ABSTRACT
The chapter focuses on how piracy was rendered in Spanish records from the Philippine Islands from around 1570 to 1800. The author demonstrates that the label “pirate” was used to denote a wide range of hostile elements or peoples, including other Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, and indigenous Philippine groups. Several of these alleged pirates have been largely overshadowed by later, mainly nineteenth-century, accounts that focused exclusively or overwhelmingly on the maritime raiding of indigenous Muslim “Moro piracy.” The chapter thus demonstrates the complex nature of piracy and the multiplicity of actors, practices, and representations of the phenomenon during the long period under study.
