John-

That's a hard one to answer because there is a well known West Indies shanty called "Shallow Brown" which also has a line about working or being sold for the Yankee dollar, and there is a Calypso sung which also has a line about "working for the Yankee dollar." So Goggle searches are going to turn up thousands of hits.

However, I do wonder if the "Yankee Dollar" that Nordhoff noted is related to the shanty version of "Pay Me My Money Down," collected in the West Islands.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble