Menhaden Chanteys an African American Maritime Legacy
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R e s e a rch, Education, Outre a c h Volume 18, Number 1 SPOTLIGHT ON CULTURE Menhaden Chanteys An African American Maritime Legacy BY HAROLD ANDERSON n the Northern Neck region of Vir ginia, a peninsula lying between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers, a group of men in their 70s and 80s L:*Won’t you help me to raise ’em boys O have been keeping alive an uncommon legacy of African American C: Hey, hey, honey worksongs sung on the water. As young men, they worked aboard fishing boats wh e r e they pulled up by hand nets teeming with menhaden from the waters of L: Won’t you help me to raise ’em boys the Chesapeake and Atlantic. From long rowboats, as many as 40 men hauled C: Hey, hey honey in a “purse seine,” a net filled with thousands of pounds of fish. To accomplish L: Won’t you help me to raise ’em boys this back-breaking feat, they sang what were called “chanteys” to coordinate C: See you when the sun goes down their movements. These fishermen’s worksongs could have been heard on boats out of Vir ginia and North Carolina wherever they pursued the great mi- grating schools of menhaden along the Atlantic coast, from New Jersey to the L: Oh the weight’s on the captain’s boat Gulf of Mexico. C: Hey, hey, honey In 1991, William Hudnall organized the Northern Neck Chantey Singers at L: Oh the weight’s on the captain’s boat the request of the Greater Reedville Association and the Association’s Museum Committee — there were two groups of menhaden chantey singers perfo rm i n g C: Hey, hey, honey in North Carolina and the Association hoped to find some singers in Vir ginia for L: Oh the weight’s on the captain’s boat a special July 4th program. Interest in the group has been so great that they’ve C: See you when the sun goes down been perfo r ming ever since. The singers are ret i r ed African American waterme n fr om Northumberland County who worked in the menhaden fishery over a 50- year period beginning in the 1930s, for the oldest of them, and into the 1980s * “L” is sung by the leader; for some of the younger men. All of them worked on the water during the time “C” is sung by the crew. when chanteys were sung. A Maryland Sea Grant Publication Chanteys, continued Chanteys, and worksongs in gen- eral, occupy a special place in African American culture — they are songs that have a function: to make work go better. In the case of the men- haden fishermen, the songs rhy t h m i - cally coordinated the efforts of haul- ing in the nets to bring fish to the su r face where they could then be tr a n s f e r r ed to the holds of the “moth- er” ship. But this simple explanation doesn’t account for the almost inex- plicable quality that the men attribute to the chantey’s effect on their ability to raise an otherwise intractable load. “The harmony brings everybody The Northern Neck Chantey Singers harmonize in William Hudnall’s backyard. From left together on the same chord at the to right are William Hudnall, Edward Taylor, Lloyd Warner, E.B. Chewning, James same time, and that’s what made the Carter, Selby Basker, Ellsworth Landon and Calvin Hill. Members of the group not pic - work easier,” says Hudnall. On the tured are James Cain, William Carter, Eddie Clark, Josh Curry, Richard Tarleton and gr oup’s audiotape, “See You When Captain Charles Winstead. the Sun Goes Down,” Hudnall de- scribes the effect of the chanteys: te r est by folklorists led to their red i s - “Y ou’d be pulling as hard as you pos- covery as a valuable part of maritime L: Oh Chesapeake Bay sibly could pull. And I mean you’d be and musical history. C: My lordy, ain’t no money straining. And you couldn’t get them The Northern Neck has always [fish] to come up at all. Somebody hit been somewhat isolated — separated makin’ country that chantey, and started to get into by water and with no access by rail- L: Oh Chesapeake Bay it. And after awhile you see, here it road, it was traditionally served by C: My lordy, ain’t no money starts coming up. Inch by inch. Inch boats and, in modern times, by makin’ country by inch. After awhile they’d start trucks. The economy in the area de- showing. That’s where you’d see all veloped around the fishing industry L: How do you know? this foam start dripping. You hadn’t — crabs, oysters and especially