- Remember when you were a kid and your parents would
make you go spend a week with your aunt and Cousin
Kevin and you hated it because Kevin was just so boring and he only wanted to play Super Nintendo? Well, the Essex whaleship
was kind of like that, except you were stuck with
Kevin for over six months and instead of Super Nintendo he ate you. (dramatic music) I didn't read Herman
Melville's "Moby Dick" until I was 26-years-old and driving what I referred to as the body van. This was after I graduated
from mortuary school and was working basically as
a long haul corpse trucker, taking bodies from Oxnard to San Diego to Palm Springs to Anaheim. And out in the desert,
sometimes my only options were country radio or Christian radio, both of which I kind of enjoy,
I'm not gonna lie to you. To get me though the long drives, I obtained a 22-hour long unabridged audiobook of "Moby Dick" on CD. What I didn't realize at the time, listening to "Moby Dick," is that one, it was based on a true story and two, the true story was so much worse. When I was in Nantucket a few months ago, I learned the true story
of the whaling ship Essex. My first response was, "Oh
we're doing a video on this." This is a concept that has
become a staple of this channel, historical events that
you sorta know about but you're sure the death
and brutality are exaggerated and then you do the research and it's much darker than you thought. Hard to believe, but the
tiny island of Nantucket wasn't always the Waspy respite
of those salmon color shorts and multi-million dollar
vacation homes you know today. Before English settlers began migrating to the island in the mid 1600s, Nantucket was home to thousands of the indigenous Wampanoag people. When the English arrived they went "We shall farm this land!" And quickly stripped all the
island's natural resources and left it depleted. Then they were like, "Oh
nevermind, we shall be whalers! "That will go much
better than the farming!" Early Nantucket whaleboat crews were manned by five Wampanoag oarsmen and one white Nantucketer steering. White Nantucketers needed the skills and whale savvy of the Wampanoag, as well as the backbreaking labor they provided in killing the whales, mainly Right Whales at the time. Whale facts! Right Whales were named Right Whales because they were the right whale to kill. By the early 1700s, Nantucket was a prosperous
whaling port, but it didn't last. By the 1760s the English had
pretty effectively decimated both the Nantucket Wampanoag population, and all the whales around Nantucket. Though Nantucket was the
whaling capital of the world, many Nantucketers had
never laid eyes on a whale. No matter, they built bigger boats capable of longer
voyages and larger hauls, ships that could take them
near the Arctic Circle, to Africa, to South America,
and the South Pacific. At this point, Nantucketers
were pursuing sperm whales, which were far more
desirable than Right Whales because of their plentiful oil. This whale oil was used to light the world by lamp oil and candles. It greased machinery, in fact whale oil made the American Industrial
Revolution possible. And so, during the 18th and 19th century sperm whales were mercilessly hunted. There's a Humpback skeleton at Bishop Museum in Hawaii
when I was growing up. Sperm whale skeleton Caitlin,
it was sperm whale skeleton. You can't even get your
childhood trauma right! And I think it's part of where my terror of whales came from, just walking under that
huge massive whale skeleton, actually getting a sense of
how large they really are. That's a fun fact about
me, I'm afraid of whales. Whale facts! Caitlin is afraid of them. But after this experience in Nantucket, I went back to the source of my pain. Bishop Museum, in Honolulu. Tell you what, it's a beautiful day to enter the bowels of
hell and face your fears. Okay, here we go. (laughs) It's a little less scary now. But still freaky. As an adult I have a new
appreciation for these gentle, if still not unnaturally
large giants of the deep. The whalers and whaleship owners had a different kind of appreciation, the appreciation of just how much money the whales could make them. This huge cavern at the top
of the sperm whale's head contained spermaceti,
which for the sperm whale helps with echolocation and buoyancy but for sailors and
whalers, it was just gold. The sperm whale's head alone holds between three to four tons of that liquid gold spermaceti. A whaler could literally ladle
the spermaceti into barrels. It's estimated that by
the mid-19th century, whalers had reduced the
world's sperm whale population by anywhere from 30 to 75%. Whale facts! There used to be five
