Short Essay 3

Thousands upon thousands of Africans were taken from their homeland during the slave trade.  They were forced into cultures that they were unfamiliar with and others that they had been in frequent contact with.  To cope with this change, Africans created a Creole culture, which was a mix between their African descent and their new American surroundings.  Some Creole cultures focused more on the African culture than others; they were Creoles first- Americans second.  African sailors accepted more of the European and American culture as their own, they were Americans first and Creoles second.  According to W. Jeffrey Bolster in “Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail” Africans, free and slave, created a culture of  “Americanism” because of the unique opportunities they were given.

Bolster argues that the reason African sailors created a different Creole culture than other Africans was due to the unique opportunities they were given.  African sailors whether free or slaves were given many of the same opportunities as white sailors.  If a slave were skilled enough to pilot a ship he would be given the task.  “Skilled slaves” would develop “a sense of self-worth from handling people as well as vessels” especially if those they were commanding were free blacks (Bolster, 136).  Slaves who worked on the land were not able to build skills to better themselves as slave sailors did and that made sailors unique.

Black sailors were also given the opportunity to travel to many different places and come in contact with other cultures.  This not only increased their knowledge of the world, but it gave them a sense of freedom.  While other slaves were confined to the plantation on which they worked, sailors were given “considerable amounts of time without white supervision; substantial freedom of movement; and an independent income” (Bolster, 135).  The income that they earned was sometimes saved and used in order for a slave to buy his freedom.  Plantation slaves and others who worked on the land were rarely able to gain an income to purchase their freedom.

The “black Atlantic maritime tradition” as Bolster called it, allowed blacks to create a new culture based on their African heritage and the American culture they were in constant contact with (Bolster, 62).  The different lifestyle that black sailors became accustomed to was the main reason that they considered themselves Americans first and African Creoles second.  While they did create a new culture just as other Africans in other parts of the Americas did, sailor’s sense of freedom that they were given made them unique from other Africans.  Bolster argued that “a somewhat independent existence could be created within the bounds of slavery” (Bolster, 133).

Slave sailors were different from other slaves also because they were able to “develop skills, promote self-discipline, inculcate responsibility, [and] take pleasure from a job well done” (Bolster, 136).  While black sailors may have distrusted whites “they also learned that their white shipmates would frequently disregard conventional racial etiquette” (Bolster, 101).  African sailors were given unique opportunities to be treated like many whites.  As one man put it “in the presence of the sailor, the Negro feels as a man” (Bolster, 101).  Bolster had many arguments as to why African sailors were different than other Africans in America, but the unique opportunities that they were given such as freedom of movement and travel and the ability to pilot ships allowed African sailors to create their own Creole culture.