Читать книгу Nation on Board - Lynn Schler - Страница 11

1

The Working Lives of Nigerian Seamen in the Colonial Era

THE ORIGINS OF NIGERIAN SEAFARING can be linked to a deeper history of African seafaring in the Atlantic World. The history of economic and political relations between Africa and the Western world was constructed largely by the traffic of ships, passengers, crews, and cargoes crossing the ocean. From the very beginning of international shipping between Africa, Europe, and the New World, Africans were employed to supplement crews on vessels arriving from Europe. This was usually necessary due to the high mortality rate among European seamen, who contracted malaria and yellow fever in large numbers. African recruits, readily available in ports throughout West Africa, provided labor as deckhands, cargo handlers, or translators at a much lower cost than seamen signed on in Europe. Thus, from the very start of seagoing trade between Africa and the West, European shipping companies became dependent upon African labor. African crews were a cheap alternative to European ratings, and shipping companies made continual efforts to maintain this source of labor at the lowest possible cost. For their part, African seamen employed in the transatlantic trade attempted to exploit the economic, social, and cultural opportunities that opened up to them through work on European vessels. This dynamic of mutual dependency, coupled with an attempt of all those involved to maximize opportunities, characterized the history of African seafaring in the Atlantic World from the slave trade throughout the colonial era and the era of decolonization. The entry of Nigerians into the history of African seafaring came only in World War II, but largely followed dynamics and patterns established centuries before.

Historians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have argued that seafaring was empowering for black men and enabled them to overcome prejudices and social hierarchies structuring relations between Europeans and Africans in the era of the slave trade. Out on the open sea, ships brought multiracial crews together in tight quarters, and the collective work on board ships fostered a rare solidarity among black and white sailors that was not possible back in port. According to Jeffrey Bolster, race never fully disappeared on ships, but black seamen enjoyed membership in a deck-based camaraderie and egalitarianism that temporarily mitigated against racial divisions.¹ Seafaring was thus empowering for Africans, fostering a potent masculine identity. Walter Hawthorne has argued that this empowerment was evidenced on slave ships, where African seamen “were free to commit depraved acts on shackled women and men.”² The mobility and displacement that characterized the working lives of African seamen engendered the emergence of creolized and hybrid identities. In this world of the multiethnic “Atlantic proletariat” described by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker,³ black seamen exploited new solidarities and ultimately challenged relations of power throughout the Atlantic World.

Whether or not this positive assessment of black seamen’s early history is overly optimistic, there was a clear deterioration of their status on board colonial merchant vessels with the conversion to steamships from the 1870s onward. The technological innovations behind the transition from sailing to steam engines were accompanied by the replacement of traditional seamen’s work with the work of unskilled labor. Colonial subjects were now hired to fill lower-status positions on board, and a new industrial division of labor emerged. Following the conversion to steam engines, up to 50 percent of African crewmen were engaged in jobs not traditionally found on sailing ships: stoking the engine, housekeeping, and catering. Many seamen deprecated these new shipboard tasks as less than proper seafaring.⁴

The segregation of African crews into jobs that did not require seafaring skills or training largely erased the “rough equality”⁵ described on sailing ships. From the beginning of the twentieth century, labor hierarchies on board steamships were entrenched in colonial racial ideologies. It was argued that “coloured” men from the tropics were better suited for jobs such as firemen in the engine room, as they were naturally more capable than whites to handle the heat. “Coloured” seamen engaged in ports throughout the British Empire were paid considerably lower rates than white seamen, receiving one-third to one-fifth of a British seaman’s wage, and took on jobs perceived as menial, unskilled, and feminine.⁶ From the beginning of the twentieth century, the unraveling of British maritime dominance as a result of growing international competition only intensified the desire to cut costs by underpaying colonial seamen.⁷

Nigerian seamen, whose recruitment began during World War II, thus entered a world of shipping that had largely erased any kind of benefits enjoyed by black seamen in the Age of Sail. The working lives of Nigerian seamen in the late colonial era bore the political and ideological imprints of colonialism. Nigerian crews were employed on ships where race largely determined the division of labor and shipboard hierarchies. Difficult working conditions and discrimination ultimately led them to organize their own union, but this body had little success as an effective advocate for improving working conditions. Thus, Nigerian seamen shared a solidarity with colonial seamen recruited throughout the British Empire, united by a political and historical relationship of colonial subordination.⁸ This chapter will outline the beginnings of Nigerian seafaring on British vessels from the end of World War II. We will review the historical circumstances that led to widespread hiring in Lagos, the jobs that seamen performed and the working conditions on board colonial ships, problems of prejudice and discrimination that characterized the working lives of these seamen in the late colonial era, and the early efforts at organizing a Nigerian seamen’s union.

RECRUITING NIGERIANS: HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL BACKGROUND

European vessels arriving in West Africa in the era of the slave trade were met by fleets of canoes manned by African mariners occupying the coastal regions. Historical records recount the respect and surprise of European seamen at the skillful handling of canoes that enabled Africans to navigate waterways that were impassable by European deep-sea ships.⁹ Certain groups stood out for their competence as mariners and began supplying European crews additional deckhands, navigators, and interpreters. In particular, the Kru, inhabitants of the Liberian coast, impressed the Europeans as expert boatmen, and by the eighteenth century became the main source of local recruits on European ships. Although originating from a heterogeneous collection of fisherman clans on the coast of Liberia, the seamen recruited from this region for work on foreign vessels were commonly identified by European merchants as “Kru.” This labeling took on official status by the Liberian government’s recognition of the Kru ethnic group in the nineteenth century.¹⁰ The emergence of the Kru social construct thus represents the earliest coalescing of African identities and social groupings around maritime employment. The Kru were employed on steamships as deckhands and stevedores moving cargo from ship to shore, and later as firemen and stokers on deep-sea steamships.¹¹ European shipping companies eventually became reliant on these African seamen, and most ships from Europe would stop in Freetown to pick up Kru coal handlers, deckhands, and firemen before continuing down the coast.¹²

