Keelhauling

 ( Corporal Punishments ) 

Keelhauling (Dutch language kielhalen; "to drag along the keel") is a form of punishment and potential execution once meted out to sailors at sea. The sailor was tied to a line looped beneath the vessel, thrown overboard on one side of the ship, and dragged under the ship's keel, either from one side of the ship to the other, or the length of the ship (from bow to Stern).

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History There is limited evidence that keelhauling in this form was used by pirate ships, especially in the ancient world. The earliest definitive mention of keelhauling is from the Byzantine Rhodian Maritime Code ( Lex Rhodia), of c. 700 CE, which outlines punishment for piracy. However, there are images on c. 500 BCE Greek vases, as well as a mention in Herodotus' Histories, that either refer to strappado — that is, hanging the victim over the water - or of a keelhauling proper. H. A. Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World (New York: Dorset Press, 1987), 54–56.C.E. Ioannidou, " The black version of water and underwater activity: drowning, Torture, and executions below The sea in ancient greece during The archaic and classical period"

Several 17th-century English writers such as William Monson and Nathaniel Boteler Boteler’s Dialogues, ed. Perrin 11-25 recorded the use of keel-hauling on English naval ships. However, their references are vague and provide no date. In 1880, George Shaw Lefevre was confronted in Parliament with a recent report from Italy of a keelhauling on HMS Alexandra, and denied that such an incident had taken place. "NAVY—ALLEGED INSTANCE OF "KEEL-HAULING. HC Deb 04 September 1880 CE vol 256 c1275 api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard, accessed 8 August 2018.

Some historians believe keelhauling may have been introduced to the Dutch Navy by William of Orange. On 11 October 1652, under Jan Van Riebeeck's command, Jan Blank, a sailor, was keelhauled, whipped a total of 150 lashes, and then enslaved for 2 years as punishment for deserting the VOC for nine days. Perhaps the most graphic incident of it occurred in 1673 when Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest punished sailors who committed murder.

It was an official, though rare, punishment in the Dutch navy, The Dutch navy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Jaap R. Bruijn as shown in the painting The keelhauling of the ship's surgeon of Admiral Jan van Nes. This shows a large crowd gathered to watch the event, as though it was a "show" punishment intended to frighten other potential offenders, as was flogging round the fleet.

A footnote in one source suggests that it may have evolved from the medieval punishment of ducking.Ducking' at the main yard arm is, when a malefactor by having a rope fastened under his arms and about his middle, and under his breech, is thus hoisted up to the end of the yard; from whence he is again violently let fall into the sea, sometimes twice, sometimes three several times one after another; and if the offence be very foul, he is also drawn under the very keel of the ship...'". Dialogical Discourse of Marine Affairs, Nathaniel Boteler (1685)

The term still survives today, although usually in the sense of being severely rebuked.

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See also

• Running the gauntlet
• Walking the plank
• Operation Keelhaul

• kielholen entry in: Johann Hinrich Röding: Allgemeines Wörterbuch der Marine in allen Europäischen Seesprachen nebst vollständigen Erklärungen. Nemnich, Hamburg & J.J. Gebauer, Halle, 1793–1798.

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