300px, Oyster pirates on the Chesapeake Bay in 1884 Oyster pirate is a name given to persons who engage in the

poaching Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set a ...

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not al ...

s. It was a term that became popular on both the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...

and the

East Coast of the United States The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Eastern United States meets the North Atlantic Ocean. The eastern seaboard contains the coa ...

during the 19th century.

San Francisco Bay oyster pirates and the works of Jack London

The term "oyster pirate" appeared in several literary works by

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

. London usually used the term without explanation ("I wanted to be where the winds of adventure blew. And the winds of adventure blew the oyster pirate sloops up and down San Francisco Bay"). Writers about London also use the term without explanation ("he was a sailor, seal-hunter, tramp, fish warden, oyster pirate, cannery worker, jailbird, boxer, and gold digger"), as if everyone knew the meaning of the term. In the context of Jack London's life, it refers to a specific set of conditions peculiar to the oyster industry in

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

in the 1880s. While San Francisco Bay had a native oyster (the same species found elsewhere on the Pacific Coast), it was never very abundant. By the early 1850s, entrepreneurs began importing oysters from Shoalwater Bay (now

Willapa Bay Willapa Bay () is a bay located on the southwest Pacific coast of Washington state in the United States. The Long Beach Peninsula separates Willapa Bay from the greater expanse of the Pacific Ocean. With over of surface area Willapa Bay is the ...

), Washington Territory. Native West coast oysters were much smaller and had a different flavor from those from the East coast. When the

transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

was completed, large fishery companies in the east sold juvenile oysters to San Francisco entrepreneurs who purchased submerged land from the State of California and grew oysters from transplanted Eastern stock. By the 1880s the handful of competing oyster companies began consolidating into a single

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

. Their harvest of a private commodity from a public space, the San Francisco Bay, led to an opportunity for oyster pirates. Pirates raided the oyster beds at night and sold their take in the

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

markets in the morning. The public disliked the Southern Pacific and the oyster growers, and liked cheap oysters. As a result, the oyster pirates had considerable public sympathy and police were reluctant to take action against them. Jack London described oyster piracy in his autobiographical "alcoholic memoirs", ''

John Barleycorn "John Barleycorn" is an English and Scottish folk song listed as number 164 in the Roud Folk Song Index. John Barleycorn, the song's protagonist, is a personification of barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it: beer and whisky. ...

'', in the form of romanticized juvenile fiction in ''

The Cruise of the Dazzler ''The Cruise of the Dazzler'' is an early novel by Jack London, set in his home city of San Francisco. It is considered a boy's adventure novel. In the novel, Joe Bronson, dissatisfied with his dull life at school, runs away and joins the crew of ...

'', and from the opposing point of view of the California Fish Patrol in "A Raid on the Oyster Pirates," from '' Tales of the Fish Patrol''. Oyster pirating was also listed as one of London's first occupations, after leaving a cannery at the age of fifteen, by Abraham Rothberg in an Introduction to ''The Great Adventure Stories of Jack London'' (1967) and by Eric Hanson in ''A Book of Ages'' (2008). London owned a boat which he used as an oyster pirate, whose purchase was funded by a loan from his black nanny Virginia Prentiss.

East Coast and Chesapeake Bay oyster pirates

Oyster pirates also operated on the east coast of the United States beginning in the 18th century. These disputes often focused on increased

privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

of what had been public rights, providing an obvious inspiration for later West Coast activities. Oyster pirates also appeared in the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...

, especially from the second half of the nineteenth century into the twentieth century during the

Oyster Wars The Oyster Wars were a series of sometimes violent disputes between oyster pirates and authorities and legal watermen from Maryland and Virginia in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River from 1865 until about 1959. Background In ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oyster Pirate History of fishing Maritime history of California Maritime history of Maryland Maritime history of Virginia Pirates Oysters Poaching

San Francisco Bay oyster pirates and the works of Jack London

East Coast and Chesapeake Bay oyster pirates

See also

References