In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Content Warning: This section references survival cannibalism as well as violence against animals.

“With whale-oil prices steadily climbing and the rest of the world’s economy sunk in depression, the village of Nantucket was on its way to becoming one of the richest towns in America.”

The whaling industry proved quite lucrative, and Nantucket had made itself the center of the whaling world. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, the demand for oil outpaced the speed at which it could be harvested and processed, leading to steadily increasing profits in an economic sector that was essentially immune to the ups and downs of the global economy. However, The Dependence of Nantucket on the Whaling Industry would be a liability once that industry began to decline.

“Not only was the oil derived from the sperm whale’s blubber far superior to that of the right whale, providing a brighter and cleaner-burning light, but its block-shaped head contained a vast reservoir of even better oil […].”

The first whales Nantucket whalers hunted were right whales, but the discovery of the far larger and more valuable sperm whales shifted the focus of most hunts. However, the whales’ size and habitat (farther out to sea) also heightened the danger associated with whaling: The Essex was more than a thousand miles from the nearest land when a single whale managed to wreck her.

“Nantucketers took a dim view of off-islanders. They called them ‘strangers’ or, even worse, ‘coofs,’ a term of disparagement originally reserved for Cape Codders but broadened to include all of those unlucky enough to have been born on the mainland.”

Nantucket whaling created an idiosyncratic community that gave islanders a strong sense of identity while also causing them to be deeply suspicious of outsiders. That most Nantucketers were Quakers heightened and strengthened both this sense of shared identity and the mistrust and condescension with which they viewed all others. Lastly, several Nantucket families had populated the island from the mid-17th century, leading the community to look down on relative newcomers.