Forenoon on New Seas 183 



ers or artisans, none of them had ever done so on the shores of their 

 homelands. No wonder they looked in amazement upon these ac- 

 tivities of the Amerindians wherever they found them along the 

 coast, for, using only flimsy canoes, these natives went boldly out to 

 sea in all weather, killed the largest whales with stone- and bone- 

 pointed harpoons, towed them ashore by hand or paddle power, 

 and then used every part of them for food, lighting, medicine, and 

 even, in the case of the larger species, their bones for building pur- 

 poses. The colonists were quick to see the very real value of this en- 

 terprise, and they appear to have started lending a hand almost im- 

 mediately after they landed. 



Details of early history are obscure, but the first records of almost 

 every settlement from the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the Hud- 

 son River mention stalwart colonial fishermen aided by local Amer- 

 indian crews rowing about inshore waters in open boats in pursuit 

 of whales. This activity continued and expanded during the next 

 hundred years — that is, from 1620 to 1720 — entirely on its own 

 initiative and quite uninfluenced by any similar activities in Europe. 

 It thus developed its own techniques, which were curiously similar 

 to those of the early days of the Basque industry and, before that, 

 of the neohthic peoples of Scandinavia and the Western Isles. The 

 colonists could learn nothing about whaling from the English simply 

 because, apart from the brief and dismally unsuccessful attempt un- 

 der the Muscovy Company, those people knew nothing of the busi- 

 ness at that time, and had no whaling fleet. They learned nothing 

 from the Hollanders because they in turn were busy during that 

 period learning deep-sea whaling in the Arctic from the Basques. 

 Moreover, the Hollanders have always been a reticent folk, and they 

 were then being doubly cagey due to the wars with the British and 

 the grandiose and ever-increasing profits which they were discover- 

 ing to be forthcoming from the whaling business. The American 

 colonists learned to go a-whaUng from the Amerindians, and they 

 learned it the hard way. However, they added some very novel 

 features of their own to the business that changed the whole history 

 of whaling. 



We are dealing here only with the first period of American whal- 

 ing, and although this concerns the whole northeastern coast line, it 

 must inevitably end up on that unique island known to its original 



