Between 1808 and 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars, Russia wrested Finland from the Swedish Realm and it became an autonomous grand duchy within the Russian Empire. There was an initial drop in foreign trade for a couple of decades after the cessation of hostilities in Europe, but after that merchant shipping became the engine of the Finnish economy. From the 1830s, ship owners took advantage of the gradual liberalization of customs policies in Britain and started exporting timber. Meanwhile, the French conquest of Algiers in 1830 put an end to the raids from Ottoman corsairs from North Africa that had prevented trade in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. This meant Finnish merchants could now import salt from there and store it in any of the Russian Baltic ports. Before long, Finnish shipping companies responded to this growth in international trade by building larger wooden vessels suitable for high sea voyaging. What made merchant shipping profitable in Finland was the fact that labour costs were inexpensive. As elsewhere in the Nordic countries, early nineteenth-century Finland witnessed a population boom among the landless poor. In the merchant navy, unskilled labour was especially in demand and employment at sea, with a regular monthly wage, became an inviting occupation for men of a lower social standing.

The working conditions of Finnish merchant sailors were similar to those in other fleets in Europe and the North Atlantic, with one exception: the seaman's oath. This oath, dating back to early modern Swedish legislation, obliged crew to stay on board from the moment their ship left homeport to the moment it returned – no matter how long that might take.