Charley, thanks for providing that information on Colcord's time at sea. It helps make her work a lot more concrete for me. And, Q, thanks for giving the rest of what Colcord has to say about "Blow Boys Blow". Your interpretation of that makes sense to me.

I came across a verse in Hugill's "Alabama/John Cherokee" that intrigued me. The shanty tells the tale of "John Cherokee, The injun man from Miramashee" and how "They made him a slave down in Alabam". Apparently he kept running away, so "They shipped him aboard of a whaling ship", but "Agen an' agan he gave'em the slip." But, "they cotched him agen an' they chained him tight, Kept him in the dark without any light." (page 439/'61) .

The line that caught my attention was "They shipped him aboard of a whaling ship,". This reminded me of Hugill's (d) version of "Shallow Brown", which has the verse "Ship on board a whaler," and "Massa going to sell me... to a Yankee." (page 260/'61) I'm wondering if these verses from both "John Cherokee" and this version of "Shallow Brown" might not reflect the use of whaling ships as slavers in the period that Q discusses above. Sharp has basically the same version of "Shallow Brown" here:

http://www.archive.org/stream/englishfolkchant00shar#page/60/mode/2up

My assumption had been, with regard to the "Shallow Brown" shanty that the slave was being sold so that he could become a *seaman* on a whaling ship. To "ship on board a whaler" would seem to imply that. But who is the slave and who is being sold in this song, Shallow Brown or Juliana? What if Shallow Brown is the slave that is being sold to a Yankee and is being *shipped* north on a whaling ship? And thus he has been separated *by his own sale* from Juliana who must stay behind.

This makes sense when seen in the light of "John Cherokee". There, John was a slave and they "shipped" him aboard a whaling ship, and he kept running away until they put him in chains. We know that whalers were also used as slavers. So is it possible that these two songs actually reflect such a use?

And then there is the version of "Shallow Brown" given by Sharp that uses the verses from "Blow Boys Blow", (it does not mention the Congo River):

http://www.archive.org/stream/englishfolkchant00shar#page/34/mode/2up

I would assume that this is the song that Lloyd is referring to in Charley's not above.