Protection papers, also known as "Seamen Protection Papers" or "Seamen Protection Certificate" or "Sailor's Protection Papers" were issued to American seamen during the last part of the 18th century through the first half of the 20th century. These papers provided a description of the sailor and showed American citizenship. They were issued to American sailors to prevent them from being impressed by British men-of-war, during the period leading to and after the War of 1812.
The certificates could be issued for a fee of 25 cents, and required proof of citizenship, although this was later changed to require only a notarized affidavit of citizenship. "Seamen's Protection Certificates were usually printed documents, varying in size and style, that were carried by American seamen as proof of citizenship. The certificate was obtained by the individual through the customhouse, public notary, or U.S. Consul when required in a foreign port. It contained the person's name, birthplace, approximate age, height, skin color, eye and hair color, and other distinctive descriptive information, such as the location of scars or tattoos. "United States of America" was often printed prominently across the top, and the word "protection" might also appear. Small engravings of the American eagle often served to decorate and establish the nationality of the document. A serial number was included on every Customs Protection Certificate for record keeping purposes. The wording of the document was standardized, having been transcribed on many examples, verbatim from the Act of 1796."[1]
Protections papers were also offered to those who remained loyal to the crown during the American Revolution. The day Richard Stockton was captured, General William Howe had written a Proclamation offering protection papers and a full and free pardon to those willing to remain in peaceable obedience to the King. George III. Although many took the pardon, Stockton never did and was marched to Perth Amboy where he was put in irons, and brutally treated as a common criminal.[2]
In 1796, federal legislation regarding Seaman's Protection Certificates was enacted for merchant seamen.[3]
"In response to the impressment of American seamen by British ships, Congress passed an "Act for the Relief and Protection of American Seamen" in 1796. The Act required customs collectors to maintain a record of all United States citizens serving on United States vessels. Each seaman, once registered with the customs collector, was given a Seaman's Protection Certificate. These certificates vouched for the citizenship of the individual and included identifying information such as age, height, complexion, place of birth, and in some cases eye and hair color. The intention of these certificates was to discourage impressment. Although important documents it appears that seaman often misplaced theirs. At the very least there are several issued in consecutive years to what appear to be issued to the same person."[4]
"Seamen Protection Papers: At the end of the 18th century impressment into the British navy became a problem, so the registration of U.S. seamen was instituted to provide mariners with identification papers. These certificates, issued through each custom house district, are of considerable genealogical value since they include, besides the sailor’s name, his age and place of birth, a description of his physical appearance, and occasionally his father’s name. The National Archives, as well as state archives, have collections of seamen’s protection papers, in varying degrees of completeness depending on the port and the year."[5]
Another mutineer of HMS Danae (1798), John M'Donald, alias Samuel Higgins, was seized in the streets of Wapping disguised as an American carrying American protection papers. His court martial took place aboard Irresistible, at the Nore on 10 June 1801. Lieutenant Nevins, who had been the Danae's first lieutenant and who had apprehended M'Donald in London, testified that while he was in a tavern with M'Donald after apprehending him, M'Donald had said that the instigators of the plot to take Danae were two men named Jackson and Williams and an Irish priest (and former officer of the Irish rebel army) named Ignatius Finney.[6] M'Donald was hanged on 20 June on Zealand, a guardship at the Nore. John Williams was hanged in September 1801.[7] It is not clear what, if anything, happened to William Jackson or Ignatius Finney.
