2. There are many connections between the ocean and the early towns and harbors of New
England. These connections are all intertwined like the threads that make up a spider web.
In this web there different aspects such as social aspects, politics, and religion, but the glue
that holds it together economics. The economics of the time had many interlocking forms:
Fishing
Trade
Social Services
Ship building
Privateers and Pirates
Whaling
and all of these center around sailings ships and the ocean.
3. Even before the settlements appeared along the coast
of New England the fishing in the near by waters were a
large economic asset. Many of the European countries
were sending ships to fill their nets well before the
settlement at Plymouth. Once the New England
settlements took root the value of fishing as a food
source and economic source grew.
In this picture they are not just off loading the
fish, they are laying the fish out to be cured and
preserved for sale and or trade.
This etching can be found on page 35 of The Pine-tree Coast by Samuel
Adams Drake (1891) in the chapter titled "Isles of Shoals."
From the Maine Historical Society
Http://www. Mainememory.net/item/6313
4. Trade to the New England towns and ports had
different points of value:
• To fill the towns peoples’ needs
Fruit
Tea
Cloth
News and mail
ect.
• Economics – buy low, sell high
The value of trade goods fluctuated from port
to port and one time to another. Hence the
right port at the right time was good fortune.
“Robert Sandeman (1718-1771), co-founder of the Sandemanian
religious sect, gave the snuffbox to Nathaniel Barrell (1732-1831) of
York when based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Barrell was a
member of the Sandemanian sect. It was originally covered with
James Phillips
leather over a paper base. The leather on the bottom is tooled.
The silver band around the side of the cover is inscribed ‘Ex dono
R Sandeman 1767. to N. Barrell’”.
Http://www. Mainememory.net/item/11241
5. There many risks on the open sea:
• Storms
• Rocky shores
• Other ships that are hostile (Pirates, Privateers
and Military vessels from other countries )
• Disease
• Fire
All of which have a cost socially and economically.
One of the ways to tell other ships of trouble
was the use of flags as the Peabody Essex Museum
note of this picture, “Flag upside down in
distress, [in] May 1840”.
Ship POLAND Burning at Sea from Peabody Essex Museum
http://www.pem.org/sites/archives/mpd/images/l1207.jpg
The Irish Rover by Album kavel 57( folk from the Sealers Crushed by Icebergs, W. Bradford, 1866, From New Bedford
vroom barn) by artist kavel 57 through Jamendo.com Whaling Museum
and creative commons http://whalingmuseum.org/explore/exhibitions/past/american-
landscape-seascape-paintings
6. Not all troubles happen at sea but the effects cross over. These effects are both social and economical and
the cost was not just to the individuals but to the communities. As Marcus Rediker writes in Villains of
All Nations “the poplar image of the pirates as man with a patched eye, a peg leg, and a hook for a hand is
not wholly accurate, but it speaks an essential truth: [a sailor’s life and work] was… dangerous… [and]
destructive to the human body” (Rediker n.p.). This being said, it ties in with Iron Men, Wooden
Women, Ruth Wallis Herndon writes, “Seamen [and their families] fell into [the]… needy category quite
often. By their lack of wealth, they were already near a servant class” (Creighton & Norling, 59). Also
Herndon notes, “The domestic cost of seafaring for Rhode Island communities: a lame and penniless
sailor was the responsibility not of his former employer but of his town of legal residence” (Creighton &
Norling, 56).
http://www.jules-cheret.org/Reproduction-of-a-poster-advertising-a-'Charity-
Party-in-aid-of-the-Society-for-the-Relief-of-Families-of-Shipwrecked-Sailors',-
Palais-du-Trocadero,-Paris,-1890.html
7. With many New England industries connected to the
sea (whaling, fishing, trade, and more) the industry of
ship building would be another economic need.
Ship yards where in many New England ports:
• New Bedford
• Salam
• Boston
• Portsmouth
• And more
From Peabody Essex Museum
http://www.pem.org/sites/archives/mpd/images/l0073.jpg
From the Maine Historical Society
Http://www. Mainememory.net/item/4197
8. The out fitting of a ship is a serious economic
endeavor . This can be broken in to three main parts:
• The ships needs –
Canvas for making and mending sails
Rope and rigging to replace worn and broken
ones
Ect.
