ABSTRACT
In history the pirate has often been regarded as an antithesis of the merchant-a social outcaste who lives at the periphery of the society and a constant threat to the peaceful maritime trade. Consequently, he is a confirmed enemy of the state too. This ‘illegitimate’ position of pirates as the socio-political outsiders often shaped the contours of our understanding about the social world of pirates in pre-modern maritime societies. Research about the early-modern European piracy in the Atlantic to a great extent substantiates this socially and politically mutinous image of the pirate.
