Nine Men in the Sail Locker: Seattle's Stowaway Haul
A single Chinese stowaway picked up on the wharf leads Seattle immigration officers to nine more men, plus sacks of raw silk and boxes of Manila cigars, hidden aboard the Great Northern liner Minnesota.
Seattle, June 14. — Immigration officials, after picking up on the wharf a stray Chinese, who admitted he came over as a stowaway on the Great Northern liner Minnesota, searched the vessel and discovered nine more smuggled coolies and a quantity of silk and cigars.
Inspector Keagey, who is a heavy man, stepped into the sail locker of the steamer and fell 20 feet through a hole in the floor, alighting squarely on top of nine Chinese men.
Further investigation brought to light several leather sacks, resembling government mail pouches, filled with raw silk, and a number of boxes of Manila cigars. The bags of silk are supposed to have been taken aboard with the mail sacks.
“Inspector Keagey, who is a heavy man, stepped into the sail locker of the steamer and fell 20 feet through a hole in the floor, alighting squarely on top of nine Chinese men.”
The men found in the sail locker were caught in the machinery of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a federal regime that made their very presence a crime and turned stowaways into contraband listed alongside silk and cigars. A century later, Seattle is still the port where immigration policy, smuggling and human cargo collide — and the people at the bottom of the hold are still counted last.
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