Liberty on the Waterfront. Paul A. Gilje
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and in the commercial sex industry. Although they formed strong bonds with each other, theirs was not a separate sphere. Women interacted with men beyond their own family on a daily basis. Some of these women fulfilled the various fantasies of the sailor—including a sentimentalized domestic ideal—while he was ashore. Others did not.2
Personal relationships ashore could pull on or push upon Jack Tar affecting his notions of liberty. To better understand this aspect of the sailor's life, I will examine concepts of gender identity at sea, the many images of women for the male waterfront worker, and some details of the lives of the women on the waterfront.3
Any understanding of masculine identity on the waterfront must begin with how men viewed themselves. The forecastle created a peculiar environment that had the potential to threaten the heterosexual identity of sailors. Isolated from women for long periods of time, compelled to live and work in a confined space literally on top of each other, and at times forced to labor at work land based society deemed feminine, sailors could have created a more homoerotic identity. They did not. Instead, they developed a notion of manhood that reflected both working-class and youth culture that emphasized proficiency at skilled labor and heterosexual prowess.4 For Richard Henry Dana, Jr., the ideal sailor fulfilled all the qualities of manliness. He complimented the mate on the Pilgrim by describing him as being every inch a man. Likewise, each crew member knew that “he must be a man, and show himself smart when at his duty.” For Dana, “an overstrained sense of manliness is the characteristic of seafaring men.” The manly sailor must confront the world with stoicism, ignore danger, minimize an injury, and avoid expression of feelings.5 In 1836 “A Brother Cruiser” looked at a picture of “The Boatswain's Mate” and proclaimed, “such a picture as that, I love to look upon a real man-of-war's man—a hearty, able bodied, American seaman.” His very look expressed “a love of enterprise, firmness of purpose, and a reckless daring.” Such a sailor never forgot his birthright, “he is never a fawning, cringing, sycophantic creature, but always a man!” Yet this ideal sailor understood the military necessity of discipline and always tipped his hat to his superior officers.6 From this perspective the manly sailor was independent and hardworking and knew both his duty and his place. There was something straightforward and honest in this portrait of the sailor that emphasized hard work and diligence rather than intelligence. J. Ross Browne, for instance, described one old salt, whom he greatly admired, as combining “all the noble generosity and daring of a real sailor—all those blunt, manly qualities which characterize the genuine son of Neptune—with the credulity and simplicity of a child.”7 Popular song reiterated these themes countless times. “Bonny Ben” in one song “was to each jolly messmate a brother.” Perhaps even more important, “He was manly, and honest, good-natured and free.”8
Ashore, all of these masculine characteristics became embodied in the manly sailor adorned in his best sailor garb, with a ready wit, generosity, and love of life. Understandably irresistible to any woman on the waterfront, the sailor possessed a strong libido that needed to be satisfied.
I took my love by the middle so small and gently lay'd her down
Those words to me she thus did say as we lay on the broom [heather]
Do what you will kind sir said she it's equal unto me
But little do my Mammy know I am in the broom with thee.9
At times the sailor could remain loyal to his sweetheart and he might eagerly promise to marry his love. Although such pledges of fidelity were sometimes serious, they often were expressions of the passion of the moment. A manly sailor could just as easily take or leave a woman.
If round the world poor sailors roam,
And bravely do their duty,
When danger's past they find a home
With each his fav'rite beauty
For Nan, and Sue, and Moll, and Bess
And fifty more delight them,
And when their honied lips they press,
Who says it don't requite them.10
If sailors objectified women and saw them largely as fit for serving the man's needs ashore—be they carnal or domestic—they saw themselves as users. Men came ashore, and whether it was to see a sweetheart or a harlot, they assumed that women would eagerly do their bidding. Only occasionally did sailors express any remorse over this attitude. The author of “The Husband's Complaint” declares that once he had a “loving Wife,” but that he was not content and “led her an unhappy life.” He came to appreciate her only after he lost her and soon remarried a woman who “turns out a drunken sot” and tells him, “I'll pay off your first wifes scores,” constantly fighting and berating him.11 In one version of “The Maid I Left Behind Me” the sailor goes off to sea after promising his love that he will return. Opportunity knocks elsewhere and he marries for money, forgetting the girl at home and his parents. The song ends with a lament as the sailor's past haunts his dreams.
My father is in his winding-sheet, my mother too appears,
The girl I love stands by their side to wipe away their tears;
They all died broken-hearted, and now it's too late, I find
That God has seen my cruelty to the girl I left behind.12
This attitude, although surfacing occasionally in popular song, is buried under a weight of evidence in which the sailor believes he has the right to take from the woman.
If the handsome sailor was the ideal ashore, and if that image had such a strong sexual component, what about the handsome sailor's sexuality at sea? Did the fact the sailors often cooked, sewed, and served—ostensibly female work—affect their sense of themselves as men?13 Did the view of themselves as users transfer to sexual activity with other men at sea? Only a handful of comments about male sexual activity at sea exist in the many songs, diaries, reminiscences, ship's logs, court records, and other sources.
Herman Melville toyed with the sexual attractiveness of the ideal sailor for males. He described Billy Budd as “the Handsome Sailor,” with both feminine and masculine characteristics. Thus Billy has a “smooth face all but feminine in purity of natural complexion.” Melville characterized him as a “rustic beauty” competing with high-born dames. While asserting that “our Handsome Sailor had as much of masculine beauty as one can expect anywhere to see,” Melville in the next instant compared him to “the beautiful woman in one of Hawthorne's minor tales.”14 He avoided more explicit discussion of homoerotic behavior with obscure references to “wooden-walled Gommorrahs of the deep.” In Moby Dick, Ishmael shares a bed with Queequeg: “in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cosy, loving pair.”15
Such intimacy was no longer a private matter if authorities became aware of it. Buggery was one of the most frequent crimes punished with execution in the British navy from 1700 to 1861. It was less frequently punished in the American navy.16 Inthe record of punishments aboard the Congress for 1845 to 1848, three cases may have represented homosexual activity. In December 1845 and again in February 1846, adult seamen and individuals rated as boys were punished for “scandalous conduct.” The exact nature of that conduct is not delineated, yet given the host of other offenses listed, including insubordination, fighting, smuggling liquor, and drunkenness, the reader is left to suspect some sexual act.17Josiah Cobb provides a similar oblique reference to homosexual behavior in Dartmoor Prison during the War of 1812 when he says that the “unpardonable sin had been committed.” Again, considering the litany of other crimes explicitly mentioned—fighting, gambling, drinking, stealing—the unmentioned crime was probably sodomy. Cobb comments further that “This [the ‘unpardonable sin’—sodomy] was but seldom done;—howsoever depraved were the Rough Alleys [the criminal element among sailor prisoners of war held in Dartmoor] in other respects, there had been but two or three instances of this heinous sin being committed, on account of the serious penalty immediately following the conviction of the offender.”18
A survey of more than one thousand whaleship logs in the nineteenth century