Ahoy, mateys! I bring you two tales of adventure from the sea. I’ve had In the Heart of the Sea on my list for quite awhile due to its Moby Dick connection, and I decided to follow that up with another classic true tale: The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of the HMS Bounty. Was I pushing my luck by reading two non-fiction seafaring adventures in a row? Perhaps.
In the Heart of the Sea
By the time Moby Dick was published in 1851, the tragedy of the whaleship Essex was widely known. But where Herman Melville’s great American novel ends with the sinking of the Pequod and the death of nearly everyone on board, the real life trials of the Essex crew were only beginning when a sperm whale rammed the ship multiple times, sending it to the bottom of the ocean. In the Heart of the Sea is a beautiful and terrible look not just at this tragedy, but at whaling, survival, death, and the life of Nantucket seamen.
When the Essex was preparing to set sail on that fateful voyage of 1819, she was known around Nantucket as a lucky ship. Author Nathaniel Philbrick writes that, “Over the last decade and a half, she had done well by her Quaker owners, regularly returning at two-year intervals to make them wealthy men.” Yet as the crew of 21 men assembled for the next voyage, portents were in the air: a comet appeared in the sky and, believe it or not, locusts were seen in the turnip fields. Locusts! You men have been warned!
You’d think, being Quakers, they would have been familiar with this story
The voyage was calamitous from the start. Just days into the trip, the Essex ran into a bad squall that damaged the ship and resulted in the loss of two of their whaleboats (whaleboats being the smaller boats that were used to get close enough to the whales to perform the death blows). George Pollard, the ship’s captain, was inclined to return to Nantucket to make repairs but was talked out of doing so by First Mate Owen Chase and Second Mate Matthew Joy. While Pollard was an able seaman, he was a newly appointed captain, and his weakness for being swayed by his officers into acting against his instincts proved disastrous throughout the voyage.
The trip itself was disappointing in terms of finding whales and collecting the precious oil they were after. Previously bountiful hunting “grounds” proved sparse, and the ship was forced to stop at islands along the way for repairs. While Essex may have made her owners rich in the past, the crew was not always so fortunate. Crewmen were paid by a share of the oil that was collected, and the lowest seamen got very little in exchange for two to three years of his life. By the time an enormous sperm whale took out their ship in late 1820, the crew were already facing some disappointing truths.
Philbrick describes in painful detail the suffering that the ship’s crew faced after the sinking. Crammed into twenty-five-foot whaling boats with nothing but what little hardtack and freshwater could be salvaged from the ship, they spent months on the open seas. They might have sailed easily for the Society Islands of the South Pacific but instead chose to aim for South America. This was another case where Pollard allowed himself to be swayed by his officers, who feared the unknowns of islands they considered “barbaric” more than they feared open waters. As Philbrick notes, “Only a Nantucketeer in 1820 possessed the necessary combination of arrogance, ignorance, and xenophobia to shun a beckoning (although unknown) island and choose instead an open-sea voyage of several thousand miles.” Ironically, fear of running into cannibals was one of the factors that caused them to reject sailing to the South Pacific. Not to spoil things for you, but. . .
There ain’t no party like a Donner party, ’cause a Donner party don’t stop!
As a lover of cetaceans, I think it’s only fair that the whales fight back. In 1820, whales were a commodity, and people treated them in terms of what parts could be turned into cash. After taking what was useful, the rest of the whale parts (bones, meat, guts) were simply dumped back into the sea. “Just as the skinned corpses of buffaloes would soon dot the prairies of the American West, so did the headless gray remains of sperm whales litter the Pacific Ocean in the early 19th century.” Yet I can’t let myself forget that these people were making a living the only way they knew how–and it was a dangerous, desperate way to live. The reverence expressed by an 18-year-old seaman in his journal is nothing short of remarkable: “It is painful to witness the death of the smallest of God’s created beings, much more, one in which life is so vigorously maintained as the Whale!” (PSA from the reviewer: The International Whaling Commission placed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. The species is recovering and its numbers are increasing.)
What makes this book so compelling is the historical context that Philbrook provides. We not only get a survival tale, but also a cultural lesson about life on Nantucket (including the role of women) and plentiful details about what life was like on the sea, especially for the “green hands” (what we would probably call newbies). I highly recommend this book for nonfiction lovers interested in nautical tales, survival stories, or 19th century America.
The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of the HMS Bounty
In my early twenties, I tried wine tasting for the first time. This happened at a Renaissance Faire in Pennsylvania, so I hope I can be forgiven for not attempting such a thing again until I was thirty and living in California. Anyway, in between tastes, the pourer offered a palate cleanser, which usually takes the form of a small cracker or breadstick, but in this case looked like a pale nougat. Not knowing anything, I popped a whole one in my mouth, and it was the driest, chalkiest substance I’d ever had the misfortune to mouthfeel. I started coughing up dehydrated spores, and my friend and I started giggling about how terrible it was. Reading this book reminded me of that.
Several books have been published about the famous seizing of the Bounty by Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian from Captain William Bligh. The version I read was the 1831 account written by Sir John Barrows, which essentially rehashes written accounts and court documents from the period. The 1932 novel, which I have not read, is probably more entertaining but highly fictionalized. So if you want the real scoop, this is the book to read. Unfortunately, it’s as dry and dusty as a low-budget palate cleanser. I’m bemused that this story became so prominent in popular culture, spawning at least two novels, three movies, and a West End musical. I applaud Barrows for factually documenting the events, but it honestly made for the dullest sea adventure I’ve encountered (to be fair, I’m no expert).
The unfortunate truth is, we know very little about the reasons for the mutiny. The Bounty had just left Otaheite (now known as Tahiti) after completing a five-month mission to collect breadfruit trees. (Incidentally, the reason the English wanted those trees was as a source of food for slaves, so there’s that.) Was it the five months living and partying among the natives that made the seamen resistant to discipline? Was Christian just tired of being insulted and kicked about by Bligh? (My copy’s introduction suggests there might have been more to Christian and Bligh’s relationship, but this appears to be mere speculation.) Was Bligh an iron-fisted ruler, quick to dole out floggings and other punishment, or was he just kind of a dick boss? Frankly, it’s hard to reconcile photos of Bligh with the image of a tyrant to be feared.
Him?
Even more disappointing is we know very little about what happened to Fletcher Christian after the mutiny. We know that, after dropping some of the mutineers off on Otaheite, he ended up on Pitcairn Island, where his descendants, along with those of a few fellow seamen, still live. Unlike other mutineers, he was never brought back to face court martial. The biggest tragedy of the entire affair was that the ship Pandora, which was sent to Otaheite to retrieve the rebellious sailors, ran aground at the Great Barrier Reef on its return voyage, resulting in the deaths of 35 men (four of them being mutineers).
Sadly, this book just wasn’t for me (and I must admit I skimmed the last couple of chapters). If you are passionate about nautical history and enjoy reading original documents from the time period, then go for it. Otherwise, check out the Wikipedia entry and call it a day.
