FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH. EVERY THURSDAY AND FRIDAY WE ARE FOCUSING ON THOSE CONTRIBUTIONS… BEGINNING AT SEA.
THIS STORY INVOLVES THE WHALING INDUSTRY’S GROWING PRESENCE IN ALASKA IN THE 1800S.
RUNAWAY SLAVES AND FREE BLACKS HAD BEEN FLEEING THE SOUTH FOR EASTERN CITIES. COASTAL TOWNS LIKE NEW BEDFORD, MASSACHUSETES, EMERGED AS WHALING CENTERS AS EARLY AS THE 1820S. BY 1850, BEDFORD’S POPULATION REACHED TWENTY THOUSAND. IT’S ESTIMATED THAT 18 PERCENT OF THOSE WHALERS WERE LIKELY RUNAWAYS FROM SLAVEHOLDING STATES OR COLONIES OF PORTUGAL.
ALASKA WATERS OFFERED BLACKS AND OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR EVEN MORE OPPORTUNITIES SELDOM FOUND IN JIM CROW’S SOUTH AND OTHER AREAS WHERE DISCRIMINATION REMAINED COMMON.
WHALING SHIPS BEGAN VISITING ALASKA BY THE EARLY 1840S. MORE THAN A QUARTER OF THOSE MEN HAD “WOOLY” HAIR AND DARK SKIN, ACCORDING TO LOG BOOKS. BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAR’S IMPACTS AND THE UNDERGROUND RAIL ROAD’S EFFECTS, POTENTIALLY THOUSANDS OF SLAVES FLED THE SOUTH FOR NORTHERN SEAS.
OVER TIME, WHALERS FOCUSED ON THE NORTH PACIFIC AND ARCTIC OCEAN, WITH BLACKS SERVED “AS A BACKBONE FOR THE WHOLE WHALING HISTORY,” SAYS HISTORIAN IAN C. HARTMAN. “IT'S POSSIBLE THAT NOT ONLY WERE THEY THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICANS TO MAKE THEIR WAY TO ALASKA BUT THEY MAY HAVE BEEN THE FIRST MEN FROM THE UNITED STATES TO SEE THE VAST TERRITORY,” HARTMAN SAYS.
WHALING TOOK AN INCREASING TOLL. BY 1924, THE INDUSTRY CRASHED. THE LAST SAILING CREW LEFT NEW BEDFORD AND DIVERSITY OF SAILING IN THE NORTH ENDED.
JOIN ME TOMORROW FOR ANOTHER SLICE OF OUR STATE’S BLACK HISTORY, THIS TIME FOCUSING ON MICHAEL HEALY.
