Help with a summary of the book ( The Waterman's Song; Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina)?

Can someone give me a summary of this book please, I am not sure how to really word the summary after reading this book thanks.|||The Waterman's Song is structured in two parts that reflect Cecelski's dual focus on African American maritime work and its political culture. Part One introduces the reader to North Carolina's black watermen and demonstrates how the independent character of maritime labor tended to undermine the goals of slaveholder dominance. Distance from white oversight, slaveholders' dependence on watermen's skills, and the unpredictability of the work all contributed to "a dynamic tension with a system of human bondage Of Human Bondage (1915) is a novel by William Somerset Maugham. It is generally agreed to be his masterpiece, and to be strongly autobiographical in nature, although Maugham stated in a signed inscription: "This is a novel, not an autobiography, though much in it is


..... Click the link for more information." (p. xx). Cecelski conveys the variety and hierarchy of maritime labor, ranging from the autonomy of African American pilots who guided ships through treacherous shoals to the deadly and exhausting work of enslaved Enslaved may refer to: canal diggers Diggers, members of a small English religio-economic movement (fl. 1649鈥?0), so called because they attempted to dig (i.e., cultivate) the wastelands. They were an offshoot of the more important group of Puritan extremists known as the Levelers.





A contribution in its own right, this first section on the work of North Carolina's watermen is only enhanced by the subsequent connections to black protest and politics. Whereas Part One is structured topically, Part Two is chronologically arranged to highlight the importance of African American watermen and North Carolina's seaports This is a list of the world's seaports: Atlantic Ocean to nineteenth-century black freedom struggles. Although moving unevenly at times between biographical and collective narratives, these chapters convincingly demonstrate the radicalism of skilled black sailors, boatmen, and pilots. Even more important, maritime networks of communication among African American watermen nurtured a collective tradition of political activism that aided fugitives from slavery, turned the tide of Civil War toward emancipation, and emboldened the political strategies of freedpeople in seaport towns. By including North Carolina maritime laborers within the scope of the "revolutionary political tides" of the "black Atlantic" (p. xviii), Cecelski deepens our understanding of both the regional roots and the global dimensions of black southern political activism. Furthermore, Cecelski's focus on coastal North Carolina helps to fill a gap in southern slave society studies that have tended to focus on the Chesapeake and South Carolina/Georgia Low country regions.





One question raised by both the evocative title and rich evidence of The Waterman's Song is the salience in shaping the political culture of North Carolina's black maritime communities. Enslaved and free black women are present in this book as fishers, small boat operators, and herring processors, to name just a few examples. Yet, much of maritime labor took place in a distinctly masculine context. The nature of Cecelski's evidence begs for a connection to the emerging historiography on race, manhood, and nineteenth-century African American politics.





As a whole, The Waterman's Song is an exciting and important study that enriches the historiography of North American North American slave labor as well as the scholarship of nineteenth-century African American politics. Beautifully illustrated and impressively researched, it will appeal to general readers and academic specialists alike.





gatita





Degree in History and Spanish, New Mexico State U. 1990