Seeing a lot of discussion about sea shanty tip Tok, and in particular analysis of 'The Wellerman' and indirect references to slavery via the line 'bring us sugar and tea and rum'. While this is not incorrect I would like to point out that as an Antipodean song it does not refer

to the Atlantic slave trade, but rather the Pacific slave trade. Queensland, Australia is where sugar (and rum) primarily came from for our end of the world and sugar plantation owners regularly engaged in Black Birding, enslaving people from Pacific and Micronesian islands.

I'm not at all an expert on the Pacific slave trade, and there are people on Twitter who are (such as my friend @SupDoc12). Musically speaking however, while this song can be interpreted universally, it is very Antipodean: the ship's name Billy of Tea refers to the vessel that

was used in the outback and by whalers to brew tea (usually a can). The Wellerman of the title refers to men who worked for Weller Brothers Company, from Australia which serviced whaling crews and communities around New Zealand and had an outpost in coastal Otago.

As for the tea? Well there was a large Chinese population in Otago in the 19th century so if the tea referred to was Chinese it may have been traded from Chinese New Zealanders (but this is a guess more than anything).

And of course there's typo (thanks auto correct!) in the first tweet- Tik Tok of course!