Wrecking Peasants and Salvaging Landlords – Or Vice Versa? Wrecking in the Russian Baltic Provinces of Estland and Livland, 1780–1870*
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IRSH 62 (2017), pp. 67–93 doi:10.1017/S0020859016000663 © 2017 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis Wrecking Peasants and Salvaging Landlords – Or Vice Versa? Wrecking in the Russian Baltic Provinces of Estland and Livland, 1780–1870* K ERSTI L UST University of Tartu Ülikooli 18, 50090 Tartu, Estonia E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT: This article is a case study of wrecking, based on a database of hundreds of shipwrecks that occurred between 1780 and 1870, in what is today Estonia. Through a qualitative analysis of narrative sources, it examines the wrecking activities of manorial lords as well as of their peasants. Contrary to the international scholarly tradition, which views wrecking as an activity of the common people, this article sheds light on the deceptive and opportunistic activities of manorial lords, who were responsible for enforcing the law at the local level by performing police and court functions, but who, at the same time, benefited on a large scale from wrecking. The article contrasts this with the opportunities coastal peasants had to wreck for their own profit. In wrecking and salvage, the three characteristic elements of peasant- landlord relationships – exploitation, partnership, and patronage – emerge. In con- trast with studies focusing on the friction between peasants and their lords in regions dominated by manorialism, this article argues that, in wrecking, their collaboration apparently proceeded without much conflict in this period. Crimes and disasters around seafaring have been traditional foci of pop- ular interest. Among pirates, privateers, smugglers, and wreckers, the latter have received considerably less attention in both the popular literature and academic studies. Wrecking, the illegal seizure of materials and cargo of shipwrecks, was an important economic activity for several centuries, and it was performed along many coastal areas around the world.1 It is a historically * The author would like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments. 1. For its definition, see Cathryn Jean Pearce, Cornish Wrecking, 1700–1860: Reality and Popular Myth (Woodbridge, 2010), p. 5. The author distinguishes between three different forms of activity encapsulated in the term “wrecking”: attacking and plundering a vessel, taking or “harvesting” wrecked goods, and harvesting goods washed ashore after the shipwreck or that had come ashore in the absence of a clear shipwreck, which was the most widespread form of wrecking. She separates these activities for the sake of analysis and stresses throughout her book the simultaneity of these forms of wrecking practices in reality. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 27 Sep 2021 at 02:20:32, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859016000663 68 Kersti Lust significant practice as it informs us about ideologies, popular morality, and social relationships. The wreckers often drew legitimacy for their action from either “customary right, popular ideas and traditional values”2 or “moral entitlement”.3 Alain Cabantous has shown how the practice of wrecking illuminates “the cultural meanings of communal organizations”.4 Early- modern wrecking has often been treated in discussions of social crimes, and it has been seen as a form of social protest.5 International scholarship on wrecking in the early modern and modern eras usually highlights the conflict between locals and the authorities, and the dichotomies between elite and popular cultures. This article addresses two important but less studied aspects of wrecking: first, the engagement in it of the manorial lords and the peasants, who did the actual salvaging and wrecking; second, the social, economic, and legal context of dividing the booty between the various parties who stood to benefit from the wrecking. Through a qualitative analysis of narrative sources, the article examines the wrecking activities of peasants as well as of their lords, who were responsible for enforcing the law at a local level by performing police and court functions. Salvage and wrecking were often practised side by side, occupying the grey zone between legality and illegality.6 Both salvage and wrecking as economic enterprises were highly remunerative, and in Estland and Livland collaboration between manorial lords, stewards, and manor overseers, on the one hand, and the peasants, on the other, apparently proceeded without much conflict, since the archival records offer only very scant information on both cooperation and friction between landlords and peasants in this matter. Cooperation between lords and peasants is note- worthy, given that peasant-landlord relationships in the Baltics were usually severely strained and hence well-documented in archival sources. The invisibility of conflict in official sources is partly explained by the fact that wrecking was a profitable venture for manorial lords and commoners alike, even though the first gained significantly more than the second did, and at the expense of the second. My results support Cathryn Jean Pearce’s recent 2. John G. Rule, “Wrecking and Coastal Plunder”, in Douglas Hay et al., Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (London, 1975), pp. 167–188. 