COMMENTARY

The Deadly Journey To America

By J. CHRISTOPHER ROBBINS

Published: Jul 4, 2007

On July 4, 1776, John Hancock was the first man to ink his commitment - and his life, fortune and sacred honor - to our independence. When his John Hancock dried on the Declaration he knew he would die either a hero or a criminal. Male traitors in Britain were hanged, drawn and quartered. Treasonous women were burned at the stake.

Hancock's fidelity and courage is celebrated every year, along with the other 55 signers. Yet there is another story of men and women who risked their necks for the promise of liberty and a better life, one seldom told. That is probably because many of the nearly 2.5 million colonists alive in 1776 braved the experience, thereby transforming the extraordinary into the ordinary.

This story started in Europe and unfolded at sea on wooden ships as they sailed through often perilous and uncharted waters to a distant land.

The journey from Europe to the colonies was long and hazardous. The voyage took two months or more. Every ocean crossing was dangerous. Ships, crews, property, and passengers were frequently lost to weather, disease, capsizing, uncharted hazards and occasionally pirates.

Most captains had only compass, rudimentary sextant and hourglasses to mark time. These were not precision instruments. The charts of the day, when available, were inadequate, often inaccurate, and full of gaps.

A captain pointing his ship toward the Chesapeake Bay would therefore be quite satisfied to sight land at Newfoundland or Charleston. Arriving anytime within a week of a given projection was a job-well-done.

At its worst, passages could be deadly. Forecasting weather, wind and surf was impossible in 1776. While the mercury barometer was invented in 1643, mariners did not use, trust, or understand this instrument until nearly two centuries later. Even well into the 20th century, captains sailed into the grips of powerful storms. That was the fate of Sea Venture. Traveling to Jamestown in 1609, the vessel was wrecked upon a reef during a cyclone.

Nor was there much romance to life aboard the slow and cramped square riggers of the day. They leaked and smelled of sweat, bilge water and excrement. Food and fresh water were rationed. Even when plentiful, hardtack, salted meats and cheeses were soon rancid and commonly infested with maggots or weevils.

The biggest risk was disease. Three in particular were rampant killers of colonial era passengers and crew: cholera, typhus - then known as "Ship Fever" - and smallpox. In 1588, the Spanish Armada lost more men to disease than to the guns of the English. In 1776, more people died of disease than drowning or naval warfare.

With these risks, the only comparison today to a colonial era ocean passage is a trip to Mars. For the settlers of Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, Portsmouth, St. Mary's City, and other early communities, theirs was a two-month journey into an abyss. Death and ships were joint adventurers. Every immigrant made his peace before departure.

Add another factor: the price. It could be as much as $3,000 in today's money to make the passage. Many could not pay this sum, signing on for a term of indentured servitude instead.

So why did the colonists willingly assume these risks? The answer was rooted on both sides of the Atlantic. Many left England, for example, to escape absolute monarchy, civil war and religious persecution. Others were not fleeing but starting anew. They sought land, peace, freedom and opportunity, risking everything in hopes that their ship would arrive in a better land than the one from which it departed.

With the abuses and horrors of Europe fresh in their minds, they built settlements, towns, cities and ultimately a nation that would honor the best traditions of the age of enlightenment and civil society.

And when England put their hard work and liberty in jeopardy in the run-up to 1776, most would be bullied no sooner by a king than by the perils of the sea.

J. Christopher Robbins is a sailor and an attorney from St. Petersburg. His email is chris@florida

lawyer.com.