Gelina Harlaftis and Katerina Galani, “Privateering during the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829): Issues of Legitimacy, Organisation, and Economics of a War-Induced Practice”, in Yanni Cartledge and Andrekos Varnava (eds.), New Perspectives on the Greek War of Independence: Myths, Realities, Legacies and Reflections, Palgrave, 2022.

This chapter draws upon recent research on the merchant and naval fleet of the Greeks during the War of Independence and focuses on privateering as a form of economic warfare at sea. Greeks, as Ottoman and Ionian subjects, on the eve of the Greek Revolution owned the largest merchant fleet of the Eastern Mediterranean. They were highly experienced seafarers and were well-accustomed with Western European privateers during the Napoleonic wars. Privateering was an acknowledged and acceptable practice among European nations that aimed at the destruction of the enemy’s merchant fleet and the disruption of its trade. With the outbreak of the Greek Revolution, the Provisional Government issued licenses of privateering to the vessels of the rebels, raising however objections among the European nations on the grounds of legitimacy; the rebels were not acknowledged as a warring nation and the line between privateering, corsairing, and piracy was frequently blurred. In addition, the role of neutral ships, be they European or Ionian, in the provisioning of the belligerents is illustrated though several court cases, to reveal the complexity of war and the overlapping identities of the actors in the Eastern Mediterranean. Lastly, the chapter discusses the initiatives of the Provisional Government to organise and regulate privateering through formal institutions such as prize courts and legislation, in compliance to European laws and practices. Furthermore, it examines the economics of this war-induced activity, by probing the contribution of prizes to the public finance and the significance of loots for the running of ships and the survival of maritime communities during the prolonged war.

The chapter is based on primary research on unpublished and unused archival material of the Greek General State Archives and on recent research carried out by the authors in the Research Programme they led, “Greek Shipping in the Age of Revolution: naval and merchant fleet, 1821–1831” funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, 2016–2019.