I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be a seaman in the 19th-century. Few if any rights, hardly any pay, and the working conditions were deplorable. Not to mention being shanghaied off the street and introduced, ever so gently, to your new career...
It was a hard life.
The trade of a tall ship sailor in the 1800's separated the men from the
boys. If you didn’t meet an unfortunate
end by falling out of the rigging and hitting the deck headfirst, there was
always the possibility of being swept over the side in rough seas and ending
your days as a shark's next meal.
Richard Henry Dana's book, Two
Years Before the Mast was a watershed event in the history of men who went
down to the sea. It exposed the dirty
trade in all of its glory. By publishing
his narrative, Dana sparked a successful movement that established laws, more
favorable working conditions, and rights for sailors.
Two Years Before the
Mast also documents a pastoral California in the days of Dons and
Ranchos. It is an invaluable prime
resource that gives a first-hand look at Alta California's hide and tallow
trade. Cargo ships from the East Coast
of the United States would sail around South America's Cape Horn loaded to the
brim with goods that ranged from finished shoes to cloth and luxury items. They would trade with the Mexican Californios
for bovine hides and tallow, raw materials that could be taken back and used to
make leathers goods and candles. One of
the locations used to load bails of hides onto the ship is modern day Dana
Point in Southern California. These bundles
would be pushed over the sides of the tall cliffs surrounding the bay down onto
the beach below. The hides would in turn
be loaded onto longboats and rowed out to ship.
Thousands would be stuffed into the hold for the return voyage.
The way of the tall ship sailor and the Mission and Rancho
days of California have slipped into the pages of history, but they can both be
found again...