The Tribune

HISTORIAN Jim Lawlor points out in his 2021 study “Wrecked Emigrant Ships in The Bahamas: The Wreck of the Barque William and Mary,” in the Bahamas Historical Society’s International Journal of Bahamian Studies, that Bahamian wreckers are often depicted as rapacious, greedy, and ruthless.

Often, however, the fault for these calamities lies elsewhere. He describes how wrecks like that of the William and Mary “exposes the greed and lack of care that ship owners and captains showed in attempting to carry hapless passengers from Europe” to the US.

On March 29, 1851, the American ship Cato, bound from Liverpool to New Orleans with 300 English and Irish passengers wrecked on the Moselle Shoal northeast of Bimini. “Bahamian wreckers rescued 300 emigrants, taking them to Nassau,” according to the Grand Bahama Museum, “[where the] charitable and humane conduct [of those who] came forward one and all with offerings of bread [ameliorated their suffering].”

In December of the following year a US-flagged ship named Ovando, with 149 French and German passengers on the way between Le Havre, France, and New York, “was driven by a heavy wind close to Nassau Harbour and caught on fire. [Passengers and crew were] rescued and stranded in Nassau without food or shelter. Governor Gregory ordered that they be accommodated in the military barracks. Crown funds were used to send the emigrants to America” (Grand Bahama Museum). Ten French passengers from the Ovando were taken care of by the French Vice Consul in Nassau.

Captain Robinson remained and oversaw removal of luggage. While in Nassau, “scantily dressed men, women, and children wandered through the streets of Nassau without food or shelter.” US Consul Krislebaum was called upon “to provide food, shelter, and passage to New Orleans for the passengers.” Governor Gregory praised “the benevolent kindness of all classes of people of Nassau toward the shipwrecked emigrants in the first day of their arrival was peculiarly sterling [characterised by] charitable and humane conduct” (Lawlor).

The following year the American ship Osborne, with more than 200 Irish and English passengers heading to New Orleans from Liverpool was wrecked off Grand Bahama. In this case, a fleet of Bahamian wrecking schooners rescued the passengers and took them to Nassau, where “they were put on a ship (named Polar Star) bound for New Orleans,” according to the museum.

Soon thereafter, in May of 1853, the American barque William and Mary, with 208 English, Irish, and Hessian (German) passengers heading to New Orleans from Liverpool grounded and was wrecked at Little Isaacs Rock. Lawlor writes: “Magistrate W.R. Inglis … praised the prompt action of the Bahamian wreckers from Bimini, who soon reached the vessel and rescued the passengers.

The magistrate particularly praised the wreckers for their kindness. “The poor female emigrants [were] carefully lifted out in the arms of the stalwart wreckers and placed in a boat and conducted on shore with utmost compassion and tenderness and the comfort of all as adequately attended to as is practical.”

The fate of the emigrants on the William and Mary is actually emblematic of the whole trade at the time. The Liverpool passage “was considered the lowest for the treatment of passengers. The fare was inexpensive, but the passengers had poor accommodations, small, overcrowded cabins with little space to store baggage” (Lawlor). Passengers were treated badly and misled before they set out: the ship was smaller than advertised; there was no doctor; their food ran out; and the ham rotted. After eight weeks, the barque safely rounded the Hole-in the-Wall light.

With the captain blinded by the sun, she struck the Berries, cleared that reef, but then struck another rock. Though frantically pumping water out, they were overwhelmed. At dawn there was 10 feet of water in the hold. A passenger named Bekius provided a description of the event.

“The atmosphere [was] of panic and terror of the 200 passengers and 12 sailors when they heard what sounded like a clap of thunder and a severe shock as the ship struck a rock.”

Then, at daylight, the farmers on the shore saw a “lifeboat lowered into the sea. The captain, two steersmen, and six sailors had abandoned ship.” More terror was to follow when “William and Mary floated free of the rock and drifted with the current along the Straits of Florida” (Lawlor). (It seems extraordinary that 166 people on a sinking ship filled with railway iron and crockery didn’t sink right away in deep water.)

According to reports, at dawn the next day survivors saw a Bahamian wrecker by the name of “Captain Robert ‘Amphibian’ Sands (his nickname reflecting his tremendous ability as a swimmer) guided his wrecking schooner, the Oracle, toward them. These family men and skilled sailors with vast experience in saving lives, were deeply sympathetic to the frightened passengers on wrecked ships. It took five hours for the crew of the Oracle, to transport the women and 50 children the 25 miles to Grand Bahama. They ensured the comfort of Susannah Diamond, who had lost her one-year-old daughter, her husband, and her newborn child during the voyage. Captain Sands personally lifted her carefully from the sinking ship into the Oracle.”

The Bahamas’ Royal Governor “praised Sands as a shining example of practical humanity, as the moment he sighted the wrecked ship he instantly went to the rescue. …he and five of his crew remained on board to help the remaining passengers pump out water that was rushing into the sinking ship. Everyone was taken off the William and Mary, except two old men, before the ship sank bow first. Fortunately, the two old men floated up and were rescued by the wreckers. The passengers were taken to a sandy shore on Grand Bahama, where they suffered dreadfully with mosquito bites” (Lawlor).

These poor souls had been reported by the captain and those who abandoned them to a near-certain death as having already died, so their arrival in Nassau several days later was cause to rejoice. Governor Gregory condemned the inhumanity of William and Mary’s Captain Stinson. The people of Nassau, across the racial and social spectrum, “rallied together to provide time, money, food, and clothes to the survivors. The Guardian reported how “we have much pleasure in recording the benevolent acts of a committee of ladies of our town, who have been administering to the necessities of the unfortunate emigrants wrecked in the American ship William and Mary.” Many were put up in an empty barracks, with food given them from the military commissary.

Governor Gregory subscribed £20 from crown funds and collected £90 from private donations toward assisting the poor passengers, who had lost so much in the shipwreck. The Archdeacon and clergy provided clothing, and funds were raised to pay Captain Sands and wrecking crews, since they had saved lives at the expense of cargo.

As the archives report: “The Committee of the National Life-Boat Institution: Voted...the silver medal to Mr. Robt. Sands (a man of colour), master of the schooner Oracle, of Nassau… for his gallant services to passengers, consisting of 160 persons of the ship William and Mary.”