The Persistence of Sail in the Age of Steam: Underwater Archaeological Evidence from the Dry Tortugas PDF
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The Persistence of Sail in the Age of Steam Underwater Archaeological Evidence from the Dry Tortugas The Plenum Series in Underwater Archaeology Series Editor: J. Barto Arnold III Institute of Nautical Archaeology Texas A&M University College Station, Texas Maritime Archaeology: A Reader of Substantive and Theoretical Contributions Edited by Lawrence E. Babits and Hans Van Tilburg The Persistence of Sail in the Age of Steam: Underwater Archaeological Evidence from the Dry Tortugas Donna J. Souza A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher. The Persistence of Sail in the Age of Steam Underwater Archaeological Evidence from the Dry T ortugas J. Donna Souza Brown University Providence, Rhode Island Springer Science+Business Media, LLC Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data On file ISBN 978-1-4899-0141-5 ISBN 978-1-4899-0139-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-0139-2 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 1998 Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1998 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1998 http://www.plenum.com 10 98765432 1 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher Foreword In Archaeology Under Water (1966: 19), pioneer nautical archaeologist George Bass pointed out how much easier it is to train someone who is already an archaeologist to become a diver than to take trained divers and teach them to do archaeology. While this is 'generally true, there have also been occasions when well-trained and enthusiastic sport-divers have been willing to accept the train ing and discipline necessary to conduct good archaeological science, becoming first-rate scholars in the process. Dr. Donna Souza's book is the product of just such a transition. It shows how a sport-diver and volunteer fieldworker can proceed through a rigorous graduate program to achieve research results that are convincing in their own right and point toward new directions in the discipline as a whole. What is new in this book for maritime archaeology? Perhaps the most obvious and important feature of Dr. Souza's archaeological and historical analysis of the wreck at Pulaski Reef and its contemporaries in the Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida, is the way it serves as a means to a larger end---namely an understanding of the social history of the transition from sail to steam in late nineteenth century maritime commerce in America. The relationship between changes in technology and culture is a classic theme in anthropology, and this study extends ~t theme into the domain of underwater archaeology. The entire study is grounded in the recognition that the invention of steam propulsion did not lead to its immediate and universal adoption in maritime commerce, even after most technical problems with steam engineering had been resolved. While navies were fairly quick to embrace steam propulsion for warships from the 1860s onward, they tended to ignore or' devalue the use of steam-powered machinery for other purposes aboard ship. Naval vessels tended to be heavily manned, especially during the period when combined sail-and-steam propulsion was dominant. Seagoing commercial ships, on the other hand, were operated with smaller crews and much higher ratios of tons per seaman, mainly to reduce v vi Foreword operating costs. In this context of mercantile costcutting, it was common for ships in the bulk-carrier trades to continue to operate under sail alone and to rely increasingly upon steam-powered deck machiinery to augment the labor of ever-shrinking crews. With possibly the most comprehensive collection of asso ciated steam deck machinery and related gear (cables, anchors, hand tools, etc.) of any extant shipwreck of this period, the Pula.ski Reef vessel affords a direct glimpse into the way such costcutting affecte:d material associations in the archaeological record. Beyond such proximate factors as steam technology, elements of ship construction, and the immediate circumstances of the ship's loss, Souza's analy sis ventures into the broader social and economic implications of risktaking as a part of late nineteenth century maritime commerce. Her book offers insights into why shipowners were willing to ply hazardous routes using less than optimal technologies and under less than ideal conditions, with the infamous Dry Tor tugas ship trap, set in the middle of the heavily traveled Florida Strait, as the arena for such behavior. While it may still be difficult to prove this in a statistically definitive way, there are compelling reasons to accept, at least provisionally, the hypothesis that the Pulaski Reefwreck and other, comparable shipwrecks in the Dry Tortugas are representative of the mercantile-capitalist culture that produced them. In other words, Souza's book provides an analytical, social scientific approach to cultural processes that hitherto have generally been viewed by maritime archaeologists as historically unique events. Another important new direction in this book is the willingness to examine shipwrecks of ordinary, everyday vessels of trade. None of the shipwrecks discussed in this study could be called famous. This is not a book about celebrity shipwrecks like those of the Titanic, the Vasa, or the Mary Rose. As Souza's discussion of the Pulaski Reef vessel's identification makes clear, we cannot even be certain sometimes about the identities of these ships. They were not associated with any notable historical events like battles or colorful personalities. Yet such relatively anonymous shipwrecks can be expected to be more repre sentative of their parent culture than famomr--and sometimes atypical and idiosyncratic--ships of the past. Those ships are of interest, of course, but so, too, are more mundane vessels of the sort adldressed in this study. Souza's approach in this book foreshadows a better balance between the study of historically famous shipwrecks and those less famous wrecks that form the mainstream of long-term cultural-historical processes. Her work in the Dry Tortugas suggests a role for nautical archaeology in relating the archaeological record to the kind of historical investigation of maritime historical longue duree epitomized by French historian Femand Braudel in The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age ofP hilip 11(1966). Finally, Souza's approach to the archaeology of the Pulaski Reef wreck was entirely nondestructive. The level of detail and controls used in this study, Foreword vii however, went considerably beyond what maritime archaeologists usually mean by a predisturbance survey. In keeping with the policy and practices of the National Park Service----and with their very generous support--her project relied upon detailed in situ recording that showed how much archaeologists can learn from a shipwreck site