The Precedent-Setting Shipwreck Cannibalism Case of 1884; or, Look, You Can't Kill and Eat a Boy Just Because You're on a Boat
Up until 1884, there were no hard-and-fast rules about cannibalism at sea.
Now, you may think, “Why would you need a hard-and-fast rule about cannibalism at sea? Surely killing and eating somebody is already covered under numerous other rules.”
Well no. It turns out that throughout the Age of Exploration (roughly 15th–18th century, the period where white people wantonly jaunted around the planet stealing countries and doing genocides under the guise of “discovery”), sailors were CONSTANTLY cannibalising each other in shipwreck situations, and that was just a widely acknowledged and accepted fact of life. It was known as a “custom of the sea”, which meant “it’s not technically legal or ok in most situations, but we’re on a boat so it’s kinda fine don’t worry about it”. And it happened all. The. Time. Moby Dick (you know, that 500-page book you never read) is based on a real-life cannibal shipwreck (the Essex, look it up, it’s wild).
Normally everything in 19th century literature (and all literature) is a metaphor for penises but, for a pleasant change, this is actually a metaphor for straight-up cannibalism. And penises.
Basically, if you got on a boat, you had to make peace with the fact that if the ship went down and you survived but were stranded, everyone was going to draw lots and someone was gonna get eaten. And the world at large was going to go “eh, well, that’s boats for you”.
There were also specific rules surrounding shipwreck cannibalism (I have already said “shipwreck cannibalism” too many times and we’re barely 10 sentences in). Boys before men. Passengers before sailors. Blacks before whites. Which, really. Shipwreck cannibalism is one thing. There’s no need to be racist about it.
Look. Sailors have long been established as absolutely bonker balls. The sea makes you insane.
So what happened in 1884 that changed all this, you ask?
Well. Cannibalism happened.
I mean. You probably guessed that.
The specific, precedent-setting act of cannibalism occurred after the Mignonette, a luxury yacht, which was being transported from England to Australia, sank. This wasn’t super surprising, as luxury yachts aren’t really designed for long voyages, and also the sea is a nightmare.
Look at it. That lil guy isn’t seaworthy. It probably needs more masts or something (disclaimer: I don’t know anything about boats).
The crew – consisting of the captain, two crewmen and a 17-year-old cabin boy called Richard Parker – survived, but were left adrift on a lifeboat. With them, they had two tins of turnips, a penknife and a chronometer. All of these items are key to what comes next.
For a few days, they survived by drinking rainwater and eating the turnips. This did not last, however, and Richard the cabin boy, in an honestly very reasonable act of desperation, started drinking sea water, which gave him the shits and sent him into a feverish coma.
At which point, the remaining three men were like “welp, better kill and eat this boy”.
As they tell it, there was a lot of moralising and agonising and “oh no, we couldn’t possibly kill and eat this boy” before they did so, but regardless, they killed and ate the boy. One sailor sat on his legs so he didn’t struggle, another stabbed him in the jugular with their penknife, and then they drained his blood into a chronometer case (told you those items were key).
Without getting too gory in this story about shipwreck cannibalism, the three men then drank Richard’s blood, ate his flesh, chucked the remainder of his body overboard, and then got rescued by another boat before they had to eat anyone else.
Ok well apparently someone illustrated this. Why did someone illustrate this?
When they returned to England, they were like “oh man, lads, let us tell you our tale of woe” and spilled the whole story, cannibalism and all, because as mentioned, shipwreck cannibalism was FINE and they hadn’t even considered that this would be frowned upon.
Turns out, the British authorities did not agree. With the ever-relevant adage of “cool motive, still murder”, the men were arrested and put on trial for the, turns out, very illegal crime of KILLING AND EATING A BOY.
Don’t kill and eat boys, gang. That’s the moral of this story. Even if you’re on a boat. Don’t do it.
The issue that the British authorities ran into, almost immediately, was an onslaught of Victorian public opinion, which was aggressively in favour of shipwreck cannibalism. This was political correctness gone MAD. If you can’t kill and eat a boy on a boat, what’s next? Soon you’ll saying we can’t openly and gleefully commit genocide abroad. Cancel culture is so toxic.
Seriously, even Richard the cabin boy’s brother was like “nah, this is fine, sometimes you gotta kill and eat my brother on a boat”.
Still, authorities couldn’t set a precedent where “we were hungry” was a legitimate excuse for killing and eating someone, but now they were running into a problem wherein any jury was going to be reluctant to convict the men. So the judge had to put the fix in, stripping away the power of the jury and introducing an option of giving a “special verdict” that allowed the jury to just kind of go “eh, we’re not getting involved”. Eventually, the men ended up in front of a queen’s jury, which was a jury of judges, who found them guilty of murder.
The two men were sentenced to death, as was normal in cases of murder, but this was reduced to a six-month prison sentence due to the ongoing public outcry over the whole situation.
I have honestly been laughing at this baffling poem about Richard Parker’s death for about 20 minutes. “Dick, your time’s come”. Jesus Christ, lads, they ate a teenager on a boat. White men will write poems about anything.
“Hey Susie,” the eagle-eyed of you may be saying. “Did you just say ‘the two men’? Weren’t there three men?”
Yes there fucking were. However, the third man was never tried, due to the fact that he didn’t take part in the decision-making process, or in the actual murdering process. He did eat Richard, yes, and in fact ate more of Richard than the others, but he didn’t actually kill him. So that was fine, apparently.
At the end of the day, this trial introduced an important legal precedent, which was “hey, lads, you can’t kill and eat someone just because you’re on a boat”. However, at the same time, they also introduced a second precedent: “hey, lads, it’s fine to eat someone when you’re on a boat, you just can’t be the one to kill them first”.
A century and a bit later, Richard Parker the cabin boy was able to live on, through the tiger in the 2001 novel and 2012 Ang Lee film Life of Pi. I have neither read nor seen Life of Pi, but I think that maybe it turns out that the tiger and Mr Of Pi are the same person? And maybe Richard Parker ate someone? I’m unsure, but I’m glad that he eventually got to be in a shipwreck where he wasn’t killed and eaten.