Chris Yi
In the age of discovery, the Pacific was the global center of adventure that allowed nations and individuals to experience the unknown and gain of success. As identified by Reid in The Sea Is My Country, examining the Pacific shows how Europeans practiced a “variable distribution of resources” as they familiarized themselves with the abundant resources and opportunities in the Pacific.[6] By doing so, Europeans “fueled an extensive trade network” that became “one of the defining qualities” of the Pacific.[7] Reid’s analysis identifies how the trade and distribution of resources between native occupants and European settlers established itself as a staple of economic activity in the Pacific space. This is further supported by Yokota’s statement that “the development of transpacific trade propelled America from colonial periphery to neo-imperial center by taking advantage of its geographical location between two oceanic systems.”[8] Something about Pacific’s locational advantage and offerings were different – it was quickly realized that access and control of the Pacific was necessary for success. While Europeans had initially fantasized about the Pacific’s potential, Americans had a very different understanding of Pacific opportunity: “for them, the Pacific’s natural resources and trade opportunities were already a given rather than a possibility; whalers knew this from their decades of activity in the ocean.”[9] The Pacific represented something greater, serving as a buffer between America and whatever it wished to protect itself against. Igler identifies how “even some of the nation’s foremost opponents of territorial expansion lauded the Pacific whaling fleet as an advance guard of economic and political imperialism.”[10] Initially, controlling the Pacific meant an absolute domination of its trade enterprise. While the benefits from trade were the initial attractiveness of the Pacific, its terraqueous influence and geopolitical importance were what generated its current history.
As mentioned previously, it was the American and European whalers that were first to identify the Pacific’s greater circle of influence. In the 1830s, the bulk of “American maritime interests in the Pacific” were represented by “New England whalers.”[11] As noted by Michener in Rascals in Paradise, whaling was “the great American industry” and “its ramifications were manifold.”[12] While surprising, the influence of American whaling in Pacific is best seen by following the story of a harpooner from Nantucket, Massachusetts named Samuel B. Comstock. Comstock’s initial motivation was simple: the largest fortunes the world had ever seen “were made pursuing the largest of all mammals through the most distant oceans.”[13] It was Sam’s wish to amass a fortune from whaling. However, Sam Comstock was convinced of a different future when he “first saw the thundering expanse of the South Seas” through whaling. He was convinced that his status as a whaler would eventually make him king. As a “model young mariner”, Comstock had firsthand experience with the thriving whale trade.[14] The demand for whale products had risen quickly as they became crucial commodities around the world. The products of whaling – whale oil lamps, spermaceti wax candles, machinery lubricated by sperm oil, and whale soap and paints – created riches that changed lives.[15] As Comstock saw the extended impacts of whaling, he began experiencing the Pacific’s greater global influence. Sam Comstock recognized that the benefits of whaling were critical to economic and global expansion. Whale oil and its profits were drivers of development and crucial factors of global influence. As previously noted by American expansionists, “far western lands” were deemed “as part of a continental destiny.”[16]
In the Pacific, land was deemed connected to the surrounding seas, and its domination over the whaling enterprises gave America control over the oceans and lands it operated in. Perhaps the eagerness to dominate the whale trade had strong correlations to the willingness to control the seas, and hence the lands connected to and near them. This was exactly Sam Comstock’s reason for mutiny: he dreamt of “high adventure on the seas and sovereignty”.[17] In essence, however, Comstock’s desire to control a ship is no different to the American interests to control the Pacific. There is an eerie correlation between Comstock’s munity and American control of the Pacific: both were “simple,” “straightforward,” and “completely practical.”[18] If Sam Comstock’s munity were to succeed, he would fulfil his end goal of becoming a king and ruling his own Pacific lands: the crew members of the Globe were already prepared, and everything was in place to seize the ship and take over as Captain. With success, American control over the Pacific seas would place America at the center of the world’s trade and riches: the abundance of American whalers had already established control in the Pacific Ocean, and all was in place for American governance.
This was only possible because Comstock wasn’t the only whaler that recognized the Pacific’s greater influence. By “acting through their own private initiative”, the American whalers “beat the nation to what some people perceived as the end objective.”[19] Even before America as a nation decided to rule the Pacific, American whalers had done so mindlessly. While both the whale oil and fur trades were important in the Pacific, the extended importance of whaling contributed to the Pacific’s growth as the most important economic zone. Whalers recognized that their product was used regularly and that the areas available for whaling were limited – the demand for whale products was greater than the available supply. As the competition for whaling areas escalated, they served as demonstrations of power and wealth that escalated to a global scale. Knowing that the gains from whaling were key drivers of national development, and nations began prioritizing the Pacific for its abundant resources. Igler recognizes the eventual benefit of American Pacific dominance. As the Americans controlled the main trade routes, they were able to practice their new philosophy of free trade. Doing so, America was able to “rationalize the nation's continental empire in the mid-nineteenth century.”[20] As American practice and policy shifted away from its imperial past, it initiated the creation of trade systems along the Pacific that promoted a “period of tremendous transformation” around the globe and in America.[21] Morrison explains how American traders were able to achieve “a respectable commercial boom,” even when facing “conditions overseas that were remarkable for their confusion and uncertainty.” In So Great a Proffit, Fichter identifies the many advantages of “Americans’ mutual competition and more-effective organization” and how America added a “layer of economic self-interest” to the trade environment. The self-interest added by the American whalers in the Pacific economy is in parallel to the introduction of American capitalism into the greater global economy. As Igler identifies the that the places where “the great hunt for marine mammals transpired... were only small and obscure in comparison to the surrounding world’s interconnected markets and production networks,” the correlation between the Pacific and world economy cannot be overlooked.[22] Perhaps, the Pacific system of trade was a microcosm of the global economy and trade system, with America’s participation and influence in the Pacific having unforeseen effects in markets around the world.
Bibliography
Bashford, Alison. "Terraqueous Histories." The Historical Journal 60, no. 2 (2017): 253-72. doi:10.1017/s0018246x16000431.
Chang, David A. The World and All the Things upon It: Native Hawaiian Geographies of Exploration. Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press, 2016.
Fichter, James R. So Great a Proffit: How the East Indies Trade Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Igler, David. The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Matsuda, Matt K. "The Pacific." The American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (2006): 758-80.
Michener, James A., A. Grove Day, and Steve Berry. Rascals in Paradise. New York: Dial Press, 2016.
Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country: The Maritime World of the Makahs, an Indigenous Borderlands People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.
Link to Primary Source: https://books.google.co.kr/books/about/Rascals_in_Paradise.html?id=YnkrAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
This page has paths:
- Pacific Postcards Sean Fraga