The Kru in turn exploited this dependence. They controlled the supply of seamen through a system of labor recruitment based on a headman and his apprentices. Headmen acted as middlemen between seamen and their employers, recruiting laborers from the interior and negotiating terms of employment. Headmen decided who went to sea and for how long, took care of lodging and food, and represented their apprentices in any grievances. The system opened the door to many abuses, and the colonial administration received complaints that crewmen were forced to pay large bribes to headmen in order to get employment on ships. In some cases, in the initial period of employment, the headmen earned the wages of the young men in training and thus amassed considerable wealth and influence for themselves. Headmen took pains to develop personal relations with European captains, who would in turn give them preferential treatment in the process of recruitment. Shipping companies also paid headmen large sums for providing labor. The system was well entrenched by the beginning of the twentieth century, enabling the Kru to establish a near monopoly on the supply of seafaring labor until the Second World War. It was not only the headmen who benefited, and years of specialization and efficient organizing enabled the headmen to continually negotiate for improved terms of employment for all the African crew engaged in Freetown. This earned the Kru a position of relative prosperity, symbolized by the fact that Kru women were never allowed to work outside the home in petty trading or market work, as most other Freetown women did.¹³

Until the period following World War II, European shipping companies overwhelmingly favored this system of labor recruitment based in Freetown because it passed the responsibility for monitoring the labor supply, crew behavior, and work supervision onto the Kru headmen and away from them as employers. The preference for this arrangement substantiates Fred Cooper’s claim that European economic interests prior to World War II preferred to cast African labor in a tribal mold, and argued that even workers migrating to the city should remain subordinated to Native authorities. In proposing that labor remain linked to “a traditional African way of life,” employers and the colonial administration could avoid taking responsibility for masses of “detribalized” Africans.¹⁴ Likewise, rather than acknowledging the proletarianization of the Kru as laborers in a modern, industrialized economy, and thereby clearing the way for potential demands for workers’ rights and benefits, the system of headmen and apprentices enabled shipping companies to abdicate their responsibility for the newly born African working class. Within this model of preserving a premodern workforce, there was no room for trade unions, and British shipping companies, led by the Liverpool-based giant Elder Dempster, refused employment to union members up until World War II.¹⁵

From the end of the nineteenth century, the Elder Dempster company controlled the lion’s share of cargo, mail, and passenger shipping between the United Kingdom and the West African coast.¹⁶ Elder Dempster was founded by Alfred Jones, a one-time clerk who slowly rose to managerial positions in the African Steamship Company in Liverpool. Over the course of the years 1884–1891, Jones gradually orchestrated the merger of six smaller shipping companies to form what would ultimately be known as the Elder Dempster Lines.¹⁷ The shipping company was one of the largest in UK history and, in addition to operating hundreds of deep-sea vessels, also provided small-vessel services to transport cargo and passengers from inland, riverside bases to and between coastal ports. By the time of his death in 1909, Alfred Jones had led Elder Dempster in the establishment of an extensive and integrated transport and storage infrastructure throughout West Africa.¹⁸ The company held a monopoly for carrying mail and coal between the UK and West Africa, and, in addition to shipping, held large interests in banking, agriculture, and the trade in oil, coal, and cement.¹⁹ By 1925, Elder Dempster had a share of 85 percent of the West African Shipping Conference, which controlled all trade to and from West Africa.

Until the outbreak of World War II, Elder Dempster routinely recruited the Kru of Freetown as supplemental labor for their ships. But the war increased demands on the company, as their headquarters in the port cities of West Africa oversaw ship repairs, in addition to handling the increase in cargo activity associated with the war.²⁰ Janet Ewald has argued that in times of hardship, European shipping companies historically sought out fresh sources of “coloured” seamen to recruit throughout the maritime world, and tapped them to offset rising costs of labor.²¹ The acute need for seamen pushed Elder Dempster to begin hiring in Nigeria, where the company could enjoy several advantages. In Lagos, European shipping companies readily found ratings at much cheaper rates than in Freetown. The Nigerians were initially hired directly by representatives of the shipping companies, and came from a wide range of ethnic groups including Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw, and Urhobo. The multiethnic Nigerians lacked the deep-rooted headman system for organizing seamen that the Kru had developed over decades. During the war, the shipping companies came to see this as an advantage. There were growing concerns that the Kru recruitment system had become increasingly corrupt with the additional demand for seamen. According to Diane Frost, the Trades Union Congress Colonial Advisory Committee received a complaint from Sierra Leone during the war concerning the increasing abuses and improprieties in the system of Kru recruitment. It was claimed that the practice of bribery intensified as a result of increasing demands for labor. Thus, Frost wrote, “the Wages Board was so disturbed by the amount of bribery and corruption characteristic of headmen recruitment that it was suggested the Labour Department should take over responsibility for it.”²² Following the war, it was decided that recruitment in the ports of West Africa would be under the control of the Port Labour Board rather than headmen. Bribes were no longer allowed, and shipping companies filled vacancies on board ships through official employment exchanges.

Elder Dempster’s move to hire in Lagos was thus designed to circumvent the highly organized and increasingly corrupt Kru establishment in Freetown. Shipping companies seized upon the opportunity to cut costs by hiring in Lagos, and Elder Dempster established a four-tiered pay scale during World War II: at the bottom were Nigerians recruited in Nigeria, then Africans recruited in Freetown, then Africans employed from Liverpool, and finally European seamen who were paid the National Maritime Board rates.²³ The discrimination Nigerians faced did not go unnoticed by seamen, as one recalled, “In the shipping world, we were the most poorly paid seamen.”²⁴ Sierra Leone officials complained to the Colonial Office that Elder Dempster’s new methods of recruiting “cheap labour” in Lagos were “deplorable,” and left many skilled seamen in Freetown without jobs.²⁵ Officials in Lagos, on the other hand, were highly supportive of the move. The 1942 governor of Nigeria, Sir Alan Burns, did not see any reason to protest the cheap wages, and instead expressed great enthusiasm for Elder Dempster’s new hiring policy. He wrote, “The development which has taken place is natural and inevitable and provides opportunities of employment for the more adventurous spirits in Nigerian which cannot well be denied them.”²⁶

But while the Nigerians were a cheap alternative, hired to undercut Kru wages and terms of employment, the shipping companies initially paid a price for the lack of experience that characterized Nigerian crews in the early years. Many Nigerians recruited during the war lacked the knowledge and training required to successfully fulfill their responsibilities on board.

