The Black Star Line
On 17 September 1919, the Yarmouth was bought by the Black Star Line (BSL), which had been incorporated in June 1919, from the North American Steamship Company, a subsidiary of Harriss, Magill, & Company. The BSL had been founded by Marcus Garvey, a proponent of Black nationalism who had several goals, one being the recolonization of Africa by black Americans and Jamaicans, preferably by establishing a black-nation state. As a part of this effort, he established the Black Star Line with funding from a stock issue, at $5 a share from members of his United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The name of the Black Star Line was a play on the White Star Line, the owner of the Titanic.
Garvey was determined to employ an all-black crew for the venture. A suitably qualified black skipper–a rare man in those days–presented himself, and Garvey offered him the job. The ship's new master was Captain Joshua Cockburn, a British Licensed master mariner born in Nassau in the Bahamas. Cockburn had initially trained with the Royal Navy as a lighthouse tender, then worked for the UK-based Elder Dempster Lines from 1908 to 1918, which had given him significant experience with freighters plying routes between British and West African ports, especially Nigeria. Garvey claimed Cockburn was the first colored man to command a deep-sea vessel. Cockburn was retained on a "princely" $400 a month, was adept at self promotion, and had Garvey's complete trust. One of Cockburn's first tasks was to source a suitable vessel, and broker the deal.
The BSL and other Garvey projects had already been infiltrated by agents of J. Edgar Hoover's Bureau of Investigation, one of whom was Dr Arthur Ullysses Craig. Cockburn took Craig with him to the inspect the Yarmouth. Craig was the first black electrical engineer in the US and as qualified as any for the task.
The ship was in need of extensive and drastic repairs. Her boiler crowns required renovation and her hull was almost worn out. Nevertheless, despite the contrary advice of Craig, Cockburn considered her seaworthy. Soon thereafter the BSL had to find $5,000 to repair the boiler before the maiden voyage.
Harriss, as has been said, was more than keen to find a buyer, and Cockburn and friends were all on commission. The seller had therefore good reason to ignore the BSL's inexperience and shaky financial credentials, which had aborted previous purchasing attempts by Garvey and his followers.
To get round the BSL's fiscal shortcomings, the Yarmouth was in effect leased by Black Star Incorporated. She was to be paid for in 10 monthly instalments, totaling $165,000, before transfer of ownership. Like many financial details concerning this organization, sums vary; some sources put it at $168,500. The Black Star could not raise the full 10 percent deposit, and the agreement was altered to an ongoing lease of $2,000 per month.
The founding of the line and all its activities were political statements. The Negro World, a paper founded by Garvey, made a great play out of William Monroe Trotter having sailed on the Yarmouth as a waiter and cook on his way to the Paris Peace Conference. However, an indignity was forced upon him as he could not get a passport from the U.S. government for the trip. In fact, Trotter did go to Paris as a cook but he did so on the French vessel L'Ancore; this was confirmed by Trotter himself in the Boston Post of 24 July 1919, and repeated in the Baltimore Afro-American of 8 August 1919.
The Yarmouth was unofficially rechristened as the Frederick Douglass, the intention being to change her registration papers. This, however, was not completed, and she remained registered as the Yarmouth. Despite claims being made by the Black Star that they were the owners, this was not the case. In fact, she was on lease prior to completion of the terms of sale from the North American Shipping Corporation, so no official renaming could take place. As the financial obligations of the deal were never completed, the ship was to sail for her complete history (and tenure under the Black Star) with British registration and under the Union Jack and Maple Leaf flag. Her maiden voyage for the line to the West Indies and Central America was on 24 November 1919. Aside from a Scottish engineer, her crew was largely black British in origin.
Her first voyage for the new line was a short one. On 31 October 1919, she left the 135th Street dock near Garvey's office to a "glorious" send-off from several thousand well-wishers, and proceeded to 23rd Street. Already Garvey was experiencing funding problems, there were difficulties in arranging insurance, and the short trip had to be made with the permission of the owners.
The second voyage on 24 November 1919 was to Sagua la Grande, Cuba, with a cargo of cement. On arrival in Cuba on 5 December, Cockburn complained to Garvey that the white officers were causing trouble and had tried to run the ship aground. However, she was warmly received in the port, the local stevedores banding together to invest $250 worth of shares in the venture. She sailed on to Jamaica and Panama, but there was no new cargo to pick up. On return from Cuba she had a full passenger list and cargo manifest, though hampered by repair problems, controversies amidst the officers and a crew shortchanged on wages. She returned in January 1920.
The third voyage, shortly after the onset of Prohibition, was to deliver whiskey from the Green River Distillery to Cuba. She had been laden with haste as the Prohibition amendment was to be enacted the next day.
Garvey wrote: "I was therefore called upon to spend $11,000 for repairs in order to have the ship sail with the cargo valued at $5 million," – Garvey claimed elsewhere a value of $2 million – "on which the company was collecting only $7,000 as freight, all because of the disobedience of two officers of the company". The deal for carriage of the whiskey was 10 percent of what it would have cost the distiller from any other shipping company and it had onerous full indemnity clauses attached, something unusual at the time.
The ship left New York on 17 January in a hurry. At Cape May the cargo shifted, and she was listing badly. Two days out, she was reported 101 mi out of the port, sailing erratically, slowly sinking, with an intoxicated crew.
The United States Coast Guard insisted on her being towed home. A salvage tug company arrived on the scene (which had to be paid for in arrears), but the Yarmouth returned to port under her own power, thus avoiding becoming a salvage prize. The Reverend Dr. R. D. Jonas, Secretary of the League of Darker Peoples, was to claim that the captain had thwarted a hijacking plot involving a following vessel, and sabotage of a seacock being opened by an engineer to start a leak. One account says that Cockburn himself ordered that 500 cases of whiskey and champagne be thrown overboard to reduce weight. The jettisoned goods were picked up by small boats "suspiciously" on hand.
The valuable cargo had suffered losses from the crew and also from dockside repair workers. Workmen had been caught pilfering 56 bottles. This prompted the temporary impoundment of the cargo by government agents. More politics: Garvey was to assert: "I want to tell you that we have really made history, for that whiskey is from the South and it belongs to Southern Crackers, too. The BSL would at the end of the day pay out in damages more to the distillery than it charged for freighting the cargo.
After completion of very expensive temporary repairs, the Yarmouth sailed again. The repairs had been authorized without quotation and arguments of overpricing ensued. These repairs took place in the large sectional floating dry dock of the Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company of Brooklyn (see photo). The dock was the largest floating dock in the world, capable of lifting a 725 ft long, 30,000 gross ton steamship, or two smaller ships simultaneously. No doubt Garvey would have wanted alternative arrangements for repair, but his hand was forced by circumstances.
On the Yarmouth 's arrival in Cuba, the Evening News (Havana, 25 February 1920) reported that she had been proclaimed the "Ark of the Covenant of the colored people and a bright harbinger of better days".
In April 1920, Black Star bought its second ship, the Shady Side (a Hudson River excursion boat), and by early May 1920, the Kanawha, a yacht.
