I think some Jewish cultural traits carried on. They like 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.960 spent a lot of time actively discussing philosophy with each 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:08.480 other and not. 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:12.320 Agreeing on things and nitpicking, nitpicking the culture of graduate students, 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:13.000 that's our culture. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:18.159 Yeah, yeah, and again I won't say that, but grab 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:19.200 did and you can. 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.240 And as a Jewish woman, I will say that it's 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.640 no surprise that the culture of rabbis produced Marxists. 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:34.120 Yeah, absolutely, it makes sense. So Northeast Madagascar was a 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.839 clan structure. That whole region had about fifty clans of 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.200 several hundreds more than one thousand people in each clan, 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:42.760 and these were split up into these large families, and 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.400 you have villages and stuff. Most people are growing rice. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.039 To quote Graber about the economics in any given village, 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.599 there was a great hall where everyone ate their midday 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.440 meal together, and collective granaries where each family kept their 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.760 own stock, but also a collective store any family coul 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.280 in case of shortfall. This was by no means in 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.719 a galitarian society. Well, everyone had access to the means 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.640 to sustain life, not everyone had equal access to the 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.320 means to create it. Just as the heads of villages 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.000 had multiple wives, so each clan had a dominant lineage 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.919 that managed to keep a large proportion of its daughters 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:23.360 to itself. It's funny that this is the like nonagalitarians. 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.719 It's so much more a galitarian than how we live now. 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.159 I mean, it seems like the losers of the nonagalitarian 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.400 society are all of the guys that get no wives 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.400 because one guy is getting a lot of them. 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.240 Yeah kind of. And then like and actually a new 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.640 clan split off all the time, started by women who 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.800 were unhappy with what was going on. And overall it's 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.080 a patriarchal and patrilineal culture, but it's like not completely 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.279 and that's also not universal across Madagascar, where there's more 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.599 of like they would, oh there's a word for it, 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.719 I don't remember, but instead of matrilineal or patrilineal, there's 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.280 a like botham version, you know, where people keep track 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.560 of both they're both their parents families. And that's like 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:07.320 what was happening in Madagascar overall. But northeast Madagascar was 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.800 like ostensibly led by men, but in really complicated ways 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:12.520 that we're going to talk about, where women actually exerted 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.320 a lot of power. These large families in the clans 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:20.160 themselves had sort of formal leaders who Europeans immediately called kings, 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.000 but these kings never centralized power and specifically they had 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:28.320 like basically no executive power. Sometimes these clans would fight. 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.279 I'll talk about decisions or whatever, spoil it already spoiled it. 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.040 They make decisions by consensus and assemblies that anyone who's 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.040 affected by a decision can come participate in. 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:38.960 And what makes you a king then, besides that you 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.159 have a lot of wives kind of that that's it. 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:43.640 That's it. 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:45.719 I think it's like, and you also kind of like 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:47.760 are doing the like I have so many daughters, and 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.039 I control what's happening to my daughter. Like, honestly, there's 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.599 some like patriarchy involved in it too, right, and you're 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:58.160 like wealthier more likely. Yeah. I think it's so interesting 0:06:58.160 --> 0:06:59.760 because this happens all over the world where we just 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:01.479 like show up, like Europeans will show up and be 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:06.159 like that there's a kingdom, and people are like, what, okay, 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:08.800 if we say we're king, will you leave us alone? 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:09.320 You know? 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:11.880 Yeah? Yeah, well you decide that we're quote unquote civilized 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:13.040 enough not to invade us. 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.160 Yeah. And sometimes these clans would go to war with 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:17.880 each other, and I think, actually, I think that these 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:20.240 kings were like war chiefs a lot of times also, 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:22.720 which put them on equal footing with pirates in a 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.000 lot of ways. Right, Sometimes the kings would just sort 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:28.200 of fight duels with each other, and then during any 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.840 given war, captives were often taken. And then these captives 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.760 were generally ransom back to the original families or they 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.320 were married into the families that captured them. This is 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.680 like a way you like go get men to make 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:45.360 everyone not in bread this ye go, it's not whatever. 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:46.960 I'm not trying to put a moral judgment one way 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:47.240 or the other. 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.280 It's obvious. So they're kidnapping. They're not doing the usual 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.720 thing where they're like kidnapping women and forcing them to marry. 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.640 They're kidnapping dudes and forcing them to marry in. 