Wrecking is the practice of taking valuables from a shipwreck which has foundered or run aground close to shore. Often an unregulated activity of opportunity in coastal communities, wrecking has been subjected to increasing regulation and evolved into what is now known as marine salvage.
Wrecking is no longer economically significant. However, as recently as the 19th century in some parts of the world, it was the mainstay of otherwise economically marginal coastal communities.
A traditional legendary trope is that of wreckers deliberately decoying ships on to coasts using tricks, especially false lights, so that they run ashore for easy plundering. While this has been depicted in many stories and legends, there is no clear evidence that this has ever happened.
Luring ships to wreck with false lights
There are legends that some ships were deliberately lured into danger by a display of false lights. John Viele, retired U.S. Navy officer and author of a history of wrecking in the Florida Keys, states that such tricks simply would not work. He points out that mariners interpret a light as indicating land, and so avoid them if they cannot identify them. Moreover, oil lanterns cannot be seen very far over water at night, unless they are large, fitted with mirrors or lenses, and mounted at a great height (i.e., in a lighthouse). In hundreds of admiralty court cases heard in Key West, Florida, no captain of a wrecked ship ever charged that he had been led astray by a false light.Viele. Pp. 94–95.
A Bahamian wrecker, when asked if he and his crewmates made beacons on shore or showed their lights to warn ships away from the land at night, is reported to have said, "No, no [laughing]; we always put them out for a better chance by night".Albury. P. 139.Craton. P. 167.
Legend maintains that the town of Nags Head, North Carolina takes its name from wreckers or "bankers" deploying false lights. The toponymic legend states that in the 18th century, wreckers would hang lanterns from the necks of mules (colloquially called "nags" at the time) and walk the animals very slowly up and down the beach. The alleged intent was to fool mariners into believing that the slow-moving lights were ships drifting at rest or at anchor, prompting the ships to change course and subsequently run aground.
In 1860, a writer for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine corroborated the story of the "bankers" who gave Nags Head its name.
Wrecking in the Americas
Spanish America As soon as the Spanish began sending home the treasures they found in the New World, some of the treasure was lost in shipwrecks. By the 1540s Indians along the coast of Florida, where many of the Spanish treasure ships wrecked, were diving on the wrecks and recovering significant amounts of gold and silver. By that time the Spanish had been using first Indians (the Lucayans from the Bahamas were particularly prized for the task) and then Africans to dive for pearls around the islands near present-day Venezuela. The Spanish began using these divers to recover treasure from shipwrecks. The Spanish kept salvage ships with crews of African divers on-call in major ports around the Caribbean, ready to sail as soon as word of a wreck was received. In the course of the 16th through the 18th centuries the Spanish recovered more than 100,000,000 pesos worth of treasure by such means. Spanish salvage efforts had varying success. Although the Spanish carried out salvage operations on the wrecks of the 1715 Treasure Fleet for four years, they recovered less than half of the treasure recorded as sent on the fleet. On the other hand, the Spanish recovered more treasure from the 1733 treasure fleet than had been officially registered on it.Marx. Pp. 55–57.
Bermuda and Jamaica In the 16th and 17th centuries, Spanish ships returning to Spain from the Caribbean rode the Gulf Stream to Cape Canaveral and then aimed for Bermuda. Raising Bermuda was essential to Spanish ships for verifying their position before setting course for the Azores. As a result, some Spanish ships wrecked on Bermuda. After the English settled on Bermuda in the early 17th century, they quickly took up "wracking" on Bermuda, and then extended their search for wrecks to all of the Caribbean. Later in the 17th century the center for English "wracking" in the Caribbean shifted to Port Royal in Jamaica. William Phips went there to recruit the divers he used to salvage treasure from a Spanish wreck on the north shore of Hispaniola, where he recovered the largest amount of treasure from a single wreck before the 20th century.Marx. P. 56.
The Bahamas Wrecking (or "wracking") was an important activity in the Bahamas from its first settlement in 1648. A company of religious dissidents from Bermuda, the Eleutheran Adventurers, established a colony on Eleutheria. Their governing document, the Articles and Orders, included regulations of wrecking, providing that any salvaged ordnance would be held in common for the defense of the colony, and all other salvaged goods would be delivered to designated agents, "made fit for sale" and then sold, with one-third of the proceeds going to the wreckers.Albury. Pp 131–132.
