Editing Shanghaiing

{{Short description|Form of kidnapping people to become sailors}}
{{Kidnapping}}
'''Shanghaiing''' or '''crimping''' is the practice of kidnapping people to serve as [[sailor]]s by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as ''crimps''. The related term ''[[Impressment|press gang]]'' refers specifically to [[impressment]] practices in the United Kingdom's [[Royal Navy]].<ref name="EB1911">{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Crimp |volume=07 |short=x}}</ref>

==Etymology==
The verb "shanghai" joined the lexicon with "crimping" and "sailor thieves" in the 1850s, possibly because [[Shanghai]] was a common destination of the ships with abducted crews.<ref name="EB1911" /><ref name="dictionary">{{cite web |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=shanghai |title=Shanghai |access-date=2007-04-05 |work=dictionary.com}}</ref> The term has since expanded to mean "kidnapped" or "induced to do something by means of fraud or coercion".<ref>For a modern definition of "shanghaied" see [[wikt:shanghaied]].</ref>

==Background==
[[Image:Sloop-calley-shipping-articles-1786.jpg|right|thumb|The shipping articles, or contract between the crew and the ship, from a 1786 voyage to Boston.]]
Crimps flourished in port cities like [[London]] and [[Liverpool]] in England and in [[San Francisco]],<ref name="mysticseaport-sfshangaiers">{{cite web |title=San Francisco Shangaiers 1886-1890 |url=https://research.mysticseaport.org/databases/sfshangaiers/ |website=Collections & Research |publisher=[[Mystic Seaport Museum]] |access-date=2 February 2022 |date=31 December 2016 |quote=In 2005 Mystic Seaport Museum received, in database form, information gathered from a rare source, the ledger book of 19th century shipping master James Laflin. This ledger is accessible through the J. Porter Shaw Library, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. For more information, visit: The San Francisco Shanghaiers Database.}}</ref> [[Portland, Oregon|Portland]],<ref name="Portland">{{cite web |url=http://cgsmthood.com/shanghai/history.php |title=The Portland Underground: Shanghai Tunnels |author=Michael P. Jones |access-date=2007-04-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070323175634/http://cgsmthood.com/shanghai/history.php |archive-date=2007-03-23}}</ref> [[Astoria, Oregon|Astoria]],<ref name="astoria">{{cite web |url=http://webpages.charter.net/astoriatrolley/ahistory.html |title=Astoria's history along the tracks |access-date=2007-04-05 |work=[[Astoria Riverfront Trolley|Astoria Riverfront Trolley Association]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070514001758/http://webpages.charter.net/astoriatrolley/ahistory.html |archive-date=2007-05-14 |url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Seattle]],<ref name="seattle">{{cite web |url=http://www.v4.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1652 |title=Boy named Henry Short shanghaied from Seattle on December 22, 1901 |access-date=2007-04-05 |work=historylink.org}}{{dead link|date=September 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> [[Savannah, Georgia|Savannah]], and [[Port Townsend, Washington|Port Townsend]]<ref name="ptt">{{cite web |url=http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7763|title=Levy, Maxwell (d. 1931), Port Townsend's Crimper King |access-date=2007-04-05 |work=historylink.org}}</ref> in the [[United States]]. On the West Coast of the United States, Portland eventually surpassed San Francisco for shanghaiing. On the East Coast of the United States, New York had the most incidents, followed by Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.<ref>{{Cite book
  |last=Dillon
  |first=Richard H
  |title=Shanghaiing Days
  |publisher=Coward-McCann
  |year=1961
  |location=New York
  |page=234
  |oclc=1226774
 }}
</ref>

The role of crimps and the spread of the practice of shanghaiing resulted from a combination of laws, economic conditions, and the shortage of experienced sailors in England and on the American West Coast in the mid-19th century.

