Well, I'm not only in over my head on this thread, but I'm also being buried under a ton of snow down here in Virginia at the moment. I finally have figured out how to search Mudcat by using Google and I've turned up a bunch of stuff that I should have read before I jumped into the deep end here. There is a lot of good discussion that has already taken place on most of the things that I'm interested in at the moment. I want to post a few especially good links to other threads that I've come across.

These have to do with the issues of slavery, and of Black sailors. Here is one from Barry Finn from back in December of 2006 to the "Black Jacks, history and shanties" thread:

thread.cfm?threadid=97356#1914431

And here is another one from him with a shanty from way back in September of 1999:

thread.cfm?threadid=2864#116742

And one from November of '01:

thread.cfm?threadid=2864#600658

However, in going through these old threads, and I am sure there are more of them, I have not found a references to shanties that might have been sung on board the slave ships by the crews of those ships, other than an occasional reference "the Congo River".

Charley, thanks for that article on Captain Gordon and the "Erie". Here is a quote:

"It was in evidence (given by Lieutenant Henry D. Todd, U.S.N.) that the ship Erie was first discovered by the United States steamer Mohican, on the morning of the 8th day of August, 1860; that she was then about fifty miles outside of the River Congo, on the West Coast of Africa, standing to the northward, with all sail set; that she was flying the American flag, and that a gun from the Mohican brought her to."