Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part I of a two part pancocojams series about West Indian and Black American origins of many 19th century sea shanties.
The content in this post is quoted from two selected internet articles that quote various sources.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/09/the-west-indian-and-black-american_0588412801.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post includes some comments from various Mudcat folk music forum discussion threads on this subject.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the unknown composers of these sea shanties and thanks to the collectors of these work songs. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Some of the content of this pancocojams post is included in the 2022 pancocojams post entitled "Information About Sea Shanty Collector Stan Hugill And Information About Harding, A West Indian Man Who Was The Source For A Number Of Shanties."
https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/03/information-about-sea-shanty-collector.html
These posts are part of an ongoing pancocojams series on African Americans and West Indians chanties (shanties). Click the tags given below for previous posts and subsequent posts on this subject.
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
Some sources about sea shanties include the referent "negro" spelled with a lower case "n".
That referent for Black people -spelled with the lower case "n" or spelled with an upper case "n") is outdated and and has been considered to be very offensive for a number of decades.
That said, the use of that referent by some non-Black people in the past may not have been meant to be offensive, at least not has offensive as it is considered now (in the 2020s).
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COMMENTS ABOUT THE WEST INDIAN AND BLACK AMERICAN ORIGINS OF MANY 19TH CENTURY SHANTIES (from two internet sources)
These sources are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.
SOURCE #1
From https://www.jimmageean.co.uk/post/the-black-origins-of-sea-shanties "The Black Origins of Sea Shanties"
Writer: Jim Mageean
Oct 23, 2021
Updated: Jun 24, 2022
"The past year has seen a huge renewed interest in sea songs worldwide, largely due to a traditional New Zealand forebitter 'Wellerman' becoming a number one chart success on both sides of the Atlantic.
The year has also seen the publication of several new books
on sea shanties. These include Gibb Schreffler's 'Boxing the Compass', Gerry
Smyth's 'Sailor Song' and my own trilogy 'Haul Away', 'Heave Away', 'Sail
Away'.
Research is beginning to show that what we have always
thought about the history of sea shanties (being predominanty of white British
origin) is not true and that many (possibly most) of them have their origins in
black work songs, plantation songs and even slave songs from the American South
and the West Indies.
They must have existed since ancient times and in fact are mentioned in print from ancient Greek manuscripts to texts from the 15th and 16th Century. There is little mention of them in the 17th Century and none at all in the 18th Century. The reason for this is almost certainly warfare.
From 1700 to 1815 Britain was almost constantly at war and hence singing aboard ship would not be encouraged for fear of alerting any enemy ships. British merchant ships were also overmanned at this time for protection from piracy. During the same period, however, America was only at war for about 10 years (1775-1783 and 1812-1814) so shanties may have continued to develop on that side of the Atlantic.
What we know about shanties we have learned from written sources giving 'eye-witness' and ‘ear-witness’ accounts of their being sung at sea. These were published in books or magazine articles in the UK and USA. Apart from the ancient texts mentioned above the earliest reference to shanty singing is in 1811 in Robert Hay’s memoirs ‘Landsman Hay’. On a voyage to Jamaica in the merchant vessel ‘Edward’ he heard negroes singing the shanties: ‘OH, HURO, ME BOYS’ and ‘GROG TIME OF DAY’ (both now sadly lost).
In 1815 Captain James Carr descibed 'cotton-screwing' whilst loading a ship from Charleston to Liverpool: ''...for five days I had four pair of jackscrews and four gangs of five men at each at work on board ship stowing cotton - I was in the midst of them - it often happened that they all had their throats open at the same time as loud as they could bawl...''
Carr gives specimens of the 'African work-songs' he heard in Charleston with choruses of 'HIGHLAND A', 'HOORA, HOORA, SING TALIO', CAESAR BOY,CAESAR' (later collected in Newcastle, Nevis by Roger Abrahamas) and 'HUZZA MY JOLLY BOYS, TIS GROG TIME A DAY' (this last probably as heard by Robert Hay four years earlier). Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia were the main cotton ports at this time but in the 1820's Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans, Loisiana superceded them.
