"A Bold and Hardy Race of Men": The Lives and Literature of American Whalemen

Epilogue

199 Epilogue William cullen Bryant’s narrative poem “catterskill falls” describes “a youth of a dreamy mood” pursuing a panther through the wintry woods of the catskill mountains. stumbling upon the famous cataract and pausing to admire its frozen grandeur,the boy sees several phantoms hovering over its “glistening pillars” and “crystal battlements.” Who were these spirit-men? some were hunters who roamed through the forest tracking their game; others were mariners who wandered the world in search of whales and seals. There pass the chasers of seal and whale, With their weapons quaint and grim, and bands of warriors in glimmering mail, and herdsmen and hunters huge of limb. There are naked arms,with bow and spear, and furry gauntlets the carbine rear.1 Bryant positions both types of men as mythic heroes of north america’s not-so-distant past. although Bryant does not comment on the national significance of frontiersmen or whalemen, he suggests that these manly men,and their labors,have much in common. after the publication of Bryant’s poem in 1836,many nautical authors, especially those who sought to appropriate the whale fishery and its workers for national purposes, began to employ the whaling/hunting comparison . Jeremiah n. reynolds, for example, while discussing the scarcity of whales, points out that “these animals [whales and seals] as naturally and instinctively leave the haunts of the whalers and sealers, and retire to 200 Epilogue the more remote regions, as the wild-game of the west recede before the advances of the sturdy backwoodsman.” The anonymous author of “The story of the Whale” argues that “heroes of all times have been hunters” and that “upon the great trysting-ground of the illimitable sea, even more than upon land, we behold the majesty of the chase.” William h. seward, speaking before the senate, declared that “the chase of the whale over his broad range of the universal ocean” was “a nobler sport” than “izaak Walton, or daniel Boone, or even nimrod, the mightiest as well as most ancient of hunters,ever dreamed of.”2 Though herman melville was very critical of americans and their political project, he sometimes adopted frontier imagery to praise the heroism of whalers. for example, ishmael, in a discussion of hercules, transforms the renowned Greek demigod into a whaleman and a woodsman, proclaiming, “according to the Greek mythologies, that antique crockett and Kit carson—that brawny doer of rejoicing good deeds,was swallowed down and thrown up by a whale.”3 american writers outside the genre of nautical fiction also employed the whaling/hunting comparison. Washington irving’s Adventures of Captain Bonneville, written just one year after “catterskill falls,” compares rocky mountain fur trappers to new england whalemen. Later historical and biographical narratives, such as Thomas d. Bonner’s Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth and deWitt c. Peters’s Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, also adopt this metaphor.4 Taken as a whole, these three texts—and the maritime and frontier figures that appear in them—are significant because they demonstrate that nineteenth-century whaling and fur-trapping narratives were symbolically interdependent in their representations of national manhood. That is, the nautical imagery in fur-trapping narratives reinforced the frontier imagery in whaling narratives , and vice versa. Thus, whaler/hunter metaphors helped frontier authors support the idea that these pioneers were exemplary americans and maritime writers support the idea that these seafarers were national heroes. This symbolic interchange raises certain questions. Why, for example, were irving, Bonner, and Peters so keen to appropriate the work of fur trapping for national purposes? and how did whaling imagery reinforce this idea? in contrast to the financially successful and globally dominant new england whale fishery, the fur trade bankrupted many of the americans involved in it. as Peter c. newman explains in his three-volume 201 Epilogue history of the business, Company of Adventurers, the British gained exclusive control of the north american fur trade during the colonial period and maintained their monopoly through the nineteenth century. Bernard devoto’s Across the Wide Missouri reveals that many americans, including John Jacob astor,William ashley,Jedediah smith,Jim Bridger, Benjamin Bonneville, and nathaniel Wyeth, tried to enter the business but had difficulty competing against the British. astor’s efforts to establish a fur-trading post on the columbia river ended in disaster when he was forced to relinquish the settlement to the British...