David Cecelski
North Carolina Bookwatch

The Waterman’s Song
(The University of North Carolina Press; 2003)
David Cecelski's The Waterman's Song, is the first major study of slavery in the maritime South, chronicling the world of slave and free black fishermen, pilots, rivermen, sailors, ferrymen, and other laborers who 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, the Durham resident intricately weaves 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. In this episode the native of the North Carolina coast shares how boatloads of slaves brought an insurgent, democratic vision into the political maelstrom of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

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