Memorial Day; Families will get together, perhaps have the first cookout of the summer: hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks, barbecued ribs, barbecued chicken, corn-on-the-cob, seasoned to taste. But, it is Memorial Day, for remembering those who died in service to the nation. And while we may, from time to time, question the reason Americans find themselves in combat, for the Soldiers and Sailors and Airmen and Marines, they often have found little time to question the precise political motivations that led to the actions they find themselves in; they were, and are, too busy taking care of their buddies.
Since 1775 some 1,355,000 Americans have died in combat in service to this country. The numbers are inexact, and almost assuredly higher, perhaps quite a bit higher. Recent estimates of the number killed in the Civil War suggest the commonly accepted number may be thousands short of reality. (And, while not all of those killed were, strictly speaking, American citizens, they died in defense of the nation and thereby certainly earned the title.)
We need to remember them all for their service, no matter how we may feel about the particular war, even as we stand around the grill.
And yet, there’s a connection between Memorial Day and much of what is taking place at the cookout; the political freedom that we celebrate, purchased at the price of a good deal of blood; the free markets and our amazing standard of living; or the access to goods from around the world, guaranteed by our more than 200 years of defense of free and fair trade, particularly from pirates. Consider pepper, for example.
Pepper is the world’s most heavily traded and consumed spice, made from grinding up the seeds of the pepper plant. (Green, white and black pepper all come from the same seeds, but it just depends on whether it is cooked or uncooked, and ripe or unripe when processing starts.) Pepper appears to have originated in southern India, but spread across South East Asia and by at least the 16th century was being cultivated in what is modern Indonesia. (Vietnam is currently the largest single producer of pepper.)
Following the US War for Independence US merchant ship activity blossomed in certain corners of the world, and between 1790 and the 1850s Salem, Massachusetts was the de facto pepper capital of the world, a lucrative trade that brought a good deal of money into the ship owners of New England, as New England merchantmen moved cargoes of spice from the pepper coast of Sumatra (the island’s north-west coast) to the United States and Europe.
In 1827 the ship “Friendship,” out of Salem, entered into that pepper trade.
And so, in January 1831, Friendship’s master, Charles Endicott, brought Friendship into the port of Kuala Batu, a port on the West coast of the island of Sumatra, to buy a cargo of pepper. (Kuala Batu is about 100 miles or so south of Banda Aceh, the north-west tip of the great island.) While Captain Endicott was ashore negotiating for a load of pepper, Malay pirates seized his ship, killed three of the crew, looted the ship (to include various high-value goods and $40,000 in gold and silver) and drove her into shallow waters. Endicott immediately appealed to the masters of three other US merchantmen in the port, and they eventually managed to retake his ship. Endicott and Friendship headed back to Boston, arriving in July 1831. The ship's owners then protested to President Jackson. (It didn’t hurt their case that one of the owners of Friendship was Massachusetts Senator Nathaniel Silsbee.)
Jackson responded, and on August 28th USS Potomac, a 44 gun frigate under the command of Captain John Downes (from Canton, Massachusetts), departed New York harbor and headed for Sumatra, with orders to investigate the incident, and if Endicott’s account was correct, to demand restitution, and to insist on justice for the pirates.
Downes and USS Potomac arrived off Kuala Batu on February 5th, 1832 - disguised as a Danish merchantman - and Downes began reconnoitering. A local contact informed Captain Downes that the pirate chief, Raja Po Mohammed (though it may have been Raja Teuku Sarullah), was not likely to negotiate under any circumstances and so, while he had been instructed to negotiate with the local chieftain, based on his intelligence Downes decided to skip negotiations, to immediately put ashore a force of 282 men - Marines and armed Sailors, and assault the four pirate forts.
On the morning of the 6th, at 0200, Downes put ashore his landing force without being detected, and just before dawn, under the overall command of LT Irvine Shubrick (Potomac’s Executive Officer), with separate units under LTs A.B. Pickham, Henry Hoff, and Jonathan Ingersoll, USN, and 1stLTs Alvin Edson and George H. Terrett, USMC, assaulted each of the four forts. After several hours of intense, hand-to-hand fighting, the four forts were taken. The leader of the pirates and some 150 of his pirates were killed, along with 2 Sailors and 1 Marine.
By 1000 all were back aboard ship. Downes held a burial at sea for the three men, then, on the morning of the 7th bombarded the town until the new Raja agreed there would be no recurrence of the Friendship incident and that they would stop harassing merchant ships. Potomac headed east and home - becoming just the second US Navy ship to circumnavigate the globe.
When word of his actions reached the US in July 1832 Captain Downes received a good deal of criticism for his actions, the suggestion being that he should have first negotiated. (Downes and USS Potomac didn’t reach the US until May 1834.) President Jackson’s opponents seized on the incident in an attempt to embarrass the President. Accordingly, President Jackson found himself defending Downes, and suggested that perhaps this action would deter any further interference by Malay pirates. The Secretary of the Navy did, however, privately censure Captain Downes, and while he dodged a court-martial, his career at sea was effectively over.
Interestingly enough, the Daily National Intelligencer, an anti-Jackson newspaper, raised the issue that the President had usurped Congressional authority to declare war, nearly a century and a half before the Korean and later Vietnam Wars raised the same issue.
In any case, the Malay pirates did not remain deterred for long. In December 1838 the merchant ship “Eclipse,” (another ship out of Salem, under Captain Charles F. Wilkins) pulled into the West Sumatran coast to trade for pepper. 24 Malay pirates approached the ship and after handing over their weapons were allowed onto Eclipse. The crew then, to display friendship, returned the weapons to the pirates. The pirates then proceeded to seize control and one at a time massacred the captain and crew, then looted the ship of some $20,000 in gold and silver.
Word soon reached Commodore George Read, Commander of the East India Squadron, and he proceeded to the Sumatran coast, to Kuala Batu, with the 44 gun frigate USS Columbia and the 12 gun sloop USS John Adams. Read had learned the lesson of Capt. Downes and on December 22nd sent ashore Commander T. W. Wyman (commander of USS John Adams) to demand “the pirates and the property.” The pirates stalled and Read fired on several of their forts on Christmas Day. On the 1st of January 1839 Read landed a 360 man force, under Commander Wyman, that captured and destroyed 5 pirate forts and spiked their guns; he then collected a payment from the Raja. Amazingly, no Sailors or Marines were killed in the action, and only one Malay pirate, the others having all fled. And, the Pirates stopped bothering US merchants on the Sumatran coast; after this action the pepper moved without troubles.
Remember that when you ask someone to “Pass the pepper, Please.”
Of note, 1stLT Edson, who later led a raid into Tabasco during the War with Mexico, was apparently a distant relative of MajGen Merrit “Red” Edson, USMC, of Edson Raiders fame; LT Shubrick rose to the rank of Rear Admiral and commanded the squadron off of the west coast of Mexico during that war; LT Hoff rose to the rank of Rear Admiral and commanded in succession both the Pacific Squadron and the North Atlantic Squadron. Commodore Read (who had served as a lieutenant on USS Constitution during her successful engagement with HMS Guerriere, and later served under Stephen Decatur aboard USS United States), also rose to the rank of Rear Admiral.
Have a great Memorial Day.
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