In ‘Two Years Before the Mast’ Richard Dana heard shanties
sung aboard the American ships ‘Pilgrim’ and ‘Alert’ between 1834 and 1836
where he says: 'the crew was a mixture of ‘English, Scotch, German, French,
African, South Sea Islands plus a few Boston and Cape Cod boys’ (a very
multi-ethnic crew!). He mentions the singing of 10 shanties, all now seemingly
lost apart from ‘CHEERILY MEN’, 'CHEER UP SAM, ‘ROLL THE OLD CHARIOT’ and
‘ROUND THE CORNER (SALLY?)’ the last three of these being of negro extraction.
A Boston sailor. F.Stanhope Hill saw cotton-screwing in Mobile in 1844 observing: ''In the process of stowing by the stevedores, with very powerful jackscrews, each operated by a gang of four men, one of them the 'shantier', as he was called. this man's sole duty was to lead in the rude songs, largely improvised, to the music of which his companions screwed the bales into their places. a really good shantier received larger pay than the other men in the gang, although his work was much less laborious''.
[...]
Of course, many of our shanties are European in origin
particularly from the British Isles. However, it must be acknowledged that a
very large portion, possibly the majority, hail from black African-American and
West Indian sources. These were predominantly slave songs, plantation songs and
songs of black stevedores and hoosiers loading ships manned by white sailors
who copied and developed them: ‘Since the blacks used their own jabber … the
borrowers fitted their own words to the catchy tunes … often ribald and
obscene’ (Frank Shaw). It seems increasingly obvious that shanties have arisen
from and devolved from black work songs. Indeed, the American folklorist Stuart
Frank remarked that: 'The practice of
shantying on shipboard is descended from West African work songs’.
Many 20th Century collectors including the folklorist Alan Lomax have ‘discovered’ pulling shanties from black sources in Florida, Georgia Sea Islands and the Bahamas including such favourites as ‘SAILBOAT MALARKEY’ and ‘LONG SUMMERS DAY’ (both collected from Frederick McQueen on Andros, Bahamas). Also, the shanties of the black menhaden fishermen from the USA’s East Coast (mainly Virginia and North Carolina) have yielded such gems as ‘JOHNSON GIRLS’, DRINKING THAT WINE’ and 'WON'T YOU HELP ME TO RAISE 'EM'.
There have also been several studies of ‘Caribbean’
shanties, the best known being the collection of essays ‘Deep the Water,
Shallow the Shore’ by Roger David Abrahams in the early 1960’s. He noted that
the use of shanties was ‘everywhere’ in the Caribbean and not just limited to
ship-board work. Such shanties as ‘JOHN DEAD’ and ‘BLACKBIRD GET UP’ have
become very popular with modern shanty singers from this collection. Abrahams
recorded 'Foc'sle Songs and Shanties' with Paul Clayton and Dave Van Ronk for Folkways
in 1959 and collected shanties with Lomax on St. Kitts in 1962
Our greatest shanty collector Stan Hugill ascribed about 120 of the shanties from his ‘bible’ ‘Shanties from the Seven Seas’ (1961) to Black American and Caribbean origins. These were mostly collected from his West Indian informants Harding the Barbadian, Tobago Smith and ‘Harry Lauder’ from the Island of St. Lucia. He even tried to imitate the yelps and ‘hitches’ these black shantymen put into their singing of the shanties. Many of these had never appeared in a shanty collection before including 'ESSEQUIBO RIVER', ROLL,BOYS.ROLL' and 'WHERE AM I TO GO'. He also collected the great favourite South Sea Island shanty 'JOHN KANAKA' which he claimed was: 'one of a body of Poynesian shanties'. Stan also made frequent reference to his experience of 'chequerboard crews' (one watch black and one watch white) where shanty-swapping must have occurred. One shanty he paricularly attributed to 'chequerboard crews' was the tops'l halyard shanty 'HAUL 'ER AWAY' or 'SALLY RACKETT' learnt from Harding.
Many of Stan's shanties had previously been put in print by
British collectors without any mention of their negro origin. These include
'BULLY IN THE ALLEY' (Cecil Sharp), 'COME ROLL ME OVER' (John Masefield),
'HILO, BOYS, HILO' (Richard Runciman Terry) and 'PAY ME THE MONEY DOWN' (Laura
Alexandrine Smith). Of course, Hugill was a shantyman himself and shipped as a
common sailor in the fo’c’sle. Most of the other collectors did not have this
experience."...
