Looking out: Black Jacks

“His Majesty's ship Leopard forced the [USS] Chesapeake
to surrender off the Virginia Capes in 1807, and sullied American national
honor by impressing American men ... two of the four impressed sailors
were men of color. White dominated national memory veiled that fact.” —
Black Jacks; African American Seamen in the Age of Sail, by W. Jeffrey
Bolster (Harvard University Press, 1997)

The misconception that African Americans have had little to do with
the shaping of this nation is widely held. If all Americans were to read
W. Jeffrey Bolster's book Black Jacks, this misconception would
quickly be dispelled. If I had my druthers, it would be required reading
for all people, everywhere.

Bolster's book was published while he was an assistant professor of
history at the University of New Hampshire in 1997. He is a professional
seaman who holds a master mariner's licence. Among the many informational
sources cited by Bolster in Black Jacks is the noted historian,
Joseph P. Reidy. Professor Reidy currently teaches at Howard University
in Washington, DC. He has spent the past eight years studying African Americans'
involvement in the Civil War — especially in US naval service.

One of the long series of events that precipitated the War of 1812 was
the encounter between HMS Leopard and the USS Chesapeake.
At the time that the Chesapeake's captain, James Lawrence, shouted
his famous words to his crew, “Don't give up the ship!”

American hopes for uninterrupted peaceful commerce at sea were being
incrementally dashed. Impressment into the British navy had become commonplace.
Americans who would not submit to service aboard British vessels were imprisoned
for years in the British admiralty's dreaded Dartmoor prison. This desolate
and unforgiving prison situated amid England's Devonshire moor was the
place of death for many during their incarceration. Some Americans did
not even make it to the prison; death overtook them during the march they
were forced to endure in order to reach it.

By the end of 1813, 6000 prisoners of war were being held at Dartmoor.
Nearly 1000 of that number were African Americans. It is as sad as it is
ironic that, as horrible a place as it was, for a time black sailors were
treated with a good deal more dignity and respect while they were in that
English prison than they were, regardless of whether they were free or
enslaved, in America.

Racial segregation at Dartmoor prison initially existed only within
messes, the groups of six men who were issued food together. This changed
once Americans mustered sufficient numbers to assert themselves against
the French prisoners, and once the black population swelled enough that
white sailors perceived it as threatening. Ten months after the first Americans
arrived, some whites petitioned Captain Cotgrave “to have the black prisoners
separated”.

As I read Black Jacks, the issue of reparations came to mind.
I found myself thinking, “Anyone who is opposed to repairing the longstanding
damage that American-style racism has done to African Americans should
consider the plight of black mariners.” You see, those sailors, cooks,
mates and even the occasional Northern captain were not allowed to disembark
under any circumstances in many ports, especially Southern ones. Some of
the locals' concern had to do with the fact that many black mariners helped
slaves escape.

For Charleston slaveholders, racial worries shadowed commercial profits.
“Scarcely a vessel ... arrives in our port from the North”, they lamented
in 1823, “which has not two or three, or more black [here, read “free”]
persons employed.”

Whites prophesied that their slaves would “be seduced from service of
their masters in greater numbers” and that “Abolition Societies of the
North” would “intrigue, through this class of persons, with our slave population.”

Not only were those black mariners who ventured ashore arrested and
imprisoned, but very often even those who did not disembark were forcibly
taken from their vessels and jailed for the duration of their vessels'
time in port. Moreover, they were made to pay for the confinement, food
and paper work provided by the local sheriff. A seaman's pay was precious
little in those days.

Nevertheless, some ships' captains “passed on the cost of imprisonment
to the black hands. 'We had to pay our jail fees, the Recorder's and officer's
bills’, lamented a seamen after a stint in the New Orleans prison. The
expenses were not inconsequential. In November 1843, Captain Dill of the
brig Penguin paid $23.43 for 'arrest, registry, dieting, etc. of
Robert White, John Pluten, [and] Richard Fabler, colored seamen’, in Charleston.
In 1844 a ship's agent in New Orleans paid $8.25 'for taking the Cook out
of jail’. Cooks then earned only $16 to $20 per month, and seamen a few
dollars less. Black mariners absorbing the cost of a southern port stay
found weeks or even months of their wages deducted.”

While I suspect that Bolster's writing of this book was not intended
to be an argument in support of paying reparations to African Americans
for the past evil and lingering residue of slavery in America, it is my
opinion that, no matter how inadvertently, he has made one of the best
cases that I have read, to date, for doing precisely that. I urge you to
read this book!

BY BRANDON ASTOR JONES

[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes
letters commenting on his columns (include your name and full return address
on the envelope, or prison authorities may refuse to deliver it). He can
be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic
& Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA, or email
<brandonastorjones@hotmail.com>.
Jones is seeking a publisher for his autobiography, growing down.
Please notify him of any possible leads. Visit Jones' web page at <http://www.brandonastorjones.com>.]

From GLW issue 444