The Deadly Journey To America
By J. CHRISTOPHER ROBBINS
Published: Jul 4, 2007 in the Tampa TribuneOn July 4, 1776, John Hancock was the first man to ink his commitment - and his life, fortune, and sacred honor - to our independence.[1] When his John Hancock dried on the Declaration he knew he would die either a hero or a criminal.[2] Male traitors in Britain were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Treasonous women were burned at the stake.[3]
Hancock's fidelity and courage is celebrated every year, along with the other 55 signers. Yet there is another story of men and women who risked their necks for the promise of liberty and a better life, one seldom told. That is probably because many of the nearly 2.5 million colonists alive in 1776 braved the experience, thereby transforming the extraordinary into the ordinary.
This story started in Europe and unfolded at sea on wooden ships as they sailed through often perilous and uncharted waters to a distant land.
The journey from Europe to the colonies was long and hazardous. The voyage took two months or more.[4] Every ocean crossing was dangerous. Ships, crews, property, and passengers were frequently lost to weather, disease, capsizing,[5] uncharted hazards, and occasionally pirates.
While mariners had made inroads in navigation and ship building since Columbus' voyages, just finding a destination across the ocean was still a challenge in 1776. Most captains had only compass, rudimentary sextant, and hourglasses to mark time. These were not precision instruments. Although an accurate marine chronometer - necessary to pinpoint longitude - was invented in 1735,[6] it was not typical equipment until 1800.[7] The charts of the day, when available, were inadequate, often inaccurate, and full of gaps.
A captain pointing his ship towards the Chesapeake Bay would therefore be quite satisfied to sight land at Newfoundland or Charleston. Arriving anytime within a week of a given projection constituted a job-well-done.
At its worst, passages could be deadly. Forecasting weather, wind, and surf was impossible in 1776. While the mercury barometer was invented in 1643,[8] mariners did not use, trust, or understand this instrument until nearly two centuries later.[9] Even well into the twentieth century, captains sailed into the grips of powerful storms.[10] That was the fate of Sea Venture. Traveling to Jamestown in 1609, the vessel was wrecked upon a reef during a cyclone.
Passages were full of prayers: for the ship, that it be strong; for the seamen, that they be able; for the weather, that it be temperate. "He maketh the storm a calm so that the waves thereof are still"[11] - words best uttered in the sunshine at religious services on deck, not in they eye of a hurricane.
Nor was there much romance to life aboard the slow and cramped square riggers of the day. They leaked and smelled of sweat, bilge water, and excrement.[12] Food and fresh water were rationed. Even when plentiful, hardtack, salted meats, and cheeses were soon rancid and commonly infested with maggots or weevils.
The biggest risk was disease. Three in particular were rampant killers of colonial era passengers and crew: cholera, typhus - then known as "Ship Fever" - and smallpox. In 1588, the Spanish Armada lost more men to disease than to the guns of the English.[13] In 1776, more people died of disease than drowning or naval warfare.[14]
With these risks, the only comparison today to a colonial era ocean passage is a trip to Mars. For the settlers of Jamestown,[15] Plymouth Rock,[16] Portsmouth,[17] St. Mary's City,[18] and other early communities, theirs was a two-month journey into an abyss. Death and ships were joint adventurers. Every immigrant made his peace before departure.
Add another factor: the price. It could be as much as $3,000 in today's money to make the passage. Many could not pay this sum, signing on for a term of indentured servitude instead.
So why did the colonists willingly assume these risks? The answer was rooted on both sides of the Atlantic. Many left England, for example, to escape absolute monarchy, civil war,[19] and religious persecution.[20] Others were not fleeing but starting anew. They sought land, peace, freedom, and opportunity, risking everything in hopes that their ship would arrive in a better land than the one from which it departed.
With the abuses and horrors of Europe fresh in their minds, they built settlements, towns, cities, and ultimately a nation that would honor the best traditions of the age of enlightenment and civil society. And when England put their hard work and liberty in jeopardy in the run-up to 1776, most would be bullied no sooner by a king than by the perils of the sea.
These men and women were hard, determined, unbreakable. We are forever in their debt. They, too, deserve the title of founding fathers and mothers.
J. Christopher Robbins is a sailor and attorney from St. Petersburg. His email is chris@floridalawyer.com.
[1] Most of the 56 signers did not sign until August 2, 1776, after New York State ratified the Declaration of Independence.
[2] In fact, various accounts indicate that he and Benjamin Franklin joked about going to the gallows on August 2 with Hancock stating that "Gentlemen, we must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together." Franklin replied, "Yes, we must indeed all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."
[3] Until 1790, when the practice was abolished by legislation.
[4] The Mayflower required 63 days to cross, and this was considered a quick passage at the time.
[5] Ships left Europe fully laden. Negligent loading of vessels frequently resulted in tragedy. So often, in fact, that a Venetian law of June 8, 1569 was passed to regulate the matter.
[6] By John Harrison 1693-1776.
[7] While acceptance of the Chronometer was much quicker than the barometer, the inventor and the technology faced several decades of unwarranted skepticism by both mariners and politicians until, in 1773, King George III intervened. Still, due largely to prices, it was not until the turn of the next century that ocean-going sailing ships would be expected to have an accurate ship's chronometer, and thus a way to accurately estimate longitudinal position.
[8] Invented by Evangelista Torricelli.
[9] In fact, it took two centuries and the development of the compact aneroid barometer (using a spring balance instead of a liquid) by French scientist Lucien Vidie in 1843 before they were common (and soon after required) equipment on ocean-going vessels. See, e.g., http://www.barometer.ws/history.html.)
[10] For example, in December 1944, a typhoon (the name given to a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean) almost achieved what Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto could not: bludgeon U.S. Naval Commander William Halsey. The storm struck Halsey's fleet off the Philippines, and its 125-mile-an-hour winds sank three destroyers, killing almost 800 men.
[11] Psalm 107.
[12] So-called seats of easement, piss-dales, and other early marine heads were not standard equipment on even some Naval vessels until the mid-1600s. It is probable that amenities only recently available to Royal Navy officers would not find their way into common usage until later. http://txspace.tamu.edu/bitstream/1969.1/3765/1/etd-tamu-2006A-ANTH-Flynn.pdf.
[13] http://www.britishbattles.com/spanish-war/spanish-armada.htm. Perhaps some 10,000 aboard 65 ships in their Armanda.
[14] See e.g., http://txspace.tamu.edu/bitstream/1969.1/3765/1/etd-tamu-2006A-ANTH-Flynn.pdf at page 108.
[15] 1607 by the English. The first Virginia settlement was Roanoke Island in 1584, but this community was unsuccessful and most of its inhabitants mysteriously disappeared.
[16] 1620 by Puritans from England. A group from an earlier settlement, Popham Colony, arrived in 1607, but this settlement was abandoned.
[17] 1636.
[18] 1634 by Catholics from England.
[19] 1642 (commenced).
[20] 1637-8.
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