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Natucket Dbq

Decent Essays

The make-up of the Essex may not have seemed important during that dreadful voyage; after all, how could a difference among men affect the fact that a whale had stove the Essex? In actuality it is the composition of those whalers that had everything to do with the outcome of their voyage. These differences include social status, race, rank, and personality differences. Social status in Nantucket was mainly based on if someone was born and raised a Nantucketer, an orphan, outsider or worse a slave. Nantucket was not a racist location; however there was still a disadvantage for African Americans when it came to the whaling world. Along with that came the struggle of command between the Captain and his Shipmates. His struggle of authority ultimately …show more content…

This word was used to describe the “close-knit familial community” that the native people of Nantucket formed. This community was so close that many people in the community were split into three social classes; the Nantucketers, outsiders (including orphans), and African Americans. The Extent of this social classing was so bad that outsiders were often called “coofs”. African Americans usually did not live in Nantucket; they came from the Marine Insurance Company which would let Captains hire blacks as sailors. These black sailors were called “green hands” . Now the Nantucket community was not racist, or even hate-full towards these coofs and green hands, Nantucket was actually a community of Quakers. Quakers were known for their pacifist ways, except when it came to whale killing, some considered themselves, “Quakers with a vengeance” Meaning they didn’t see anything sinful about whale killing because the lord made it that way. So the Nantucketers had no hateful aggression towards different races or social classes, however there was a small change on the open sea. This change is due to the ship’s setup and the food provisions. On page 35 there is an illustration showing the internals of the Essex, it shows there are three different living quarters. One for the officers (almost always Nantucketers), one for common people (few Nantucketers and the outsiders), and last was the Blacks living quarters. The fact that people were split up shows how blacks and the outcast were still not seen as equals. And since they weren’t seen as equals they were not equally fed, Philbrick said, “At no time were the differences that existed between the officers and the men more pronounced than at mealtime” . For example the officers were said to eat roughly 3,800 calories a day, while others ate “even close to that amount”. Overall it comes down to the fact that the Nantucketers ate more than

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