3. For the concept of “moral entitlement” and a discussion of its relevance, see Pearce, Cornish Wrecking, pp. 97–101. 4. Alain Cabantous, Les côtes barbares. Pilleurs d'épaves et sociétés littorales en France, 1680–1830 (Paris, 1993). 5. Philip Jenkins, The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry 1640–1790 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. xxvi, 98–99; Rule, “Wrecking and Coastal Plunder”, pp. 167–188. 6. Pearce, Cornish Wrecking, ch. 7; Brad Duncan, “The Maritime Archaeology and Maritime Cultural Landscapes of Queenscliffe: A Nineteenth Century Australian Coastal Community” (Ph.D., James Cook University, 2006), available at: http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/2050/1/ 01front.pdf, last accessed 27 September 2015. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 27 Sep 2021 at 02:20:32, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859016000663 Wrecking in the Russian Baltic Provinces 1780–1870 69 suggestion that the interrelationship between manorial lords and country people in relation to wrecking was based on mutuality as well as antagonism.7 Manorial lords needed a workforce, boats, and knowledge; both parties expected not to testify against each other and the other to turn a blind eye to stealing and fraudulent activities. Since police power was exercised by noblemen at the district level – one for each large district or subdistrict; in Estland they received no remuneration for their work and in Livland only a tiny salary – and at the local level by a manorial lord, local and regional relationships proved crucial to the outcome of the illegal actions regarding wrecking. Unlike in several other areas, shipwrecking in the Baltics did not so much shape existing social, economic, and power relationships, but these rela- tionships did determine the behaviour of locals with regard to wrecking. The effects of these relations on wrecking activities will be the focus of this article. In salvage and wrecking, one finds the three characteristic elements of peasant-landlord relationships – exploitation, partnership, and patronage. Existing literature on the Baltic Sea trade rarely mentions coastal wrecking on the Baltic Sea, though the topic has gained more attention in local studies and folklore.8 The present work is, therefore, the first systematic and comprehensive study of wrecking practices in the eastern Baltic. Material for the investigation has been drawn from official and business correspondence, police records, criminal sentencing and prosecution records, laws, and folk tradition. Sometimes, mere fragments of text may hint at crucial, yet completely hidden aspects. Rhetoric and the argu- mentation of merchants, landlords, and court and state officials alone could speak volumes. Folk tradition – despite exaggerations, fragmentariness, omissions, and other defects – reflects common attitudes. This article is based on the Estonian shipwreck database that covers the period from the 1600s to the present day. In addition, it incorporates maritime accidents where ships were saved, cases not included in the data- base. Since the shipwreck database has been described elsewhere9 and is available online, it is sufficient to say that the nineteenth century is over- represented with 850 cases. Around 200 cases derive from the eighteenth century. The obligation of county magistrates to report shipwrecks from 7. Pearce, Cornish Wrecking, p. 165. 8. Yrjö Kaukiainen, “Wreck-Plundering by East Finnish Coastal People – Criminal Tradition or Popular Culture?”,inSail and Steam: Selected Maritime Writings of Yrjö Kaukiainen (compiled by Lars U. Scholl and Merja-Liisa Hinkkanen) (Research in Maritime History, 27) (St. John’s, Newfoundland, 2004), pp. 151–162; Nils Hansen, “Strandrecht und Strandraub. Bemerkungen zu einem Gewohnheitsrecht an den schleswig-holsteinischen Küsten”, Kieler Blätter zur Volkskunde, 33 (2001), pp. 51–78. 9. Reet Hünerson, Enn Küng, and Kersti Lust, “Archival Sources on Maritime Accidents in Estonia from the 17th to the Early 20th Century”,inShipwreck Heritage: Digitizing and Opening Access to Maritime History Sources [Muinasaja teadus, 23]