Re: Comments here and in the linked threads on early North American song:

The Norse set up maritime colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland around 1000AD and abandoned the last of them in the 1400s. They were Roman Catholic for most of that period. No records of Norse, Catholic, slave &c songs or shanties in the colonies yet, but there is this:

“It (Salve Regina) was set down in its current form at the Abbey of Cluny in the 12th century, where it was used as a processional hymn on Marian feasts. The Cistercians chanted the Salve Regina daily from 1218. It was popular at medieval universities as evening song, and according to Fr. Juniper Carol, it came to be part of the ritual for the blessing of a ship. While the anthem figured largely in liturgical and in general popular Catholic devotion, it was especially dear to sailors.” [wiki]

(11 October 1492) “All hands were summoned as usual, and after they had said their evening prayers and sung the Salve Regina which all seamen are accustomed to say and sing in their own fashion...”

[Morison, S.E., Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1942, p.222)]