Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail

by W. Jeffrey Bolster

Few Americans, black or white, recognize the degree to which early African American history is a maritime history. W. Jeffrey Bolster shatters the myth that black seafaring in the age of sail was limited to the Middle Passage. Seafaring was one of the most significant occupations among both enslaved and free black men between 1740 and 1865. Tens of thousands of black seamen sailed on lofty clippers and modest coasters. They sailed in whalers, warships, and privateers. Some were slaves, forced to work at sea, but by 1800 most were free men, seeking liberty and economic opportunity aboard ship.Bolster brings an intimate understanding of the sea to this extraordinary chapter in the formation of black America. Because of their unusual mobility, sailors were the eyes and ears to worlds beyond the limited horizon of black communities ashore. Sometimes helping to smuggle slaves to freedom, they were more often a unique conduit for news and information of concern to blacks.But for all its opportunities, life at sea was difficult. Blacks actively contributed to the Atlantic maritime culture shared by all seamen, but were often outsiders within it. Capturing that tension, Black Jacks examines not only how common experiences drew black and white sailors together―even as deeply internalized prejudices drove them apart―but also how the meaning of race aboard ship changed with time. Bolster traces the story to the end of the Civil War, when emancipated blacks began to be systematically excluded from maritime work. Rescuing African American seamen from obscurity, this stirring account reveals the critical role sailors played in helping forge new identities for black people in America.An epic tale of the rise and fall of black seafaring, Black Jacks is African Americans’ freedom story presented from a fresh perspective.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, African American, American History, Race, Travel, Historical

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 3, 1997

Reviews

[Marion for a Free Palestine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful and important work of historical non-fiction that anyone remotely interested in African American or maritime history should read and re-read. It is amazingly well researched and one gets the sense that for every paragraph of text there is a library's worth of books, articles, letters and diaries.
This book paints an amazing portrait of black skilled labor, black agency and black autonomy in an age that many people associate only with slavery. Such an important read.

Read with your daily ration of rum.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is exactly what it says on the tin, but in a really good way! I had been looking for something in this topic for a long time, and it is very thorough. I found the first half-two thirds very interesting and engaging, but it started to peter out and get very dry in the second half, but I was able to pull through. A must-read for people interested in the age of sail. Clearly very heavily researched, although it shows its age a bit with terminology...I get that the book is 30+ years old but I still cringed every time the author used "blacks" as a noun ...... that being said though this is THE definitive text if you're interested in 18th and early 19th century black maritime history.

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work started as a thesis/dissertation and it definitely reads that way. It's very dry, but it is a great source of information about black sailors all in one place. It's four stars for a great reference to add to my book shelf.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book: though necessarily a little short on quantitative conclusions, it introduces thoroughly the issues faced by free and enslaved African Americans after the American Revolution up to the Civil War and after who went to sea to find a greater measure of freedom, opportunity, and security. /i/Black Jacks/-i/ referred to and quoted a range of original sources (such as /i/The Life of John Thompson/-i/, published 1856, by a slave who escaped and went to sea on a whaling ship. Bolster is careful to express positives and negatives of a life at sea for black men in America, which changed from period to period, region to region. Black men, both free and slaves, made up a significant portion of American crews —and other nations' as well, after the Revolutionary War, and especially by about 1810. War made jobs for all sailors less available. After the war, as time went on, Southern anxiety about anti-slavery activism grew and paranoia about free black sailors mingling with slaves resulted in laws in Southern states that required black sailors to be incarcerated in jails when ashore, while this of course did not apply to white sailors. Though the latter may have been looked down upon as crude, they weren't seen as a danger to the structure of Southern life. Bolster indicates that African American seamen made a big impression, nonetheless, on the seafaring culture of America, just as the experience of success and freedom at sea made a difference to African American culture then and thereafter.

[Raechel Guest · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important exploration of a part of US history that has long been ignored by mainstream historians. This is the sort of book that can radically change our perceptions of the past and our understanding of how the past has shaped our present. As others have noted, the book shows that life at sea was a viable option for many African Americans. The author reveals the cultural traditions brought over from Africa, while explaining how the many different cultures of Africa were forced to become unified in America. The book is not limited to life on the water--inland traditions like Negro Election Day are included, illuminating the ways in which African Americans built their own societies parallel to (and denigrated by) the dominant white society.

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book at a break-neck pace compared to the pace I would normally read a work of nonfiction. If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times, there should be at least three major motion pictures and one network series on the story of Robert Smalls.

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, fascinating, full of great history and bibliographic leads to other sources.

[LukeJMcD22 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very intelligent and thoroughly researched booked that’s rich with interesting history.

[Anne Morddel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very, very interesting.

[Abhishek]

This is a marvelous reference text, a treasure trove for a student of American history - but a very difficult book to enjoy, as it reads like a dissertation.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Black Jacks is a deeply researched dissertation-turned-book, often citing primary sources complete with historical spellings. Although it provides a highly nuanced view of the maritime life of Black sailors up until about the time of the Civil War, it suffers a lot from the writing style. Dense, repetitive, chronologically disjointed, and often lacking in cohesive narrative, it paints a better picture of the evolving life over a century than it makes a decisive argument. Nonetheless, definitely recommend for anyone with an interest in Atlantic seafaring history, as it does much to fill in the missing story of African Americans from early America. Plus, there are some great adventure anecdotes that I'd love to see as period piece movies!

[Botoocean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just off the bat, this book is really hard to get through. Bolster's writing style is dry. There is no entertaining voice in his writing. Black Jacks is very informative about African Americans' role in maritime history, but that is all it is, informative. There are ways of writing nonfiction that make reading it enjoyable and give motivation to the reader to continue reading, one way being imagery. Bolster's book is basically a compilation of research notes. It just drags on. I recommend this book only for the extensive information in it and for the fact that there are very few other books out there about African American Maritime history.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

The emergence of black sailors in plantation American and the African roots in seafaring. An interesting book relating to the boundaries faced by race and Jim Crow at sea. Shatters myths of black seafaring.

[Roger Grande · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, fantastically researched and written, dense with evidence. Places African Americans, including those enslaved, as agents and central to their own destiny. Great examples of resistance to slavery in different forms.

[LOL_BOOKS]

I'M ON A BOAT!