This paper re-examines the American naval interventions in 1830's Aceh. It argues that the American purchasers of Acehnese pepper also sold substantial amounts of opium. 

Acehnese attacks on foreign shipping were not random acts of "piracy", as thought previously, but outgrowths of this un-examined opium trade. Opium exacerbated terms of trade and destabilized polities, creating the conditions in which attacks on foreign shipping were more likely. American (as well as British and French) naval intervention on the coast failed to suppress Acehnese because these interventions left the underlying opium trade intact. 

Speaker

James R. Fichter is an associate professor of maritime and international history (University of Hong Kong). He is the author of So great a profit: How the East Indies transformed Anglo-American capitalism (Harvard, 2010) and Tea: Consumption, politics and revolution, 1773-1776 (Cornell, 2023). This paper constutes one of several article-length projects in progress on trade in Southeast Asia. He is also completing monographs on the Suez Canal and the transatlantic slave trade. 

Moderator

David Kloos is a historian and anthropologist with a focus on Southeast Asia (particularly Indonesia and Malaysia), working as a senior researcher at KITLV. His main interests are religion (particularly Islam), gender, the politics of knowledge formation, visual methods, and the study of the social, political, and cultural aspects of climate change.

Format, date, time & venue

This seminar is an onsite event and will be held in the conference room of KITLV, Herta Mohr building, room 1.30, Witte Singel 27 A, Leiden on Tuesday 24 March from 15.00-16.30 PM (CET).  

Image

Cover Pursuit of the Pirates, True Comics no. 59, 1947.

Flyer

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