Heading: (African American, 1845)
Author: Brown, William H.
Title: Letter from a whaling ship seaman, a free Black leader of the African American community of New Bedford
Place Published: Philadelphia
Publisher:
Date Published: November 11, 1845
Description:

Autograph Letter Signed. 1pg.+ stampless address leaf. To Cuffe Lawton, New Bedford, Mass.

Brown informs his friend Lawton that he was then "bound to the isle of Portrco in about one week i cant tell when we shal get back i want you should fit things to the best advantige and please to tell Miss thomas that yo herd from me and that...we have go to come to Philedelphia before we can come hom i am in hops not to be gon no longer than 2 months..."

Cuffe Lawton was a free Black man, born in Newport, Rhode Island. After being educated at an African Free School, he became active in the African American community in Newport, including America's first Black benevolent society. He moved to the whaling town of New Bedford where he worked on the ships of whaling merchant Charles Walt Morgan, a Quaker and "fierce" Abolitionist, helping fit his vessels for long voyages at sea. Lawton was a trusted confidant of Black seamen. William Brown was probably among these, though there is no definitive record of the race of the semi-literate sailor, born in Virginia, who called Lawton his "dear friend". Also revealing of the character of Lawton is surviving correspondence from his son, who at 23 sailed as a mate on a whaling ship bound for Hawaii, writing his father that the Captain of his ship was "the worst man I ever saw", probably a former slave trader. guilty of every conceivable crime, and that the "miserable" native Hawaiians he met were cursed by rum, guns and "loathsome diseases" brought by white sailors, with little aid from white missionaries.

Very good.