In some cases, recruits claimed that they were completely uninformed or even misled by shipping companies about the work for which they were being recruited. In one archival account, two Nigerian boys at the age of secondary school jumped ship in Liverpool and were eventually intercepted by an immigration officer, who reported, “They told me they were recruited by Elder Dempster. A Mr. Dyson, a European employed by the Company, came to their homes and told them that the Government needed men to go on ships and suggested to them that they might like to take the journey to England.”²⁷ Fresh recruits such as these were completely lacking in skills needed on board, and some captains began to complain about the new hiring policy.²⁸ Ships were slowed down or nearly stalled at sea when inexperienced Nigerian firemen did not feed the boilers properly. As one Kru seaman recounted, a British captain who went to recruit in Lagos during a wartime strike in Freetown paid dearly for taking on the inexperienced Nigerian crew: “Was a captain called J. J. Smith of Elder Dempster, he said, okay if Sierra Leoneans don’t want the job, I’m taking my ships to Nigeria—took all the ships to Nigeria to start taking Nigerians. This Elder Dempster got three sister ships with 21 fires. So these Nigerian they can’t stand it, they can’t fire the ships! From Lagos to Takoradi, they don’t fit. They have to send to Freetown back.”²⁹

ROUTINE AND RISKS IN THE AFRICAN SEAMAN’S WORK

As employees of British shipping companies in the colonial era, Nigerian seamen performed a range of duties on board cargo vessels and passenger ships known as mail boats. The workforce of the steamship was divided into three distinct crews: sailors on deck, firemen and trimmers in the engine room, and stewards in the catering and housekeeping departments.³⁰ The three departments were strictly demarcated, and seamen were trained for specific positions.

According to Diane Frost, most of the Africans recruited for work on European vessels worked as deckhands, which included both maintenance chores and cargo handling. Deckhands did stevedoring work, which involved loading and discharging cargo at ports of call. Before the container shipping industry emerged in the 1960s, boxes and bundles of goods of various types and sizes were used to transport cargo, and despite some technical innovations involving derricks and winches, the system was slow and inefficient. The labor-intensive process could take several days, and ships could spend more time at port than at sea while dockers and seamen unloaded and loaded cargo. Upon arriving in port, deckhands removed the hatches, rigged the booms and falls, and began the work of swinging the ship’s cargo out upon the pier. Prior to the mechanization of the loading and unloading processes, seamen also carried cargo on and off vessels. As soon as compartments were emptied and cleaned, crews began loading the outbound freight that was waiting on the pier. The coal gang took on the laborious task of filling the ship bunkers with the fuel.³¹ Although considered unskilled labor, the work of cargo handlers was at times very dangerous and required caution in dealing with the machinery moving heavy loads. Seamen could be seriously injured, crushed to death, or knocked overboard by loads that were poorly secured or mishandled. Some seamen interviewed described the difficulty of handling cargo on deck in the bitter cold of winter in Europe.³² In West Africa, African deckhands were hired “to save white seamen from exposure to the sun and mosquito-infested swamps.”³³ While at sea, deckhands worked on upkeep and repair of the ship, with chores including painting, overhauling gear, rust removal, and cleaning. Scrubbing the deck was also a task performed each morning. Diane Frost described a job that was known as holystoning “because the men cleaning the deck did it on their knees. The decks were sprinkled with water and then sand. Krooboys would kneel four abreast (if the ship was wide enough), each kneeling on a small pad, and push up and down a piece of sandstone the size of a house brick.”³⁴

The work of the stewards and catering crews varied with the size and type of ship. Cargo ships needed only a small catering department that was responsible for feeding the crew. On passenger ships, the responsibilities of the stewards were far more extensive, but most of the work centered around housekeeping and personal service. Stewards cleaned cabins, did laundry, and attended to the personal needs of passengers when necessary. They also prepared and served food, and cleaned up afterward. While these jobs were less dangerous and demanding than those of deckhands, stewards were exposed to demeaning attitudes of passengers and European crews. This could be seen in the following description of an African steward by a British ocean-liner passenger: “The first-cabin passenger is apt to look upon the steward as not exactly human. To him the steward is an automaton who serves deftly and silently, appears at the right moment, anticipates wants, and when not wanted keeps out of sight, but within call.”³⁵

The seamen who worked “down below” were responsible for the boiler rooms and coal bunkers. Work in the engine rooms was the most physically challenging on the ship. The firemen were responsible for firing the boilers and keeping up steam by shoveling coal into the furnaces. Firemen worked in two four-hour shifts, four hours on and eight hours off. Stoking a steam engine with coal was dirty work, and firemen and trimmers were known as the “Black Gang” because of their work with the coal.³⁶ As Laura Tabili described it, the engine room was “hotter than hell,” and had up to twenty boilers with three to four fires each. At each boiler worked a fireman, who threw coals on the fire and sliced them with a hundred-pound iron bar to keep them burning.³⁷ A 1900 account of the firemen’s work describes the perils of the engine room:

A stoker works four hours at a stretch, and during that time the temperature of his surroundings varies from 120 degrees to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. One stoker usually has four furnaces to attend to, and while feeding one furnace a man has to be extremely careful or his arm may be burned by the furnace behind him. As a rule a man is occupied about three minutes at each furnace, and directly he has finished he rushes to the air pipe and waits until his turn comes again. The intense heat of the furnaces has sometimes rendered stokers temporarily insane, and there are many cases on record where they have jumped overboard after having made their way to the deck.³⁸

For every three firemen, the stokehold watch carried two coal trimmers, who provided coal to the firemen and had to work quickly to make sure that there was always a pile of coal within reach of the fireman’s shovel. Trimmers had the most difficult job of all, working quickly to supply firemen with a constant supply of coal while struggling with the heat and coal dust. A British seaman, David Simpson, gave a vivid description of their work: “Trimmers have always had the dirtiest and the most physically demanding jobs on the ship—the absolute bottom of the engineering hierarchy. Needless to say—they received the lowest pay.”³⁹ Trimmers would wheelbarrow the coal from the bunkers and drop it on plates at the firemen’s feet. They were in constant motion, moving coal and “trimming” each pile into evenly arranged groupings, ready for the fireman’s shovel. They also took away ash and raked out the ashpits and fires, cleaned and degreased machinery, and painted the engine room when necessary. In short, trimmers did “any unpleasant and filthy job you can think of that didn’t require the touch of a skilled or semi-skilled rating.”⁴⁰ The trimmers’ responsibilities kept them working even when the ship docked, as Simpson explained: “While in port, most of the crew could count on ‘going ashore’ at one time or another—and blow off a little steam. Unfortunately for the trimmers, when the ship is ‘bunkering,’ they had to stow the coal being loaded and trim as the coal was loaded and moved about—with nothing more than a wet rag tied over their face to keep the choking dust out of their lungs. All, of course, under the watchful eye of the chief engineer.”⁴¹

