An Untold Story

Boat/US Magazine, July, 1999

A prize-winning new book by W. Jeffrey Bolster, Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail, fills a big gap in Atlantic maritime history. It wonderfully describes the heretofore untold contributions of the tens of thousands of free and enslaved black men who served on board ships in the coastal trade and on deep-sea expeditions in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Inspired by the tales of elderly black sailors in the Caribbean heard while he was a tall ship captain, Bolster vividly details the adventures and experiences of African American sailors throughout the seafaring world. The book is published by Harvard University Press.