It is possible to make a long list of wars that seem ridiculous. And one of the wars that should definitely be on this list is the 1863 Egg War, in which murders were committed for a few eggs, posing the danger of destroying the entire ecosystem and leading to gang wars.
In 1848, after gold was found in Coloma, California, in 1849 alone, more than 80,000 people flocked to California in what became known as the “Gold Rush.” Until 1855, hundreds of thousands of miners came here every year in search of gold. This sudden influx of people brought with it some difficulties, one of the most important of which was that people needed food to live.
Protein in particular was insufficient, which caused egg prices to skyrocket. Eggs sold for about $1 each, or $30 in today’s currency. With egg prices so high, someone with an entrepreneurial spirit and a “I don’t care if it means I can make dumplings, I don’t care if I destroy an entire ecosystem” attitude set his sights on the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco.
The islands, once known as the Islands of the Dead, were largely rocky, dangerous cliffs and were inhabited by thousands of birds. Although none of the birds on the island were chickens, their eggs were an important food prospect for the hungry miners. Apparently the best eggs were in Murre, because the egg whites tasted like chicken eggs, even though they remained translucent when cooked.
It is known that a fussy egg consumer at the time said: “A mature myrrh egg is something that is never forgotten. It takes about three months for the taste to disappear from the mouth.”
Another advantage was their eggshells, which evolved to be quite thick due to the birds dropping them on hard rocks, making it difficult for them to break apart during the turbulent journey. The first layers to arrive on the island for egg season, without having to fight off rival gangs, murderers or the police
The first year they made a tremendous profit from the expedition, and others soon heard of the idea. At this point, the story started to get interesting.
Rival layer gangs began making their way to the island and soon started a territorial war like the drug gangs that are fighting today. The first group to claim the islands – the Pacific Egg Company – found themselves fighting, among others, a group of Italian fishermen. Over the next decade, fights that began as melee became more violent.
Stabbings and gunfights ensued as different groups tried to lay claim to the eggs. On June 3, 1863, in a particularly violent incident, three boatloads of men armed to the teeth approached the islands. The Pacific Egg company warned them not to land, but rival egg collectors ignored the warning, opting for the brutal murder option. They shot one of the egg company’s men dead in the stomach, and all five people on the boats retreated after being shot.
When the courts began to fill up with too many egg-based crimes, the government stepped in and gave the islands monopoly to the Pacific Egg company. This did not solve the problem as they had hoped, because the Pacific Egg company took up arms against the lighthouse keepers living on the island and eventually forbade them from collecting their own eggs. Life on the island had become almost impossible. When they ignored the order, one of the lighthouse keepers was attacked.
All the while, the huge supply of eggs once found on the island was dwindling each year. As if collecting too many of these seabirds’ eggs wasn’t enough, the first thing the laymen did when they set foot on the island for a new season was to crack any visible eggs. This ensured that the eggs they would collect the next day were fresh. About 14 million murre eggs were shipped to San Francisco between 1849 and 1896.
On May 23, 1881, the US military forcibly removed the layers from the islands and ended decades of violence. Thus, the incident turned into a real war with the intervention of the army. But it was not the price of chicken eggs that saved the birds from their annual slaughter. Spawning continued on the island as the lighthouse keepers distributed licenses. But with egg shortages on the island and chicken farmers producing more eggs, it was no longer profitable to risk death on the Isles of the Dead to get eggs.
After 30 long years, the egg war ended with the “gold rush”. . .
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