• The crews needs-
Food
Soap
Ect.
• The needs for the task or job-
Canons
Supplies for fishing
Supplies for whaling
Ect.
From the Maine Historical Society
Http://www. Mainememory.net/item/21406
9. This Painting of the Privateer Brig Grand
Turk is the one mentioned by Samuel Eliot
Morison in The Maritime History of
Massachusetts.
What is a privateer? Marcus Rediker
writes, “Half- commercial, half-military
privateers (private men-of-war), which
were mobilized by kings and queens to…
plunder the trading vessels of wartime
enemies” (Rediker, n.p.). I would like to
note that even countries with out kings and
queens during war time turned to
privateers to boost their navy.
What makes the privateers different from
pirates? Rediker notes, “John Atkins, the
naval surgeon, spoke of the transition from
privateer to pirate as going from
‘plundering for others, to do it for
themselves’” (Rediker, n.p.).
Brig GRAND TURK of Salem and Built 1812, Wiscasset
Maine, 309 tons, 14 guns William Austin commander From
Peabody Essex Museum
http://www.pem.org/sites/archives/mpd/images/l1174.jpg
villains of all nations
10. The two many ways of becoming a pirate: Pirates goals, and traits:
Mutiny – forcibly taking over the ship • Take each ship with as little force necessary - for the ships
This was the path that led William Fly to the gallows on themselves had value.
July 12, 1726 and Fly’s last words were a warning not to those To this end the pirates goal was to use terror to get their
who would become pirates but those who he felt responsible. pray to surrender.
Fly said : “All Masters of Vessels might take Warning by the fate
of the Captain (meaning Captain Green) that he had murder’d • “Take no married man” – not all pirate leaders had this
[sic], and to pay Sailors their Wages when due, and to treat them
better; saying, that their Barbarity to them made so many turn
policy, but many did.
Pyrate [sic]” (Rediker n.p.).
• Pirates for the most part did not want to engage navel
Volunteering – sailor joining the pirates when their vessels – this was for the simple fact of high risk and low
vessel is taken reward.
This was do for the most part by the same aspects that Fly
addressed and the work load. Rediker acknowledges, “A
transatlantic merchant ship of 250 tons, which would have had a
working crew of 15 to 18 ‘hands,’ would[,] if taken and refitted by
pirates, have been manned by 80 to 90 men” (Rediker, n.p.).
This would lead to more men to do the same amount of work
11. Pirate name total ships
Bartholomew Roberts More than 400 (1719-1722)
Edward Low Approx. 140
Blackbeard Fewer
Sam Bellamy More than 50
Edward England and Charles Vane At least 50
Charles Harris 45
Francis Spriggs 40
James Phillips 34
George Lowther 33
Richard Holland 25
12. Whaling was made of many different tasks: Types of whaling:
• Drift whaling
Hunting • Shore whaling
Harpooning and spearing the whale (athletic) • Deep sea whaling
Factory work
At one point Whale Oil and other Whale products was the
biggest export to England.
From New Bedford Whaling Museum
http://whalingmuseum.org/
13. The economic affects of the sea on the communities where far reaching and not just by the physical (money, fish, trade,
whaling, and ect.). Their was also poplar culture:
Books
Moby Dick
biographies –Hannah Shell, Horace Lane, Richard Henry Dana Jr. and more
Plays
The Beggar’s
Polly
And more
Songs
Jack Monroe
The Cruel War is Raging
And more
14. Burns, Ric, dir. American experience: Into the Deep America, Whaling & the World. PBS, 2010. DVD.
Creighton, Margaret S., Lisa Norling. Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World. Baltimore:
The John Hopkins University Press, 1996. Print.
Kavel 57. The Irish Rover, Jamendo.com. Web. 6 Jun. 2012.
Maine Historical Society. Maine Historical Society. MHS, 2012. Web. 4 Jun. 2012.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Maritime History of Massachusetts: 1783 – 1860. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1979.
Print.
New Bedford Whaling Museum. New Bedford Whaling Museum. NBWM. 2012. Web. 11 Jun. 2012.
Peabody Essex Museum. Peabody Essex Museum. PEM. 2012. Web. 21 May 2012
Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. Kindle File.
The Great Ships: The Pirate Ships. A&E Television Networks, 2006. DVD.
