Nigerians en masse. This chapter describes work on board the ships, and the types of jobs seamen were engaged in, training provided, relations with European crews, incidents of racism and discrimination, and the background of union organizing among Nigerian seamen and labor relations between seamen and management of the colonial shipping lines. Chapter 2 examines the cosmopolitanism that characterized the economic, social, and cultural lives of seamen offshore. This chapter describes the trade conducted by seamen in secondhand goods such as electronics, small and large appliances, foodstuffs, clothing, and even in scrap metals and used cars. The chapter also looks at the social lives of seamen abroad, and examines particularly the romantic relationships seamen established with European, Asian, and Latin American women in the course of their travels. This review of the centrality of cosmopolitanism in seamen’s consciousness and experiences provides essential context for understanding the eventual impact of nationalism and nationalization on seamen’s working lives.
Chapters 3 and 4 evaluate the seamen’s organizing efforts and relationship with the Nigerian Union of Seamen, and the impact the rise of nationalism had on this organizing. Chapter 3 focuses on the history of labor organizing and the Nigerian seamen’s union in the shadow of decolonization. The chapter examines cooperative efforts between Nigerian seamen and diaspora communities, and highlights the ideological and political support the seamen obtained from these transnational alliances in organizing protests and strikes. This chapter describes how the process of decolonization ultimately limited the potential for cooperative efforts between Nigerian seamen and diaspora working classes. The role played by union leadership in Lagos in bringing about this shift is scrutinized. Chapter 4 examines the establishment of the Nigerian National Shipping Line, reviewing the economic and political motives for its establishment, the terms by which the enterprise was launched, and the relationship between the NNSL, British shipping lines, and international shipping conferences. A close investigation into the negotiations that took place between Nigerian and British officials reveals the ways in which elite interests prevailed in the history of decolonization. The chapter reviews the intense critique this business relationship between the NNSL and Elder Dempster received from the broader public, who questioned the autonomy of the Nigerian shipping line under the arrangement.
Chapters 5 and 6 trace the history of the Nigerian National Shipping Line and the fate of the seamen employed by it. Chapter 5 examines the process of “Nigerianization” of shipping and the impact this process had on the working lives of seamen on board ships. Based largely on a review of official logbooks, the chapter documents how shipboard hierarchies, labor relations, and working cultures evolved over time and became “Nigerian.” It will be seen that what seamen once anticipated as an act of homecoming ultimately ended in deep disappointment. The scarcity of resources doomed the venture from the start and resulted in corruption and pillaging by those with access to resources. Class conflicts and ethnic tensions from the broader Nigerian political landscape found their way on board. Chapter 6 studies the multiple and complex set of factors leading to the decline and eventual demise of the Nigerian National Shipping Line. This chapter attempts to provide insights into the economic insecurity and inequalities that led to misappropriation and illegality. The examination of the demise of the NNSL demonstrates that material inequalities became a breeding ground for corruption, and corruption can therefore not be understood in isolation from inequality and injustice. It will be seen that the turn to illegality, in the forms of theft and drug trafficking on the part of seamen, or misappropriation of company resources on the part of officers and management, cannot be divorced from broader political and economic contexts.
The concluding argument of the book is that the uneven impact of nationalization on each of the classes involved in the shipping industry can be linked to the broader history of postcolonial Nigeria. The history of the Nigerian National Shipping Line can be taken as a metaphor for the postcolonial economy and society, and the disempowerment of seamen can be linked to the narrowing of opportunities that characterize the political, economic, and social lives of working-class Nigerians to the present. This study helps us to understand that the mismanagement and cronyism of postcolonial states were not just political failures, but processes with broad and consequential effects on the everyday lives of working people who were, at one point, deeply committed to the project of independence, and who believed in the rights and benefits it promised.
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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
