African Slaves – Mariners of the Seas

“Rum, the drink of the ages, where the trade in goods, can and will have been the means to the end of barter in flesh- SLAVES. 

The rum industry developed with the growth of sugar plantations in the West Indians.  The English were the first to adopt the drink. Beginning in the 17^th century, distilleries operating in New York and New England produced rum from West Indian molasses. Traders used rum to buy the slaves in Africa: the slaves were sold in West Indies for cargoes of molasses that became New England rum. The attempt by the British to levy heavy duties on molasses imported for the French and Spanish West Indies was an important factor in pre-Revolutionary colonial unrest in America.

There were many roles of the African mariners in the age of sail.  Early in the slave trade in the 1600s, and late 1500s, black men – Africans – were being used aboard ships, often of the own volition, as translators or linguists aboard slave ships.  Some also sailed as seamen, as mariners hired on for wages in West Africa (note: these were considered free men).  Many of the pirate crews in the late 17^th century --- that would be the late 1600s and early 1700s – were African Americans or African men.

Once the colonies were well established in the New World, slaves were put into service roles aboard ship.  They were at first sailing primarily as cooks, cabin boys, stewards, drummers, and fifes. It was around the era of the American Revolution, however, that increasingly more black men were involved in this commerce as able-bodied seamen.  So, it is here that we have the transition from slave to free and from skilled to more skilled.

In the late 1700s, in the age of the American Revolution, the African mariner would be a man, probably in his early 20s or early 30s much more likely than his white shipmates to have a family because white sailors were notoriously single, footloose and fancy free.  Black men found so few opportunities to make a living that they were more likely to stick with this very difficult employment –seafaring  -- while still trying to raise a family.  The man in the late 1700s would have been born a slave. It is almost certain that his parents were slaves, as there were so few free black people in the colonies before the revolution. That man might have come from the Chesapeake Bay region  -- Virginia, Maryland  -- he might have come from the Carolinas.  He might have come from a northern seaport like Boston or Providence, in other words, in almost every colony of the British Empire, all of which were maritime colonies men of color sailed aboard these ships and as they shifted from being slaves to free men they continued to work at sea.

African men are men who cross-pollinated a variety of communities around the rim of the Atlantic in an age when most black people were illiterate, in an age when most black communities were not linked by either newspapers or record albums or cassette tapes.  Most of what was passed was done by oral communication, by people going from one place to another.  One of the large groups of people who did move between communities were the mariners, so it is not surprise that the first six autobiographies published in the English language by black men were written by sailors. It is not a surprise that not only did the slaves of the period work on the ships while in port, as sail makers, caulkers, Riggers were active in the manning of the ships at sea.  Not all were involved in the legal trades. Many were in the not so legal trade of Privateers.  Privateers roomed the seas, ships were their booty, lives meant nothing and yet all of the crew shared in some of the wealth.  Hence, here is the slave, freeman sailor and beyond found in History.