Also among the crew were some men from the mainland, including several African Americans. The latter’s memoirs (along with those of Nickerson) serve as one of the primary sources Philbrick used in researching his book. The majority of the crew aboard the Essex were native Nantucketers, including the ship’s captain, George Pollard, and first mate, Owen Chase.

The great risk of setting off on a whaling expedition was returning home without enough product to generate a profit. At the time the Essex set sail, whaling ships were not expected to return home for at least two years. Meanwhile, the eradication of the whale population in and around Nantucket harbor forced Nantucketers to travel farther and farther in pursuit of whales. As the whaling industry grew larger, Nantucketers, who were also largely members of the Quaker religion, came to form an insulated community, preferring to work only with other islanders. Whale hunting became a way of life among those in Nantucket children trained to hunt whales from an early age. However, once it was realized that whale blubber could be converted into oil, the economy shifted to focus on the whales that regularly migrated through Nantucket harbor.

The island’s white settlers, who arrived in the mid-17th century, initially developed an agricultural economy.

The book begins with a discussion of various aspects of Nantucket’s history, explaining just how the island grew to be such a major player in the whaling industry. Weighing in at 238 tons and measuring 87 feet in length, The Essex set sail from the Massachusetts island of Nantucket in August 1819 to hunt whales in the Pacific Ocean. Content Warning: The source material contains extensive discussion of survival cannibalism as well as violence against animals.

In the heart of the sea philbrick