Indian Whalers On Long Island, 1669-1746

[Gunnar Larson]

Abstract: From circa 1650 to the mid-eighteenth century, Native Americans
were recruited by English company owners on Long Island to hunt whales
along its south shore. Whale oil profits became the region’s main economic
force in the global market. The “whale design,” as it was called, was
characterized by a fierce competition among companies for Indian whalers.
By reconstructing the careers of several Native whalers based on their
extant employment contracts, this paper reveals changing patterns of labor
negotiations and methods of payment. As English companies consolidated
their monopolistic control over the “whale design,” however, they sought to
minimize the Indians’ sphere of influence and bargaining power. Although
some Indians tried to improve their situations, even to the extent of
forming an independent Native whaling company, they faced diminished
prospects due to growing contract enforcement and the gradual
standardization of punitive labor practices. As their communities were
dispossessed of their land, they looked to the sea for new opportunities,
only to find themselves deeply enmeshed in debt.

Keywords: whaling, whale oil, baleen, contracts, lay system, debt peonage,
Indian whalers, right whales, Long Island, Algonquian, Native American

Conclusion

The whale was held in awe by the Native peoples of Long Island, who
sacrificed its fins and tails in their rituals. Along with all the living
creatures in their environment, the whale shared a spiritual essence that
united human and animal beings. There was a concern for balance in nature
that was expressed in rituals honoring the spirits of animals taken by the
hunters. For the Europeans, however, the animals were commodities to be
exploited for commercial gain. The fur trade, for example, almost wiped out
the beaver population in the Northeast. The same fate befell the North
Atlantic right whale during the latter half of the seventeenth century.

The English also commodified the land. Land alienation on Long Island,
beginning with the English arrival, was nearly complete by the end of the
seventeenth century. In 1703 the last major acquisitions of their tribal
lands were confirmed by the Shinnecocks and the Montauketts. The loss of
their traditional hunting, gathering, and planting grounds gave them little
choice but to enter the English economy. Many Indians found employment
building fences and tending livestock and cultivating colonial gardens on
the very spaces where they once hunted deer, gathered plants and harvested
corn. Whaling, for a brief moment in time, provided some Indians with the
opportunity to bargain competitively with English employers who eagerly
sought their services. The Indians possessed the skills, experience, and
courage required to successfully hunt whales in open boats during the
winter months.

The English companies recruited the Indians for their crews with offers of
metal tools, clothing, shoes, kettles, and alcohol. These goods, carried
back to the villages by the whalers, stimulated significant changes in
material culture that undoubtedly made life easier and more comfortable.
There was a dark side. Richard White, in his classic study on patterns of
dependency noted that the credit system and the traffic in alcohol were
“the two great banes of the Indian trade.” This “credit-liquor
combination,” said White, loosened cultural restraints and undermined their
resistance to English control over their labor.[80] Artor’s experience
supports White’s conclusions. Artor’s indenture forced him to become even
more dependent on the English economy. Although patterns of dependency
emerged, there were also important aspects of traditional culture that
survived, including religious concepts, family and kinship systems, and
relationships with the natural environment.

The whalers did not surrender passively to the oppressive labor system.
They had a unique set of skills and experiences that gave them leverage in
negotiating with the English company owners. Although their attempt to
launch an Indian-owned company failed, they found other means to protect
their interests by comparing the terms of their contracts, frequently
changing companies and playing one owner against another.

The Native peoples of Long Island played a formative role in the history of
an iconic American institution. They were there at the beginning. The shore
whaling companies depended on the Indian crews for a successful whale
design. They were the first American commercial whalers, a legacy that has
often been overlooked. Their descendants, David and Hugh Jacob, were among
many Native Americans from Long Island who were recruited by whaling
captains in the nineteenth century to hunt whales across the globe.
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