Crime Spotlight: Keelhauling

First, what is keelhauling? The Merriam-Webster definition is: “to haul under the keel of a ship as punishment or torture.” So is it a crime to keelhaul someone? Yes, according to Captain Bligh of the HMS Bounty in the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty. Unfortunately, that’s all the authority I have at the moment because there just aren’t many cases I can find in the United States and UK that have addressed this question. I did learn in my research that being shot out of a cannon was another form of punishment for insubordination on a ship. I also added “mutiny” to my search terms and found a new favorite criminal state of mind: “piratically”. As in, “Peter Williams and Abraham Cox, on the 29th of August, 1857, piratically, feloniously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, assaulted and murdered one Quinton D. Smith, an American citizen, on board a certain vessel called the Albion Cooper, upon the high seas[…]”

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

-DWH