The term coffin ship is used to refer to the ships that carried Irish immigrants escaping the Great Irish Famine as well as displaced Highlanders due to the Highland Clearances. These ships, crowded and disease ridden, with poor access to food and water, resulted in the deaths of many people as they crossed the Atlantic, and led to the Typhus epidemic of 1847 at quarantine stations in Canada. Owners of coffin ships provided as little food, water, and living space as was legally possible – if they obeyed the law at all.
While coffin ships were the cheapest way to cross the Atlantic, mortality rates of 30% aboard the coffin ships were common. It was said that sharks could be seen following the ships, because so many bodies were thrown overboard.
Read more about Coffin Ship: Legislation, Memorials, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words coffin and/or ship:
“She went in there to muse on being rid
Of relative beneath the coffin lid.
No one was by. She stuck her tongue out; slid.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“... what a family is without a steward, a ship without a pilot, a flock without a shepherd, a body without a head, the same, I think, is a kingdom without the health and safety of a good monarch.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)