without having to excavate. In some cases, artifacts were brought to the surface for study and photography and then returned to their original location on the seabed. Perhaps one could learn more about this and other shipwrecks by means of excavation, but not without paying a heavy cost in physical damage to the site and financial commitments connected to conser vation, storage, and display of objects following excavations. From a manage ment perspective, nondestructive preservation of shipwrecks and other submerged cultural remains is a high priority that must be balanced against such costs whenever archaeology is attempted. Souza's book shows what can be done by well-designed and carefully controlled research that is less intrusive than conventional excavation and recovery of objects. It serves as a model of the preservationist approach to underwater archaeology. It is always deeply satisfying for a scholar and teacher to see a former student perform brilliantly and achieve worthwhile results. Souza presents findings that sparkle with original thought and retain the original enthusiasm she brought to her studies as a sport-diver and underwater volunteer. Her book points the way to the use of underwater archaeology to address major themes in social and cultural history in a manner that can be expected to see wider emulation within the discipline as well as interest by sport-divers who are seriously concerned with underwater archaeology. Richard A. Gould Brown University Providence, Rhode Island Preface Sail still persists today. Though a rare sight in North America and much of Europe, "tall ships" can be seen occasionally off the coasts and on navigable lakes. A few times each year tall ships from around the world form regattas and sail majestically into large city ports such as New York and Boston or arrive as part of a celebration in areas with rich seafaring traditions such as Newport, Rhode Island, and Bermuda. These vessels do not, of course, participate in the merchant trade, at least not in the sense that they transport cargo, but they have become an integral part oftwo industries. One ofthese has been called the "living history" industry. In living history attractions, which are generally associated with museums, a community of the past comes to life with actors in period costume and, for a fee, the public can learn through observation what life was like way back when. Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia, and Plymouth, Massachusetts, where a replica of the Mayflower can be seen, have a high visitation rate and are extremely successful tourist attractions. The other industry is relatively new and can be called the "adventure" industry. In these experiences, paying customers actively participate in the activity whether it be a research project digging for fossils (under the watchful eye of a trained paleontologist), climbing to the summit of a challenging mountain (under the watchful eye of a trained guide), or literally learning the ropes by climbing the rigging of a tall ship (with the benefit ofa safety harness). Though many things have changed from the great age of sail to today, some things have not. These ships, frequently owned by organizations or consortia, are expensive to operate and maintain. The fees paid by modern-day adventurers provide most of the capital necessary to keep them sailing. It is not the first time that sailing ships have adapted to the economy in which they operate by finding a rather specialized niche. Recently, I was fortunate enough to be invited to serve as a trainee onboard the tall ship "HMS" Rose, a replica of an eighteenth century British warship certified by the U.S. Coast Guard as a Class A size sailing school ix x Preface vessel. I learned first hand that another aspect of operating these vessels that has not changed over the centuries is that sailing them is extremely hard work. When I was onboard, the Rose had a complement of 13 trainees who had paid for the experience of a one-week trip that had begun in New York harbor, sailed north to Newport, Rhode Island, and then south to Bridgeport, Connecticut. It also had onboard 15 full-time, experienced crew members. For them, this week marked the last of a 13-month transatlantic, transcaribbean voyage. In an age of high technology these people and others who serve on vessels like the Rose have chosen to dedicate themselves to keeping alive the skills and traditions of sailing large ocean-going vessels. This volume presents results of an archaeological investigation of ship wreck sites that explored these two aspects of merchant sailing: the need to generate capital and the desire to maintain skills and traditions that had devel oped over centuries. It has been noted by some maritime historians that sailing vessels continued to operate for many decades after the introduction of steam propulsion. Some researchers have asked why this was the case and point to a myriad of problems associated with early steam technology and present evidence from the perspective of the development of steam propulsion. None, however, have explored how merchant sailing vessels were able to eke out a living once the steamships became efficient and profitable. The changes brought about through the development and eventual refinement of steam propulsion affected the merchant sailing industry in ways that are observable in the archaeological record and, as we shall see, the study of cultural materials located at shipwreck sites can help to explain the persistence of sail in the age of steam. This work represents one component of an overall project conducted in the Dry Tortugas National Park by the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit of the National Park Service. Since 1990 faculty and students from Brown University have assisted the Park Service in documenting shipwreck sites and establishing an inventory of submerged cultural resources within the park boundaries. In 1993 the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit began a multiyear remote-sensing survey of the Dry Tortugas National Park. The survey is part of the National Park initiative System-wide Archaeological Inventory Program (SAIP) currently be ing conducted in order to survey, inventory, and evaluate cultural resources within National Park Service jurisdiction. Toward this end and to develop a cost-effective and nondestructive technique of archaeological management field operations for the park, the Submerged Cultural Resources Unit has developed a general approach to remote-sensing surveys: a Global Positioning Satellite based (GPS) Archaeological Data Acquisition Platform (ADAP). The primary objective of ADAP is to enhance remote-sensing surveys by automating and integrating the collection of field data. From the field data, archaeologists use geographic information systems (GIS) to chart and document the resources at National Park sites. The ADAP system was deployed in the Dry
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