Sweden, Barbary Corsairs, and the Hostis Humani Generis

Abstract

In this chapter, the intersection of piracy with scholarly discourse and state policy is traced through a period of acute political crisis in Sweden in the early years of the eighteenth century. By focusing on one student dissertation presented at Uppsala University in 1716, it is argued here that Sweden’s then precarious position necessitated a delicate navigation of piracy in both the Baltic and the Mediterranean. While the scholarly traditions of natural law provided ample resources to condemn pirates as mere sea robbers, this one dissertation illustrates how moral, philosophical, and historical arguments could be marshalled in defence of a more equivocal attitude to piracy, which also reflected the delicate balancing act performed by the Swedish state.