Beware, long post.

"I never seen since I was born
A big buck nigger with his sea boots on
Johnny come down to Hilo
Poor old man"

Nigger has been used in the same way onboard as Dago, Swede, Johnny Crapo, Yank, etc. My take on this is that it was more a discription than a racist slur. I've never found it to be proceeded or followed by a derogatory remark as would be found when refering to say a "dirty" tailor who were despised by sailors.
I do sing the above "Johnny Come Down To Hilo" with the line changed to "big buck sailor". there's no need to keep the 'N' word there anymore except for historical content. Actually a big buck could be taken as masculine complament.

Following are some privious posts that may be of some interest to you Azizi, as I believe that the sailors of color gave far more to the singing of shanties than most give them credit for & you'll find that my reflections are borne out when the maritime industries saw the decline of it's sailors of color it also saw as a direct result the decline of shanties even though the advancement of steam was another direct cause.


Subject: RE: The origin of Sea Chanteys
From: Barry Finn - PM
Date: 25 May 01 - 04:03 PM

The West Coast of Africa has been trading with Europeans since at least as early as 1455 when Portuguese mariner, Alvise daMosto noted down the size & capacity of their huge canoes & Fernandez reports in 1506 canoes that carried 120 men. In the late 17th century the Dutch factor William Bosman writing from Elmina Fortress on the Gold Coast notes how he'd watch 500 to 600 of these canoes set out fishing every morning & how dependent European traders were on Africans & their boats. So we do have it that Africans & Europeans were at least paddling in the canoe since very early on, maybe before the noted Venetian galleys of 1493 as reported by Felix Fabri. The Virginia Gazette in 1774 notes an impertinent runaway Negro woman who was fond of liquor & singing indecent sailor songs. In 1785 a New England merchant notes the cheerful & pleasant sounds of Negro labor while working the falls. The 1st impressment & imprisonment of American sailors was in 1807 2 of the 4 were sailors of color & of the eventual 5000 impressed prisoners in Dartmoor Prison 220 to 25% were Afro Americans & their musical bands were always in the forefront. The Black/Indian captain Paul Cuffe writes of the whaling brig, the Traveler with all it's black crew visiting Port-Au-Prince 8 yr after Haitian independence, I believe this to be the same Traveler mentioned in a song written by one of the all black crew members of the whaling schooner, the Industry, with whom they were rendezvousing with in 1822. Robert Hay (Landsman Hay) describes longshoremen using negro worksongs in 1809 & again aboard the Edward in 1811 of blacks working the capstan for loading cargo, giving the words to 2 of the songs. The Quid, in 1832 shows a black fiddler on top of a capstan singing. Olmstead describes in 1841 on a whaling voyage. of a black sea cook leading the rest in worksong.
The 1st third of the 19th century was increasingly good to sailors of color, while the 2nd & third saw their prospects receding & by the last 3rd they were becoming a relic. Even though blacks in general stayed at sea far longer than their white counteparts, becoming the Old Salts to the younger 1 or 2 passage making green hands, they were still to almost completely disaappear from the sea (except as cooks & stewards) by that time Captain Whall states no real shanties were made after 1875, leaving only their mark on the songs. Is it all that strange that the music of the Manhaden fisheries died when the black fishermen ceased to fish or the last of the slave labor songs end with the Georgia Sea Island Singers or the last of the shanties could be heard among the West Indian sailors or the prison worksongs died when the blacks stopped needing them & is it any wonder that of all these trades examples can be found were some of the versions of the cross over into the different trades while in the the white culture group labor singing died out when?
Barry



Subject: RE: Shanties, migration, and work songs; north USA
From: Barry Finn - PM
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 01:52 PM