First, once an American sailor signed on board a vessel for a voyage, it was illegal for him to leave the ship before the voyage's end. The penalty was imprisonment, the result of federal legislation enacted in 1790<ref name="beatl">{{cite web|url=http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/maritime/MaritimeNation/TimeLines/Merchant_Marine.htm |title=American Merchant Marine Timeline, 1789–2005 |access-date=2007-03-29 |work=Barnard's Electronic Archive and Teaching Library |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609130323/http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/maritime/MaritimeNation/TimeLines/Merchant_Marine.htm |archive-date=2007-06-09}}</ref> (this factor was mitigated by the [[Maguire Act of 1895]] and the [[White Act of 1898]], and finally abolished by the [[Seamen's Act|Seamen's Act of 1915]]).

Second, the practice was driven by a shortage of labor, particularly of skilled labor on ships on the West Coast. With crews abandoning ships en masse because of the [[California Gold Rush]], a healthy body on board the ship was a boon.<ref name="poorjack">{{cite book |last=Hope |first=Ronald |title=Poor Jack: The Perilous History of the Merchant Seaman |year=2001 |publisher=Greenhill Books|location=London|isbn=1-86176-161-9}}</ref><ref name="sup1">{{cite web|url=http://www.sailors.org/pdf/history1-2.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030512184317/http://www.sailors.org/pdf/history1-2.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2003-05-12 |title=The Lookout of the Labor Movement |access-date=2007-04-02 |work=Sailors Union of the Pacific}}</ref>

By 1886, San Francisco surpassed [[New Bedford, Massachusetts]] as the [[United States]]' leading whaling port.<ref>{{cite web |title=whaling-timeline |url=http://npshistory.com/brochures/nebe/whaling-timeline.pdf |website=npshistory.com |access-date=2 February 2022}}</ref>

Finally, shanghaiing was made possible by the existence of boarding masters, whose job was to find crews for ships. Boarding masters were paid "by the body", and thus had a strong incentive to place as many seamen on ships as possible.<ref name="poorjack" /> This pay was called "[[Blood money (restitution)|blood money]]", and was just one of the revenue streams available.<ref name="smith">{{cite web |url=http://www.shapingsf.org/ezine/labor/shanghai/main.html|title=About That Blood in the Scuppers |access-date=2007-04-03 |author=Georgia Smith |year=1988 |work=Reclaiming San Francisco: History Politics and Culture, a City Lights Anthology |publisher=City Lights |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061011111827/http://www.shapingsf.org/ezine/labor/shanghai/main.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=2006-10-11}}</ref> These factors set the stage for the crimp: a boarding master who uses trickery, intimidation, or violence to put a sailor on a ship.<ref>{{Cite news
  |title=Sailor Boarding Masters, ETC
  |newspaper=San Francisco News Letter
  |url=http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist11/sailors.html
  |date=February 19, 1881
  |publisher=Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
  |access-date=March 23, 2010
  }}
</ref>

The most straightforward method for a crimp to shanghai a sailor was to render him unconscious, forge his signature on the ship's articles, and pick up his "blood money". This approach was widely used, but there were more profitable methods.<ref name="smith" />

In some situations, the boarding master could receive the first two, three, or four months of wages of a man he shipped out.<ref name="poorjack" /> Sailors were able to get an advance against their pay for an upcoming voyage to allow them to purchase clothes and equipment, but the advance wasn't paid directly to the sailor because he could simply abscond with the money. Instead, those to whom money was owed could claim it directly from the ship's captain. An enterprising crimp, already dealing with a seaman, could supplement his income by supplying goods and services to the seaman at an inflated price, and collecting the debt from the sailor's captain.<ref name="smith" />

Some crimps made as much as $9,500 per year ({{inflation|US|9500|1890|r=-4|fmt=eq}}).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/ |title=Purchasing Power Today of a US Dollar Transaction in the Past |access-date=2008-04-20 |publisher=MeasuringWorth}}</ref>

The crimps were well positioned politically to protect their lucrative trade.<ref name="pickel">{{cite web |url=http://www.greatwestbooks.com/shapage.htm |author=Bill Pickelhaupt |title=Shanghaied in San Francisco |access-date=2007-04-02 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061211180046/http://www.greatwestbooks.com/shapage.htm |archive-date=2006-12-11}}</ref> 

Some examples included [[James Kelly (crimper)|Jim "Shanghai" Kelly]] and Johnny "Shanghai Chicken" Devine of San Francisco, and [[Joseph Kelly (crimper)|Joseph "Bunko" Kelly]] of Portland.<ref name="pickel" /> Stories of their ruthlessness are innumerable, and some made it into print.