The division of labor on board ships on Europe-Africa routes was largely determined by race. Until the final years of colonialism, and the establishment of the Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL), the officers in each of the departments were Europeans. In the engine room, the chief engineer and the second, third, and fourth engineers were all Europeans. On deck, the chief mate, as well as the first, second, and third mates and the boatswain and carpenters, was also European. Finally, in the catering department, there was a European chief steward, second steward, and cook.⁴² In the colonial era, the vast majority of Africans worked as ordinary seamen, stewards, firemen, and trimmers, and virtually no Africans rose to the rank of officer before the final years of colonial rule.⁴³ As will be seen in chapter 5, the lack of officer training among Africans in the colonial era meant that initially Europeans had to fill the top-ranking positions on the ships of the Nigerian National Shipping Line. The establishment of the national line finally opened the way for large numbers of Nigerian seamen to become officers, but it took several years before any ships were fully under the command of Nigerians, leaving some ratings to wonder what had actually changed.

Throughout the colonial era, African seamen worked on the average ten hours a day, with the workday beginning at 5:00 a.m. and finishing normally at 5:00 p.m. Hours varied with the types of vessels, and fluctuated over a journey according to the work at hand. On mail boats, African crews worked a 60-hour week, or 120 hours over 14 days. On cargo ships, the workweek was 45 hours long, with an average of 135 hours worked over a period of 22 days.⁴⁴ But routinely, seamen were forced to work overtime. This was particularly the case when there was cargo to load and unload. Some seamen recalled working for twenty-four hours at a time as British captains pushed the crew to finish the work in order to get on with the voyage. Diane Frost quoted one Kru seaman as saying: “Sometime the captain in a rush to go to England so we start at 530 am and finish at 1200 am.”⁴⁵ Shipping companies did not pay for overtime, and as will be seen, this became the single greatest complaint among Nigerian seamen in their protest against British management.

For African seamen signed on in West Africa, wages were considerably lower than for those signed on in England. According to Diane Frost, a fireman engaged in 1940 in West Africa earned £6 a month, while West African firemen engaged in Liverpool earned £12, and white firemen earned £16. Shipping companies rationalized these differences by claiming that the cost of living was lower in Africa. But the disparities angered seamen; as one explained, “There was a big difference between the salaries of the European crew and the African crew. What often bothered us is that we are all working on a ship, and if an accident should happen, it does not know whether you are a black man or white man.”⁴⁶ Wages also varied between the crew departments, with firemen earning the highest wages, followed by able-bodied seamen, and then trimmers and ordinary seamen.⁴⁷

The length of voyages varied according to the types of ships, with cargo ships taking longer than passenger ships to make the journey to Europe. Making frequent stops to load and unload cargo, these ships were slower than passenger ships that kept to a fixed schedule. Some seamen preferred to work for cargo vessels, as the voyages were longer and more wages could be earned. During the colonial era, African seamen signed articles as “running agreements,” for up to six months; or “voyage” articles, lasting for up to two years.⁴⁸ For many seamen, the waiting time in between signing articles was very difficult, as they were not paid for the months ashore. Seamen could be dropped in England at the end of the voyage, and many stayed on, usually in Liverpool, for months or years in between articles. It was commonplace for seamen to take up shore work, and some stayed on permanently in the UK. In most cases, seamen were away from home for months, or even years, at a time. Some welcomed this as an opportunity to spend time in England and other destinations around the world. But there was also much difficulty and uncertainty associated with this type of employment. Voyages could be suspended in ports around the world due to repairs or delayed because of cargo. Thus, one seaman reported waiting in Bremen, Germany, for six months while his ship was being repaired.⁴⁹

For families back home, seamen’s terms of employment posed many difficulties. Seamen were regularly away from home for three to six months at a time, but some reported staying abroad for years in between journeys.⁵⁰ Seamen’s wives had to manage all the affairs of the household, and they faced many difficulties, often without their husbands’ knowledge. As one woman said, “It was not easy at all. I was doing the work that was meant for two people in the family.”⁵¹ Another claimed, “I tried to cope as a wife and mother of my children, but it was not easy for me. I had to be determined in such a situation.”⁵² Women interviewed reported giving birth to their children while husbands were away, and having to deal with sickness and economic hardships all alone. One woman recalled, “I had babies born while he was away. I even had a stillbirth because he was away for eight months and there is no money to take care of myself, even to buy medicine. Nobody came to help me.”⁵³ Many wives complained that they had to rely on help from their extended families and neighbors in times of need. One woman sought help from local churches: “Particularly when he traveled to Congo and there was a lot of fighting over there and no letter from him, I was very worried. I just had a baby during this period and also lost one child and he was away for about nine months. It was very tough. I was just moving from one church to another seeking solutions to different sickness the kids were having.”⁵⁴ Women also had to deal with loneliness and isolation; as one woman said, “I always tell my husband because of my lonely staying, I don’t feel any happiness. I feel very, very bad, extremely bad. One year plus and your husband will not get to his house.”⁵⁵ The long absences were particularly difficult for children, one seaman’s wife explained: “It was very difficult for them because it was like having a parent that you do not know much about his identity. Because, the father came in for about one or two months, then go back again for a very long time. It was not for them at all.”⁵⁶ When they finally returned home, seamen’s families had to readjust to a new reality. Some even reported that children did not recognize their fathers. As one woman recounted:

At the initial stage it was very difficult. I couldn’t explain so many things to the children. When the last two children, though they are a bit big now, two years after he left, he came back and I was at the market at that time. They did not allow him to enter the house. He explained to them that he is their father but they told him they had no father. Even my sister who was living with me tried to explain but they refused. It was when their elder sister came back from school and welcomed him, saying, “Daddy welcome,” that they calmed down and allowed him to enter the house. After settling down, they asked him why he left for so long and he told them he went to look for garri [cassava flour] for them to eat. They objected and led him to the kitchen to show him buckets of garri, rice, beans and other foodstuffs and told him that mummy has provided them. When he went back to work after the holiday, he decided to send his pictures home so that the children can know him very well.⁵⁷

