Now that most (probably) of the references are up, I am thinking about the trajectory of this song.

Two features of the song's history make this interesting:
1) Appearances in both working and non-working scenarios.
2) The very earliest appearance (i.e. so far) is in an African-American working context.

As to the first point, this is interesting because *typically* these contexts were not shifted much. True worksongs/shanties, as is well known, were not often sung outside their working context. From the other direction, yes indeed we know that many songs sung otherwise (e.g. for entertainment) were used as shanties. HOWEVER, in surveying 19th century references to shanties, I have not seen that happen *that* much -- not at least until later. Chanties were developed from or adapted from popular/traditional songs, but you don't find all that often that one and the same song (in the same form) traveled between contexts. Put another way, chanties seemed to have been well "marked" as chanties -- worksongs.

Was "Bottle O" a popular song prior to being (hypothetically) adopted as a chanty? If so, the evidence is not there yet. Two references, from ca. late 1840s-late 1850s era, suggest the song may have been sung as a popular ditty -- but only by seamen, who of course may have had it from their shantying.

As to the second point, the 1831 reference among New World Africans rowing challenges us to say whether the song was a creation of that culture or an adaptation by it (i.e. that just happens to be the earliest reference). Was the theme originally about what the "neger" likes, or the "sailor"?

African-Americans clearly "owned" the boat-rowing song genre at that time. If the song existed earlier in a different cultural context, then these men probably adapted it--not only to suit the cultural context but also to suit this working context.

While we can't say with certainty where this *particular* song came from, the evidence on chanties as a whole tells us that in 1831, shanties (by which I mean deepwater worksongs) seem to have been hardly developed by then. The number of actual songs seems to have been few. "Bottle O" certainly might have been one of them. If it was, that would be all the more interesting so far as we could call it one of the earliest chanties.

Several of the other earliest chanties --i.e. noted by Dana a few years later-- have demonstrable connections to African-American work songs in other contexts. It would fit a pattern if the trajectory of "Bottle O" moved from a Black rowing song to an Anglo-American deepwater chanty. But there is no way to prove that. The Black oarsmen may have been performing a parody.

Also, by 1839 Tahitians had learned it from sailors, who used it as a chanty. This might be considered too quick for the song to move from Black longshore workers to deepwater crews (reworked for "sailor") to Tahitians. But then again, if this was the direction of movement, it had probably already started earlier. The scenario reminds me of the "Grog Time o' Day" song.

Although the song did survive in the memory of some 20th century folks (unlike "Grog Time"), I also get the feeling that the song had lost its popularity long before. Most likely, it circulated in a specific category of vessels, e.g. in British ships crewed by the successors of men who had been in the West Indies trade.

The essence of my curiosity about the origins of this chanty is this:

Should we consider it one of many loans, from the African-American work-song repertoire, into what would develop as modern chanties?

Or, should we consider it one of those very early "English" chanties that, perhaps for a couple decades, slipped under the radar until modern chanties really began to grow in repertoire?