By the Sweat of Their Brows: the Labor-Graphic Pacific ______
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BY THE SWEAT OF THEIR BROWS: THE LABOR-GRAPHIC PACIFIC ____________________________________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Fullerton ____________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History ____________________________________ By Herbert Patrick Pullman Thesis Committee Approval: Volker Janssen, Department of History, Chair Jessica Stern, Department of History Stephen Neufeld, Department of History David Igler, Department of History, University of California, Irvine Fall, 2017 ABSTRACT In an effort to place motive in context, this essay addresses the issue of whether worldviews and histories that emphasize race and geography offer more distractions and less understanding than do studies that focus upon labor. Through the narrative of the murder of whaling captain Isaac Bunker Hussey and the years leading up to his death (1847 to 1852), this work examines this problem in a way that connects historical actors with historians, and history with early historiography. Though not readily apparent in the nineteenth century or even after, labor offers an opportunity to understand the lives of those who sailed the Pacific in the 1800s. The failure of both Captain Hussey and the whaling industry to recognize his crew through their labors rather than by their race or place of origin contributed to his murder. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. iv Chapter 1. BY THE SWEAT OF THEIR BROWS ............................................................... 1 2. WHALING LABOR ............................................................................................. 5 3. CAPTAIN ISAAC BUNKER HUSSEY .............................................................. 10 4. WORLDVIEW ..................................................................................................... 15 5. KOSRAE .............................................................................................................. 20 6. OAHU HENRY .................................................................................................... 24 7. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 29 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 31 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to my wife Sara Pullman for your patience and ability to listen to nineteenth century whaling stories more than any one person should. Thank you to Dr. Janssen, Dr. Stern, and Dr. Neufeld of California State University, Fullerton’s Department of History, and to Dr. Igler of the University of California, Irvine’s Department of History. Most of all, thank you Ethel Willis, my first and best teacher. I wish I could have finished this sooner. iv 1 CHAPTER 1 BY THE SWEAT OF THEIR BROWS “Let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer’s. For the sea is his; he owns it”1 In this passage, Herman Melville portrays the Nantucketers as they saw themselves: common Jack Tars who roamed as masters of vast oceans and ruled their domain through the sheer sweat of their brow. However, had he wanted to accurately represent the diversity of maritime labor2 during his time, Melville might have included the Kanaka Maoli, Maohi, and Maori, along with indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africans, decedents of Africans, and land fasted itinerant laborers and mariners born to countless ports. Nineteenth-century whalemen and seamen sprang forth from a diversity of locales and sources, but their labors united them in a greater history that also united the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Indian Oceans. In the 1850s, Kosrae, and island on the eastern edge of the Carolines group, hosted a diversity of individuals on its shores. As beachcombers, these men either deserted from visiting whalers and merchantmen or they were individuals whose captains 1 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003), 94. 2 The term “labor” appears here broadly as the actions undertaken to procure the material means of survival: potable water, food, shelter, and tools. Oceans in the nineteenth century provided alternative means for numerous economies geographically unable to exist self-sufficiently, as illustrated from Nantucket to Kosrae. From the fur and sandalwood trade to whaling, oceans existed as a gateway to a greater global economy, distant commodities, and foreign lands. 2 purposefully cast them away. Most of this number hailed from island communities scattered across the South Pacific. One of them, Oahu Henry, if his name is any indication, called the Hawaiian Kingdom home. The lone white man of this body, Isaac Bunker Hussey of Nantucket, set sail from his home as captain of the whaler Planter in 1847 before abandoning his command and crossing Kosrae’s beach in 1850. A moderate collection of documentation exists to tell Hussey’s story. Born in 1807, Hussey previously captained three whaling expeditions before receiving command of the Planter in 1847.3 In 1849 he murdered one of his crewmen, James Henry Clark, off the coast of Butaritari. Months later, he escaped arrest in Sydney, Australia for this crime. In 1850, he sought sanctuary on Kosrae and sent the Planter home to Nantucket under the command of his first officer.4 In comparison, Oahu Henry rests nearly anonymous in the historical record. A lack of documentation restricts his story to 1852 when his tale coincides with Hussey’s and both men signed on to fill out the skeleton crew of the whaler William Penn.5 On 11 October 1852, the William Penn of San Francisco departed Kosrae with Hussey as its new captain and more than a dozen Pacific Islanders, including Henry, serving as hands. A mere twenty-six days into the voyage, on 6 November 1952, Henry led his fellow islanders in mutiny and the murder of Captain Hussey. Unable to seize 3 Isaac B. Hussey commanded the Phoenix 1834-1837 and 1837-1840, and the Potomac 1841-1845. National Maritime Digital Library, “American Offshore Whaling Voyages: Voyages of Hussey, Isaac B,” accessed November 18, 2015, http://nmdl.org/aowv/whMaster.cfm?Name=Hussey, Isaac B. 4 William C. Paddack, Life on the Ocean, or Thirty Five Years at Sea; Being the Personal Adventures of the Author (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1893), 93, 114, 140. 5 Paddack, Life on the Ocean, 152; R. Gerard Ward, ed., American Activities in the Central Pacific: 1790- 1870 (Ridgewood, NJ: The Gregg Press, 1967) 3: 39-42. 3 complete control of the whaler, Henry parlayed with the first mate, “I don’t want to kill you. I have killed all I want to, and if you give me fifteen muskets and a keg of powder, and let me take what provisions I want, I will leave the brig when I see land. But if you do not consent, I will set fire to her and burn you all up.”6 The first mate consented. That evening, Henry and his men left in two whaleboats with all they could carry. Five days later, the whaler Atlantic picked up the mutineers. When the Atlantic’s captain questioned Henry, the fugitive claimed he and the others deserted and stole the whaleboats while ashore with Hussey. Persuaded and perhaps disinterested, the captain permitted Henry and his followers to go their way. These desperate men managed to row over 500 kilometers and eventually landed on Abemama Island in the Kiribati group. Here, one of the mutineers turned on Henry and killed him.7 Attempting to understand why this murder and mutiny occurred is part of a current rethinking of the Pacific in its history, geography, and ethnic and cultural diversity. Previous attitudes concerning the geography and diversity of the Pacific misunderstood this ocean too broadly and separate from wider events. Contemporary considerations have turned this view on its head and have approached the Pacific as exceedingly diverse and connected to a larger narrative.8 Attention to labor combined with these nuanced interpretations shows that Pacific Islanders existed as similar and dissimilar to one other as Nantucketers did in comparison to other Atlantic expatriates. 6 Ward, American Activities, 3: 40, 4: 362. 7 Ibid. 8 See Nicholas Thomas, Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); Matt K. Matsuda, Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); David Igler, The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 4 Henry and Hussey’s shared story reveals that little if any difference separated these men and the only notable distinctions emerged from artificially constructed biases. A failure on Hussey’s part to recognize this reality and to recognize Henry’s humanity lead to the events of 6 November 1852. 5 CHAPTER 2 WHALING LABOR The roots of Henry and Hussey’s story trace back to 1690, when Ichabod Paddock agreed to teach the craft of whaling to Nantucketers. The men of that small sandy island turned to the sea and the horizon to integrate themselves into the Cape Cod economy. Year after year, as hunting grounds became depleted, their whalers and men ventured further out with every successive voyage, and the island of Nantucket eventually linked