This morning I have been trying to imagine the scope of this project. Right now the wide screen is falling off the horizons! But, undaunted, looking back from 1855 when the "Julia Ann" ran aground on that coral reef, what are some of the larger areas of influence on the sea shanties that may have existed then?   Here is a very broad and partial list that occurs to me at the moment. These may or may not be in exact historical order and of course there are major overlaps.

1. The SLAVE TRADERS, which lasted for hundreds of years. I'm thinking primarily of the shipping of Black Africans to the Americas. But this also involves the shipping of molasses to New England and rum from there, at least in one historical phase of the slave trades.

2. This brings to mind the whole business of PIRATES. It is interesting to me that both the slavers and the pirates tend to be earlier than I realized, perhaps mostly before the 19th century(?).

3. Then there are the EAST INDIA TRADERS, which are also earlier, ending, as I understand it in the early part of the 19th century. And I think along with them would have been the CHINA TRADERS.

4. The WHALERS also have a long history running right on through the 19th century.

5. I think it is also important to include WARS, such as the "War of American Independence" (and also "The War of 1812" [I'm writing from an American perspective]), the Napoleonic Wars (and perhaps the earlier French/English Wars), and later in the 19th century (prior to 1850) the "Mexican War".

6. And, forgive me, if necessary, for lumping all of these categories together for the moment, the SHORE SONGS, such as ballads, broadside songs, and popular stage songs. This would also include the Minstrel sources.

7. SLAVE songs and Black work songs

8. And shore based WORK SONGS from other ethnic groups, such as the Irish song "Paddy Works On the Railway".

So far, almost all of these categories pre-date the 19th century and spill over into it. What are the shanties that come from these areas of influence that *could* have been current by 1850? Let this be a rhetorical question for the moment. In the first half of the 19th century, I can think of the following:

9. The PACKET TRADE across the Western Ocean. This raises the larger category of the EMIGRANTS, and the DEPORTEES, not only going to the Americas, but also to Australia.

10. The COTTON TRADERS from the Gulf Ports.

11. The TIMBER TRADERS from both the North and the South, and later the Northwest.

12. What I would call all of the CAPE HORN traffic.

13. The California GOLD RUSH, and also the Australian GOLD RUSH.

14. The CHINA TRADE, and the AUSTRALIAN TRADERS, from the West Coast of America.

15. The SOUTH AMERICAN TRADERS

I suspect that we have songs from all of these sources, in the oral traditions. And I suspect we can and have identified them by "internal evidence", from references within the songs themselves. However, a critical question is how do we judge whether such a reference within the lyrics of a song actually goes back to the time that it mentions? Does "Boney" really go back to the time of Napoleon, or is it looking back on that time from a later viewpoint, and if so, how much later, and can we tell. The same could be asked about "Santianna".

Early on in this thread, MtheGM suggested in answer to my question "They could surely have been any mentioned by Hugill as being sung at that time". And basically that is true. But I would like to review at least some of this and try to bring it into a somewhat sharper focus. As large a scope as this seems, it is historically finite, and perhaps manageable.

And, have we exhausted the earliest written sources?