Samuel D. Ingham Quotes


There will be no objections to your retaining your servant Boy and shipping colored persons as cooks and stewards.


Context

Captain W.W. Polk, commanding the Coast Guard revenue cutter Florida, wrote Treasury Secretary asking permission to employ a young Negro on board. Existing regulations prohibited such. The Negro in question was a free Black born in New York who was an “expert sailor for his age and competent to the duty of a boy of the first class.” Polk had hired the boy as a servant after he had worked at sea for another Captain. Good seamen were hard to come by, decision was extremely contentious. Ingham “compromised” by limiting the allowable role of Negroes at sea—a practice that lasted till the Second World War.


Citations

Samuel D. Ingham, 1779-1869, Secretary of the Treasury (Jacksonian Democrat), U. S. Congressman (Democrat, PA), Letter to Captain W. W. Polk, June 28, 1831

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

Linked Quotes

A port of Cuba during the Spanish American War. Congress voted the resolution and the medals were awarded. The significance of this event was that the crew included two Black men, Steward Savage and Cook Moses Jones, were also awarded the medals. While under fire, at their own initiative, the two manned an unprotected gun on deck of the ship and added to the firepower of the effort. The Captain specifically asked that they be included in the heroism award. Stewards and cooks were the only positions allowed to Blacks at the time. See {604418}


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Samuel D. Ingham
Samuel D. Ingham
  • Born: September 16, 1779
  • Died: June 5, 1860
  • Nationality:
  • Profession:

Samuel Delucenna Ingham was a US Representative and then, under President Andrew Jackson, US Treasury Secretary.