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:58.920 Actually, you know what, now that I'm thinking this through, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:00.600 a lot of the people are being old as slaves, 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.280 are also women and children, So I think they're just 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.960 capturing people during these raids. But that's my conjecture based 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:11.440 on what I read. And this does not create chattel slavery, 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.520 but of course foreigners, including Arab traders and European traders, 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.240 turned it into like funneled people into chattel slavery and 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.880 the sort of modern what we think of the North 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:25.520 Atlantic slave trade and stuff like that. And this whole 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:30.000 system of conflict kept any given clan or family from 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.920 taking too much power. They were often rich and they 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.480 were surrounded by pirate treasure and shit, but they didn't 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.440 have a lot of control over other people. The political decisions, 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:42.439 including criminal trials, basically were made it consensus based assemblies 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.640 called cabarety, and these would involve whoever had an interest 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.000 in whatever decision was being made. Most were on a 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:52.000 household or clan level. Sometimes they were regional, like probably 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.360 the one that is about to kill all the pirates 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.920 was probably a regional cabaret, but we don't know. Also, 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.240 there was like women only ones for like like if 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.319 the shit involved women, then only other women were involved, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:09.000 which is better gender politics than a lot of Now, 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.960 there are two ways of looking at the way women 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.280 were treated in the society. One, the primary way that 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.480 is written down by European anthropologists and by European visitors 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.160 is that women were more or less property. They were 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.559 regularly kidnapped and given away. Teenage daughters of important men 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.040 in particular were given away, especially to foreigners like pirates 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.800 like Yasically you show up and they're like, ah, nice 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.600 to meet you, foreigner. Here is my sixteen year old daughter. 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.720 Fuck yeah, no, it's not the best. Men often had 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.760 multiple wives. These are all true statements, but they don't 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.120 address the reality of what was happening. According to the 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:50.319 Malagasy view of what was happening, and when pirates married 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.560 Malagasy women, interestingly, it brought men into the sphere of 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.000 these important families, so it was like I'm a little 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.440 bit confused I could read this both ways. There's a 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:01.280 real implica that a lot of the pirate men just 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.000 basically like, like the son in law now just goes 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.600 and like lives with father in law, you know. But 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.360 I believe also women were going and living in these 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:12.160 coastal towns. And we'll talk about the coastal towns in 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:16.000 a minute. The way that Malagasy women wrote about what 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.880 was happening is wildly different than the way that European 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:20.840 men were talking about what was happening, even though they're 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:21.880 describing the same thing. 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:24.920 So how did they describe, for instance, like your dad 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:29.160 given you to the newly arrived pirate dude, so I. 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.000 We arrived pirate dude. 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:31.960 I like that. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.800 So they were describing what they were doing as putting 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:40.880 on love charms and going down to the ocean to 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:41.559 attract men. 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.040 So they were just like they're having fun. 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.120 They've done witchcraft to get them to show up. They're like, fuck, yeah, 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:51.480 I got a guy. I went fishing at the ocean 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:52.040 for a guy. 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:53.559 Wow. Wow. 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:54.559 So that's very different. 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.680 Yeah, and they would marry these men and not be 0:10:58.840 --> 0:10:59.679 subordinate to them. 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:02.640 So wait, they're like, oh, there's plenty of fish in 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:03.679 the sea, but there's like. 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:05.280 Literal men in the sea. 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:07.680 They're like, oh, I'm gonna put a cute outfit on 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:10.640 and perfume and go to the sea to find a man, 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:12.840 just like me going to a bookstore being like. 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:13.920 Do you read? Are you? 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:14.360 Are? 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:19.120 You look at me? I'm so alluring? Yeah, yeah, that's 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.880 that is the implication of what's happening. And they were like, hell, yeah, 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:24.920 my powerful witchcraft pulled a man out of the sea, 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:26.480 you know, honey. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.920 Okay, yeah, you know, good for you. And then they're like, 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:32.760 and my dad will be a good choice for my 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:33.520 my sea hookup. 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:36.720 So I again, I don't know how it relates to 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:39.320 the I don't know how often they're like, dad, why 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.280 do you give me to this guy? Right? I don't 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.720 know as much about that, but by and large, I 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:46.640 think that the way that they are viewing marriage is 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:50.080 as an economic relation and not as a romantic relation. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.120 And specifically it's an economic relation between equals in a 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.640 way that it wasn't in Europe at this time, right, 0:11:57.160 --> 0:11:59.240 And so that's like part of why Europeans could easily 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.240 be like, oh fuck in her property and being given 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.240 around because it's like, well, women were property in England 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:05.400 in Europe at the time. 