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       The Working Lives of Nigerian Seamen in the Colonial Era

      THE ORIGINS OF NIGERIAN SEAFARING can be linked to a deeper history of African seafaring in the Atlantic World. The history of economic and political relations between Africa and the Western world was constructed largely by the traffic of ships, passengers, crews, and cargoes crossing the ocean. From the very beginning of international shipping between Africa, Europe, and the New World, Africans were employed to supplement crews on vessels arriving from Europe. This was usually necessary due to the high mortality rate among European seamen, who contracted malaria and yellow fever in large numbers. African recruits, readily available in ports throughout West Africa, provided labor as deckhands, cargo handlers, or translators at a much lower cost than seamen signed on in Europe. Thus, from the very start of seagoing trade between Africa and the West, European shipping companies became dependent upon African labor. African crews were a cheap alternative to European ratings, and shipping companies made continual efforts to maintain this source of labor at the lowest possible cost. For their part, African seamen employed in the transatlantic trade attempted to exploit the economic, social, and cultural opportunities that opened up to them through work on European vessels. This dynamic of mutual dependency, coupled with an attempt of all those involved to maximize opportunities, characterized the history of African seafaring in the Atlantic World from the slave trade throughout the colonial era and the era of decolonization. The entry of Nigerians into the history of African seafaring came only in World War II, but largely followed dynamics and patterns established centuries before.

      Historians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have argued that seafaring was empowering for black men and enabled them to overcome prejudices and social hierarchies structuring relations between Europeans and Africans in the era of the slave trade. Out on the open sea, ships brought multiracial crews together in tight quarters, and the collective work on board ships fostered a rare solidarity among black and white sailors that was not possible back in port. According to Jeffrey Bolster, race never fully disappeared on ships, but black seamen enjoyed membership in a deck-based camaraderie and egalitarianism that temporarily mitigated against racial divisions.¹ Seafaring was thus empowering for Africans, fostering a potent masculine identity. Walter Hawthorne has argued that this empowerment was evidenced on slave ships, where African seamen “were free to commit depraved acts on shackled women and men.”² The mobility and displacement that characterized the working lives of African seamen engendered the emergence of creolized and hybrid identities. In this world of the multiethnic “Atlantic proletariat” described by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker,³ black seamen exploited new solidarities and ultimately challenged relations of power throughout the Atlantic World.

      Whether or not this positive assessment of black seamen’s early history is overly optimistic, there was a clear deterioration of their status on board colonial merchant vessels with the conversion to steamships from the 1870s onward. The technological innovations behind the transition from sailing to steam engines were accompanied by the replacement of traditional seamen’s work with the work of unskilled labor. Colonial subjects were now hired to fill lower-status positions on board, and a new industrial division of labor emerged. Following the conversion to steam engines, up to 50 percent of African crewmen were engaged in jobs not traditionally found on sailing ships: stoking the engine, housekeeping, and catering. Many seamen deprecated these new shipboard tasks as less than proper seafaring.⁴

      The segregation of African crews into jobs that did not require seafaring skills or training largely erased the “rough equality”⁵ described on sailing ships. From the beginning of the twentieth century, labor hierarchies on board steamships were entrenched in colonial racial ideologies. It was argued that “coloured” men from the tropics were better suited for jobs such as firemen in the engine room, as they were naturally more capable than whites to handle the heat. “Coloured” seamen engaged in ports throughout the British Empire were paid considerably lower rates than white seamen, receiving one-third to one-fifth of a British seaman’s wage, and took on jobs perceived as menial, unskilled, and feminine.⁶ From the beginning of the twentieth century, the unraveling of British maritime dominance as a result of growing international competition only intensified the desire to cut costs by underpaying colonial seamen.⁷

      Nigerian seamen, whose recruitment began during World War II, thus entered a world of shipping that had largely erased any kind of benefits enjoyed by black seamen in the Age of Sail. The working lives of Nigerian seamen in the late colonial era bore the political and ideological imprints of colonialism. Nigerian crews were employed on ships where race largely determined the division of labor and shipboard hierarchies. Difficult working conditions and discrimination ultimately led them to organize their own union, but this body had little success as an effective advocate for improving working conditions. Thus, Nigerian seamen shared a solidarity with colonial seamen recruited throughout the British Empire, united by a political and historical relationship of colonial subordination.⁸ This chapter will outline the beginnings of Nigerian seafaring on British vessels from the end of World War II. We will review the historical circumstances that led to widespread hiring in Lagos, the jobs that seamen performed and the working conditions on board colonial ships, problems of prejudice and discrimination that characterized the working lives of these seamen in the late colonial era, and the early efforts at organizing a Nigerian seamen’s union.

      RECRUITING NIGERIANS: HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND

      European vessels arriving in West Africa in the era of the slave trade were met by fleets of canoes manned by African mariners occupying the coastal regions. Historical records recount the respect and surprise of European seamen at the skillful handling of canoes that enabled Africans to navigate waterways that were impassable by European deep-sea ships.⁹ Certain groups stood out for their competence as mariners and began supplying European crews additional deckhands, navigators, and interpreters. In particular, the Kru, inhabitants of the Liberian coast, impressed the Europeans as expert boatmen, and by the eighteenth century became the main source of local recruits on European ships. Although originating from a heterogeneous collection of fisherman clans on the