Q-

"I can't see how such a popular song would bypass White sailors and go to a "pure Negro" chantey. That doesn't make sense."

I agree with you that the song was widely popular for years as a minstrel song. The composer was most likely George Washington Dixon who was white and performed in blackface. However, the audience for minstrel songs included both black and white members.

It seems to me that the songs was probably brought aboard ship by a sailor (or sailors), either black or white, and sung at first for entertainment. Then a shantyman got hold of it and adapted it for shantying at the halyards.

Some of the best shantymen were from the West Indies, such as Hugill's shipmate and informant Harding the Barbarian whom he describes as having "sailed in many Yankee, British, and Bluenose sailing vessels as well as West Indian barques..." The version of the song Hugill collected shares many similarities with other West Indies shanties collected by Roger Abrahams and others. However, there may be other versions out there, including the one collected by Frank T. Bullen in his SONGS OF SEA LABOR, © 1914.

The search goes on!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble