The Silken Thread: Five Insects and Their Impacts on Human History by Robert N. Wiedenmann & J. Ray Fisher

Author:Robert N. Wiedenmann & J. Ray Fisher [Wiedenmann, Robert N.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Zoology, Science, History, Nonfiction, Nature
ISBN: 9780197555606
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2021-08-26T23:00:00+00:00

Coffin Ships

The transport vessels carrying poor Irish across the Atlantic in 1846 and 1847 became known as “coffin ships,” because for many passengers leaving Ireland and seeking refuge abroad, the hellish voyages were deadly. When “ship fever” broke out, the sickened were confined to an unventilated hold, in the dark, with no sanitary facilities, no food, and no water. One account estimated 8,000 passengers died en route, but that estimate is likely to be too low. More than 400 ships—later called the “fever fleet”—disgorged their human cargo in Canada, so that estimate works out to only 20 fatalities per ship. The Virginius left Ireland with 476 passengers, of whom 158 died on board, and another 106 were ill on landing in Canada. A two-ship convoy carried 810 passengers, of which 268 died. In 1846–1847, ships bound for St. John’s, New Brunswick, carried 15,000 passengers. More than 2,000 died, 800 of them on board. Irish coffin ships were named ironically: those dying on board were cast into the sea, and those who were dead upon arrival were buried in mass graves—in both cases, with no coffins.

Many of the coffin ships leaving Ireland in 1846–1847 were bound for Canada, where they emptied their diseased, dying, and dead passengers. On arrival, passengers were isolated in quarantine areas to prevent the disease causing an epidemic in their new home. The quarantine station on Grosse Isle, located near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, was a primary arrival point for the coffin ships. The first to arrive in 1846 carried 430 people suffering from typhus. Within two weeks, 40 ships, all with typhus-infected passengers, waited on the St. Lawrence River to unload their human cargo.

Initially, the acutely ill were removed from the arriving ships, leaving the others to remain on board for a 15-day quarantine.4 Many of those who remained on the ships were infested with lice that had fled from victims who had died, so typhus had its own captive host audience. The on-board quarantine only gave the disease more time to ravage those remaining on the ship: on one ship, nearly two-thirds of the 427 passengers who arrived at Grosse Isle were dead by the end of the quarantine period. Disembarking passengers were given a minimal examination by doctors and then released, many infected and not yet symptomatic, only to pass on the disease and die on the land they intended to call their new home.

Immigrants from the coffin ships were transferred to other cities along the St. Lawrence, each with its own quarantine area and each quickly overwhelmed by the immediate need for medical attention and the greater need to prevent an epidemic. Once on shore, passengers were kept in hastily constructed “fever sheds” that were no better than the ships they left. The huge sheds, some nearly 50 meters long, had no ventilation; some had no sanitary facilities. Over-crowded sheds contained two-level bunks with 2–3 people in each bunk, regardless of age or sex. Minimal food was provided; clean water was scarce and feverish patients had to wait hours for a small sip.

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