Another example of romanticized stories involves the "birthday party" Shanghai Kelly threw for himself, in order to attract enough victims to man a notorious sailing ship named the ''Reefer'' and two other ships.

==Ending the practice==
[[Image:Furuseth-La Follette-Steffens-1915.jpeg|right|thumb|300px|[[Andrew Furuseth]] (left) and [[Robert M. La Follette|Senator La Follette]] (center) were the architects of the Seamen's Act of 1915.  With [[muckraker]] [[Lincoln Steffens]], circa 1915.]]Demand for manpower to keep ships sailing to [[Alaska]] and the [[Klondike, Yukon|Klondike]] kept crimping a real danger into the early 20th century, but the practice was finally ended by a series of legislative reforms that spanned almost 50 years.

Before 1865, maritime labor laws primarily enforced stricter discipline on board ships.<ref name="bauer283">Bauer, 1988:283.</ref>  However, after 1865, this began to change.  In 1868, New York State started cracking down on sailors' boardinghouses.  They declined in number from 169 in 1863 to 90 in 1872.<ref name="bauer284" />  Then in 1871, Congress passed legislation to revoke the license of officers guilty of mistreating seamen.<ref name="bauer284">Bauer, 1988:284.</ref>

In 1872, Congress passed the [[Shipping Commissioners Act of 1872]] to combat crimps.<ref name="bauer284" />  Under this act, a sailor had to sign on to a ship in the presence of a federal shipping commissioner.<ref name="bauer284" />  The presence of a shipping commissioner was intended to ensure the sailor wasn't "forcibly or unknowingly signed on by a crimp".<ref name="bauer284" />

In 1884, the [[Dingley Act (shipping)|Dingley Act]] came into effect. This law prohibited the practice of seamen taking advances on wages.<ref name="bauer285">Bauer, 1988:285.</ref>  It also limited the making of seamen's allotments to only close relatives.<ref name="bauer285" />  However, the crimps fought back.  In 1886, a loophole to the Dingley Act was created, allowing boardinghouse keepers to receive seamen's allotments.<ref name="bauer285" />
{{Slavery}}

The widespread adoption of steam-powered vessels in the world's merchant marine services in the late 19th and early 20th centuries radically altered the economics of seafaring. Without acres of canvas to be furled and unfurled, the demand for unskilled labor greatly diminished (and, by extension, crimping). The [[sinking of the RMS Titanic|sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'']], followed by the onset of [[World War I]] (which made the high seas a much more dangerous place due to the threat of submarine attack), provided the final impetus to stamp out the practice. In 1915, [[Andrew Furuseth]] and Senator [[Robert M. La Follette]] pushed through the [[Seamen's Act|Seamen's Act of 1915]] that made crimping a federal crime, and finally put an end to it.

