I'll separate the quotes so it's easier to read.
ON JUNE 7, 1801, AN EAST INDIA COMPANY FRIGATE, the Weisshelms, ailing from India
to Egypt, approached Africa's east coast near the Horn. When, at seven in the
evening, the ship drifted close to the rocky shore, it foundered, broke in two, and
lodged between two boulders. The next morning, the Weisshelm survivors found
themselves on a beach surrounded by perhaps twenty Africans "armed, some with
matchlocks, and some with bows and arrows, but all carried a large knife like a
sabre, and pike." The Africans stripped the castaways of their clothing and other
possessions. They also removed silver bracelets from the officers' Indian servants
by first cutting off their arms. Toward sunset, a local chief approached the beach
with more soldiers. He spoke awhile with his men, then formed them into a line,
and ordered the warriors to brandish their weapons at the Europeans "as if they
were going to kill" them. The Weisshelm's survivors made a dash for some nearby
hills. Those "who could not run fast enough, or were wounded by [the Africans']
shots, were immediately butchered, as soon as overtaken." Those who escaped
were rescued some weeks later by a British brig-of-war that became becalmed close
to the Somali shore.'
The Weisshelm's crew and passengers were stranded near a promontory called
Ras Haafuun in what is now northern Somalia. Their experience was not unique.
They ran afoul of the Majeerteen, a group infamous among European sailors for
their fearsome treatment of castaways. The Majeerteen alone among Africans
systematically scavenged among the shipwrecks that regularly littered their shores.
These wrecks were caused by strong currents that swept northward in July and
August at seven to eight knots off the Somali south coast. The currents flowed
northeast to Ras Haafuun where they turned directly east, forming on the
currents' backside an enormous whirlpool rotating counterclockwise toward the
shore. Ships caught in the whirlpool were carried westward to the rocky coast
between Ras Haafuun and 'Alula on the point of the Horn.
By 1800 the Majeerteen confidently expected two or three European ships to
be wrecked on their shores each season. When that happened, nearby residents
converged on the site, chased away the survivors, and looted the vessel. As early
as 1800, booty provided the means by which local Majeerteen chiefs assured
themselves of political power. They supervised the sale of loot in Arabia and
distributed half of the proceeds to their kinsmen-now clients-thus creating
obligations that could be exchanged later for rights in labor, water, and the use
of pastures. By about 1840, however, that patronage and wealth had become
concentrated. in the hands of a single lineage of herders, the 'Ismaan Mahlamuud,
who organized the sole sultanate among the northern Somali. So important did
shipwrecks become to the sultanate that in 1878 an American visitor among the
Majeerteen reported: "A priest is stationed in the mountains near Cape Guardafui
who prays day and night that God will drive Christian vessels ashore that they may
plunder them! This was told me by the Chief of Hunda who regarded it as a very
prudent, proper and pious precaution-he thinking I was a Moslem."
There's much, much, more to the article, but I can't be bothered to post it all. But, anywho, I guess piracy isn't all that new to us.