million whales on Earth, but due to commercial whaling, today there are about 1.3 million whales. I don't need to tell you that destroying the world's
whale population is bad, right? Not only do whales capture
carbon in their bodies, like 33 tons of carbon in a larger whale, their poop may save us all. Whale poop contains iron and nitrogen, exactly what teeny tiny creatures called phytoplankton need to grow. Phytoplankton suck up about
40% of the world's CO2 and contribute at least
50% of the world's oxygen. So, have you thanked
your whale poop today? (air horn honking) So let's see, depletion
of natural resources, the near extinction of
an indigenous population, whale destruction, and we haven't even gotten
to the cannibalism yet. By 1819, the year the
whaleship Essex left port, the world's economy was foundering, but Nantucket's was still thriving. The price of whale oil was on the rise, and with it came opportunities for men to make money on a whaleship. For Nantucketeers, there
was no greater call. The Essex was commanded
by first-time captain, 28-year-old George Pollard Jr. Pollard was young, but experienced, he had spent four years aboard the Essex as both second mate and first mate, so he knew the old ship well. Pollard was joined by fellow Nantucketers, second mate Matthew Joy
and first mate Owen Chase, both of which sound like
the name of TikTok stars. (upbeat music) Owen Chase is everything, I
would literally die for him. The crew of 21 included Captain Pollard's 17-year-old cousin, Owen Coffin, a young man that Pollard swore to protect and his boyhood friends, Charles Ramsdell, and Barzillai Ray, all sailors. There was also the 14-year-old
cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, who called the moment he
set foot on the Essex, "the most pleasing moment of my life." Oh, Thomas. Oh honey. Additionally, there were seven
more sailors from Nantucket and seven black crew
members from the mainland, Samuel Reed, Richard Peterson, Lawson Thomas, Charles
Shorter, Isaiah Sheppard, William Bond, and Henry De Witt. On the one hand, being a black whaler meant you were guaranteed
to be paid no less than your white counterparts. The Nantucketers were Quakers
and abolitionists after all. But, realistically black crew members were the new Wampanoag. Back breaking work, no
opportunities for advancement, they got the worst quarters and food, and were always seen as outsiders. All things that would not help them later. Am I doing enough to build up the uncomfortable sense
of foreboding here? On August 12th, 1819
the Essex and her crew set out for what they
thought would be a bountiful a two-year voyage to South America. Despite being an old
ship and a small ship, the Essex was believed to be lucky. That is, until they hit bad
weather in the Gulf Stream and suffered a knockdown, where the boat rolled over 90 degrees. But Captain Pollard stayed
calm, maybe too calm; many believed it was his
slowness to react to the storm that got them knocked
down in the first place, and gradually the ballast
was able to right the ship. When the storm passed, the
men surveyed the damage. Some sails were destroyed, and two of her five whaleboats were lost, a third whaleboat badly damaged. A successful whaleship needed
three working whaleboats for a hunt, and two spares. At this point Captain Pollard decided to return to
Nantucket for repairs, but First Mate and TikTok star
Owen Chase challenged him, saying they should continue to the Azores and pick up new boats there. Pollard yielded to Chase
and they continued on. The Azores, unfortunately,
provided no new whaleboats. It wasn't until weeks later that Pollard was able to obtain a
single old, leaky whaleboat from a wrecked ship off
the coast of West Africa. With just enough
whaleboats to continue on, the Essex turned south and
sailed in search of its prey. Then between Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires the lookout
cried, "There she blows!" Yes, they really said that. Spying a whale sent the Essex crew into a frenzy of activity. Three whaleboats were
hastily loaded with gear, namely harpoons and harpoon lines. This was why they were here. Herman Melville's said in
"Moby Dick" that it was, "A dead whale or a stove boat." Meaning a boat with a
hole smashed into it. Either you kill the whale,
or the whale kills you. A brief Whale Hunt 101. The three boats would race each other to get to the whale first. Being the first to reach the whale and kill it gave the
victor bragging rights. But they couldn't come in too
hot and frighten the whale. Whales have great hearing, so too much splashing
could chase them away. When the whale was close
enough the harpooner would plunge the five
or six-foot long harpoon into the 80-ton animal. The harpoon wasn't
