Black Jacks

African American Seamen in the Age of Sail

W. Jeffrey Bolster

  • A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year, 1997
  • Co-Winner of the Wesley-Logan Prize of the American Historical Association
  • Best New Book in History/Association of American Publishers/Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division
  • 1997 John Lyman Book Award for U.S. Maritime History of the North American Society for Oceanic History

Introduction: To Tell the Tale

1. The Emergence of Black Sailors in Plantation America

2. African Roots of Black Seafaring

3. The Way of a Ship

4. The Boundaries of Race in Maritime Culture

5. Possibilities for Freedom

6. Precarious Pillar of the Black Community

7. Free Sailors and the Struggle with Slavery

8. Toward Jim Crow at Sea

Tables

Notes

Acknowledgments

  • Cover: Black Jacks
  • A photo of the author

W. Jeffrey Bolster is Hortense Cavis Shepherd Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Studies Program of the History Department at the University of New Hampshire.