In 1850, the American whaling industry was booming, and the number of whales plummeted. An author signed "Arctic Whale" wrote a letter in the tone of a whale calling on people to stop unbridled whaling. The letter reads that they thought the Arctic Ocean was safe enough, but they didn't expect the whaling ship to catch up here, "we should all be killed... Should we go extinct altogether? ” It wasn't until more than 100 years later that the call for "Arctic whales" was put into practice, and the International Whaling Commission's Global Convention against Whaling came into force in 1986. Although the agreement did not limit all countries, large-scale commercial whaling was brought to an end. When the first basques to do commercial whaling were still looking at whales in the Bay of Biscay, they did not expect that more than 1,000 years later, the right whales that had laid the whale market for them would eventually become endangered protected animals, be on the Red List, and be banned from hunting.
Historian Gordon Jackson once said: "The origins of whaling are buried in the fog of mythology." "We can't be sure when and where the first whale hunted by humans died. However, it is recorded that in the 9th century, the Scandinavian traveler Otler boasted to the English king about his country's excellent whaling ability.
Restoration of the Basque whalers
During the Middle Ages, the Basques, who once inhabited the mountainous region between Spain and France, dominated the whaling industry, and the Catholic Church played a prominent role in its development. For centuries, the Basques continued to serve whale meat to tables throughout Europe, as well as various other types of whale products.
At the end of the 16th century, after fleets sailing north discovered a large number of whales active near the Spitsbergen Islands, it quickly became a whaling destination. Bowhead whales are more fat and longer bale than the right whales that are usually caught, making them popular prey. In the summer of 1613, there were more than 20 whaling ships from various countries, and they gathered here, not only busy with whaling, but also busy with the competition for each other's interests. Eventually, the Dutch reached an agreement with the British to jointly take possession of the whaling site and send warship escorts to join forces to keep the other countries out. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the sparsely populated northern whaling sites often had fully loaded fishing boats stretching from the sea to the distant horizon. According to records, in the more than 40 years from 1722, there were nearly 6,000 whaling ships from the Netherlands alone.
The British joined the whaling ranks at the end of the 16th century, but the crown of fishing at that time still belonged to the Netherlands. It wasn't until the whaling industry in the New England colonies began to develop that their dream of whaling giants gradually became apparent. But it didn't take long for this property to break free from them, and rather than calling colonial whaling the hope of britain's whaling industry, it was a beautiful prelude to the American whaling dream.
Among the many countries involved in whaling, the history of whaling in the United States radiates a lasting bright glow like a whale's brain oil candle. Since the arrival of Puritan immigrants, the colonial whaling industry has flourished until the early 20th century, when it faded and was surpassed by those who came after. Whaling has been one of the key forces driving the country's evolution for 300 years.
The 1750s and 1770s were a legendary era of colonial whaling, and Nantucket was one of the founders of this legend. Surrounded by water and adjacent to whale migration routes, Nantucket island is a blessed place for whale fishing, which often floats to the surface. The natives here have long been taking advantage of these surprise visitors, and the colonists have soon begun their own whaling journeys to make up for the lack of land resources. They looked at the whales in the sea and threatened, "Look there, it's a green pasture that can provide bread for our children and grandchildren." ”
This green pasture did not disappoint them. In just 40 years, the whaling industry has developed into the largest source of employment for islanders, and the only abundant source of whale oil in this barren sandbar is whale oil. In 1726, when the whaling harvest was the greatest, a total of 86 whales were killed, of which 11 were caught in one day.
The American Revolutionary War and the subsequent War of 1812 dealt a devastating blow to whaling on Nantucket. Although the whalers there have tried their best to remain neutral in order to continue whaling, both Britain and the United States did not buy into their calculations. In the days when the whaling industry is deteriorating, there are even whalers who want to continue their whaling careers by immigrating to Britain and France, but the vast majority of Nantucket people are still determined to stay in the United States, waiting for new opportunities.
After the war, the American whaling industry regrouped, got rid of the gloom of wartime, and entered a glittering golden period. Nantucket continued to be successful from the 1830s to the mid-1840s. For the lads there, killing a whale or dolphin is respected, and going out to sea to hunt whales is a prerequisite for becoming a qualified lover. In 1846, when the total number of whaling ships in the world was 900, there were as many as 735 ships in the United States alone.
In nantucket, the heyday of whaling, millions of gallons of whale oil passed through this American port and were sent to markets around the world.
Soon, with the deepening of the draft of large ships, the depletion of whale resources and the attraction of gold rush to the islanders, Nantucket gradually declined, ceding the leading position of the whaling industry to the new port of New Bedford. The latter rose rapidly with its excellent geographical location and became the capital of the whaling industry in the United States. In the golden age, there was even a weekly report on whaling, the Whaler's Manifest and Merchant List.
The "Wall Street Journal in the Whaling Market" was first published in March 1843 and discontinued in December 1914 at the age of 72; it witnessed the highlights of the golden age, listened to the footsteps of the industry's gradual decline, and its farewell also marked the end of the once-prosperous whaling industry.
After 1850, the market for whale oil was gradually seized by gas, kerosene and oil, and it was shrinking day by day. When the world's first oil well was produced in Pennsylvania in 1859, Vanity Fair magazine published a set of cartoons. In the comics, whales dressed up in costume raise a toast to the well: "May our wells on land never run out!" "We don't have to weep and cry over the blubber on our bodies anymore!" The cheers of the whales came along with the end of the American whaling industry. In 1927, the John R. Manta sailed from New Bedford and returned almost empty-handed, bringing to a close the era of whaling in the United States.