meant to kill the whale, just make sure he couldn't get away. Obviously, when someone harpoons you, you don't stick around. The panicked creature would
thrash, dive, and swim away, hauling the whaleboat behind it on a Nantucket sleigh ride. After the whale exhausted itself, the whaleboat crew drew
close to make the kill. With a lance, the mate would attempt to stab the heart or lungs of the whale, sometimes needing to stab
the animal 10 or 15 times. The whale would start to choke, spouting a 20-foot geyser of blood. "Chimney's afire!" the mate would shout. After more thrashing about, more spewing of blood and vomiting, the whale would swim in
smaller and smaller circles called the flurry before finally dying and turning over on its side, or fin out. Bobbing in a sea of blood and gore, the hunt was over and it was
time to slowly tow the whale, head first, back to the ship. The dead whale was then processed, its blubber peeled from
its body in long strips, then boiled down to extract the oil. The whale was decapitated
and the precious spermaceti was lifted out by buckets,
as much as 500 gallons. Once all the blubber,
spermaceti, and ambergris, a valuable waxy substance
used to make perfume and found in the intestinal tract, had been removed from the whale, the carcass was dumped
back into the ocean, often to waiting sharks. All in all, processing a
sperm whale was a painful, pungent endeavor that could
take days to complete. As they neared Cape Horn, the Essex had been out for four months and only killed one whale. If this is how things were gonna be, their voyage would be far more
than the planned two years. But their luck turned when
they made it to the waters off the coast of Chile and killed and processed
approximately 11 whales. But Captain Pollard wasn't going to give his crew a vacation. He wanted to head to an area thousands of miles off the coast of Peru, further than many
whaleships dared venture, called the Offshore Ground. Supposedly, the place
was lousy with whales. But before heading out
two things happened, one, one of the black
sailors, Henry De Wit, deserted the ship in Ecuador, which proved to be an excellent decision on the part of Mr. De Wit, and two, the Essex stopped
at the Galapagos Islands, where they captured
180 tortoises for food. The tortoises weren't killed, they were allowed to roam about the ship, skittering across the
deck in rough weather, you know, periodically being eaten. Then, as a prank, one of the crew members set fire to nearby Charles
Island, now Floreana Island, destroying the island's ecosystem and contributing to the
extinction of its specific, scientifically significant,
Galapagos tortoises. You're doing great boys! Now here's where things
get very Moby Dick. The Essex is in the middle
of the Pacific Ocean when Nickerson, remember
the cabin boy who was like, "ah this is amazing, I'm on
a whaleship," spots a giant, reportedly 85-foot-long whale
acting strangely nearby. Now the captain and the others are off in whaleboats pursuing a whale. Nickerson's like "Uh, so..." Suddenly the whale barrels
toward the Essex's port side. First Mate Owen Chase happens
to be aboard the Essex because his whaleship was smashed by another whale's tail
and needed repairs, it's not been a great day at the office. Chase calls to turn the ship away, but it's too late and the enormous whale rams the side of the ship. The crew falls, tortoises
are flying around, the whole ship trembles. Chase and the crew are speechless. To their knowledge, this
was the first time ever that a whale had attacked a ship. In all the years men were going around brutally slaughtering whales, this was the first whale's revenge. The whale bumps the underside of the Essex and then reappears, apparently stunned. Chase makes a move to
lance the whale, but stops, thinking its flukes were
too close to the rudder. This could actually have been
the the Essex's fatal mistake, it might have been better
to have a damaged rudder than no ship at all. I'm pretty sure anything is
better than no ship at all in this scenario. The whale swims a few hundred yards away, doubles its speed, and
swims at the ship again. This time it hit the
Essex on the port bow, pushing the 238 ton Essex backwards and flooding and capsizing the ship. Chase and Nickerson and
the men left on the ship barely have time to grab
some navigational equipment and scramble into a whaleboat. Only two miles away, Captain Pollard and the other sailors
out on the whale boats look around and go, "Uh hey,
have you guys seen the ship?" But the Essex had disappeared, her capsized hull barely
floating above the water line. From the first hit to
