Keelhauling was a tactic that became most popular in the 1600s and 1700s, but its history goes much further back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keelhaul comes from the Dutch word \u201ckielhalen,\u201d which means \u201cto haul under the keel of a ship.\u201d The purpose of keelhauling wasn\u2019t to kill a sailor<\/a>, for this was always the easy way out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, it was to make them suffer as many injuries as they possibly could while keeping them barely alive. They would sometimes put them underwater for a couple of minutes, nearly drowning them to death, before pulling them up and then slamming them against the boat<\/a> before moving them back down.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The speed at which the boat moved meant everything. The faster it moved, the worse the punishment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Oil-soaked sponges were sometimes put in the victim\u2019s mouth so they could catch some breath underwater, keeping them alive. It was like tying someone to the back of the car in today\u2019s times and dragging them along the road. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After punishment, the sailor was brought up and inspected by the ship\u2019s captain. If the captain wasn\u2019t satisfied with the injuries, he sent the sailor back down to experience more pain.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the Universal Dictionary of the Marine in 1780, keelhauling was \u201cplunging the delinquent repeatedly under the ship\u2019s bottom on one side, and hoisting him up on the other, after having passed under the keel.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Added to that, though, which shows the ultimate goal isn\u2019t death, it says, \u201cthe culprit is allowed sufficient intervals to recover the sense of pain, of which indeed he is frequently deprived during the operation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many times, though, the process did kill the victim, either by drowning, loss of blood, being eaten by sea creatures, or their heads being smashed to the point of death. Other times, they barely stayed alive and instead suffered mental torture and trauma for the rest of their life for what they endured.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sailor also almost always lost limbs, including arms and legs, and experienced life-long physical injuries<\/a>. They were held off the side of the ship as a warning to others of the penalties that would happen if they didn\u2019t follow orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first evidence of some form of keelhauling goes back to around 700 BC when the Greeks performed it in the Rhodian Maritime. Artifacts and vase art were produced that depicted this act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There have been rumors that pirates <\/a>did it as an alternative to walking the plank or hanging a prisoner, but there\u2019s no official record of this.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the Dutch Navy was notorious for performing the act between 1560 and 1863, making it a very common practice. In 1652, under the command of Jan Van Riebeeck, a sailor was recorded to have been keelhauled and whipped with 150 lashes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Following that, he was enslaved for two years. In 1673, Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest performed the most graphic and gruesome act<\/a> of keelhauling by punishing two sailors who committed murder.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n People saw this as an acceptable form of punishment back then because sailors<\/a> were viewed as workers who had to perform their jobs and obey their superiors, and if they didn\u2019t, they had to be punished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The English Royal Navy was also said to have done it in the 16th and 17th centuries. Most felt like keelhauling died in the mid-1880s, and the British denied ever using the form of punishment after 1860.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, in 1882, two Egyptian sailors were punished near Alexandria in Great Britain, as recorded in the Parliamentary Papers in the Great House of Commons. It was also witnessed by many who were horrified at what they saw.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYesterday I tried to write a description of a most horrible sight. It was so revoltingly cruel, so barbarous, so infamously brutal, that I gave it up,\u201d the London Morning Advertiser<\/em> wrote in 1882.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While keelhauling is no longer used, other methods of torture have been devised as a replacement. Birching was a technique used in the early 20th century, where a sailor was punished by being beaten with 12 to 24 strokes from a birch stick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, many are familiar with waterboarding, which was used as an interrogation technique against terrorists to get information out of them. Again, the purpose of these punishments, like keelhauling, wasn\u2019t to punish them but rather inflict enormous pain on the person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKeelhauling: Royal Navy Torture Technique.\u201d TheWayofthePirates.com. <\/em>Nd. http:\/\/www.thewayofthepirates.com\/pirate-life\/keelhauling\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldfarb, Kara. \u201cKeelhauling: Inside the Deranged Torture Method Used to Keep Sailors in Line.\u201d AllThatsInteresting.com. <\/em>22 Oct 2023. https:\/\/allthatsinteresting.com\/keelhauling<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.historydefined.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Woodcut_Print_of_Keelhauling.jpg\")
Keelhauling\u2019s Torture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The History of Keelhauling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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References<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n