Because these protection papers were used to define freemen as well as citizenship, many black sailors and other men also used them to show that they were freemen if they were stopped by officials or slave catchers. They also called them "free papers" because they certified their non-slave status.[8] '
"In processing these old applications, one pattern immediately catches the eye: there is an unexpected number of men of color. (For purposes of this discussion, seamen described as black, mulatto, Sambo, yellow, or colored are considered men of color.) At times they accounted for almost a third of the applications, far in excess of their proportion of the population. Because it often is very difficult to do research in African-American families, slave or free, the Seamen's Protection Certificate Applications are a boon to these researchers. The value of a document identifying a man of color as free is easy to understand. Sometimes these valuable identity papers were borrowed by a landlubber from a bona fide seaman. Frederick Douglass, for example, borrowed a certificate in 1838 and walked away to freedom."[9]
It is assumed that Matthias Lewis was either a Mohegan from southern Rhode Island or a Pequot from the area around New London, Connecticut and Montville, Connecticut.[10] On October 26, 1806, a twenty-seven year old sailor named Mathias Lewis from Kennebec, Massachusetts (Maine was a part of Massachusetts until it was admitted to the Union in 1820), appeared at the United States Customs House in New London, Connecticut and received a Seamen's Protection Certificate; the certificate (no. 3468) describes him as being five feet, six inches tall with a "colored" complexion.[11]
Many of the problems of these protection papers were that the descriptions were often vague or could apply to almost anyone.
Frederick Douglass used a "protection paper" of a free black sailor to escape. As he says: "It was the custom in the State of Maryland to require of the free colored people to have what were called free papers. This instrument they were required to renew very often, and by charging a fee for this writing, considerable sums from time to time were collected by the State. In these papers the name, age, color, height and form of the free man were described, together with any scars or other marks upon his person which could assist in his identification. This device of slaveholding ingenuity, like other devices of wickedness, in some measure defeated itself--since more than one man could be found to answer the same general description. Hence many slaves could escape by personating the owner of one set of papers; and this was often done as follows: A slave nearly or sufficiently answering the description set forth in the papers, would borrow or hire them till he could by their means escape to a free state, and then, by mail or otherwise, return them to the owner. The operation was a hazardous one for the lender as well as for the borrower. A failure on the part of the fugitive to send back the papers would imperil his benefactor, and the discovery of the papers in possession of the wrong man would imperil both the fugitive and his friend. It was therefore an act of supreme trust on the part of a freeman of color thus to put in jeopardy his own liberty that another might be free. It was, however, not unfrequently bravely done, and was seldom discovered. I was not so fortunate as to sufficiently resemble any of my free acquaintances as to answer the description of their papers. But I had one friend--a sailor--who owned a sailor's protection, which answered somewhat the purpose of free papers--describing his person and certifying to the fact that he was a free American sailor. The instrument had at its head the American eagle, which at once gave it the appearance of an authorized document. This protection did not, when in my hands, describe its bearer very accurately. Indeed, it called for a man much darker than myself, and close examination of it would have caused my arrest at the start."[12]
Many of the protection certificates were so general, and it was so easy to abuse the system, that many impressment officers of the Royal Navy paid no attention to them. "In applying for a duplicate Seaman's Protection Certificate in 1817, James Francis stated that he 'had a protection granted him by the Collector of this Port on or about 12 March 1806 which was torn up and destroyed by a British Captain when at sea.'" [13]
One way of making them more specific was to describe a tattoo, which is highly personal, and thus use that description to identify the seaman. As a result, many of the certificates carried information about tattoos and scars, as well as other specific information. This also perhaps led to an increase and proliferation of tattoos among American seamen. "Frequently they [protection papers] made reference to tattoos, clear evidence that individual was a seafaring man; rarely did members of the general public adorn themselves with tattoos."[14]
"In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, tattoos were as much about self-expression as they were about having a unique way to identify a sailor's body should he be lost at sea or impressed by the British navy. The best source for early American tattoos is the protection papers issued following a 1796 congressional act to safeguard American seamen from impressment. These proto-passports catalogued tattoos alongside birthmarks, scars, race, and height. Using simple techniques and tools, tattoo artists in the early republic typically worked on board ships using anything available as pigments, even gunpowder and urine. Men marked their arms and hands with initials of themselves and loved ones, significant dates, symbols of the seafaring life, liberty poles, crucifixes, and other symbols."[15]
"As the threat to American freedom on the high seas began to disappear, Protection Certificates became more valuable as identification, and they were used as such until 1940, when the Seamen's Continuous Discharge Book replaced them. These documents are common items in maritime collections and are important research sources for an study of American seamen."[16]