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SOURCE #2
From https://www.southernfriedscience.com/soon-may-the-explainer-come-everything-youve-always-wanted-to-know-about-sea-shanties-but-were-afraid-to-ask/ "Soon may the explainer come: Everything you’ve always wanted to know about sea shanties but were afraid to ask" ByDavid Shiffman Posted on November 22, 2022
...“A sea shanty is a song used to coordinate work and effort, especially rhythmic effort, onboard ship,” Craig Edwards, the former director of the Mystic Seaport Music Festival, told me. Basically, the songs would allow sailors to know exactly when to pull on a line, or whatever task they were assigned, so they could do it all at the same time and therefore concentrate their force.”
[...]
According to Dr. Jamie Goodall, a staff historian at the US Army Center for Military History, there were a few main types of shanties. “Short haul shanties were sung when tasks required rapid and quick pulls in a short amount of time. Halyard shanties, or long-drag shanties, were used for heavier work that required more setup time between pulls. Capstan shanties were used for long, repetitive tasks that required a sustained rhythm. The songs had to be simple melodically and lyrically in order to keep everyone on beat and in sync.”
A key element of Shanties is the call and response format, Chris Koldeway, a music teacher who worked with Mystic Seaport’s Chantey staff, told me. “This means that a solo singer sings verses, and the response is a full chorus or short refrain from the crew,” he said.
[…]
The sea shanty has its roots in West African worksong
The sea shanty has its roots in West African worksong
Craig Edwards notes that in European history, most heavy lifting involved draft animals, and there weren’t songs for workers moving heavy slabs of stone to build cathedrals and castles because it was horses and mules doing much of that stuff. But these sorts of “worksongs” were very commonly used among many cultures in Sub-Saharan West Africa.
“Work song means a song sung while actually performing labor, as opposed to an ‘occupational song,’ which is a broader category that also includes songs about work or a particular working community,” Steven Winick, a specialist at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, told me. He notes that “Wellerman” is a sea song, a song about sailors, but not a song used to coordinate work about ship, and therefore not technically a sea shanty! He also notes that whaling vessels rarely used worksongs, because the act of whaling required so many people to help that worksongs coordinating effort was rarely needed.
Mary Mallory told me that these songs traveled with enslaved people to the Caribbean, where they became incorporated with work onboard ships. And as Black crews worked alongside white crews, it resulted in an amalgamation, with Anglo and Irish lyrics put to African rhythms. Craig Edwards notes that this resulted in a nationalistic myth, spread by British folklorist Cecil Sharpe, that shanties must be a long-standing English tradition. Rachel Elliott, the education director of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, told me that the historical role of Black sailors has not always been appropriately understood and valued.
Lately, there’s no doubt that African musical tradition was a major influence on sea shanties. And despite some criticism of whitewashing the history of shanties, “there has never been any real question that Black people were central to the development of this musical style,” Stephen Winick said. “Scholars have been arguing against this wrong impression, and for the central importance of Africans and African-Americans, for over 100 years.”
Dr. Gibb Schreffler of Pomona College’s Department of Music says that though sea shanties have a particular historical romanticization to them, this whole genre of music took place far more frequently on land than at sea. “We need to stop thinking about the sea and sailors to know chanties,” he told me. “One has to accept that the place of performance (sea) doesn’t define the genre. The same songs, and many more like them, were sung much more often in contexts outside of ships. Understand that there are comparatively few times during a sailing voyage to be singing chanties—keeping in mind that chanties aboard ships were sung with only certain work tasks. By contrasts, the people on shore singing these songs at their labor were doing so effectively all day.”
Dr. Schreffler noted that despite a sometimes-held (and false) aura of whiteness surrounding sea shanties, this isn’t really a case of cultural appropriation. “Non-Black singers in the historical period acculturated into chanty singing,” he told me. “It was not a case of stealing something and taking credit for it, but rather of white laborers assimilating into a cultural practice established by Black laborers.”
Indeed, Black sailors were common in the early United States. “Work as a sailor was especially appealing for free African-Americans,” Roger Bailey, a professor of history at the US Naval Academy, told me. “As many as 1/5 of sailors in the early 1800s were Black. There was still racism, but the ship’s hierarchy placed black men on more even footing than they would have enjoyed on land. Plus, as a sailor you could learn a skilled trade and eventually make relatively good pay compared to the limited opportunities available ashore to black men. The whaling industry in particular placed a premium on a sailor’s skill at hunting whales, so it wasn’t uncommon to see talented African Americans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders serving as mates and petty officers aboard whalers. All this is to say that current and former slaves were an integral part of the maritime community, and there’s no doubt that African Americans were a major influence on sea shanties.”
