Komagata Maru
 The Komagata Maru
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The Japanese steamer Komagata Maru ( Japanese 駒 形 丸 ) was used in 1914 to attempt to force a large number of British citizens of Indian origin to enter Canada. The Canadian authorities refused entry and sent the ship to India. When the emigrants returned to Calcutta , the attempt to arrest the leaders ended in a shootout in which 19 of the passengers died.
The ship was built as a Stubbenhuk for the Canada service of the steamship shipping company "Hansa". After taking over the shipping company, it came into the possession of Hapag , which renamed it Sicilia in 1894 and used it on various lines. In 1913 the ship was sold to Japan and chartered for the Indian voyage in 1914.
In 1924, the ship ran aground on the coast of Hokkaido and was lost.
Operation history of the ship
The steamship shipping company "Hansa" was founded in Hamburg in 1881 and ordered four new steamers from German shipyards. One of the founders was the shipowner Carl Laeisz , who also became chairman of the board. In August 1883 the shipping company started a liner service from Hamburg via Antwerp to Quebec , which from 1884 also called Halifax and Boston . The first modernization of the shipping company began in 1889 with the procurement of six further newbuildings from 2,404 to 3,143 GRT, three of which were ordered from British shipyards and were in service by 1892.
The Stubbenhuk was one of the two ships ordered from the shipyard of Charles Connell & Company in the Scotstoun district of Glasgow . Although it was manufactured immediately after the shipping company's first order, the Grimm , the two Connell ships with hull numbers 167 and 168 were not classic sister ships, but only very similar to all six orders. The ships from five shipyards all had two masts, a slightly inclined chimney, a straight stem and a pronounced deckhouse amidships around the chimney.
The Stubbenhuk was three feet longer at just over 100 meters in length than the previously manufactured Grimm wider and a little. With her 3,016 GRT she was the first ship of the shipping company of over 3000 GRT and remained the largest ship of the Hamburg shipping company until the pick lifts were put into service four months later. On October 19, 1890, the Stubbenhuk began her maiden voyage from Hamburg to Canada. In February 1892, Hapag took over the steamship shipping company "Hansa". Above all, the latter wanted to take over the Canada service, as they feared increasing difficulties on their main routes directly to the USA due to changed entry regulations and also wanted to take over the contracts of the "Hansa" with the Canadian Railway, the trips of the emigrants to different parts of the USA made possible. She also wanted to use her involvement in the trade area dominated by British companies to put pressure on them in order to obtain better quota of emigrants in direct traffic to the USA. A pattern that was observed in a number of Hapag activities in the period that followed. In 1893 the ship made four trips to Montreal and one via Halifax to Baltimore. In 1894 the ship stayed in this trading area.
Further assignments for Hapag
On October 16, 1894, the ship was renamed Sicilia and the name ending in -ia was given a form of name typical for Hapag. Already on October 27th it ran for the first time under its new shipping company flag to Canada, which was followed by a trip from Hamburg to Boston. On May 8, 1895, her first journey began from Stettin via Helsingborg , Gothenburg and Kristiansand to New York, the second more followed. From May 1896 four more voyages to Montreal followed, and then in 1897 further voyages between Stettin and New York until December 9, 1897. In addition to the Sicilia , the Georgia (ex Pickenhuben ) was also another former Hansa ship on the new line Scandinavia in action.
On March 13, 1901, the Sicilia opened a new Hapag all-year service between Genoa , Naples and New York for emigrants, which until then had only been a winter service. In addition to her, the Georgia and the Scotia (ex Grimm ), which had previously been chartered to the Belgian Red Star Line , were used. The Sicilia was last used on this route on February 2, 1902.
In April 1902 her first of nine tours began on the new route from Odessa via Constantinople , Smyrna and Piraeus to New York, the last of which began on July 23, 1904. In addition to her, the Georgia was used again on this line operated together with the DLL , which completed seven round trips. When the line was closed in 1904, the ships of both companies had made a total of 27 tours.
This was followed by assignments from Italy to the USA. Altogether, from 1892 to July 1907 , the Sicilia brought 41,456 emigrants to Ellis Island on 65 journeys .
