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February 22 - February 24, 2019
Relentlessly acquisitive, technologically advanced, with a religious sense of its own destiny, Nantucket was, in 1821, what America would become.
Nantucket, which means “faraway land” in the language of the island’s native inhabitants, the Wampanoag, was a mound of sand eroding into an inexorable ocean, and all its residents, even if they had never left the island, were all too aware of the inhumanity of the sea.
Yet all shared in a common, spiritually infused mission—to maintain a peaceful life on land while raising bloody havoc at sea. Pacifist killers, plain-dressed millionaires, the whalemen of Nantucket were simply fulfilling the Lord’s will.
Death to the living, Long life to the killers, Success to sailors’ wives And greasy luck to whalers.
This mortal life decays apace How soon the bubble’s broke Adam and all his numerous race Are Vanity and Smoke.
The officers of the British Navy had a maxim: “never to be overtaken unprepared by [a squall], as never to be surprised by an enemy.”
Oh, St. Peter, St. Jerome, St. Stephen, St. James, St. John, the devil on two sticks; carry me up; O, let me tickle him, let me feel of his ribs.
“It is as though all the odors in the world were gathered together and being shaken up.”
“Alas, alas, the day that I came a-whaling. For what profiteth a man if he gain the whole world but in the meantime starveth to death?”
“Who are you? What are you? Miserable trash, scum of Nantucket, a whimpering boy from the chimney corner. By Neptune I think you are afraid of a whale.”
Nantucketers were suspicious of anything beyond their immediate experience. Their far-reaching success in whaling was founded not on radical technological advances or bold gambles but on a profound conservatism.
he embraced a more democratic style of command. Modern survival psychologists have determined that this “social”—as opposed to “authoritarian”—form of leadership is ill suited to the early stages of a disaster, when decisions must be made quickly and firmly.
The captain was expected to be the authoritarian, what Nantucketers called a fishy man. A fishy man loved to kill whales and lacked the tendency toward self-doubt and self-examination that could get in the way of making a quick decision. To be called “fishy to the backbone” was the ultimate compliment a Nantucketer could receive and meant that he was destined to become, if he wasn’t already, a captain.
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For as long as men had been sailing the world’s oceans, famished sailors had been sustaining themselves on the remains of dead shipmates.
This combination of decisive, authoritative action and an ability to empathize with others is rarely found in a single leader.
“Most of them felt that the semi-starvation had coarsened rather than refined them,” it was reported, “and they marveled at how thin their moral and social veneers seemed to be.”
“There is strength in passivity.”
