Black Sailors and Navy Prize Money
Michael Weaver
June 18, 2022
Counterfactual Reparations
Reparations or major land reforms never materialized:
- For vast majority of freed people, no 40 acres and a mule
What might have been the effects of such policies during
Reconstruction?
- land reforms effective (Miller 2011, 2020), but
hard politically
Cash transfers
- “easier” politically, than land redistribution
- subject of substantial research in economics in variety of
contexts
- parallels contemporary debates about what reparations might look
like
What if Federal government provided cash to African Americans after
Emancipation?
- what kinds of effects would this have had for individuals
and families?
Union Navy Prize Money
- Union Navy was integrated, by law and by necessity
- Black sailors on hundreds of ships
- discrimination in ranks, hazing, postings
- Prize money for captured blockade runners
- “Prizes” condemned in court, then auctioned
- Proceeds split between federal gov’t, officers and crew of ship
- Prizes range between 200 and > 500K in 2020 dollars
Union Navy Prize Money
- Transfers of cash from Federal Gov’t to Black sailors (after filing
claim)
- Given service on similar ships, in same areas, at same time, winning
prize is “as-if” random
We can examine the effects of cash transfers to Black sailors and
their families
Sailors
- African-American Sailors Project (Joseph Reidy) of Howard University
- identified black sailors from ship muster rolls
- first/last name, age, birth place, enlist place/date, ships served
on, dates of service
- Available from National Park Service
Prizes and Ships
Prizes
- audit reports list prizes awarded to which ships and amount, and
date of capture
- can estimate prize allocations
- National Archives holds actual records of prize eligibility
Ships
- Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies
- dates/locations of ship service
- ship type, tonnage, crew, guns
- Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
- crew, ship dimensions, speed, armaments
Outcomes
Currently…
1870 and 1880 Censuses (From IPUMS)
- automated linking to sailors (and also their families)
- property (real and personal), literacy, children schooling,
disability, sickness, residence in south, residence in urban areas,
economic status
Preliminary Results
How common were large prizes?
Benchmark: 1000 in 1865 is ~223000 in relative wealth
Benchmark: expected price of 40 acres and mule in 1870 is $615
Higher literacy

Lower rates of disability

Less likely to live in former confederacy

More likely to live in urban areas

Higher Socio-Economic Status

Less likely to live on a farm

Higher Real Estate Values

Higher Personal Estate Values

Next Steps
Improving measurement with other records sources:
- Actual prize eligibility: treasury records
- more careful matching (Navy Service Records/Pensions)
- more outcomes:
- property/tax records; voter rolls; office-holding?
- inter-generational effects