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.120 Right, Yeah, they couldn't even own property. 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.400 Yeah, And I don't know about the property rights of women. 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.559 I do know about how women ran all the finances. 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:18.880 So actually that has some implications. But any man who 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:25.320 mistreated his wife would be killed, cursed and killed, probably poisoned. 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:27.440 But it was like not presented as like I'm going 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:28.880 to poison you. Instead it was like, oh, I don't 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:31.080 mess with these women though, And then there's all of 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.960 these stories about like and then this man died randomly 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.760 of illness, you know, after he was shitty to his wife. 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.480 So you're just living. You're living with your wife, and 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.640 you just know that at any moment, if you beat 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:44.160 her up or get out of line, that she might 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:45.240 just put poison in your food. 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:46.359 Yeah. 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.520 Basically that seems like it would make them be respectful. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:50.080 Yeah. 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.800 No, And overall that seems to be what happened. And 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:58.360 men were necessary basically as the bread winners of get 0:12:58.360 --> 0:12:59.640 the fuck out of here. I don't even want to 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:01.959 see you. Why aren't you on the ocean robbing people 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.120 and giving me stuff? Shit? 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:04.600 Man? 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.920 And so men couldn't be trusted with finances, and so 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.880 women were in charge of the money. Most of the 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.600 merchants at all of these port cities of pirates, whether 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.120 they were married or not, were women, and so women 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.679 are kind of running the economic sphere. 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:22.760 Except for the pirate kings. 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.439 Yeah, it's like the only specific pirate king. Okay, so 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.000 when I'm talking about these coastal cities, I'm actually talking 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.800 about post that pirate king getting run out of town, 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:33.120 and I'm going to talk about him getting run of 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:34.760 town after I finished the like a side about the 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.040 Malagassy folks, and I don't know, I suspect there were 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.080 also probably European traders as well, but the people who 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:43.319 were kind of like interfacing stuff coming in and out 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:48.760 of the islands were often women. Observers wrote with scandal 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:51.880 about how all of the Malagasy women who were married 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:56.800 could fuck whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted. If a 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.360 pirateman had multiple wives, each must be provided with her 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.560 own home, and then like if he's not home, they're 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.760 allowed to do whatever they want. Basically, it reached the 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.560 point where the coastal pirate towns were called cities of 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.160 women because women ran them and it was mostly women 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.679 living in them. Because all the husbands are at sea. 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.120 Isn't that weird how both those stories are true. 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.600 That's amazing, because, yeah, the Europeans, they had no frame 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.200 to interpret a world where like, first of all, where 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.560 a woman who was married could sleep around, right, where 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.800 a woman would control all of the commerce, where a 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.280 woman would poison her husband if he gave her a 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:38.240 black eye. They had no way to imagine or I mean, 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:39.760 I'm sure they had a way, but they hadn't. They 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.520 refused to imagine women as equal humans. And so if 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:46.400 you can't see women as equal humans, you cannot understand 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:47.560 at all what's going on. 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.640 Right, And then you're still talking about like a fundamentally right, 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.080 you're still talking about a slave society, right, And so 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.360 on some level, the giving away daughters, it's like, well, 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.120 people are capable of becoming property temporarily in the society 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.880 or even permanently in the society. But then like when 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:06.360 men are captured, they're often married into the family or whatever. Right, 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.080 so it's just different. Like I feel like this is 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.760 one of the best examples of cultural relativism I've ever seen, 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.800 where I can tell the story that does not look good, 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.040 and then I can tell the story that sounds cool 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:20.440 as shit, and they're both true in that it's kind 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.160 of not good and it's kind of cool as shit, 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.960 you know, at the same time. And yeah, that is 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.440 the Malagasy people on the northeast coast at the time. 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.320 This is the culture that these pirates are showing up 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.680 and intermarrying with and hanging out with. And so you've 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.360 got this first pirate settlement off on the island, and 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.000 they're sending a few slaves here and there. It's basically 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.400 in their best interest to make sure the various clans 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:46.400 keep fighting each other because that produces captives which they 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:48.800 can turn around and sell. And so there's an economic 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.400 incentive for them to go around and stir up shit. 