In the 1930s, at a whaling station in Labrador, Canada, a man dressed in tarpaulin stood on a dead sperm whale peeling off the blubber.
The light of the American whaling industry is fading, while the whaling industry in other countries is booming. In the 1860s, the Norwegians improved their whaling cannons, greatly improving the efficiency of whaling; in the early 20th century, Japan and Russia became the great power of whaling; Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom also set new whaling routes in an effort to create more efficient and larger whaling fleets. In 1904, with the establishment of Norway's first whaling base in the Antarctic, the Antarctic was also included in the treasure hunt.
In 1946, in order to maintain whale populations, the International Whaling Commission was established and began to gradually restrict commercial whaling activities in member countries. However, the whaling ban has a loophole in the "scientific whaling permit" – scientific whaling not only does not have to go through any censorship outside of the country, but whale meat can also be sold or given away. Countries that want to open up the whale meat market often do business in the name of scientific research. In 2009, Japan's scientific whaling program alone killed hundreds of whales, while at the end of 2018, Japan officially announced its withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission, freeing itself from its constraints and restarting commercial whaling in July 2019.
People often praise certain animals and plants as "full of treasures", and both in terms of size and use, they are small in front of whales. Whale meat can be eaten, the tongue is a delicacy for clergy and nobles; its spine and ribs are the materials for making chairs and fences; during the long whaling voyage, sailors carve on whale teeth to pass the time, and then give it to their loved ones after returning home; the squid's beak is formed through the whale's digestive system to form ambergris, which can be used as a perfume to be used as a perfume, which is very precious... After the mid-19th century, whales were more fully utilized, and even the remaining waste was ground into powder as fertilizer. In a pamphlet called "Whales and Whaling," there is even a dense list of forty or fifty species of whales. But the main target of whaling is their abundance of blubber, cetacean oil and baleen.
Whale oil, made from blubber, has long been regarded as an excellent lighting material. In the early 18th century, London installed oil lamps throughout the city to combat nocturnal crime. These oil lamps last for a long night from sunset to sunrise, with a total duration of up to 5,000 hours per year. What burns quietly in these lamps is the crystal clear whale oil from the colony.
In 1912, whaling stations were piled high with barrels used to hold whale oil.
In addition to its lighting function, whale oil can also be used to make soaps, pigments, and the main lubricants and raw materials for processing cloth for military uniforms throughout Europe.
A work of scrimshaw carved with whaling scenes, circa 1960. Shell carvings were created by whalers and carved on whales' by-products, such as bones or teeth
Whale baleen can be made into whips, umbrellas, crutches, shoehorns and more, and the most popular of these are women's skirt bras or corset brackets – materials that are both tough and hard enough to be favored by bodywear manufacturers and used to fuel the unnatural fashion of the time.
The baleen is both tough and hard enough to be used as a stand to make corsets
In the 1850s, the demand for labor in the American whaling industry reached an all-time high, and women appeared on some whaling ships.
As whale populations dwindled, whalers had to travel farther and farther and longer, and it often took new Bedford captains about 4 years to complete a whaling operation. Many whalers spend much more time on board than at home. Once a captain died while whaling, the captain's wife, who was traveling with him, did not want to leave her husband at sea forever, and chose to soak her body in a bucket of whiskey and bring it home.
Caricature, published in 1861.
The women on the whaling ship are not necessarily the wives and daughters of the captain, but some women pretend to be men and act as sailors to board the ship. In 1849, a whaling ship that had been sailing for seven months decided to change its route to a port of call without completing its expected plan. This is because the captain was surprised to find that there was a 19-year-old "Mulan" on board the ship - she signed up for the sea in her father's name, worked for 7 months without anyone noticing, and was finally left in Peru by the captain and sent back to the United States.
Once the whaling distance is right, the javelin throws a whaling fork tied with rope and shoots at the whale.
But going to sea is not a good job. Those who have never experienced the storm on the surface of the sea tend to fantasize about whaling as an exciting, even romantic, undertaking; only true whaling knows that, while the industry may seem lucrative, the daily and tragic experiences of the sea, which are full of bitter waters, are not sensational.
If we have a glimpse into the diaries of the crews of early American whaling ships, we will find that behind the great wealth that brought to the shipowners, the blood and sweat of the crew have long been soaked like whale oil on every inch of the deck. In the "mini monarchy" of a whaling ship, the lowest-ranking crew of just over 20 people can squeeze into a low, cramped space with little natural light, sleeping on a mattress filled with straw or corn husks and dubbed "donkey's breakfast," enduring a variety of unpalatable foods served by a terrible cook, and constantly at risk of illness or injury.
The ship's doctors, who were captains, acted according to the medical guidelines in the medicine box; when necessary, they even performed surgery on the crew—a captain named Jim Hunting had tied the crew to a wooden plank and amputated him with a knife, saw and fish hook.
But the captain himself sometimes suffered from doom — in 1854, when the Moriah in New Bedford was sailing on the sea, its captain suffered from depression. The captain ended his life with a bullet from a Mauser gun and went from being the crew's doctor to his own executioner.
The whaler is using a whaling cannon that fires huge four-headed whaling forks, not only with thick ropes attached, but also with bombs
Today, the days of marine adventurers are long gone, and whaling is far less dangerous than it used to be. Today, when the safety of the crew's lives has been preserved and the conditions for food and accommodation are improving day by day, the only people who are really worth worrying about are the disappearing whales and the increasingly empty sea.