==Notable crimps==
* Maxwell Levy, Port Townsend's Crimper King
* [[James Kelly (crimper)|James "Shanghai" Kelly]] of San Francisco<ref name="pickel" />
* Johnny "Shanghai Chicken" Devine of San Francisco<ref name="pickel" />
* [[Joseph Kelly (crimper)|Joseph "Bunko" Kelly]] of Portland<ref name="pickel" />
*"One-Eyed" Curtin<ref name="pickel" />
*"Horseshoe" Brown<ref name="pickel" />
* Dorothy Paupitz of San Francisco<ref name="pickel" />
* Andy "Shanghai Canuck" Maloney of Vancouver<ref name="pickel" />
* Anna Gomes of San Francisco<ref name="pickel" />
* Thomas Chandler<ref name="pickel" />
* James Laflin<ref name="pickel" />
*[[Christopher Augustine Buckley|Chris "Blind Boss" Buckley]], the Democratic Party boss of San Francisco in the 1880s<ref name="pickel" />
* William T. Higgins, Republican Party boss of San Francisco in the 1870s and '80s<ref name="pickel" />
* "Shanghai Joe" of New Bedford, Mass.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tn4rQQe90goC&q=%22Shanghai+Joe%22+%2B%22New+Bedford%22&pg=PA138 |title=Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean American Immigrants, 1860–1965 |access-date=2008-05-13 |last=Halter |first=Marilyn |year=1993 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-06326-8}}</ref>
* Tom Codd the Shanghai Prince of New Bedford, Mass.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9b7PAAAAMAAJ&q=%22A+Tall+Water+Story+of+Adventure+Aboard+a+Whaling+Ship%22+by+James+H.+Williams%2C+Able+Seaman%22&pg=PA331 |title=A Tall Water Story of Adventure Aboard a Whaling Ship |last=Williams |first=James H. |year=1921}}</ref>
* James Turk of Portland<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.friendsoflonefircemetery.org/pdf/Notorious.pdf |title=Notorious: A Self-Guided Tour of Portland's Historic Lone Fir Cemetery |publisher=Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery |access-date=2014-08-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927102319/http://www.friendsoflonefircemetery.org/pdf/Notorious.pdf |archive-date=2015-09-27 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
*[[Billy Gohl]], known as "the Ghoul of Grays Harbor", of Aberdeen, Washington (also a known serial killer)
*Tommy Moore of Buenos Aires<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dowling|first=Robert M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wi3ws_31MvAC&q=tommy+moore+buenos+aires&pg=PA539|title=Critical Companion to Eugene O'Neill, 2-Volume Set|date=2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-0872-8|language=en}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Transport|Organized labour}}
*[[Barbary Coast, San Francisco]]
*[[Blackbirding]]
*[[Clipper]]
*[[Froberg mutiny]]
*[[Impressment]]
*[[Involuntary servitude]]
*[[Maritime history of California]]
*[[Maritime history of the United States]]
*[[Shanghai tunnels]] ([[Portland, Oregon]]): Tunnels allegedly used to shanghai laborers for ships in the early 20th century
*''[[Shanghaied in Astoria]]'', a long-running musical comedy
*''[[The Big Valley]]'' – "Barbary Red" episode of Season 1 of the drama series covers this topic.
*''[[The Live Ghost]]'' – A 1934 comedy short film starring [[Stan Laurel]] and [[Oliver Hardy]]
*''[[The Go Getter (1937 film)|The Go Getter]]'' – A 1937 comedy starring [[George Brent]] and [[Charles Winninger]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
*{{cite book |last=Bauer |first=K. Jack |title=A Maritime History of the United States: The Role of America's Seas and Waterways |year=1988 |publisher=University of South Carolina |location=Columbia, South Carolina |isbn=0-87249-519-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/maritimehistoryo00baue}}
*Samuel Dickson. "Shanghai Kelly" in ''Tales of San Francisco''. Stanford: University Press. 1957.
* {{cite EB1911|wstitle=Crimp |page=465|volume=07}}
*{{cite report
|author=Gutoff, Johnathan M.
|title=Coerced Labor and Implied Congressional Powers: The Example of Deserting Sailors and Fugitive Slaves
|publisher=Roger Williams University School of Law
|year=2005
|url=http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=rwu/rwufp
|access-date=2007-04-16
|archive-date=2007-09-27
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927222612/http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=rwu%2Frwufp
|url-status=dead
}}
*Stewart Holbrook, "Bunco Kelly, King of the Crimps" in ''Wildmen, Wobblies & Whistle Punks'', edited by Biran Booth. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1992. {{ISBN|0-87071-383-3}}
