The Pirates of the Pacific: When Salvage Means Plunder
A biting critique from 1886 argues that maritime 'salvage' laws in the Pacific Northwest have transformed honest sailors into modern-day pirates who hold ships hostage for ransom.
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 person naturally thinks that on the ocean, where accidents are so liable to happen, and where there is so little help when they do happen, that ship-owners and seafaring men would be most kind and generous to each other. But upon reading the reports of the day and hearing of the contrary practices, one is compelled to think them worse than pirates. Their acts, akin to plundering the sick, the blind, the widow and the orphan, should be severely prohibited in all civilized countries, and their perpetration severely punished. We have had cases, such as an old bark that went ashore down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The tugboat required of the captain the payment of $14,000 before they would haul the vessel off. The effort did not cost the tug more than $1,500 to $2,000, and double the amount of actual cost would have been ample for the service. The owners of the vessel refused to pay the captain's demand, declaring the wreck was not worth so much to them, the owners of the coast being less than the amount demanded. A dispute followed, and the vessel was sold, bringing $6,000, or only one-third as much as the tugboats were attempting to assess for the work. Another case was that of an iron steam collier, picked up off Cape Flattery by another steam collier and towed into Esquimalt. The actual cost to the collier doing the towing probably did not exceed $100, and yet the owners of the abandoned steamer were coolly called upon for $100,000.
“Upon reading the reports of the day... one is compelled to think them worse than pirates. Their acts, akin to plundering the sick, the blind, the widow and the orphan.”
This 1886 editorial highlights the predatory economics of the 'maritime rescue' industry, echoing contemporary debates over corporate price-gouging and the weaponization of essential services in Seattle. Just as nineteenth-century tug operators held disabled ships for extortionate ransom, modern residents face similar power imbalances in the housing and service sectors, where necessity is exploited for massive private gain.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.