Given the interactions between Black slaves and workers with sailors in the various ports of the 18th century, the translation of "Black dockworkers use songs to organize when to lift/pull/haul/stay," to "Sailors think this is a good idea" is a straight line.
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Eventually, Mobile Bay, one of the main cotton outports in the US, gets called a "Shanty Mart." A place where sailors and workers would, in the course of loading, offloading, and leisure, trade songs with each other.
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Moon-faced Assassin of Joy Retweeted Moon-faced Assassin of Joy
The long and short of it is, like most American musical styles, it has a Black pedigree. I've got a thread going more in-depth on shanties here, if y'all would like.https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1063281584256634880?s=20 …
Moon-faced Assassin of Joy added,
Moon-faced Assassin of Joy @NomeDaBarbarianSo my Pirate Tattoo thread was popular last week, so tonight, how about we deal with "Shanties?" GET READY FOR SOME MUSIC TO LISTEN TO ON THE BREAK. A Thread, that I will build slowly as I watch tonight's#CriticalRole. https://twitter.com/NomeDaBarbarian/status/1060740025183174656 …Show this thread5 replies 206 retweets 1,608 likesShow this thread -
Side note - contemporary white authors in the 1800s (when Shanties were still in heavy use) just generally agreed that they were American music with a strong tie to African-American work songs. Quoting William Alden, in 1882:
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"Undoubtedly many sailor songs have a negro origin. They are the reminiscences of melodies sung by negroes stowing cotton in the holds of ships in Southern ports. The "shanty-men," those hards of the forecastle, have preserved to some extent..."
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"...the meaningless words of negro choruses, and have modified the melodies so as to fit them for salt-water purposes." Racism notwithstanding, it's not exactly a thing you can argue.
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Gonna mute for my sanity; I'm glad this took off, instead of what usually gets traction (my shitposts). Lemme say - I grew up with Mountain Music and Bluegrass. Twice a year my dad and I would even cart off to the woods, to Rockbridge or Mt Airy, for Fiddle Festivals.
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And I remember, one year, a conversation about whether a group of Caribbean/Gulf fiddlers "belonged," and it blew my mind, because they were absolutely a part of the musical tradition. And I didn't realize until I was an adult that it was that pesky racism again.
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This is my music. I love it. I love that it's getting love, in this moment. I'd like for folks who might otherwise think of it as a purely white people thing to be able to find connection to it too. And I'd like for white folks to recognize the debt that's owed to Black music.
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I said, in the first post, that Sea Shanties were Black Music. That's true, if not exclusively so. They're also Celt music, just by way of for instance. It might be better to say, that they're American music. And American Music is Black Music. Let's not ignore that. Cheers.
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Thanks so much for this thread - I have learned a thing today! 
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