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Shanghaiing Days: The Thrilling account of 19th Century Hell-Ships, Bucko Mates and Masters, and Dangerous Ports-of-Call from San Francisco to Singapore by Richard Dillon [Dillon, Richard] is a history book available to read on EtoBox.

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In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the American Merchant Marine went into a terrible and tragic decline, and sailors were forced to serve under conditions that were little better than serfdom. Seamen were exploited in wholesale fashion, disfranchised of almost all their civil and human rights, and brutally punished for even minor offenses. Successful skippers had turned into slave drivers, cracking down on the sailors, sometimes even murdering their “hands.” Though captains were legally prohibited from flogging their crews, they did not hesitate to wield belaying pins, marlin spikes, or their bare fists. The seamen’s lot became so horrible in this period that entire crews frequently jumped ship when a vessel came into port. One result of this was that new crews had to be kidnaped, crimped, or shanghaied from the unsuspecting populace of the ports. These “impressed” or “hobo” crews were still further conspired against. They often had their wages stolen from them; they were poorly fed and clothed. Their lives became “hell afloat and purgatory ashore.” In this way what had been our “first and finest employ” in colonial days was turned into a disreputable profession—one tha

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Author

Richard Dillon [Dillon, Richard]

Publisher

The Write Thought, Incorporated

Published

2012

Language

EN

ISBN

9781618090584

Category

history

Subjects

Fiction, History

Rating

4.29 / 5 (7 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14