the sinking of the ship, it only took 10 minutes. All Chase could say in response to the captain's inquiry was, "We have been stove by a whale." So picture this, you're the
captain of this huge whaleboat in the middle of the ocean
and that boat is now missing, and there's a killer whale on the loose. Not a killer whale like an orca, like an 85-ton murderous whale. Boo! Now, to be fair, at the time this would be absolutely terrifying and there's a vengeful whale would be your explanation
as you're floating there, pretty much screwed. But the hindsight of
science and history tells us that this huge sperm whale
was more than likely confused by all the banging repair
sounds coming from the ship, and mistook them for another
aggressive male whale. Remember, these whales
have terrible eyesight, and locate mainly through sound. But they also have close
family and kin groups, and maybe over time the violent and random slaughtering of their family made the young males a little aggressive. Meanwhile, floating in the
middle of the Pacific Ocean, Captain Pollard ordered the crew to start salvaging anything they could. As much food and fresh water as possible, and any equipment they could safely carry in the whale boats. Two hogs and some
tortoises swam to the boats and were pulled aboard. Everyone agrees they can't
head for the closest islands, the Marquesas, which
were 1,200 miles away, because they feared cannibalism. Pollard wanted to head for
the next nearest islands, the Society Islands. Again, Owen Chase challenged him. Chase believed that the Society Islands also put them in danger of cannibalism and that they should
sail for South America. Turns out the Society Islands, where there had been an English mission for more than 20 years would
have been a great option. But once again Pollard backed down and agreed to Chase's plan. South America or bust. The 20 remaining crew members were split between the three whaleboats. Each boat got 200 pounds of hardtack, basically flour and water cracker biscuit, 65 gallons of water, and
two Galapagos tortoises. The leader of each boat
got a pistol or musket. And off they went. The crew at first decided
to try and stay together. Not only did this boost morale, but Second Mate Matthew Joy's boat was without any navigational equipment. At the mercy of the elements, only able to sail with the wind, the boats struggled their
way across the open water, just hoping they were being
blown in the right direction. Are you trapped in a small boat in the middle of the ocean
after a whale attack? Not much food to go around
and things are getting tense? Wanna take some time for yourself? Get away a little? If I may suggest, an audiobook. This video is brought to you by Audible, you can go to audible.com/mortician or text mortician to 500-500 to get one free audiobook,
two free Audible originals, and a 30-day free trial. Wait, stop, you must stop the video. Unprecedented times call
for heroic measures. That whole two free Audible originals, no, unlimited Audible originals, unlimited. Whale facts. You can say farewell to putrefaction. (dramatic music) (dolphin squeaking) Secret black. (soothing jazzy music) (upbeat music) You get the 30-day free trial, the one audiobook and unlimited
Audible originals for free. Free! A suggestion from me, why not try "Moby Dick"
by Herman Melville? It's 22 hours or non-stop fun and you have time trapped in
a whaleship adrift at sea. You have nothing but time and you might find the story
speaks to your own experience, some parts may seen
eerily similar in fact. The URL and SMS code are
down in the description. Members will also get
access to audio fitness and health workouts, created
exclusively for Audible which might not help you
in the boat to be honest. Any audiobook you get from
Audible is yours forever, you can go back and re-listen at any time, even if you cancel your membership. Because of this sponsorship, we'll be donating to the
Center for Whale Research, which is dedicated to the
study and conservation of the Southern Resident
killer whale population in the Pacific Northwest. Save the whales! Save the whales! Back to the whale boats. One thing that was non-negotiable is that their food and water
had to last two months. That meant their rations of food and water were less than 1/3 of
what an adult man needed. Each man was allotted
six ounces of hardtack and half a pint of water a day. Already, from the constant
exposure to salt water, painful sores were breaking
out on the whalers' skin. On only the sixth day out, the men in Owen Chase's boat
were miserable from thirst because their biscuits had
been soaked with saltwater and they continued to eat them. They were all in the early
stages of hypernatremia, a condition when there's
