Conclusion

Summary

This study has sought to reconstruct the shipboard experiences of ‘lascar’ crews of sailing vessels operating in the Indian Ocean region by establishing the significance of mutiny, the frequency of its occurrence and the various forms it took. The source material relating to such incidents is highly fragmentary, difficult to interpret and scattered across many different archives around the world. Nonetheless, certain conclusions can be drawn with respect to the general characteristics of such incidents, their wider significance and the place they occupy in the long history of lascar employment aboard British vessels.

Reporting on the causes of mutiny is always problematic because descriptions of crew behaviour were heavily shaped by widespread ideas about the moral and physiological characteristics of lascars. Episodes that illustrated the cowardly, superstitious or ignorant nature of lascars feature prominently in accounts given by captains, passengers and newspapers. Lascars clashed with their superiors over a range of different issues. These included abusive officers, insufficient or inadequate food, unsafe working conditions, unpaid wages and perhaps even unwanted ‘interference’ from the captain's wife. Other universal causes of shipboard disaffection – such as boredom or unpopular promotions – undoubtedly played a role, although the available evidence does not permit a more detailed discussion of them.

Mutiny was also caused by conflicting cultures of the ship as local seafaring customs collided with those imported from outside the region. Europeans and lascars had very different ideas about how a vessel ought to be run and what sort of behaviour was acceptable at sea. Different approaches to public worship, blasphemy, superstition, healing, the storage of provisions and the preparation of food proved to be major sources of conflict. Reckless captains simply ignored these issues, as demonstrated by the master of the Bengal Merchant, who insisted on preaching to his lascars. Others were simply inept at handling the needs of their non-European crews, such as the master of the Cursetjee Ramonjee, who took an hour to convince his men that the doctor he had chosen was not using pig fat to treat an injured Muslim sailor.

Reconstructing lascar protest presents many difficulties. Events that took place at sea were often recorded sporadically. The available source material provides little more than scattered glimpses of shipboard life and its day-to-day conflicts. It is clear, however, that lascars crews had recourse to many different means of protest. Some of these fell far short of the mutinous.