For seamen’s wives and families, there was the additional hardship of worrying about their husbands in this risky line of work, and going long periods without hearing any news of their well-being or whereabouts. Ship work could be dangerous, and many accidents took place, particularly around loading and unloading cargo. Seamen also fell overboard and drowned, and many suffered chronic diseases such as kidney disease, heart failure, and tuberculosis.⁵⁸ As F. J. Lindop explained, “Exposure to all weathers, overcrowding, inadequately ventilated accommodation, poor food and negligible medical provision aboard ship and a dissipated life ashore took a toll in health.”⁵⁹ When accidents on ships were reported, wives and families were very worried, and they often had great difficulty in verifying which ships their husbands were on and if they were safe. Some of the women felt that a seaman’s line of work was not worth all the hardship. One said: “The work is a life-threatening job and there is very little money with all the risk involved. Is this a good job?”⁶⁰ When asked if she would allow her son to become a seaman, another woman said, “Never. God will never allow a bad thing to happen to my children and family. Working as a seaman in this Nigeria is a bad thing.”⁶¹

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND VIOLENCE ON COLONIAL SHIPS

Nigerian seamen working on colonial ships often faced miserable working conditions, replete with racial discrimination and dehumanizing treatment. The archives abound with incidents of discrimination against black seamen on the part of both European crews and officers. Many black seamen suffered physical abuse, name-calling, and random punishments by the officers they served under, and group beatings or other violent attacks by white seamen. Often, these incidents would land black seamen in the hospital, but the majority suffered these abuses and remained on board, lacking any record or verifiable proof against those who perpetrated these crimes. African seamen who did seek justice usually came up against an uninterested or unconvinced captain, and when it was a case of a black seaman’s word against that of a white seaman, there was little hope that any justice would be served. In one letter of protest, seamen complained to the shipping company that the provocations led Africans to respond with violence for which they, and not the white crews, were ultimately punished:

The habit of several white seamen, as we said, is to collectively beat up on African crew. We protest against this, because it can lead to a situation where African Seamen can join forces to retaliate white seamen, leading to developments of unpleasant proportions. Captains do not call into evidence African crews to refute or say what leads to reports against them by white crews. . . . The mode of addressing them employed by white seamen borders on provocation. It is sometimes so appalling that they are confused or annoyed to point of disobedience and as soon as this happens, the report reaches the Captain divorced of the circumstances under which the disobedience occurred.⁶²

In the colonial era, crews were generally segregated, with blacks and whites occupying separate quarters. They often ate in separate areas, and African seamen complained that they were served poor-quality food compared to Europeans. This segregation was the result of a ship hierarchy based on the intersections of race and class biases. Thus, ship hierarchies drew clear distinctions between officers and the rank and file, and in most vessels, these distinctions also coincided with racial difference. Opportunity for advancement in the hierarchy was reserved for Europeans only, as representatives of seamen complained in 1959, “No African seamen . . . irrespective of their number of years are in responsible posts. We always serve in a subordinate role. The African seamen who do the same type of work as white crews cannot share equal advantages with them in the sphere of working conditions, after many years of contribution to the progress of the Companies.”⁶³ White officers ate better food, lived in superior accommodations, and enjoyed unlimited rations of cigarettes and beer. The officers socialized in their own bar, which was better furnished than that of regular seamen. While hierarchies such as these were not explicitly racist, African seamen were keenly aware of the connections between race, class, and status on colonial ships. Seamen’s perceptions of discrimination touch upon these intersections; as one explained: “If you talk about maltreatment from the European officers, it was general. They prevented us from their quarters.”⁶⁴

In ports of call, the situation was not better, and seamen’s missions were segregated by race. In times of illness and hospitalization, African seamen complained that shipping companies did not give the same treatment to blacks as to whites, as can be seen in the following complaint filed by seamen in 1958: “When an African seaman is stranded, due to no fault of their own, proper care is not taken of them. When Mr. J. Woin, deckboy in a cargo boat, was sick on December 3, 1958, he was discharged after seven days in Victoria hospital. The shipping master at Victoria gave him 3 newspapers to sleep on in the streets. This is a sample of the sort of action which makes cooperation sometimes absurd. We are not sure that the shipping master would serve 3 newspapers to any white crew for supper or sleeping pillows.”⁶⁵

Nigerian seamen suffered racist attacks by white crews, but the racialized hierarchies on board ships meant that captains and officers would often side with European crews in times of conflict. The officers themselves were also accused of making racist remarks toward African crews. As seamen’s representatives complained in 1958, “We know of instances where officers have told African crews quite openly that they hate not only them but Africans on the whole.”⁶⁶ European officers were known to abuse their power in requiring Africans to work overtime for them personally. For these types of jobs, the payment was usually in kind, but sometimes Africans were not paid at all. This could be left to the officer’s discretion, as one captain explained: “The chief steward may wish to have a storeroom cleared out, or have the inside of the storeroom alleyway painted. He would be paid in goods—in rice and biscuit. Likewise, the chief or second steward would have their laundry done for free or rather would pay the head washman in rice or biscuit.”⁶⁷ The practice of asking African crews to do personal work for white officers was a source of great contention, as one seaman recalled: “It was a long story. That is why I said there was maltreatment by the white officers. The chief steward used to bring his car to the dock and he asked one of the black stewards to wash his car. We all resisted and refused to obey because the car in question was not the company’s car, but a personal one. If you want to wash your car, take it to the car wash and pay them. The steward wanted to wash his during the working hours and at free of charge too. We said, we weren’t doing that again.”⁶⁸

