| Feminism & Feminist Theory |
| 19th Century |
| United States |
| State & Local |
| History |
| Social Science |
Résumé
Résumé
The first major study of slavery in the maritime South, The Waterman's Song chronicles the world of slave and free black fishermen, pilots, rivermen, sailors, ferrymen, and other laborers who, from the colonial era through Reconstruction, plied the vast inland waters of North Carolina from the Outer Banks to the upper reaches of tidewater rivers. Demonstrating the vitality and significance of this local African American maritime culture, David Cecelski also reveals its connections to the Afro-Caribbean, the relatively egalitarian work culture of seafaring men who visited nearby ports, and the revolutionary political tides that coursed throughout the black Atlantic.
Black maritime laborers played an essential role in local abolitionist activity, slave insurrections, and other antislavery activism. They also boatlifted thousands of slaves to freedom during the Civil War. But most important, Cecelski says, they carried an insurgent, democratic vision born in the maritime districts of the slave South into the political maelstrom of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Critiques (1)
Critique de CHOICE
Focusing minutely and authoritatively on slave and free black mariners on North Carolina's Atlantic coast and inland waterways, Cecelski (Duke Univ.) rescues from oblivion the thousands of African Americans who dominated boating, ferrying, fishing, piloting, and shipping before, during, and long after the Civil War. Black watermen, slave and free, provided whites with an adaptable, flexible, and skilled seasonal work force. Maritime culture afforded slaves in coastal North Carolina degrees of independence and "freedom." Working on or near the sea, slaves met sailors from throughout the world, who introduced them to cosmopolitan, revolutionary, and political ideas and cultural currents. Slave boat and fishermen traveled widely and worked under less direct supervision from whites than did plantation slaves. "Almost invariably," Cecelski concludes, "black watermen appeared at the core of abolitionist activity, slave insurrections, and other antislavery activism in North Carolina." The sparks of militancy ignited during the Civil War, when Carolina blacks boatlifted slaves from Confederate territory and commandeered ships to the Union blockading squadron. Celebrating North Carolina maritime slaves' insurgent, democratic ethos, Cecelski illustrates the variety of experiences under slavery with power and precision. His book ranks among the best of the new slavery studies. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. D. Smith North Carolina State University
