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The Film:
Interview Transcripts:
Walter Rybka
Captain Walter
Rybka, Senior Captain, U.S. Brig Niagara, Program Director, Erie
Maritime Museum, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, on
equal work for equal pay
 In
the late 18th and early 19th centuries, seafaring represented a level
of opportunity that African-Americans generally would not find on
land. It gave them a place that they could develop skills and work on
an equal level with their white counterparts within certain confines.
Generally, they
would not be considered eligible to move up to officers, but within
the skilled trades of the seamen, it was a place where they received
equal work for equal pay. It was a place where they lived in the same
quarters, ate the same food, lived under the same conditions.
You might have a
free black man who is employed in a skilled position at significantly
higher wages than a lot of the rest of the crew, you know maybe the
carpenter, maybe the cooper on a whaling ship, the man who made and
tended the barrels, maybe the sailmaker, maybe one of the leading
seamen. You also might have another one who is a cook or you might
also have somebody who was a slave and is on board as a slave and his
master is collecting his wages.
His master signed
him up, rented him out to the ship owner to serve on the ship. You
also might have somebody on board who is a slave owned by the captain
as his personal servant.
Black sailors,
whether slave or free, earned a measure of respect aboard privateering
ships -- armed vessels with a license to steal the enemy's merchant
ships.
Before they would
risk their lives and take on a fight to capture a vessel, they'd take
a vote among the crew as to whether this was considered a worthwhile
entrepreneurial risk to risk getting your head or leg shot off to make
some money and every man in the crew, regardless of their rank in the
crew, had a vote, because this was a life and death matter. |
