| Author keywords |
Wreckers, Beeswax wreck, native peoples, Frolic (wreck), Northwest Coast, South Seas, HMB Bounty |
| Abstract |
Ships when wrecked offered a “bounty” for those who salvaged them. From coastal communities who benefitted when a ship was lost, to deliberate seizures of ships by indigenous peoples, shipwrecks, while tragedies for some, represented a boon for others. Conflicts arose, and popular literature regaled readers with tales of heartless “wreckers,” including tales of those coastal communities who often were wrongly accusted of luring ships to their doom to plunder them. The reality was different, and this is powerfully demonstrated in the stories of shipwrecks on indigenous shores, where the locals took a bounty from a wreck in compensation for unequal trading relationships or to assert their own rights and power. |
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