BLACK ODYSSEY: THE SEAFARING TRADITIONS OF AFRO-AMERICANS

American society of the eighteenth and nineteenth century took little notice of the crewmen that manned its military and commercial vessels. Common seamen were only marginally members of American communities, vagabonds who drifted with the wind. By virtue of their race, black seamen were even further removed from the concern and interest of the general society. "Writing leaves tracks," according to a Chinese proverb, but unfortunately most of the black men who went to sea were illiterate and left few accounts of their experiences.;This dissertation documents the participation of Afro-Americans in the seafaring traditions of the United States. Blacks began replacing Indian seamen in the whaling industry about the time of the Revolutionary War and stayed on until the industry faltered after the Civil War. Black seamen served in colonial navies and privately-owned warships called privateers. The United States Navy used black seamen extensively, but with reluctance, and in times of peace put restrictions on their enlistments. Afro-Americans shipped in merchant vessels as early as the seventeenth century, but became more prominent at sea following the abolition of slavery in the Northern states after the Revolutionary War.;The Afro-American communities of the North before the Civil War turned to seafaring as an important source of employment, though most black mariners were restricted to the rank of able seamen. By the twentieth century, though, their continued presence in the Navy and merchant marine met with opposition from white counterparts. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI;In spite of the little significance attached to the lives of common seamen by their contemporaries, a number of sources survive to illuminate the role of Afro-Americans in the nation's seafaring traditions. Abolitionist and colonization societies monitored the antebellum black communities, gathering extensive information on social structures and occupational diversity. The laws and court actions of state and federal governments reveal a widespread use of slave labor in maritime activity. Memoirs of seafarers, including those of several Afro-Americans, give insight into the conditions at sea, and the crew lists of port authorities contain invaluable information about the men who put to sea. As the dissertation covers a period of several hundred years and a broad range of subjects, secondary sources also proved useful for background information.