Steerage Passengers Stage an Armed Strike for Better Food
Twenty-five Texas cowboys on a steamship to Portland organized an armed takeover of the kitchen to force the captain to improve steerage rations.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A gentleman who came up from San Francisco by the steamship Oregon relates an incident of the trip. We left San Francisco with a large list of passengers, including twenty-five cowboys from Texas. Considerable dissatisfaction was expressed among the steerage passengers, especially by the women and children, about the food, which they claimed they could not eat. Sunday morning after breakfast, these cowboys held a meeting and decided to demand better fare. Accordingly, they were divided into five committees of five men each. These committees were stationed at each hatch, at the galley, at the steam-cock used for flooding the steerage with steam in case of fire or mutiny, and the fifth committee proceeded on deck to interview the captain. They were all heavily armed and had a determined look. While talking with the master of the vessel, the mate stepped up and put in his oar. One of the boys turned to him and said, 'Our business is with the captain, not with you; if you open your head again, we'll mop the deck with your carcass.' The captain assured the committee that the steerage fare should be improved. It is needless to say he kept his promise, and during the remainder of the voyage the steerage people had as good fare as those in the cabin.
“Our business is with the captain, not with you; if you open your head again, we'll mop the deck with your carcass.”
This story highlights the volatile power dynamics aboard 19th-century passenger ships and the role of organized, direct action—even when enforced by weapons—in securing better conditions, a dynamic that echoes the broader labor unrest of the era.
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