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:52.320 So that's not good. 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.840 And they are stirring up shit. Do they know how 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:55.560 they stir up shit? 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.440 I don't know how they're stirring up shit. What I 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.480 do know is specifically late they're going to be the 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.440 fucking mediators, my god, and so I know the shift, 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.760 but I don't know what they were doing beforehand. 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.320 Being gospy bitches. They were being like, oh this one, sure, yeah, yeah, 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.400 this one says that your communal cafeteria has shitty food 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.720 and the meat is dry, you just do something about it. 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:22.040 Yeah, absolutely, yeah, they just cointel prode that shit, and 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:27.880 their primary interest is fencing stolen goods. But then the 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.760 New York City businessmen were like, you send far too 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.520 few slaves. And so the pirate king he's kind of 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.400 like he thinks forced but whatever, fuck him. He starts 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:40.600 stepping it up. And what he does in he didn't 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.720 write in the script sixteen ninety seven. Mm. Yeah, he 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.200 tricks a bunch of people into coming into his fort 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:48.880 and then he scoops them up and sells them. And 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.960 this is entirely outside the social contract of like the 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.880 way slavery is supposed to work around here, right, So 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.360 the locals burn his fucking fortress down and slit the 0:16:58.360 --> 0:16:59.400 throat of every pirate they. 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:01.760 Saw, I mean understandably. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.800 Oh yeah, except a bunch of the pirates had been 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:06.920 given a heads up by their wives who they were 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.120 actually nice to and had nothing to do with any 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:10.680 of it, and weren't there that day. 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.199 And they never they never retaliated against those pirates. Did 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.320 those pirates have to go away forever? Did they just 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:17.560 like leave until. 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.320 Oh they wipe out the fucking town, Like it is. 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.160 The ones who're the ones who have not been there 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:23.560 that day. 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:25.080 No, I know what I'm saying is there's no one 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.960 to retaliate against them. They show up and they slit 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:33.919 everyone's throats. That time, that period of slavery on this 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:39.280 island is over. In one attack, they wipe out a 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:40.200 slave trade port. 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:41.280 Wow. 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.399 Yeah, that particular pirate king, he escaped the knife because 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.280 he was out at sea. I don't think he was 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.159 tipped off. And he just never goes back. He's like, 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:51.520 I'm fucking out of here. 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:52.760 He knows it's fucking over. 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:57.800 Yeah, And basically all the pirates realized their allegiance is 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.480 not to fucking Europe or to sl They are at 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.800 war with the whole civilized world. After all. They stop 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.440 slave trading, and they cut out the trying to stir 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:13.119 up conflict between groups, and they more go native. I 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.120 don't know the proper way to use. I know it's 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:17.159 a shitty phrase. I just don't know. 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.680 They become Malagasy, they integrate. 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.840 More so, they do more of that. They're still distinct 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:24.760 and their children are going to become this kind of 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.439 separate clasp and we'll talk about that later. And they 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.480 moved to the mainland, and then slavers avoid northeast Madagascar 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:36.480 for decades because well, the pirates will still attack slave ships. 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.440 Because it turns out that that was highly effective. 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.040 Yeah yeah, and they're probably not doing it because they're 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:45.560 like we individually. But honestly, I'm will into bed. The 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.119 average pirate who believes in this all galitarian shit might 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.320 be like kind of anti slavery. I don't know. I mean, 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.040 obviously some of them weren't, you know, I could see it. 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:59.239 So the place that inspired Libertalia fell destroyed righteously, and 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.160 what rose and stay were these cities of women and 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:09.040 then a whole crazy rebellious confederation that is really fucking interesting. 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.400 But before we talk about it, I want to talk 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.480 about medieval weapons. Have you purchased medieval weapons lately? If 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.760 you haven't purchased a new medieval weapon, your soul has 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:22.560 a sword shaped hole in it. 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.160 Sword shaped holes is also what happens when you don't 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.680 purchase medieval weapons and someone else around you has. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.320 I know, those without swords can still die upon them. 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:46.439 That's our slogan. Anyway, here's other ads ed, Rebecca, So 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:48.840 I'm going to tell you about another pirate. This is 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.120 going to lead to the weird legend stuff that people 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.280 are going to build. There's a guy named Henry Avery, 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.480 and he's like in the like list of like he's 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.679 not Blackbeard, but he's like up there right. He's one 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:03.359 of the the guys people talk about. He was active 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.000 for all of two years and he pulled off the 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.639 greatest haul in pirate history probably and he was never caught. 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.800