A long reply (sorry) that might cover some of the post. England outlawed slavery before they did here in the US. Up till the Civil War in some major Northern ports the census of sailors boarding houses reported as much as (Providence, Rhode Island in perticular) 30% or more of the cities sailors were of color. From the pre Revolution to the Civil War days the eastern seaboard's inshore trades were pretty much manned by Afro Crib/American sailors. The water offered the only trades where there was freedom of movement for freemen as well as slaves & a chance for equality & wage. Many of their communities survived & subsisted upon mostly the earnings of it's waterman. The offshore trades were manned more by black deep water sailors than history would have one to believe. The network for these sailors/watermen was the North Alantic rim and many found England as well as Haiti to be far more excepting of them & so made some of these places their homes, slaves more than freeman. All this died for the sailors of color by the time the Civil War came about & so along with their trade went their international source of information (word & news of love ones as well as news about other places the grass may be a bit greener), the freedom & equality that a sailor was allowed, chances of good wages, the education & storytelling begot from their world wide of sailoring. The only area where they stayed at sea longer was as stewards & cooks (to which many belonged to the Steward & Cooks Marine Society's, also for sailors but not officers) & onshore for awhile as stevedores. Their sea culture also died with their trade as well as their influence on the art of the sailoring. Towards the end of these days they were the old salts, white sailors found better paying & less dangerous work & the average age of the white sailor (around these times) grew younger & younger & they endoured less & less voyages, their knowledge of seamanship became less & less till the old men of color were left to teach the young whipersnapper white greenhands the little of the trade that their short time allowed. One of the few areas were they left their mark was their music & their influence on the sea music as a whole. These times I believed caused more & more blacks to find lands that offered better homes.
See 'Black Jacks' by Jeffery Bolster, these autobiographies of Fredick Douglass & his many other writtings, the "Life of Olaudah Equiano", "The Negro in the Navy & Merchant Service, 1798-1860 by Harold Langley, of the Nantucket American-Afro/Indian sea Captain "Narrrative of the Life & Adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian", "the Big Sea by Langston Hughes. Also the log of the Schooner Industry - Nantucket Maritime Museum & "Absalom F Boston" by Cary & Cary, Remarks of the Schooner Industry & the Brig Traveler from the Report of the Commissioner of Fish & Fisheries.
What was the guestion again?
Best in my opinion for music is anything recorded by & from the Georgia Sea Island Singers, any thing recorded & collected by Roger Abrahams (also see his Book "Deep the Water Shallow the Shore, on Rounder "Deep River of Song-Bahamas 1935" from Lomax's collection, CD on Global Village "Virginia Traditions- Viginia Work Songs", on Rounder "Peter Was a Fisherman" field recordings from Trinidad 1939, some of the later cd's from Mystic Seaport's Forebitter & cd by the Johnson Girls "the Johnson Girls.
Sorry for the long winded post.
Good luck, Barry


Subject: RE: African Runaway Slave Ballads
From: Barry Finn - PM
Date: 06 Aug 03 - 03:22 PM

Hi Charley

Alabama John Cherokee (Hugill places this to be from the days of slavery) is probably not far off from the story/song. For sailors of color the late 1700's into the earlier half of the 1800's was a far better & easier time for the Black & Indian seafarer. As the Civil was approched & after when Jim Crow went to sea their numbers went down while their treatment got worse.

Many slaves in New England lived with the Mashpee Indians of Cape Cod & other places like Chappequiddick, Gay Head & Christentown, Martha's Vinyard & end up intermarrying. Captain Paul Cuff of Nantucket, a wealthy merchant & shipowner was of African & Indian backround. His son commandered the Rising Star & skippered an all black crew. Paul's 2 son-in-laws & nephews were also sea captains. Captain Absolom S Boston, Skipper of the whaler Industry 1822, (also crewed by all blacks) was the son of Captain Prince Boston (of African decent) also came from a prominent Nantucket maritime family, he married a women of of Indian/African decent, Paul Cuff's granddaughter. Crispus Attucks (see Boston Massacre) of African/Natick Indian decent, sailed as harpooner aboard a whaler. The well known (in his time) Captain Samson Occan was also of African/Indian decent. Captain Moses Vose, of African decent) married a Mustee indian women, their children 'followed the sea'. The Indian sailor had it a bit better than the Black, if they carried Indian id's, they did not fall under the same laws as slaves or freemen though without proof of being an Indian or of Indian decent they could land in the same hell as the slave. Although the canoe is thought of as having Native American origins it's origins are in Africa.