too much sodium in the body. After less than 10 days out, not only was Chase's boat
barely holding together, remember it had already
been smashed pre-sinking, but the captain's boat required repairs after being attacked by a killer whale. Literally a killer whale this time, also known for never knowingly
attacking humans in the wild. What's going on with this crew? After 17 days sailing south, they were even further from South America. The winds had pushed them and they were now 3,000 miles away. They came close to the
Society Islands and Tahiti but because of that pesky
cannibalism they turned away. I would have been like,
"Maybe just drop me off? "I'll risk the cannibalism." Driven to drink their own urine, the men were facing a
gruesome death by dehydration. They were in a state where their mouths no longer created saliva. Their tongues stuck to
their teeth and mouth, they spoke obsessively about their thirst to the point where they were
losing the ability to speak. When a wind did pick up, it
pushed them the wrong way. Their rations paltry,
their tortoises long gone, and their skin pulled
tight on their skulls, the men were days away from death. But on December 20th hope
appeared on the horizon, in the form of Henderson island. Seeing green on the island, they staggered onto land hoping
for water and sustenance. They did find a spring that
allowed them to stave off death, but the island proved unsustainable. After less than a week
of eating all the birds, eggs and fish they could find, they found they had once again decimated an entire island's resources, a very Nantucket thing to do. So on December 26th, after several days of
food and fresh water, the Essex crew decided to
leave Henderson Island. But three men decided to stay behind, one man from each boat. All three men were Off-Islanders and they worried about
their chances of survival, considering how the Nantucketers tended to look out for their own. Not to mention, Second Mate Matthew Joy was already ill from tuberculosis, and his death was imminent. Leaving those three men behind, the crew of the Essex zigzagged
their way across the ocean, trying to make their way to Easter Island, but on January 4th, 44 days
since they left their ship, Chase and Pollard realized they had no hope of
reaching Easter Island. On January 10th, Matthew Joy died. Since things were desperate but not quite cannibalism
desperate, he was buried at sea. The new leader of Joy's boat, Obed Hendricks discovered that Joy had not been keeping watch
over the boat's rations and the food and water was basically gone. From here things got rapidly worse. Chase's boat became
separated from Pollard's and Hendricks' boats. And on January 20th, the only
black whaler in Chase's boat, Richard Peterson, refused his
ration of bread, and died. He wasn't eaten and was
given a proper burial at sea. According to the white guys
from Nantucket who survived, I'm just saying. It's no surprise that a black whaler was the first to die of malnutrition. As I mentioned, they were
likely given poorer diets than their white counterparts and thus had less fat on their bodies. The amount of fat on a
person especially matters in a starvation situation, as the body has more to burn through. Because of their higher
body fat percentage women tend to fare better
in starvation scenarios. Remember our friends in the Donner Party? Speaking of cannibalism. On the same day that Richard
Peterson died, January 20th, Lawson Thomas, a black man on
Hendricks' boat, died as well. With the rations dangerously low, Captain Pollard and Hendricks made the grim decision to eat his corpse. The irony is that if they'd only chanced those alleged scary cannibals
in the Society Islands, perhaps they themselves wouldn't have had to become the cannibals. Thomas' body probably only
gave them about 30 pounds of very lean meat, but since they ran out of
hardtack the day after his death, they were happy to have it. On January 23rd, another black crewman, Charles Shorter, died, and like Thomas before,
his body was consumed. Okay, I'm not gonna say that
these three black whalers were victims of the Essex
crew expediting nature so to speak, signs do point
to their health being worse than Pollard and his Nantucket friends, but it seems awfully convenient
that the first men to die, aside from the guy with
tuberculosis, were black. I want to remind you of this concept from the Donner Party video. Daniel James Brown, author of the book "The Indifferent Stars Above" wrote, "When killing to survive, "it's easiest to kill whatever "and whomever you are least attached to, "cattle before horses, dogs before people, "strangers before acquaintances, "acquaintances before friends,
friends before family." Unlike the Native