African seamen were not always so empowered to resist the discriminatory practices of officers. This was painfully evident on the MV Egori, when, in 1958, the Nigerian crew complained bitterly of the racist attitudes of Captain Everall. After many reports of abuse, seamen in Lagos refused to sign articles with him, and a representative of the seamen went on board to investigate the matter. In a report to Elder Dempster, it was claimed that the entire crew complained of Everall’s “hatred and wickedness towards members of the African crew.” The crew was particularly angered by the captain’s demand that they work long hours of overtime, with no breaks, on the weekends. According to the report, the captain met with the seamen’s representative, and assured him that the seamen would cease to work from Saturdays at 1300 until Monday morning. The seamen were told of the promise and signed articles on the ship. But once at sea, the captain ordered them to work for the whole weekend. The seamen asked the captain about his promise, and, according to the report, “he turned round to ask them whether they have known of any Englishman who has kept his promise to a black man? They informed him that the man he was talking about happened to be their President. The captain then asked, he is a black man. Is he not?” They offered the captain to work all day Saturday to finish the tasks at hand so that they might have Sunday off. The captain agreed and they worked as hard as they could, finishing all the work by 1700. Yet, on Sunday, the captain called them up to start work again. The African seamen reported, “This man then said that Africans have been serving Englishmen for centuries and that he wants to inform them that the cities of Liverpool, Manchester and London were not only built by African slaves but by the profit made by selling them to the American planters. He continued to say that he would use them as he pleased and they were already committed by signing the Article.” The seamen refused to work, and the captain called in the police from Takoradi, Ghana, when they were in port. The men were arrested in Ghana, fined, and banned for over six months. At their trial, the local magistrate asked the captain whether or not the African crews were being paid for their overtime, and whether or not European crews were paid for overtime. The captain replied that only the Europeans were paid for overtime, and that this was the policy of ED Lines and he could not change it.⁶⁹

The incident demonstrates the vulnerability of rank-and-file seamen to the abuses of power by European officers. Regular crew were also victims of abuses committed by the very few African seamen who rose to positions of power on board such as head stewards. Owning their positions of privilege to their proximity to the European officers, these headmen could not always be counted on to represent the needs of the rank-and-file seamen. Thus, on the MV Accra in 1959, seamen complained to their head steward, Joseph Akintayo, that there was not enough food being fed to the African crew. Akintayo did not pass this information on to the chief steward, and following a lack of action, the crew went directly to complain to the chief steward themselves. This breaking of rank infuriated Akintayo, and they reported, “He jumped from the cabin and abused all of us and came back after five minutes with porthole keys and broke the door of the cabin for we locked the door because he made a lot of noise after he had gone out. He used porthole keys, axes, and knives to chase us.” The problem was resolved only when the captain intervened. He reported to the shipping company that there was indeed not enough food for the African crews, and he arranged for more supplies.⁷⁰

UNION ORGANIZING

Nigerian seamen did not remain passive in the face of what they perceived as unjust treatment. Colonial shipping companies had imagined that the Nigerians would be more easily exploited than the Kru because they were less organized than their Sierra Leonean counterparts, and they lacked the same experience in labor contract negotiating. What the colonial employers did not anticipate was the quick turnaround among the Lagos-based recruits from easily exploited and inexperienced manpower to agents of industrial discord and protest. Sir Alan Burns reported that two unions for seamen and shipping workers were already registered in Nigeria in 1942.⁷¹ In the early years, the seamen’s union was hardly a broad-based organization, with membership dropping to an all-time low of six in 1946. But the Nigerian Union of Seamen underwent reorganization in 1947. Following this spirit of revival was a swift climb in dues-paying membership, reaching 2,250 by 1953. The union’s declared objectives remained the same from the earliest years: to protect the interests of its members, regulate work hours and wages, ensure adequate accommodation for all seamen on vessels and ashore, to promote the general welfare of seamen, and to regulate relations between employers and employees.⁷²

At first Elder Dempster attempted to avoid any recognition or contact with the organization. But suddenly, in 1948, in what appeared to be a stark turnaround, Elder Dempster conceded recognition of the Nigerian Union of Seamen as the sole representative of seamen engaged in Lagos. This conciliation was followed by several years of limited contact. But in 1952, the two sides formed a local board with representation from the union, the shipping companies, and local government to monitor the recruitment and supply of seamen working out of Lagos.⁷³ The board was to establish and maintain a register of seamen, and West African ratings were to be recruited only from those whose names were on the register. Both parties agreed that all matters pertaining to Nigerian seamen should be decided in Lagos. Cooperation began in earnest in 1954, when representatives of the Nigerian Union of Seamen met with Tom Yates of the National Seamen’s Union in Britain, and the British union helped to negotiate an effective working relationship between the Nigerian seamen and the British shipping lines.⁷⁴

The change in the shipping companies’ position toward the Nigerian seamen’s union was in line with an overall shift in colonial policy toward African labor unions in the post–World War II period. A wave of strikes across the continent forced colonial governments and business interests to make some concessions in their stance toward organized labor. But while recognizing the need for reform, Fred Cooper has argued that governments and employers “wanted to confine the labor question to a set of institutions and practices familiar to them from the industrial relations experience of the metropole: to treat labor as [separate] from politics. The threat of a labor crisis becoming unbound—linked to people other than waged workers . . . made governments especially willing to pay the costs of resolving labor issues [through recognized unions].”⁷⁵

In the case of the Nigerian Union of Seamen, the shipping company fully engaged with the union following a formal request from the colonial Labour Department in Lagos in 1952. While reluctant to comply at first, officials in the shipping company ultimately came to the conclusion that cooperation with the union would be the most efficient means for dealing with labor disputes. The local agent wrote, “Whilst we are still far from satisfied that the present officers of the Union are responsible and trustworthy persons, there has of late admittedly been a marked improvement in their demeanor and attitude, and the resumptions of Meetings of the Board would provide a means of negotiation preferable to attempts by the Union to send deputations on the slightest pretext.”⁷⁶ To ensure that the union would not be any source of real agitation, the shipping company nurtured good relations with union officers and provided them with special benefits that would ultimately prevent these officers from agitating for the union. This could be seen in 1956, when the general secretary of the union, Franco Olugbake, wrote to the managing director of Elder Dempster to inquire about a new job with better pay at the United Africa Company. He wrote:

I have no alternative but to continue to hang on to my present employment—the seamen. What was more, I can not help but to keep the job, even though the salary is anything but compatible with my status in life. My Executive, knowing full well that my efforts to land another job seem gloomy, they tied me to all sort of conditions. For instance, my Executive pressed on me to agitate for the question of overtime, etc. I had to do this reluctantly. I had to write a memo covering overtime, Sundays as sea and holidays—you will probably see it.⁷⁷

In developing a close relationship with the union leadership, Elder Dempster hoped to ensure that unrest among seamen remained at a minimum.

