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.