Sailing to Salvation

“There, she blows!”

“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”
--  Moby Dick

Few customs of maritime America evoke more quixotic and starry-eyed images than that of the whaling industry. Taming the oceans throughout their journeys, whaleships voyaged through rough waters in pursuit of overpowering the giants of the seas. These mythical and dramatic battles, however, tended to overshadow the dull reality of year-long trips, sub-par compensation, and miserable conditions at sea. Skilled seamen, aware of these naive illusions, steered away from working in the industry. For whaling merchants, this was more than satisfactory as their alternative—inexperienced workers—both took commands without question and demanded less renumeration. The entire industry—and in fact the whole Industrial Revolution—heavily relied on these “greenhands” as the uncontrolled expansion of whaling forced agents to accept any and all. Men interested in manning their fleet. Drawn by advertisements that proclaimed of the possibility of making bountiful returns, they came from all backgrounds. Some were country boys who had never seen a coast, seeking adventure; some were runaway slaves, apprentices, or criminals, with little money and poor prospects ashore. Serving many roles—deck cleaning, sail manning, ship rigging, whale watching, and whale butchering—greenhands were the powerhouses of a whaling operation. Important as they were, their share of the profits was the smallest and many of these men were black.

Fleeced with the Same Admirable Evenhandedness

The first whalemen to sail from American shoes were neither white nor black. Equipped with only crude bows and arrows, Native Americans were the first to hunt whales along the cost of what we now know as New England.[4] Their European colonialists quickly caught on to their tried and true techniques, and when colonialists on Nantucket, the birthplace of American whaling, travelled further out to sea to hunt, the original inhabitants of the island were well represented on their crews.[3] Historian Nancy Shoemaker writes, “Because whaling offered coastal native men the most viable living, many voluntarily went whaling and took pride in their ability to success in the industry.”[6] While many Natives were keen to hunt alongside their colonizers, some were victims of a cruel debt peonage system, kidnapped along the New England coast and put to work aboard ships to pay off debts.[4] This peculiar colonizer-colonized relationship initially proved successful, as the Natives were skilled hunters; however, barrels of rum and disease devastated the Native population.[4] As Nantucket’s whaling industry grew, so did the demand for more manpower. Soon enough, captains and merchants cared less and less about who they staffed so long as they could crew the ships of their growing fleet.

The American Revolutionary War changed the whaling landscape in Nantucket. The Royal Navy had decimated the Nantucket fleet, rendering Nantucket whaling merchants to start anew, with greater competition from mainland ports. Simultaneously, freed by the Massachusetts state Constitution of 1780, black men with willing hands could now participate in the post-Revolution recruitment.[5] Historian James Farr is notably credited for observing the parallels of segregation on land and sea amongst black folk. In A Slow Boat to Nowhere, he details that newly freed black men faced discrimination from the incorporated white communities they tried to assimilate into – a bitterness that erected a segregated black school, church, and graveyard.[2] This same segregation was reflected aboard Nantucket’s whaleships. Positions like captain, mate, and harpooner were exclusively reserved for white Nantucket residents and out of reach for black men. At the end of trips, whales were taken and boiled down for their oil, with crew members receiving “lays,” or percentage shares in the final take. The industry’s labor policy followed the mantra of those who would take less would get less, and so black men, who were systemically disadvantaged from opportunities to be directly involved with the hunting of whales, took home notoriously low lays compared to white ship officers.

While life at sea was not the greatest, people of color faced were equally if not more disadvantaged at shore. Inflated charges on clothing, tobacco, and other items purchased at sea, often left whalemen with nothing at the end of a voyage and longer voyages of two or three years rendered whalemen in debt so ship owners.[5] Farr famously noted that “men of all nations and races were fleeced with the same admirable evenhandedness.”[2]

Spartan Conditions and Low Pay: Finding Equality at Sea

Making a living hunting whales was not easy. Shoemaker wrote, “It meant being away from home for three to four years at a time, tediously trolling the seas in hopes of sighting a whale spout or breach. All while at great risk of being mauled in the jaws of a sperm whale, or, more commonly, falling from aloft, succumbing to fever or scurvy, or returning home empty-handed.”[6] No story other than that of the Essex—the inspiration behind Moby Dick—illustrates this point more powerfully. The Essex departed from Nantucket in August of 1819 towards the Pacific with a crew of six black and thirteen white whalemen. Shortly after departure, the ship was struck by a sperm whale off the Galapagos Islands, leaving the crew to flee on whaleboats towards Henderson Island. Between weeks of no food and unfavorable seas, many men were abandoned, died of disease, or were dismembered as sustenance for others on the trip.[2] A Russian-roulette-like game played God and determined who lived and who became life-giving food, even consuming the captain’s nephew. Three months after their initial departure, only five men returned home as part of a rescue mission to tell the tale of the Essex.[2]

While harrowing stories spread amongst whalers and their families alike, the industry grew hungry for greater growth and more reward. Nantucket, however, with its shallow harbor entrance, could not cater to the ever-growing whaling ships being built, and by 1830, New Bedford, with its natural advantages, had taken Nantucket’s supremacy evermore.[4] was  New Bedford attracted an unusually large black population, and much like in Nantucket, they formed substantial segregated communities in the whaling towns. Similar to most northern states, black men faced structural restrictions on the jobs they could hold, and so many leaned towards whaling, where the pre-requisites for service numbered one—willingness to head to sea. While at sea, however, black whalemen still faced their share of discrimination. One owner of a fleet of New Bedford whaleships said, “The promotion of an energetic young man, however, is rapid since a large proportion of the foremast hands are ignorant blacks and men of mixed blood who have no ambition to rise.”[2] Even without the possibility of promotion, black men still favored a life at sea. Discrimination was rampant in the years after state emancipation; however, John Allan, a black whaleman who kept a journal, suggested that a degree of equality existed in whaleships that was not found on land.[2]

One Man’s Rise is Another’s Decline

The relative equality afforded to black men at sea meant that some could break through structural barriers and find fortune as crew members. Black harpooners, in particular, were surprisingly common on whaleships. These harpooners, who were often the most skilled on the boat, leveraged the threat of transferring to other fleets to force merchants’ hands in increasing their lay. Through a lot of hard work and significantly larger amount of luck, select black whalemen climbed the ranks of their whalers, sometimes even into the captain’s cabin.[1]

A financial crisis in 1857 followed by the discovery of oil in 1859 effectively decimated the whaling industry. As petroleum products substituted those traditionally made through whale fishery, capital flowed out of New Bedford towards westward expansion and industrialization. Ships that were not destroyed in the Civil War or called to the Stone Fleet found their way to the west coast, and by 1906, less than 40 ships remained. Come 1924, the last whaler at sea docked back at harbor, effectively marking the end of the whaling industry for “the mixed blessings of life ashore.”[2]

Just like their white counterparts, black men along the east coast sought greater livelihood through voyages at sea. While paid less than their white equivalents and restricted from taking up more desirable jobs, black whalemen at least experienced social relationships bordering equality while at sea and if lucky, could find financial prosperity navigating the waters. As petroleum took the place of whale oil, commercial butchery of whales waned down until the twenties, just around the time when Moby Dick was being revived as a great American novel.[1]

The predominant literature surrounding multi-racial crews of the American whaling industry is famously documented and analyzed by historian James Farr. His analyses, while comprehensive at the time, are only a surface level when viewed through the lens of the copious amounts of organized data and digital tools available to historians today. Farr outlined specific instances of social mobility amongst black whalemen. This project aims to take a more holistic look at the social dynamics in the New Bedford whaling industry with the aim to extend further conclusions from Farr’s findings.