Shanghai (verb and associated countable noun), 1854-1860

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Here are some instances of the transitive verb "shanghai" (= "recruit as a
sailor by force or trickery" or so), from the New York Times:

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_New York Daily Times_, 15 March 1854: p. 3:

<<CALLAO, Saturday, Feb. 5 [sic: prob. actually Feb. 25 --DW], 1854. / ....
/ The _Queen of Clippers_, Capt. ZERAGA, 2,400 tons burden, sailed on
Monday, the 6th inst., for New York, in ballast, owing to leakage. Quite an
excitement was created here before she sailed by a rumored attempt to
_Shanghai_ the Captain of the British bark _Cashmere_, of Liverpool, to
serve on the _Queen_ as a common sailor.>>

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_New York Daily Times_, 24 July 1857: p. 5:

<<THE SHANGHAI SYSTEM, / Mr. CLARK, a shipping agent, says has been carried
on to a large extent; it is the impressment of inexperienced and worthless
persons, and shipping them as able seamen, with large advances. The scamps
who do this are called crimps, ...: they pick up their men, ..., rig them
up to look like sailors; ... they instruct them to say they have been to
sea .... The whole voyage is a repetition of abuses, for which they have no
one to blame but themselves in the first instance, and next the Shanghai's.>>

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_New York Times_, 9 Feb. 1860: p. 2:

<<_Richard A. Eddy_, a negro, was then placed on trial, charged with the
murder of James Boston .... Eddy well-remembered him as being the
individual who kidnapped, or, as it is called, "shanghaied" him on board
the _Ellen Austin_ .... Boston, who was one of the most notorious
"shanghais," or kidnappers of colored men, ... approached Eddy, ..., and
expressed his resolution to "shanghai" him immediately for a new voyage
.... [Eddy] plunged the blade of a clasp-knife into Boston's abdomen. ....
The jury convicted him of manslaughter in the third degree. Great sympathy
was manifested for him in Court, and his sentence, undoubtedly, will be as
lenient as the law allows.>>

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Note that in the 1857 citation the man who is shanghaied is an accomplice
and not a pure victim.

None of these early citations refers explicitly to Shanghai (in China) or
to a ship bound there.

Note that the person doing the shanghaiing is not called a "shanghaier" but
rather a "shanghai" (in the 1857 and 1860 examples).

The verb "shanghai" is generally thought to be derived from the name of the
city Shanghai, probably by way of "shanghai" = "kidnap for a long voyage,
such as one to Shanghai", or possibly "shanghai" = "kidnap, as is done in
Shanghai". Then one would assume that the noun is "shanghai" = "one who
shanghais", perhaps with an intermediate stage such as "shanghai man" (cf.
analogous verb "murphy" with noun "murphy man").

An alternative evolution can be considered: "shanghai" [verb] = "kidnap, as
a shanghai does", where the noun is primary; the obvious source of the noun
would be "shanghai" [noun] = "Shanghai rooster [or hen]", conventional
usage in the 1850's AFAIK, but I don't know why the hijacker would be
likened to a fancy long-legged fowl.

Another possibility is that the primary sense of "shanghai" [verb] was not
"put on shipboard by drug or force" but rather "pass off [an ignorant
landlubber] as an able seaman" as in the 1857 citation. In this case, the
word may have arisen from the contemporary practice of passing off an
ordinary chicken (or egg) as a valuable shanghai.

-- Doug Wilson