18911776 Club
Sailors on shore leave are set upon in Valparaíso; two Americans dead
A spat portrait, a saloon brawl, and an hour of stones and knives in a Chilean port.
Relations between Washington and the new Chilean government were already raw after the United States backed the losing side in Chile's civil war. On October 16, 1891, Captain Winfield Scott Schley let some 117 of the crew of USS Baltimore ashore in Valparaíso for shore leave. Outside the True Blue Saloon, a mob turned on the sailors; Boatswain's Mate Charles W. Riggin was killed outright, several more were stabbed, and coal-heaver William Turnbull would later die of blood poisoning. Chilean police eventually broke it up and arrested dozens of men from both sides, including about forty American sailors, most of whom were later released…
