One must also rmember that sailors in the 19th century were not isolated from the popular music of the day, and what was more popular than blackface minstrelsy? Sailors, particularly whalers, incorporated a large number of minstrel songs into their shipboard repertoire, and performed amateur minstrel shows both at sea and ashore. I would venture to say that much of the slang, and most of the racial epithets found in sailors' songs were carried over, at least in part, from the conventions of minstrelsy.