Captain Angus Swope (Noab Beery), known as The Black Yankee, skipper of the Golden Bough, treats his crew shamefully and he treats women no better, as evidenced by his handling of a woman he has abducted, together with her baby daughter, Mary (Sally Blaine), from seaman Newman (Willard Robertson). When the woman dies as a result of his cruelty, he brings up Mary as his own daughter.