The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

In this desperate plight, Magellan sighted two islands on which there were no natives nor any food, and passed by them to find an anchorage off what was later called Guam. The natives came out to welcome the ship, skimming over the water in wonderful canoes or proas, and brought gifts of fruit. The ships’ sails were furled and preparations made to land when a skiff which had ridden astern of the flagship was missed. It may have broken adrift, but the natives were suspected of stealing it, and Captain-General Magellan at once led forty armed men ashore, burned forty or fifty houses and many boats, and slaughtered seven or eight native men and women.

“Before we went ashore,” writes Pigafetta, “some of our people who were sick said to us that if we should kill any of them whether man or woman, that we should bring on board their entrails, being persuaded that with the latter they could be cured. When we wounded some of those islanders with arrows which entered their bodies, they tried to draw forth the arrow, now in one way, now in another, in the meantime regarding it with great astonishment, and they died of it, which did not fail to cause us compassion. Seeing us taking our departure, then, they followed us with more than a hundred boats for more than a league. They approached our ships, showing us fish and pretending to wish to give them to us; but when they were near they cast stones at us and fled. We passed under full sail among their boats, which, with great dexterity, escaped us. We saw among them some women who were weeping and tearing their hair, surely for their husbands killed by us.”

After this bloodthirsty and wicked visitation no attempt was made to colonize these islands until a Jesuit priest, Padre Diege Luis de Suavitores, landed at Guam in 1668, when a mission was established. The Spanish Jesuits held full sway until they were expelled in 1769 and their place taken by the Friars.

When the Salem bark, Lydia, visited Guam, therefore, in 1801, the Spanish administration was in its heyday and had been long enough established to offer a fair survey of what this particular kind of civilization had done for the natives. The Lydia was in Manila on a trading voyage when she was chartered by the Spanish Government to carry to Guam the new governor of the islands, his family, his suite and his luggage. The bark sailed from Manila for Guam on October 20, 1801, and two days later, while among the Philippine Islands, the first mate wrote in his journal:

“Now having to pass through dangerous straits, we went to work to make boarding nettings, and to get our arms in the best order, but had we been attacked, we should have been taken with ease. The pirates are numerous in their prows[32] and we have but eleven in number exclusive of our passengers, viz., the captain, two officers, cook, steward, and six men before the mast. The passengers are the Governor of the Marianna Islands, his Lady, three children and two servant girls, and twelve men servants, a Friar and his servant, a Judge and two servants, total passengers twenty-four and we expected but eight. Too many idlers to drink water, and to my certain knowledge they would not have fought had we been attacked. However, we passed in safety.

From a photograph by E. G. Merrill

Salem Harbor as it is to-day

“These passengers caused a great deal of trouble when their baggage came on board. It could not be told from the cargo and, of course, we stowed it all away together below, so that every day there was a search for something or other which caused the ship to be forever in confusion.”

There was more excitement while passing between the islands of Panay and Negros, where the bark was becalmed close to land, “and all our passengers were in the greatest confusion for fear of being taken and put to death in the dark and not have time to say their prayers.” Next day the Lydia anchored at the island of Sambongue and the “Governor, his Lady and children” went on shore to visit the officers of the Spanish settlement. Captain Barnard of the bark did not like the appearance of this port, and “put the ship into the highest state of defence possible, got all the boarding nettings up, and the arms loaded and kept a sea watch. This night a Spanish launch, as it proved to be afterwards, attempted to come on board, but we fired at it and ordered it to keep off.”