American men who took off when the Donner Party
started salivating over them, the black men on these
whaleboats had nowhere to go. Was this the exact situation that the three men left behind
on Henderson Island feared? That it would become the
Nantuckers's versus everyone else? And how ferocious was
the Nantucketers' loyalty to those they were most attached to? Meanwhile on Owen Chase's boat, separated from everyone else,
the men could barely move. They were helpless, without the strength to steer
the boat or handle the sails. So they lay in the boat going where the wind and water took them. Back on Hendricks' boat, Isaiah Sheppard died on January 27th. He was the third black whaler
to be eaten in seven days. And then the next day,
January 28th, Samuel Reed, another black whaler died and was eaten. At this point, William Bond was the only
remaining black whaler. Sleep with one eye open, Bill. You might be saying, "Um,
Caitlin, those guys had eaten "a lot of human flesh by this point, "weren't they at least on
the nutritional upswing?" Unfortunately, no. The men that Pollard and his
crew ate were devoid of fat. In order for the human body
to properly digest food, it needs fat. Fat not only transports
nutrients throughout the body, but it also facilitates absorption. There were no fat on these men. Therefore, despite each man eating as much as 3,000 calories, the lack of fat made it impossible for the nutrients to be
effectively absorbed. So the men continued to starve. By January 29th, Hendricks'
boat had disappeared. Without navigational equipment on board, that boat was all but doomed. Too weak to search for
them, Captain Pollard, his remaining Nantucketers, and Samuel Reed's half eaten corpse, found themselves alone on the sea. But this is the Essex! Things can always get worse! It's time for murder! By February 6th, the men in Pollard's boat were again without food. It was then that Charles Ramsdell made a desperate suggestion, draw lots to see who would
be killed and eaten next. At first Captain Pollard refused, but when Coffin and Ray joined in support of Ramsdell's suggestion,
Pollard once again folded. They put scraps of
paper in a hat and drew. The deadly lot fell to Owen Coffin, who you may remember was
the captain's young cousin, the boy he swore to protect. And now he's going to eat him. That's not what you promised to do. "My lad, my lad! "If you don't like your lot, "I'll shoot the first
man that touches you," the captain said. He then offered to take Coffin's place. But Coffin, rough name buddy, insisted that he fulfill his fate. "I like it as well as any other," he said. Which was probably true at that point. They drew lots again to
see who would kill Coffin and the honor fell to Ramsdell. Now it was Ramsdell, the guy who suggested this
whole thing in the first place, who balked, at first refusing to
kill his boyhood friend, before eventually submitting. Before Coffin died he gave
Pollard a message for his mother that Pollard promised to deliver if he ever got back to Nantucket. Coffin was then shot,
butchered, and consumed. Over on Chase's ship
things had not improved. On February 8th, Isaac Cole began ranting, screaming, and convulsing. For hours, unable to
speak, he moaned and shook. Finally, late that afternoon he died. Unlike Pollard and Hendricks, in the 78 days since they left the Essex, this was Chase's first time
faced with eating a crew member. After careful consideration, the men dispatched Cole and ate him, despite the flesh quickly
turning green and going rancid. By February 14th, all
of Cole had been eaten. Four days later, Benjamin Lawrence was standing at the steering
oar when he spotted a sail. Chase and young Nickerson
struggled to their feet to see it for themselves. It was a ship from London, the Indian, and after chasing her down she caught sight of the tiny boat. When asked who they were,
all Chase could muster was, "Essex whaleship Nantucket." The crew of the Indian
immediately brought Chase, Nickerson, and Lawrence aboard,
their Captain calling them the picture of suffering and misery. 300 miles south, Captain
Pollard and Ramsdell were barely holding on. Barzillai Ray had died 12 days prior, they ate him, of course. In desperation Pollard and Ramsdell cracked open the
remaining bones of the men they'd eaten to suck out the marrow. Interestingly, this technique gave the men the fat they needed to survive. Drifting in and out of consciousness the end seemed near for
Pollard and Ramsdell, when suddenly they were
brought to by shouting. It was February 23rd, and they had been found
by the ship Dauphin. Happening upon Pollard's whaleboat, they were met with the grisly
