Today I've decided to expand this blog to include race, as there is so little information available about black and Asian seafarers, and because I am so interested in how socially excluded groups get on in that exceptional space, the ship at sea.
I've just been scrolling through a Commonwealth War Grave Commission CD that lists Merchant Navy seafarers who died in WW2. There are hundreds, if not a few thousand, of 'Lascars'. It took me hours to get just through the section for those surnamed Abdul. Asian jobs included Tindall, Topas, Seacunny, Serang, Bhandary, Paniwallah, and Cassab.
If you search on-line bookstores like Amazon just using the search term 'Asian sailors' or 'Lascars' you may have found it hard to uncover any books on Asian seafarers on British ships. So I've just compiled an initial list (all other suggestions welcome), and posted a review of the most overlooked book: Sons of the Empire: Oral history from the Bangladshi seamen who serve on British ships during the 1939-45 War. Compiled and edited by Yousuf Choudury and published by the Sylheti Social History Group in Birmingham in 1995, it's now quite hard to find.
My review for Amazon said "This collection of interviews with 16 Bangladeshi seamen is so valuable, as very little information is available about the thousands of Asian men who worked on British ships. I've just been investigating the (unsung) numbers of them who died in WW2, and this book is great because it shows the human story behind the statistics. It's complete with photos of the men as they were in later life when settled in England. I particuarly liked seeing pictures of the white and Asian women they married, even though I'd have liked more text about such women."
Books on Black and Minority Ethnic Seamen include:
UK
Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers: Life stories of pioneer Sylhetti settlers in Britain, (no editor listed), Tower Hamlets Arts Project, London, 1987.
Yousuf Choudury (compiler and editor) Sons of the Empire: Oral history from the Bangladeshi seamen who serve on British ships during the 1939-45 War. and published by the Sylheti Social History Group in Birmingham in 1995.
Neil Evans, ‘Regulating the Reserve Army: Arabs, Blacks and the Local State in Cardiff, 1919-45’ in Race and Labour in Twentieth Century Britain, edited by Ken Lunn, Frank Cass, 1985, pp.68-115.
Michael H Fisher, Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain 1600-1857, Permanent Black, 2005.
Laura Tabili, ‘We ask for British Justice’: Workers and Racial Justice in Late Imperial Britain, Cornell University Press, 1994.
Laura Tabili, ‘ “A Maritime Race”: Masculinity and the Racial Division of Labor in British Merchant Ships 1900-1939,’ in Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920, edited by Margaret S Creighton and Lisa Norling, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1996, pp 169-188
US
W Jeffrey Bolster, ‘ “Every Inch a Man”: Gender in the Lives of African American Seamen,’ in Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920, edited by Margaret Creighton and Lisa Norling, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1996, pp 189-203.
Yousuf Choudury (compiler and editor) Sons of the Empire: Oral history from the Bangladeshi seamen who serve on British ships during the 1939-45 War. and published by the Sylheti Social History Group in Birmingham in 1995.
Neil Evans, ‘Regulating the Reserve Army: Arabs, Blacks and the Local State in Cardiff, 1919-45’ in Race and Labour in Twentieth Century Britain, edited by Ken Lunn, Frank Cass, 1985, pp.68-115.
Michael H Fisher, Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain 1600-1857, Permanent Black, 2005.
Laura Tabili, ‘We ask for British Justice’: Workers and Racial Justice in Late Imperial Britain, Cornell University Press, 1994.
Laura Tabili, ‘ “A Maritime Race”: Masculinity and the Racial Division of Labor in British Merchant Ships 1900-1939,’ in Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920, edited by Margaret S Creighton and Lisa Norling, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1996, pp 169-188
US
W Jeffrey Bolster, ‘ “Every Inch a Man”: Gender in the Lives of African American Seamen,’ in Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920, edited by Margaret Creighton and Lisa Norling, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1996, pp 189-203.
W Jeffrey Bolster, Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail, Harvard University Press, 1997.
Bernard C Nalty, The Long Passage to Korea: Black Sailors and the Integration of the U.S. Navy, Naval Historical Centre, 2003.
Martha S Putney, Black Sailors: Afro-American Merchant Seamen and Whalemen Prior to the Civil War (Contributions in Afro-American & African Studies), Greenwood Press, 1987
John Darrell Sherwood, Black Sailor, White Navy: Racial Unrest in the Fleet During the Vietnam War Era, New York University Press, 2007.
Adolph W Newton and Winston Eldridge, Better Than Good: A Black Sailor's War, 1943-1945, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis. Naval Institute Press, 1999 (re WW2)
Bernard C Nalty, The Long Passage to Korea: Black Sailors and the Integration of the U.S. Navy, Naval Historical Centre, 2003.
Martha S Putney, Black Sailors: Afro-American Merchant Seamen and Whalemen Prior to the Civil War (Contributions in Afro-American & African Studies), Greenwood Press, 1987
John Darrell Sherwood, Black Sailor, White Navy: Racial Unrest in the Fleet During the Vietnam War Era, New York University Press, 2007.
Adolph W Newton and Winston Eldridge, Better Than Good: A Black Sailor's War, 1943-1945, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis. Naval Institute Press, 1999 (re WW2)
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