the C: Oh lordy, how do you know? killed them and they hadn’t killed menhaden fishery. The small town of L: By self experience you. But it was fifty-fifty — you were Reedville, located on the Grea t C: Oh lordy, by self experience nearly dead and so were they.” Haul- Wicomico River at the top of the ing up a light set might not req u i r e a No r t h e r n Neck near the Bay, was chantey, but hauling up a heavy one once known as the menhaden capital menhaden processing plant between could take as much as an hour or of the world. At the turn of the centu- North Carolina and Maine, and is still two of concerted pulling, and success ry the town’s populace had the high- the major port for landings on the At- depended on the rhythms of the est per capita wealth in the United la n t i c . music. States. Between 1873 and 1877 fisher- In a chantey, says Hudnall, “the men in the U.S. harvested 1.7 billion Origins of the Chanteys person calling comes a little before pounds of menhaden. While the The chantey has roots in some of the the others. They are following the catch has declined, the fishery re- earliest African customs brought and le a d e r . They reach when he rea c h e s mains significant. According to the nu r t u r ed by slave populations in the — they all reach together, some National Fisheries Institute, approx i - United States and the Americas. In ahead, some behind. But they all pull mately 40% of annual U.S. Atlantic Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands to g e t h e r .” He likens the call to telling coast commercial landings by weight Lydia Parrish writes of worksongs a horse “git up.” When someone says ar e Atlantic menhaden. Landings for called “shanties or chanteys” sung by “hey,” he knows he’s got to pull. In bait by other fisheries (pound net and African Americans working on planta- the late 1950s, the introduction of the purse seine) account for about 5% of tions near a navigable river, and also hydraulic power block for hoisting total Atlantic catch. In 1997, 657 mil- reports of these being heard in Geor- menhaden nets made the work easier, lion pounds of Atlantic menhaden gia as early as the 1880s. Parrish but signaled the demise of the tradi- we r e caught at a value of $40.1 mil- notes that the chanteys tended to die tion of chantey singing. The songs lion. Reedville remains home to out as the work that demanded them we r e ignored for thirty years until in- Omega Protein, the last rem a i n i n g dwindled. Exactly when chanteys 2 • MARYLAND MARINE NOTES we r e first used for helping men lift known, “sea chanteys” that flourished nets in the menhaden fishery is un- among the crews of 19th century known, though it is likely that the American and British transatlantic practice began when purse seine sailing ships. technology, developed in the north- Chantey singing among menhaden er n states, came to be used in the fi s h e r men, which became widesprea d so u t h e r n states of Vir ginia and North ar ound 1920, rep r esents an adapta- and South Carolina, where African tion of worksongs by African Ameri- American crews and labor were com- cans in various mainland occupations mon at the end of the 19th century. during the late 19th century — lum- The liner notes of the audiotape Reedville bering and mining and building of Northern Neck Chantey Singers, roads, railroads, levees and sailboats. pr oduced by the Vir ginia Folklife Says William Hudnall, “Years ago Pr ogram, provides an excellent histo- they used to work on sailboats and ry of chantey singing by black men- of production: Reedville, Vir ginia and [they would sing as they] caulked. haden fishermen. They tell of a tradi- Beaufort, North Carolina. Such They had a story about a big sail- tion that was little known, prob a b l y chanteys were uncommon in Ameri- boat where they had men lined up, because chanteys were sung only at can commercial fisheries, and men- singing and hammering away. sea by men working in a specialized haden chanteys are for the most part The [big boss] went up and com- fishing industry with only two centers un r elated to traditional, and better plained to the foreman about the Catching Menhaden with a Purse Seine This description of the process of catching menhaden early in the 20th century when the chanteys were still in use is drawn from The Men All Singing: The Story of Menhaden Fishing by John Frye.