Aan interesting thing, not specifically about songs, but about runaway slaves. There is a new program on PBS called History Detectives fashioned after the successful BBC show, House Detectives, I think. Anyway, on one of their recent shows they investigated an old story that the Charles W. Morgan at Mystic actually had runaway slaves among its whaling crews.

Through their research, the team did prove the co-owners of the ship were indeed abolitionists and that three persons of "wooly hair" served on similar ships, one of them from VA, all of whom signed with an "X" making it likely that the Morgan also had runaways serving aboard. They felt sure that the one from VA was probably a runaway. They went on to explain that runaway slaves were known to sign on, if possible, with whaling ships, as the 3-5 year journey kept them safe from the bounty hunters who would take them back for a reward, if they could catch them.

You can see video highlights by scrolling down on this page to Charles W. Morgan and clicking on the link in the "post-it" note area.

They also did one on a house purported to be that of the notorious Patty Cannon NOT a nice woman slaver!

kat