sight of two living skeletons still sucking the marrow from quote, "the bones of the dead mess mates, "which they were loath to part with." Finally, for the eight
remaining Essex survivors, their torment was over. And yes I did say eight. Remember those three guys who stayed back on Henderson Island? They were soon rescued, alive. The same could not be said
for the separated boat containing Obed Hendricks,
Joseph West, and William Bond. Their whaleboat and skeletons
were found washed up on a remote island months after
they separated from Pollard. And there you have it,
quite the whale of a tale. So much so, that the story of the Essex was one of the inspirations for Herman Melville in
writing "Moby Dick." Along with another alleged
violent white whale off Chile called Mocha Dick which (laughs) this is a sponsored video
you can't demonetize me for saying Mocha Dick. Mocha Dick, Mocha Dick. It's history, people! Melville actually met Owen
Chase's son, William Henry Chase, while the whaleship he was on socialized with William's ship. Having heard the story
about Williams' father, he eagerly asked for the details. They talked and William loaned Melville a copy of Chase's book about
the voyage, published in 1821. So that was the Jared
Coffin house, right there. And that used to be the Ocean house and it's where Herman
Melville stayed in Nantucket while he was writing "Moby Dick." One could argue that the tale of the Essex ended better than "Moby Dick." In that story, only Ishmael
remained after the whale attack, clinging to a coffin for life. Life saving coffin? Owen Coffin? Get it? It's 11th grade English
class in here today! But survivors of the
Essex who made it home had to live with what
transpired in those whaleboats and try to somehow rebuild their careers. Behind me was the house
of Captain George Pollard, the captain of the Essex. Less than a year after the Essex, he was given command of
a separate whaling vessel called the Two Brothers which he also ran aground off Hawaii, thus destroying two entire whaling ships and he came back to
Nantucket and he's like, "No one's ever gonna give me a job "as a whaling captain again." And they didn't, he joined
the night's watch of Nantucket and that's how he ended his career. Owen Chase went on to
have an illustrious career as a whaleship captain, but his personal life was marked
with death and heartbreak. After retiring from the sea, Chase could never shake
the trauma of his time in the Essex whaleboat and he took to hiding food in his attic. Mental illness and terrible headaches were a constant companion in his old age. He died in 1869, and Pollard died in 1870. People in Nantucket had a difficult time talking about the Essex
tragedy for decades to come. The cannibalism was bad enough, but the abolitionist Nantucketer Quakers were deeply embarrassed. The first time Frederick Douglass spoke before a white audience was in Nantucket, and yet most of the men to die and be eaten from the Essex were black. The influential Quakers
who controlled the town spent the years following the Essex trying to imprint a different, more positive impression of
race relations in Nantucket. They spoke of black whaler's
massive contributions to the whaling economy, the growing number of black Nantucketers, a ship with an all black crew that brought in 2,280 barrels of oil was dubbed Greatest Voyage Ever Made in the Nantucket Inquirer. Ah, the relatable public
relations nightmare of trying to reinvent your image as a place that doesn't
eat their black whalers. So there you have it. Another real life tale of
tragedy and well, cannibalism, that was actually so
much worse than I knew. Thanks again to Audible, support us by going to
audible.com/mortician or texting mortician to 500-500. You get free audiobooks
and it helps the whales. Don't they deserve it after this? And, yes I'm back again, hi, because we know that humans
also need help at this moment, we will also be donating to the First Nations COVID-19
Emergency Response Fund. You probably already know
this but native communities have been among the hardest
hit by the pandemic. This video was made
with generous donations from death enthusiasts just like you. (soothing music) ♪ Yo-ho, a whaler's life for me ♪ ♪ Something about a shanty on the sea ♪ I'm afraid of whales. (clock ticking) Save the whales! Save the whales! Save the whales! The Waspy respite of those
salmon colored shorts, salmon? The (bleep). Mocha Dick. (object bangs) Survivors of the Essex
(object bangs) shit. (object bangs) God dammit. Things can always get
worse, it's time for murder! It's time for murder. Murder! Owen Chase is everything, I
would literally die for him. Literally die for him, die for him! Darcy Blooms.
This was great story (and intermission). TIL!