Craig Edwards notes that in European history, most heavy lifting involved draft animals, and there weren’t songs for workers moving heavy slabs of stone to build cathedrals and castles because it was horses and mules doing much of that stuff. But these sorts of “worksongs” were very commonly used among many cultures in Sub-Saharan West Africa.
“Work song means a song sung while actually performing labor, as opposed to an ‘occupational song,’ which is a broader category that also includes songs about work or a particular working community,” Steven Winick, a specialist at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, told me. He notes that “Wellerman” is a sea song, a song about sailors, but not a song used to coordinate work about ship, and therefore not technically a sea shanty! He also notes that whaling vessels rarely used worksongs, because the act of whaling required so many people to help that worksongs coordinating effort was rarely needed.
Mary Mallory told me that these songs traveled with enslaved people to the Caribbean, where they became incorporated with work onboard ships. And as Black crews worked alongside white crews, it resulted in an amalgamation, with Anglo and Irish lyrics put to African rhythms. Craig Edwards notes that this resulted in a nationalistic myth, spread by British folklorist Cecil Sharpe, that shanties must be a long-standing English tradition. Rachel Elliott, the education director of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, told me that the historical role of Black sailors has not always been appropriately understood and valued.
Lately, there’s no doubt that African musical tradition was a major influence on sea shanties. And despite some criticism of whitewashing the history of shanties, “there has never been any real question that Black people were central to the development of this musical style,” Stephen Winick said. “Scholars have been arguing against this wrong impression, and for the central importance of Africans and African-Americans, for over 100 years.”
Dr. Gibb Schreffler of Pomona College’s Department of Music says that though sea shanties have a particular historical romanticization to them, this whole genre of music took place far more frequently on land than at sea. “We need to stop thinking about the sea and sailors to know chanties,” he told me. “One has to accept that the place of performance (sea) doesn’t define the genre. The same songs, and many more like them, were sung much more often in contexts outside of ships. Understand that there are comparatively few times during a sailing voyage to be singing chanties—keeping in mind that chanties aboard ships were sung with only certain work tasks. By contrasts, the people on shore singing these songs at their labor were doing so effectively all day.”
Dr. Schreffler noted that despite a sometimes-held (and false) aura of whiteness surrounding sea shanties, this isn’t really a case of cultural appropriation. “Non-Black singers in the historical period acculturated into chanty singing,” he told me. “It was not a case of stealing something and taking credit for it, but rather of white laborers assimilating into a cultural practice established by Black laborers.”
Indeed, Black sailors were common in the early United States. “Work as a sailor was especially appealing for free African-Americans,” Roger Bailey, a professor of history at the US Naval Academy, told me. “As many as 1/5 of sailors in the early 1800s were Black. There was still racism, but the ship’s hierarchy placed black men on more even footing than they would have enjoyed on land. Plus, as a sailor you could learn a skilled trade and eventually make relatively good pay compared to the limited opportunities available ashore to black men. The whaling industry in particular placed a premium on a sailor’s skill at hunting whales, so it wasn’t uncommon to see talented African Americans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders serving as mates and petty officers aboard whalers. All this is to say that current and former slaves were an integral part of the maritime community, and there’s no doubt that African Americans were a major influence on sea shanties.”...
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This concludes Part I of this two part pancocojams series.
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitors comments are welcome.
Of interest here for you - within Puerto Rican bomba, there are included a number of distinct rhythm/song/dance forms, all with their own names and the majority of which are shared with other cultures across Afro-America - particularly territories influenced by the French slave trade such as Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Trinidad, St Lucia, Eastern Cuba, and New Orleans. In the first above clip, from Ponce, PR, is an example of the son de bomba "Leró", and the second video from Loiza is of a rhythm called "rulé". To this day in Puerto Rico the terms calindá (kalenda), sicá (chica), yubá (djouba), cunyá (Kounjaille), and bambula/bambulaé (bamboula) among many others are alive and well, as designations for specific sub-styles of bomba. Thank you for posting these clips from PR in this context. Due to the influence of colonized mindsets, people tend to classify PR as an essentially "Hispanic" country, yet of course history, culture, and lineage tie the island strongly to Africa, its non-Hispanic West Indian neighbors, and the broader Afro-Atlantic...
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