Shanghaiing or
crimping is the practice of
kidnapping people to serve as
sailors by coercive techniques such as
trickery,
intimidation, or
violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as
crimps. The related term
press gang refers specifically to
impressment practices in Great Britain's
Royal Navy.
[1]
Crimps flourished in port cities like London and Liverpool in England and in
San Francisco in
California,
Portland[2] and
Astoria in
Oregon,
[3] and
Seattle[4] and
Port Townsend in
Washington,
United States.
[5] On the West Coast of the United States, Portland eventually surpassed San Francisco for shanghaiing. On the East Coast of the United States, New York easily led the way, followed by Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
[6]
The role of crimps and the spread of the practice of shanghaiing resulted from a combination of laws, economic conditions, and the shortage of experienced sailors in England and on the American West Coast in the mid-19th century.
First, once an American sailor signed on board a vessel for a voyage, it was illegal for him to leave the ship before the voyage's end. The penalty was imprisonment, the result of federal legislation enacted in 1790.
[7] (This factor was mitigated by the
Maguire Act of 1895 and the
White Act of 1898, and finally abolished by the
Seamen's Act of 1915.)
Second, the practice was driven by a shortage of labor, particularly of skilled labor on ships on the West Coast. With crews abandoning ships en masse because of the
California Gold Rush, a healthy body on board the ship was a boon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghaiing