Kent,

I can't help with any information, but I must say, I WANT there to be 
some evidence of piracy in the Indian Ocean, preferably around the early 
1870s, and I WANT to learn that ol' MT knew about it and used it 
(without giving his sources away). If all else fails, maybe we could 
make something up?

Best,
Ken

On 2/26/2012 3:17 PM, R. Kent Rasmussen wrote:
> In chapter 20 of HUCKLEBERRY FINN, the king addresses the Pokeville camp =
> meeting:
>
> "He told them he was a pirate--been a pirate for thirty years, out in =
> the Indian Ocean, and his crew was thinned out considerable, last =
> spring, in a fight, and he was home now, to take out some fresh men, and =
> thanks to goodness he'd been robbed last night, and put ashore off of a =
> steamboat without a cent, and he was glad of it, it was the blessedest =
> thing that ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and =
> happy for the first time in his life; and poor as he was, he was going =
> to start right off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean an fd put =
> in the rest of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; =
> for he could do it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all =
> the pirate crews in that ocean; and though it would take him a long time =
> to get there, without money, he would get there anyway ..."=20
>
> I've just learned of a draft history paper on early piracy in the Indian =
> Ocean that opens with this HF passage. The paper's author goes on to =
> speculate why Mark Twain used Indian Ocean piracy as an example. The =
> person who told me about this paper (which I haven't seen) is himself an =
> authority on the Indian Ocean slave trade. He tells me there was little =
> true piracy in that ocean by the time Mark Twain was writing HF. This =
> makes the king's speech more interesting. Michael Patrick Hearn's =
> ANNOTATED HUCKLEBERRY FINN (2d ed., 2001, p. 235, n.55) says "The Indian =
> Ocean was infamous for its pirates in the early nineteenth century ..." =
> but offers no source for this assertion. The revised UC Press edition of =
> HF doesn't comment on the subject. I'm inclined to think that Mark Twain =
> knew nothing about the existence or nonexistence of piracy in the Indian =
> Ocean when he was writing but used that region simply because its =
> exoticness as a Christian missionary field would have appealed to =
> mid-19th-century Protestants. He could just as easily have used Borneo =
> or Tierra del Fuego as examples.
>
> I'd like to hear from anyone who thinks there was more to Mark Twain's =
> use of Indian Ocean piracy than meets the eye.
>
> Kent
>