I guess I thread creeped this one.

Barry



Subject: RE: Locating Afr-Am chantey singers
From: GUEST,Barry Finn - PM
Date: 11 Nov 00 - 12:39 AM

The Northern Neck Shanty Singers are another group of manhaden fishermen that still sing, I don't if they've been recorded though.
The West Indies & the neighboring Island groups that once fished the whale & grouper now fish under power. The day of the work song passed awhile ago, in the prisons & in in the manhaden fisheries they disappeared in the 60's, in the 40's you could still hear some of them on the Georgia Sea Islands. The hayday of the shanty fell somewhere between the 1860's to the 1880's after the Afro American sailor started to fade from the sea & most agree that few real shanties were invented after the the mid 1870's & some say the in the early 60's. Afro American sea songs have been been heard along the Eastern seaboard since the revololution. The Virginia Gazette in 1774 notes a runaway Negro woman as fond of liquor & singing indecent sailor's songs. In 1785 a New England merchant wrote about "the cheerful & pleasant sounds of Negro labor songs while working the tackle & fall". From the 1st impressment & imprisonment of American sailors by the British in 1807, of which of the 4, 2 were men of color, Britain's Dartmoor Prison saw 5000 sailors, 20% were Afro Americans. From the boom of the cotton trade in the 1790's & the opening of the China Trade in 44 & along with the gold rush in 49 Doerflinger points to these as causes for the need for more men & new designs that that gave up cargo space for speed, this was the hayday for Afro American sailors. Black/Indian captain Paul Cuffe writes of the whaling brig, Traveler, with it's all Black crew visiting Port-Au-Prince 8 yrs. after Haitian independence, this, I believe to be the same Traveler, with it's again all Black crew, that during a whaling trip in 1822 according to song met up with (according to the fisheries report) the all Black crew of the of the whaling schooner Industry. The early part of the 1800's was increasingly good for sailors of color, free or not, by the mid 1800's their prospects were receading & by the last 3rd of the 1800's they were becoming relics. Because of the dim prospects of finding meaningful work they stayed at sea far longer than their white counterparts, they became the Old Salts to the 1 or 2 passage making green horns only to disappear from the sea except as stewards & cooks leaving only their stamp on their songs & even that faded. The East Coast that was once monopolized by the Black pilots, steveadores, fisherman & in shore sailors along with the off shore Black sailor that sometimes numbered as high as 25% all were driven back on shore by the 1860's when Jim Crow went to sea. I believe that the Afro American sailor had far more influence on shantydom that ever given credit for, when he disappeared so didn't the songs. Blow the Man Down, popular in the 1840's, Hugill believes to have come from the black song Knock A Man Down which is a very close version, Kick Him Along was collected in the Islands in the 1930's. Pre 1840's heard Round the Corner Sally & Sally Brown whose very close cousin Finney Brown appeared in the BWI in the 1960's along with the West Indian versions of Shenandoah, Solid Fas & Cold & Squally Weather. Doerflinger's version of Blood Red Roses called Come Down You Bunch of Roses, Come Down rings of a version collected in the Bahamas (along with Sloop John B) in the 1930's Come Down You Bunch of Roses. Shallow Brown's found as Shallow Ground, versions of Bowline, Good Bye Fare Thee Well & Long Time Ago along with dozens of others were still to be found in the 60's when they were all but a memory elsewhere.

Aside from Jeffery Bolster's "Black Jacks" there's also the McKissack's "Black Hands, White Sails" (not nearly as good as Bolster), Roger Abrahams's "Deep The Water, Shallow The Shore" & Lydia Parrish's "Slave Songs of The Georgia Sea Islands". For other reading see "The Making Of A Sailor" by Harlow, "On Board The Rocket by Adams, "The Cruise Of The Cachalot" by Bullen & "Landsman Hay" by Hay. All give examples of shanties too as well as life onboard.

Barry