It would have been very odd to travel on the waterways of North Carolina and not see several African Americans, enslaved and free, working on the waterways in numerous capacities. The most likely occupation of enslaved people working on the waterways would have been in the capacity of pilots and ferrymen.

For example, one traveler William Attmore while touring North Carolina, was ferried by Africans. He noted, after riding five miles by horse to “Mr. Blout’s Ferry at Tar River, here two negroes rowed me over to the Washington shore where I Landed at Sunset.” 

Attmore conversed with the two Africans and learned, at least from one, that he was from Guinea and had been sold into slavery as a prisoner of war because his nation had lost a battle, wherein he and 140 others were taken prisoner. The enslaved African noted that, if he had the opportunity to go back to Guinea, “I go there, and fight them worse than ever.” Slavery paled in comparison to not fighting with all of one’s might. Slavery had taught him that. 

Pilots helped guide vessels through dangerous waters, and North Carolina was known for shallow water and hazardous currents. They worked on rivers, sounds, and oceans. As ferrymen, they generally carried people and goods across a body of water, such as streams, creeks, rivers, and sometimes larger bodies such as sounds.

The North Carolina coast and shores were known to be treacherous to vessels. Many of these vessels that safely landed in one of the North Carolina ports, particularly the port of Wilmington, heavily relied on slave guidance. It took a lot of knowledge, understanding, and feeling to manage the shifting shoals (underwater gravel ridge or sandbar). “Inlets and shoals changed constantly and could delay a vessel further.



Confronted with that uncertainty and a heavy reliance on African American maritime skills, merchants, and planters generally had to concede slave watermen an exceptional degree of flexibility to conduct their business and a variety of special rights and privileges,” said historian David Cecelski. 

Buying enslaved persons and hiring out enslaved persons to be ferrymen was profitable for slaveholders. 

As a land of many waterways, ferries and ferry landings became necessary in North Carolina and the coastal region normalized these in the 1760s. Ferries were critical aid to settlers in remote areas of North Carolina travel. They also assisted in the road building process based on the need to create roads leading to ferries and ferries brought materials to different shores for road construction. Ferries and ferry land were substitutes for bridges. See example HERE

The boats were used for “ferriage included canoes, sloops, flats and scows.” Small canoes were generally used to transport people and carry products and, frequently, horses. 

Scows and flats, small canoes, were generally used to transport people. Sloops, larger than flats, and sometimes a larger canoe with a sail were used to transport horses and products. Ferries were needed to transport people and products and transport mail and news on people. People also carried news, but communication for the colony also relied on ferries (the enslaved during the colonial period also transported mail).

Watermen were hard to surveil. Many watermen performed important jobs in disparate locations, too tremendous and remote in distances to have monitors watching their every move. Moreover, the nature of the watermen's occupation required a certain level of flexibility. For example, travel by water, depending on the length of travel, which could take days and sometimes a week. Historian David Cecelski said, “Poling a Cape Fear flatboat round trip between, say, Hallsville and Wilmington could require two weeks or a month.”

Cecelski also said, “Except on steamships, which only began appearing locally about 1840, traveling from Beaufort to Currituck could take a day or a week or a month. In addition, inlets and shoals changed constantly and could delay a vessel further. Confronted with that uncertainty and a heavy reliance on African American maritime skills, merchants and planters generally had to concede slave watermen an exceptional degree of flexibility to conduct their business and a variety of special rights and privileges.”

During their time away, it was not all work. Watermen developed a network, which helped them develop camaraderie among the water travelers. “They cooked, slept, and socialized in boatmen’s camps that sprang up nightly on isolated beaches and riverbanks.” 

While away from slaveholders, watermen developed a culture of camaraderie, as they often had their own camps which “sprang up nightly on isolated beaches and riverbanks,” where they “cooked, slept, and socialized” together. 

Black watermen’s mobility allowed them to become informed about the news. They often served as news transporters for the black nation-enslaved or free; their passengers allowed them to become familiar with what had been happening nationally and internationally. Moreover, their travels allowed them to become acquainted with “coastal geography, sea traffic, and sympathetic captains. A few black seamen even carried letters between Carolina slaves and northern friends and family.”

The autonomy of the enslaved was necessary despite the law. For instance, hiring out and living out was illegal, and authorities fell into the habit of overlooking the practice. In effect, the rivermen lived a life similar to that of free blacks. Although still, slaves in the eyes of the law, watermen that "lived-out' were left alone so long as they surrendered most of their annual earnings to a distant owner.”

Cecelski wrote, “Evidence for the crucial role that rivermen played in the economy of the border South can be seen in the fact that whites made no effort to crack down on their relative freedom, despite the fact that they escaped in unacceptable numbers. Already skilled and partly assimilated to white culture, rivermen were able to peddle their arts in a free-labor market. And with their knowledge of southern geography many hirelings, who often knew large numbers of friendly free blacks along the rivers, simply never returned from a long voyage. One by one and acting as individuals, they disappeared from sight. Between 1736 and 1801, watermen made up 14 percent of all skilled slave runaways.” 

Black watermen were a staple feature in Eastern North Carolina, as they were North Carolina’s foremost “boatmen, pilots, and fishermen.” 

Enslaved people on the coast were capable and often made the canoes for themselves with resources easily found in Eastern North Carolina. They used cypress logs, which were found in abundance in the coastal region. It is, therefore, likely that the early Africans learned and fused techniques from their African past and Native Americans. “The early colonists relied heavily on the proficiency of their African slaves in building and handling dugout canoes, often called cooners (or kenners).”

The skill of enslaved persons working in maritime occupations is best illustrated by the life of Moses Grandy, who was born in Camden, North Carolina. For several years, Grandy worked as a ferryman, a crew member on a small sailing vessel called a schooner, and operated his own shipping business. He shipped lumber and other products during the American Revolution from “Norfolk to Elizabeth City by the grand canal, so that it might get to sea by the Pamlico Sound and Ocracoke inlet.” 

Grandy also organized a business with hired laborers on the dismal swamp, which transported shingles out of the dismal swamp. Grandy worked on this business until he was able to purchase his freedom.