The Great Hunt by Sasha Henry
Therefore, the need for primary sources as evidence is much more important than many realize. It allows for evidence in the time being spoken about, to be used. Had there not been thousands of primary sources on the Pacific then researchers today would have nothing but their imagination in order to understand the history of it. The stories and songs that have been recorded over time, the documentation of voyages across the vast oceans, allow for a vision of the past for the eyes of the present.
These pieces of evidence prove how the Pacific beaches were founded by Indigenous peoples, despite common misconception, and were explored by European voyagers documenting the encounters upon their arrival with the natives as well. They describe the interactions between the colonizers and natives, including the positives and negatives of what happened. Not only that, but they show how people lived and how the ocean itself supported the way inhabitants lived, eventually affecting their culture. Primary sources overall tell the story of the past and give hard, physical proof of what actually occurred during that time.
One primary source, an informative book called The Ocean by Philip Henry Gosse, written sometime between 1810 to 1888, goes over an immense amount of topics about all parts of the oceans. There are chapters for just the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Seas, the Indian Ocean, etc. Within these chapters, the author goes deep into different aspects of the particular body of water he is writing about. In these subtopics, he writes about the type of hunting, the marine and land life, who has crossed those waters, and the importance of them as well.
In the Pacific Ocean chapter, Gosse uses a large portion of it to describe the South Sea voyage and how when the European colonizers arrived, they spent a lot of their time hunting marine animals. One of the animals they hunted the most, was seals. He goes into detail about how they were killed, what weapons were used, and most importantly why they were killed. The hunters found that the seals carried a certain type of oil in their fat that was “... clear and limpid, without any smell, and never becomes rancid; it burns slowly, and without smoke or disagreeable odour,” (The Ocean). The Europeans would hunt for days in order to bring this version of gold back to their motherland. After the hunt began, these marine animals quickly learned and soon positioned themselves on insulated rocks so they could quickly launch themselves into the water in order to escape their newest predator. It became a mass hunt for all types of seals once they had a purpose for the European travelers where “...in the years 1821 and 1822, there were taken from the South Shetland Isles, 320,000 skins of Fur Seals, and 940 tons of Sea-elephant oil,” (The Ocean). This caused the species to nearly become extinct as the seal infants were no longer being taken care of by their now-dead mothers, inevitably dying and leading to their parishing as well.
The book, The Ocean, begins the story of the mass hunt that occurred once the European voyagers left their known territory and began exploring the Pacific Ocean and discovering the abundant resources that came with it. However, that was not the only species that encountered the wrath of the Europeans. David Igler wrote a book called The Great Ocean that describes the exploration of the Pacific West from the voyages of Captain Cook to the California Gold Rush. In this, he adds a chapter named, “The Great Hunt.” This chapter goes into detail about whaling. The mass hunt extends beyond just seals and into many other species as well. Essentially, if any animal had something these explorers wanted, they would be in danger. Whales were a prime example of this. With whales being such large animals, it meant they had a lot of fat leading to large amounts of oil as well. With the cruelest tactics like using the calf as bait to get to the mother, the hunters would not stop until they got what they wanted.
These killings did not only occur in the Pacific Ocean too. They were happening all over the world. Igler includes a table of the number of animals killed in Russia for exportation between the years 1743 and 1823, the highest number being 2,324,364 Fur Seals. Trade was a large reason for killing all these species too. Coastal Islands took a large role in it taking “...center stage in the maritime trade connecting Asia, Europe, the Pacific islands, and the Americas,” (The Great Ocean). Thousands of species were targets all around the world and the hunts would only slow down if those species were close to extinction. They would let their populations recover and the numbers rise a bit before going in again and wiping the species out again.
Another author with the name of Ryan Tucker Jones, who wrote Running Into Whales: The History of the North Pacific from below the Waves, writes about the relationship people had with marine animals and life, both positive and negative. He gives a voice to the animals being affected by the exploitation for human benefit. His focus is more on the Pacific, unlike Igler who touches on other areas around the world as well but still frames his work around the 1800s. Jones's style is also broader where he gives specifics but also talks about the bigger picture. For instance, when he talks about the hunting of animals and how they were being used for trade he writes, “By the mid-1800s, many, if not all, of the peoples living in and around the North Pacific had become involved in the commercial exploitation of marine mammals,” (Running Into Whales). Here, he gives a better understanding by allowing the reader to know that it wasn’t just a group of people that were sent to hunt, it was essentially the entire population around those areas.
The ideas of the three books by Philip Henry Gosse, David Igler, and Ryan Tucker Jones share common ideas that would allow them to be able to build their ideas and create connections if brought together as they all have vast knowledge about the topics in all aspects. That being said, their research is also far more updated than that of Philip Henry Gosse whose book was written in the 1800s when there was much less knowledge, understanding, and exploration of the ocean. With the new technology that has been developed over the years, a significant amount of the ocean has been further explored and discovered. There are more theories and facts about how to keep the Earth sustainable since humans will never stop hunting. The impacts of how hunting began in the Pacific region have not completely stopped even to the present day as many species are still on the brink of extinction, some already extinct. The three primary sources allow the reader to make connections between hunting in the past and now the present and how it has affected everyone in the region.
Bibliography
Gosse, Philip Henry, Wilson and Fley S. & J. Bentley, and Arthur George. The Ocean. London: printed for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1846.
Igler, David. The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from captain Cook to the gold rush. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Jones, Ryan Tucker. “Running into Whales: The History of the North Pacific from below the Waves.” The American Historical Review 118, no. 2 (April 1, 2013): 349–77. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/118.2.349.