SHIPS AT SEA

The events we remember and forget and the histories we tell are inextricably shaped by land. Migration histories, to draw but one example, are most often recalled through arrival and departure. Although seaborne travel persisted as the primary means of passenger transport until the mid-twentieth century, long ocean voyages rarely figure in narratives of migration. How might forced and so-called free passages be recollected and retold when the sea is repositioned as a force of history and a site of memory? On July 18, 1914, the Literary Digest, a leading New York magazine, published a commentary titled “Sikhs Besieging Canada.”