Thus, the decision to engage with the Nigerian Union of Seamen was a calculated attempt at making limited yet controlled concessions to Nigerian seamen, but did not represent any fundamental shift in the shipping companies’ views on seamen’s rights, and the whole endeavor was undertaken with a frustrated yearning for the good old prewar days when African seamen had not yet awoken to claim their rights. As one Elder Dempster official wrote in 1959, “We have looked through the rules of the Nigerian Union of Seamen. . . . It is a shocking document and much of what the Union appears to be aiming to do could not possibly be accepted by the [shipping] lines. I am referring to ship committees and so forth. I suppose in the old days there would have been someone in Nigeria who would have told the Unions not to be silly in framing rules of this kind, but I do not know whether there is anyone bold enough or authoritative enough to do so at the present time.”⁷⁸

The document this official was referring to was the Rules of the Union, formulated and submitted to the shipping companies in 1959. These rules were aimed at regulating the internal workings of the union, and formalized procedures such as elections, dues collection, and the running of general assemblies. The union’s rules also made it a priority to maintain harmony among seamen and reduce incidents of tribalism, corruption, and conflict. But the detailed document was largely focused on a long set of demands and ideological positions taken by the union toward the shipping companies. The Rules of the Union called for improved working conditions, salary increases, the payment of overtime, and the upgrade of accommodations on board ships. The issue of hiring and recruitment was also raised, with the union calling for the institution of a closed shop. This demand was totally unacceptable to officials at Elder Dempster, who insisted that shipping companies reserved the right to select seamen according to personal ability and availability, regardless of their union membership.⁷⁹ The shipping companies were also strongly opposed to crews organizing representative bodies on ships. The union had proposed electing a “ship’s committee” on board each vessel that would “settle all minor matters or disputes between European crews and African crews on board ships; settle all minor matters or disputes between the representatives of the shipping companies and the African crews on board ships; and try to settle all minor matters or disputes between one African and another or one group of African crews and another group.”⁸⁰ This proposition was preposterous to the officials at Elder Dempster, who argued that the hierarchy of the ship was based on an established chain of command, with the captain the ultimate commander, and this would not be compromised by the establishment of elected seamen’s committees.

The most fundamental point of contention between the shipping companies and the seamen’s union emerged around allegations of racism. The existence of racism on ships was clearly acknowledged in the union’s rules, which demanded that “the committee should see to it that the African crews are not misused or unduly insulted because of the colour of their skin, which is a common practice on board ships.”⁸¹ This was an issue of immense sensitivity among officials at Elder Dempster, and they categorically rejected any allegations of racism on board their ships. They refused to even engage in any dialogue around the subject, and consequently would take no steps to stop it. Thus, while the shipping company had begrudgingly recognized the union, the ways in which they dealt with the explosive issue of racism on board demonstrates that the shipping company still hoped to limit and frame the terms of debate between shipping company officials and union representatives. For Elder Dempster, the issue of racial discrimination or prejudice was completely off-limits, and officials went to great efforts to strike the allegations from the lists of complaints and demands made by the union.

For seamen and their representatives, racism was a pervasive and inescapable feature of life on board colonial vessels. One seaman interviewed said, “On the British ships, you may be lucky to meet a nonracist. Your right is recognized and is given to you, but they don’t mingle easily.”⁸² Time and again, the issue was raised by union leadership in meetings and correspondence with Elder Dempster officials. Thus, in a letter written by union officer Akpan Monday in 1958, it was reported that “Africans are ill-treated by the English seamen with whom they work and ‘their so-called superior officers.’” He described several incidents when African crewmen were beaten by gangs of English seamen, and claimed that these incidents were reported but nothing was done about them. “In each case, the culprits went free without even receiving a warning.” Akpan provided vivid descriptions of racial violence against black seamen on several voyages and the lack of response from officers on board:

On the Aureol’s last trip, an English sailor threw hot water on the back of Mr. S. Ikpi, an African greaser. When Ikpi turned around and asked why, he was attacked by five other English sailors. When he ran to the Engine room for help, the officer said he was busy and could not come. Another African seaman was called a “bastard nigger” by the chief store keeper. When he reported this to the chief steward, the chief steward defended the store keeper. . . . This goes to show that whatever the black man says, right or wrong, he is always wrong in the eyes of the white man who is always prepared to defend his white brothers.⁸³

The shipping companies’ refusal to acknowledge racial discrimination on board ships infuriated the seamen’s union. They claimed that management’s denial of the problem allowed it to continue unabated, and this inaction was in fact at the root of the problem. This could be seen in an impassioned letter from General Secretary Sidi Khayam, submitted to Elder Dempster in 1959. Khayam claimed that white crews had made a hobby out of provoking African crews, but because of their close relations with the European captains, they were never punished for it. On the contrary, Khayam claimed, those black seamen who filed complaints against white seamen were blacklisted from further employment. He claimed that the situation was unbearable for African crews, “when they realize they have no possibility of defense before the shipping master.” Under these circumstances, Khayam charged that the shipping company must stop denying that racism existed on board ships, and take measures to put a stop to it. He wrote:

Our Union first of all, wants to express its concern for the continued denial that there is no discrimination whereas actual fact everyone realizes that it is there. If the shipping companies refuse to recognize that discrimination exists, then they cannot see the need to ask white crews to stop the habit. It will be very difficult for you to enjoy the confidence of African crews when you dismiss the reality of discrimination, which occurs almost in every ship, when many white crews are well known for their attitudes towards Africans. You must admit that we are not in a position to gain anything by manufacturing imaginary stories which have not happened, you will also agree that the situation must be so desperately disappointing that special emphasis is always placed by the Union about it whenever we approach you. This problem is daily becoming more complex. The treatment is so miserable that it is now psychologically resulting in conflict, quarrels, near-tension which finally are put in other forms as delinquency on part of African crews.⁸⁴

