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WifCiam Tiffman by Steven W. Jones ··l'f:J1:!'..i'H l'f,"t-lfr\Vf, -nJZ SJ!J.L!JJJZ!J sn:lY;HJlJ, s.1, • '°' J. \\\Ill'\(; ...,1,,.1, ""'" . <•rlnr··il h.• 11 .. /' l'i•'w"I llr1 J!;fT 110 IS I 11 T!Ll•A.. J y,• 8T(001NCU.o·l;,.,.,,, . -.;.,;J,, >l'·' i,,,,,· ,J ch··· 1·
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ea man W illiam T illm an departed New Yo rk C iry o n a hot, windless July day in 186 1, bound fo r South Ameri ca aboard the merchant schoo ner S. j. Waring. Sevenry-rwo hours later, the ship was seized as a pri ze of the Con federacy. T illman stood to lose far more than any of his fell ow shipmates or the owners of the vessel, for he was black.
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"Private-Armed Vessels on High Seas" In answer to Abrah am Lincoln 's declaration of wa r, Jefferso n D avis issued a proclamation on 17 April 186 1. Ir invited all those who may des ire, by service in pri vate-armed vessels on high seas, to aid this Government in resisting so wanto nly wicked an aggression, to make application fo r commissions or letters of marque and rep risal to be issued under the seal of these Co nfederate Stares. T he impact of D avis's call fo r privateers was felt from coastal Maine to the midAd antic. By the fall of 186 1, no rthern sea merchants petitio ned Congress to provide greater naval protectio n fo r their vessels.
Black Men Under Sail Free men of color like W illiam T illman comprised roughly 15 to 20 percent of deepwarer seamen in the fi rs t half of the 19th century. In those years the maritime industry, however fa r from perfect, was more egalitarian and provided more op34
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P. T Barnum spromotional literature invited New Yorkers in to hear Tillman story. (New-York H istorical Society)
portunities fo r blacks than most onshore activities. Before the outb reak of the C ivil War, however, opportunities had become more restricted due to economic and political circu ms tances in the No rth and the So uth . Legislation in the South, beginning with the Negro Seamen Acts in So uth Carolina in 1822, res rricted the movements of free black mariners, requiring them to sit in prisons while their ships were in southern ports. T he number of men of color who ship ped in and our of southern ports fell because of the looming threat of detention and the possibili ry of being enslaved. D espite these hazards, men like T illman wo rked to earn a steady income to support themselves and their fa milies. T illman was born in 1834 in Milford, Delaware, a tow n on the Mispillion River, running to D elaware Bay. It was a prosperous town of approximately 3,500 with a strong h eritage in building coastal merchant craft. The 185 0 state census records a sizable wo rking free black communi ry. According to that census, an Afri can American named John T illman was a waterm an and head of household; however, it is not clear whether John was related ro W illiam . By 1850, W illiam T illman had left D elaware with his parents, and the family eventually serried in Providence, Rhode Island.
A Hot Day in July W illiam Tillman 's employer, Jonas Smith, was a shipping merchant and chandler on
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Front Srreet in lower M anhattan. Jonas Smith & Co. was a prosperous business whose 32 ships plied the northern and southern hemispheres. T illman served as the steward aboard the company's schooner S. j. Waring, a 372-ton vessel built in Brookhaven, Long Island, N ew York, in 1853. T he position of steward was often held by blacks because it was a lowly job. While the seaborne trades offered more employment oppo rtunities to blacks than other industries, nor all positions in seafaring were open to them , and approximately 50 percent of the blacks at sea worked as stewards. Motiva ted less by high adventure and hopes fo r advancement than by finding the best wage, Afri can American seamen roo k the jobs that we re available. T illman , at 27, probably sent most of his wages home to support a family, as did manyofhis contemporaries. Also like many of his fellow sailors, he did not live in the port he sailed from , and probably stayed in one of the more than a dozen boardinghouses for black seamen in lower Manhattan. T here we re nearly 2,5 00 black seamen in New York Ciry by 1855, and the vas t majori ry of them had fa milies who lived elsewhere. As the labor market for seamen grew more competitive, living close to the piers and on the ready increasingly proved essential to securing elusive employment opportun 1t1 ces. In The j{f}urnaf of Commerce for 1 July 186 1, a Bro<0klyn man, Franklin Smith, is SEA HIST ORY 93 , SUMMER 2000