Sale to Japan
In 1913, the Sicilia ex Stubbenhuk was sold to Japan to a small shipping company "Shin'ei Kisen Gōshi Kaisha", which had only one other steamer besides the ship now renamed Komagata Maru . In 1914 the shipping company chartered the steamer to a British citizen of Indian origin, Baba Gurdit Singh (1860-1954), for a trip from Hong Kong to Vancouver .
Gurdit Singh was certainly familiar with the new entry requirements for Indians to Canada that were issued at the beginning of the year, which were supposed to make further entry of Asians to Canada considerably more difficult. He was arrested in Hong Kong while selling tickets for the planned trip because the British authorities thought the trip was illegal. He was released on bail and given permission to leave the country. The Komagata Maru left the British Crown Colony on April 4, 1914 with 165 passengers. It ran to Yokohama via Shanghai , where other passengers came on board, until April 14th . On May 3, she left there with 376 passengers. All passengers were British citizens, 340 of them Sikhs , as well as 24 Indians of Muslim and 12 of Hindu faith. To accommodate the many passengers, the lower cargo holds of the ship were also prepared.
The Komagata Maru Incident
On May 23, 1914, the Komagata Maru arrived in Burrard Inlet off Vancouver. The conservative prime minister of British Columbia , Richard McBride , explained that it was the passengers not allow the country to enter and the ship remained in the harbor. Protests on land against further immigration of Indians were organized by Conservatives under MP Henry Herbert Stevens . Also on the part of the Indian immigrants in Canada and the USA a support committee for the passengers was founded and tried to obtain an entry permit through the courts, which failed. The Canadian Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden , did not overturn the decision of the local immigration authorities and only sent Agriculture Minister Martin Burrell as negotiator.
Finally, in July 1914, the government mobilized the old cruiser Rainbow in Esquimalt under Commander Walter Hose, which ran to Vancouver with Canadian troops. The Rainbow , which arrived on July 19, was supposed to force the ship to return, which she finally managed on July 23. Only 24 passengers were allowed to enter Canada. The rest of them were banned from entry, despite the fact that they were British citizens and many had previously served in the British Army. The reasons given were insufficient financial means by the immigrants and that according to the Canadian immigration law, immigration is only permitted when driving directly from India.
After two months without going ashore, a tug turned the Komagata Maru and towed her out of the bay. The Canadian authorities requested the ship's management to transport the passengers to India.
The Komagata Maru arrived in Calcutta on September 27th . The ship was escorted to Budge Budge by a British guard boat and placed under guard. The British Government of India considered the passengers to be dangerous agitators. In an attempt to arrest the organizer Baba Gurdit Singh and recognized members of radical parties, the passengers resisted and the state authorities used firearms in the resulting scuffle. 19 of the passengers were killed. Some escaped, but the majority were arrested. They were later able to return to their hometowns, but remained under police surveillance for the duration of the World War.
Gurdit Singh managed to escape and lived underground until 1922. At the request of Mahatma Gandhi , he then presented himself as a 'true patriot' and received a five-year prison sentence. The refusal of entry to Canada and the return occurrences are remembered as examples of the inequality of treatment of Asian migrants.
The end of the ship
In 1924 the ship was renamed Heian Maru ( 平安 丸 ). On February 11, 1926, the ship stranded near Cape Soedomari on the coast of Hokkaido and was lost.
literature
- Hugh JM Johnston: The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh challenge to Canada's Color Bar , Oxford University Press, Toronto 1979, ISBN 978-0-19-561164-9
- Ali Kazimi: Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru , Vancouver 2011, ISBN 978-1553659730
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping Vol. I The Pioneering Years from 1850 to 1890 , Writings of the German Maritime Museum, Volume 18
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping Vol. II Expansion on All Seas 1890 to 1900 , Writings of the German Shipping Museum, Volume 19
- Arnold Kludas: The History of the German Passenger Shipping Vol. III Rapid Growth 1900 to 1914 , Writings of the German Shipping Museum, Volume 20
Web links
- Komagata Maru memorial
- Pictures of the Komagata Maru incident
- Inserts the Stubbenhuk
- Operations of the Sicilia
- Operations by Hapag Kristiansand - New York 1895
Footnotes
- ↑ Kludas, Vol. III, p. 15
- ↑ Sicilia trips to Ellis Island ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Stubbenhuk trips ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Johnston, p. 27
- ^ Komagata Maru Incident
- ↑ Apologies from the Canadian Government 2010
- ↑ In various sources higher numbers are also given.