These impassioned pleas made little impact on Elder Dempster officials. General Manager Glasier came to Lagos in late 1959 to demand that “all talk about racial hatred must cease.” According to notes from a meeting between the union and management, Glasier complained that over the last two months, difficulties had culminated with “certain letters.” The shipping company official rejected their contents, as the meeting notes read: “Mr. Glasier said that never in all the years of his experience with Trade Unions had he ever received or read such letters from a Union and he was very gravely disturbed as they created an atmosphere in which the Lines would find it very difficult to maintain their usual harmonious relations with the Union; he was quite sure that the letters did not express the feelings of the seamen.”⁸⁵ Glasier claimed that disputes on board ships were routine affairs, both between crews and officers and among crews themselves, and these occurrences were not the result of racism, even if they erupted between whites and blacks. He threatened that continued allegations of racism would result in a change of Elder Dempster hiring practices, and he warned the union: “Seven years ago there were 400 Nigerian seamen, now the three lines employed 1700. We will continue to employ Nigerian seamen for preference at Lagos as a convenient port of changing crews, but if there was not an immediate cessation of the demonstration and other commotions which had been current in recent months, the Lines would be compelled to consider engagement of further Freetown crews.”⁸⁶ The intimidation apparently worked, because at another meeting two days later, the union leadership backed down from their previous allegations. The notes from this meeting demonstrate the success of Glasier’s strong-arm tactics: “As Mr. Glasier had nothing further to add, Mr. Ekore went on to say that his Union wished to cooperate peacefully.” Mr. Glasier asked if what Mr. Ekore wanted to say was that the question of race hatred had been dropped for good. Mr. Ekore agreed and mentioned that at the first meeting he had said that race discrimination was not a company policy.⁸⁷

POWER AND POLITICS IN THE NIGERIAN UNION OF SEAMEN IN THE COLONIAL ERA

The ineffective efforts of union officials to reshape the terms of the debate between seamen and shipping companies reveal the limits of power of the seamen’s union. Despite the rhetoric of demands, throughout the 1950s the Nigerian Union of Seamen did not pose a serious threat to the shipping companies’ designs of maintaining the status quo. This was partially because union leaders in Lagos were preoccupied primarily with internal political struggles for control over the organization rather than agitating for seamen’s rights. The infighting that characterized the union in the 1950s engrossed both the leadership and dissenting factions, and left little time to effectively challenge the shipping companies. According to Hakeem Tijani, leadership of the seamen’s union continually changed hands, as “existing officials were thrown out of office through the same methods of intrigue which they themselves had employed to get into power.”⁸⁸ The shipping companies and the colonial government followed the conflicts almost with amusement. One government review from the period stated, “The record of the Union’s activities over the years makes a most pathetic reading. Almost from its inception, there have always been instances of endless strife, distrust, intrigues, tribal discrimination, police arrests, litigation, rifts of members into factions, one faction trying at one time or the other, and often quite successfully, to overthrow the other from office, and to install itself into power. No set of officials of the union would appear to have held office happily together for any reasonable length of time.”⁸⁹

The self-serving practices of the union leadership created additional obstacles standing in the way of effective organizing among seamen. Union officers routinely attempted to leverage their proximity to the shipping company in order to advance their own interests. This could be seen in a report from an Elder Dempster official in 1958 following his meeting with President Ekore. According to the report, President Ekore complained of his low salary from the union, and claimed that he would be far better off back at sea. Ekore asked the shipping company if he could be allowed to supply chickens to Elder Dempster vessels as a ship chandler, thereby earning more income. The conflict of interest was noted by the local official: “We think this was the most important point of the meeting so far as Ekore was concerned. We pointed out that, under the present circumstances, this would not be desirable and that we already had an efficient Ships’ Chandler.”⁹⁰

The focus of the leadership constituted a colossal divide between the concerns of union officials and the everyday experiences of seamen on ships. This divide was partly unavoidable, as the unique nature of seamen’s work took them away from Lagos and union headquarters for most of the time they were under contract. On the other hand, officers based in Lagos were either Westernized elites posing as professional trade unionists and never actually employed as seamen, or seamen who had been denied work due to disciplinary actions taken against them on board or criminal activity such as smuggling or drug trafficking. Thus, the gap separating the rank-and-file seamen from the leadership and decision-making organs of the union was exceptionally wide. In a May 1959 address to the union, President Ekore described the problematic situation: “The Seamen’s Union is not like any other and why trouble always finds a way easy, is because when a resolution has passed and [been] adopted by a handful of members ashore without the knowledge of members at sea, on arrival they will declare their stand of ignorance and thereby seek to oppose the adopted resolution which actually is right.”⁹¹

The internal conflicts in the union were attributed time and again to tribalism, as competition for leadership positions and resources often fueled ethnic tensions between members. As Ekore said in his address, “From its origin, there had been no time of peace and understanding among [the union’s] members. . . . [A] fact that lay low the glory and reputation of the Union is a Tribal Hatred and discrimination among its members. The daily struggle is, I want me Tribe’s man in the office.”⁹² According to the chief steward of the MV Aureol, the conflict was mainly between coastal groups originating in eastern and western Nigeria, as he reported to Elder Dempster officials: “The bone of contention in the Union is Tribal rivalry of who are to hold Office, at present it is dominated by Eboe and Ejaw tribes who come from the Eastern region, and it would appear that the Warri and Calabar people are objecting to all the officers being from these two tribes. . . . I do not anticipate any upset with the men, it is just that being mostly illiterate, they can be so easy led up the Garden Path, and that would seem what is happening.”⁹³

While union officials busied themselves with power struggles and political intrigue, everyday seamen continued to confront the tough realities of onboard discrimination and poor working conditions. It has been seen that seamen endured grueling, and at times perilous, working lives on board colonial ships. They worked long hours in jobs that were demeaning, physically difficult, and dangerous. They suffered from wage discrimination in the colonial shipping industry, and lacked the organizational means for effectively improving their conditions of work. Journeys took them away from their families for months or years, and their wives back home had to endure the challenges of maintaining a household in their husbands’ long absences. In addition, Nigerian seamen suffered from racism on board ships and in ports of call, but their protests against this mistreatment fell on deaf ears. The union leadership, preoccupied with Lagos-based politics, remained largely useless and irrelevant in organizing and initiating seamen’s protests, and did little to address the sources of their discontent.

But as will be seen, seamen did not wait around for the union to address their needs. Rather, they employed a full range of options and leveraged the skills that were available to them in their unique position as seamen in order to improve the conditions of their lives. Instead of accepting their disempowerment, seamen continually exploited the various opportunities that presented themselves on each voyage across the sea. The next chapter will examine entrepreneurial efforts, cultural alliances, and social ideologies of resistance that seamen mobilized to meet basic needs and better their lives.