Writer presents a short glimpse of Macau’s piracy history

Robert Antony

Robert Antony, a former history professor at the University of Macau and one of this year’s speakers at the Macau Literary Festival, offered the audience a chance to learn about Macau’s piracy history.

Robert Antony’s talk last week at the Old Court Building included in a session titled “River Cities Crossing Borders: History & Strategies,” which was curated by architect Maria José de Freitas, and, among other subjects, focused on Macau’s piracy stories. The history professor remarked that Macau had an “intimate relationship with piracy.”

According to the author, piracy in and around Macau a century ago was on a “small scale” and consisted of “small games.”

“We can say that, although, very often, when we think of pirates, we think about gangs, instead of pirate skills. […] The second thing is that most of the pirates were very poor, […] they were mostly fishermen and often sailors, and often unemployed,” Antony noted.

Not only Chinese pirates existed in Macau, many foreigners also partook in piracy. The history professor noted that “Macau’s founding by the Portuguese has something to do with the pirates.”

According to Antony’s explanation, the Portuguese came to Macau, “where supposedly, they took down the pirates in this area and were rewarded to some extent. The Chinese government granted them access, allowing them to live there, in Macau.”

“What is for certain is that pirates had an intimate relationship with Macau’s history and with the development of Macau, as a river city, as a port city,” Antony stated, elaborating that one of the major reason for this was Macau’s geography.

“We can think of this area [Coloane, Hengqin, Taipa, and other islands] as a veritable maritime frontier, although the Chinese government claimed that many of these areas belonged to it. The Portuguese also had claims for some of these areas. The truth is that neither the Portuguese nor the Chinese government had really any control of these outer islands along the coast. In many areas, these were no man’s lands,” explained Antony.

“There was also always an issue of sovereignty relating to these islands, such as Coloane,” Antony pointed out, as it was unclear whether the islands belonged to the Chinese or the Portuguese.

According to him, Macau’s pirates were mostly young people in their 20s or 30s. The reality of their situations indeed is something from which the public today can learn.

“Macau has an interesting setting. It can harmonize the east and the west, but there is also, I would say, a dark side to Macau’s history, and pirates represent the other side of Macau history when we read about Macau,” Antony commented.

In the end, Antony remarked that “although piracy disappeared in this area, we can still see that they live in legends, stories, and in books.”