Before the First Whalemen: The Emergence and Loss of Indigenous Maritime Autonomy in New England, 1672–1740

Abstract

Before contact, the ocean centered prominently in the lives of Native Americans. After Europeans controlled New England's littoral, Natives connected to the sea in Nantucket's commercial codfishery. Native codfishermen exercised autonomy; with the rise of the whaling, that power was lost and Native whalefishermen became indebted to their whale merchants.