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Among the noteworthy events of 1851 were publication of Herman Melville's great sperm-whaling saga, Moby Dick, and the sailing of over a hundred whalers from the world's largest whaling port, New Bedford, Massachusetts, as the industry reached its peak. A more mundane incident took place in the Atlantic Ocean in August. According to the trade newspaper, TL· Whalemen's Shipping List and Merchants' Transcript, "A whaling bark 'with painted ports, and three boats out manned by colored men, in pursuit of 4 large sperm whales,' was passed Aug 27th, in lat 38 50 N, Ion 34 50 W, and is supposed to have been the Saml Sc Thomas of Mattapoisett, as the description of the paint corresponds with hers, and her first, second and third mates, and two boatsteerers are colored men." On its return home, the Samuel <ùr cHiomas received another notice in the newspaper, this time celebrating its "Good Striking": "During a voyage of two years, she raised whales but 22 times, upon 3 of which, the weather prevented lowering, while on each other occasion, she captured a whale, with one exception. Such facts are not common."1
A particularly efficient voyage, the Samuel & Thomas's 1850-1852 circumnavigation of the Atlantic Ocean in pursuit of whales was otherwise unremarkable. The many "colored men" among the officers and boatsteerers (petty officers whose duties included harpooning whales) was not as rare as it might seem considering who they were: all Wampanoag natives of Gay Head, now called Aquinnah, on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Originally from Chappaquiddick on Martha's Vineyard but married into Gay Head, George Belain had acted as first mate on whaleships since 1843. His younger brother William served as one of the boatsteerers along with Samuel Haskins, whose older brother Amos was then out at sea as captain of Mattapoisett's whaling bark Massasoit. Completing the officer corps on the Samuel & Thomas were Isaac Johnson, second mate, and Joel G. Jared, third mate. As first mate, George Belain probably kept the official logbook for the voyage, which appears not to have survived. However, J ared's private journal has. Jared's careful entries detailing the Samuel & Thomas's daily activities suggest that they chased, and caught, the four sperm whales on August 8, not on the...