While the Eleutheran Adventurers were primarily farmers, seamen from Bermuda began settling on New Providence in the 1660s, attracted by ambergris, wrecks and salt. There were vessels dedicated to wrecking from this time, but wrecking was a secondary occupation for most men. These seamen, who called themselves "wrackers" or "wreckers", pursued wrecking aggressively, regarding all salvage as their property. They were rumored to have killed people who had inconveniently survived a shipwreck. They drove Spanish salvors away from Spanish wrecks, and even took goods that the Spanish had already salvaged. Spain regarded the Bahamian wreckers as pirates, and retaliated by attacking the wreckers' ships, kidnapping farmers from New Providence, and burning the capital, Charles Town.Albury. Pp. 48, 51–52, 131, 132.
The Bahamian government eventually exerted control over the wreckers. The wreckers were required to carry salvaged goods to Nassau, where they were auctioned. However, goods useful on a ship or in a wrecker's home were often diverted with a blind eye turned by government officials. Increased shipping after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 led to more wrecks. Vessels specifically designed for wrecking were built in the Bahamas. A U.S law of 1825 required that all goods salvaged from wrecks in U.S. waters be taken to an American port of entry (which, for the Bahamians, meant Key West, Florida). Many Bahamian wreckers eventually moved to Key West and became U.S. citizens.Albury. Pp. 134–135, 143.
Wrecking was a mainstay of the Bahamian economy through most of the 19th century. In 1856, there were 302 ships and 2,679 men (out of a total population of 27,000) licensed as wreckers in the Bahamas. In that year salvaged wreck cargo brought to Nassau was valued at £96,304, more than half of all imports to the Bahamas. More than two-thirds of exports from the Bahamas were salvaged goods. The government normally took 15% customs duty on salvaged goods. If the salvaged cargo was not claimed, the Vice Admiralty Court took 30%, and the Governor took another 10%. Shore workers (warehouse workers, agents and laborers) usually received around 14% of the value. The wreckers themselves usually received 40% to 60% of the value of the salvaged goods. Even so, the average annual income of an ordinary seaman on a wrecker was about £20.Albury. Pp. 135, 137.Craton. P. 226.
The American Civil War sharply cut the volume of shipping around the Bahamas, and the wreckers suffered with far fewer wrecks to salvage. The end of the Civil War brought back increased shipping and wrecks. In 1865, the last year of the Civil War, £28,000 worth of salvaged goods were taken to Nassau. In 1866, that rose to £108,000, and peaked at £154,000 in 1870. Wrecking then entered a decline, and was nearly gone by the end of the 19th century. More lighthouses (eventually numbering 37 in the Bahamas), better charts, more ships powered by steam, better qualified ship's officers, and more seaworthy ships all contributed to fewer wrecks.Albury. Pp. 143, 157.Craton. Pp. 226–227, 246–247.
The Florida Keys For several centuries, wrecking was an important economic activity in the Florida Keys. During the 19th century, wrecking in the Keys became a highly organized and regulated industry, with dozens of vessels and hundreds of men active in the trade at any given time. The Florida Keys form a long arc of islands extending from the southern end of the east coast of Florida to the Dry Tortugas. A line of shallow coral reefs, the Florida Reef, runs parallel to the Keys from east of Key Biscayne to southwest of Key West, with dangerous shoals stretching west from Key West to the Dry Tortugas. This chain of reefs and shoals is approximately long, separated from the Keys by the narrow and relatively shallow Hawk Channel. The Gulf Stream passes close to the Florida Reef through the Straits of Florida, which is the major route for shipping between the eastern coast of the United States and ports in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Caribbean Sea. The combination of heavy shipping and a powerful current flowing close to dangerous reefs made the Florida Keys the site of a great many wrecks, especially during the 19th century. Ships were wrecking on the Florida Reef at the rate of almost once a week in the middle of the 19th century (the collector of customs in Key West reported a rate of 48 wrecks a year in 1848). For a period of almost 100 years, wrecking captains and wrecking vessels in the Keys had to hold a license issued by the Federal court. In 1858, there were 47 boats and ships licensed as wreckers.Viele. Pp. 54–55, 166.
Early history Ships began wrecking along the Florida Reef almost as soon as Europeans reached the New World. From early in the 16th century, Spanish ships returning from the New World to Spain sailed from Havana to catch the Gulf Stream, which meant they passed close to the Florida Reef, with some wrecking. The first wreckers in the Keys were Indians; when Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda's ship was wrecked in 1549, he was taken prisoner by Indians who were experienced in plundering wrecked ships. In 1622, six ships of the Spanish treasure fleet wrecked during a hurricane in the lower Keys. Spanish operations to recover the gold and silver from the lost ships continued intermittently for 21 years, but the Spanish lost track of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, which was finally found and excavated in the 20th century. In 1733, 19 ships of the Spanish treasure fleet wrecked during a hurricane in the middle and upper keys, and salvage operations lasted four years. The Spanish used dragged chains, grapnels, free divers and even an early diving bell to find and recover goods from the wrecked ships.Viele. Pp. 3–14.