*{{cite web |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/travel/articles/web/20060505-portland-oregon-shanghaiing-drugs-whiskey-tours-kidnapping.shtml |title=Travel: Portland—City of Kidnappers |access-date=2007-04-14 |last=Hoover |first=Elizabeth D. |date=May 5, 2006 |work=AmericanHeritage.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060507071610/http://www.americanheritage.com/travel/articles/web/20060505-portland-oregon-shanghaiing-drugs-whiskey-tours-kidnapping.shtml|url-status=dead |archive-date=2006-05-07}}
*{{cite journal
 |last=Keller
 |first=David Neal
 |date=September 1995
 |title=Shanghaied!
 |journal=American Heritage Magazine
 |volume=46
 |issue=5
 |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1995/5/1995_5_66.shtml
 |access-date=2007-04-13
 |url-status=dead
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929102849/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1995/5/1995_5_66.shtml
 |archive-date=2007-09-29
}}
*{{cite web |url=http://www.missiontoseafarers.org/timeline.php |title=Timeline Alongside World Events |access-date=2007-04-02 |work=Mission to Seafarers |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070916090147/http://www.missiontoseafarers.org/timeline.php <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=2007-09-16}}
*{{cite book |last=Pickelhaupt |first=Bill |title=Shanghaied in San Francisco |year=1996 |publisher=UFlyblister Press |location=San Francisco |isbn=0-9647312-2-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/shanghaiedinsanf00pick}}
*{{cite web|url=http://www.sailors.org/pdf/history1-2.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030512184317/http://www.sailors.org/pdf/history1-2.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2003-05-12 |title=The Lookout of the Labor Movement |access-date=2007-04-02 |publisher=[[Sailors' Union of the Pacific]]}}
*{{cite web|url=http://www.sailors.org/photoalbum/balclutha.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010411045959/http://www.sailors.org/photoalbum/balclutha.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2001-04-11 |title=Archives: Balclutha |access-date=2007-04-02 |publisher=[[Sailors' Union of the Pacific]]}}
*{{cite web|url=http://www.sailors.org/pdf/newsletter/wcs-sep2000.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030405141234/http://www.sailors.org/pdf/newsletter/wcs-sep2000.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2003-04-05 |title=Crisis at Sea: Flags-of-convenience: A Maritime Trades Department Report |access-date=2007-04-02 |publisher=[[Sailors' Union of the Pacific]]}}
*{{cite web |url=http://www.shapingsf.org/ezine/labor/shanghai/main.html|title=About That Blood in the Scuppers |access-date=2007-04-03 |first=Georgia |last=Smith |year=1988  |work=Reclaiming San Francisco: History Politics and Culture, a City Lights Anthology |publisher=City Lights |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061011111827/http://www.shapingsf.org/ezine/labor/shanghai/main.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=2006-10-11}}
* Strecker, Mark. ''Shanghaiing Sailors: A Maritime History of Forced Labor, 1849/1915'' (McFarland & Company, 2014), comprehensive scholarly history. 260 pp. [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=46216 online review].

==External links==
*[http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist11/sailors.html "Sailor 'Boarding Masters,' etc."] ''San Francisco News Letter'' February 19, 1881.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070215123136/http://archives.stupidquestion.net/sq10302.html Shanghaiing] at StupidQuestion.net.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080212002706/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4442/is_200412/ai_n16061243/pg_5 The Barbary Coast: San Francisco's Bawdy Paradise] has a section on crimping.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20101127033317/http://oldtimeislands.org/Cleveland/2-ARTucker.html "Shanghaied! The 1895 Voyage of the A. R. Tucker"] – a New Bedford, Mass., account.
*[https://archive.today/20130411223238/http://thegentlemanangler.com/historic-tales/crimping-in-london-1767/1074/ An account of crimping for the East India Company in London – 1767].

{{Pirates}}
[[Category:Merchant navy]]
[[Category:Sailing]]
[[Category:Kidnapping]]
[[Category:Maritime history of the United States]]
[[Category:History of labor relations in the United States]]
[[Category:Forced labour]]
[[Category:Pirate customs and traditions]]
[[Category:Culture in Shanghai]]
[[Category:Human trafficking]]