Native American Whalemen and the World: Indigenous Encounters and the Contingency of Race. By Nancy Shoemaker.

Abstract

Native American Whalemen and the World: Indigenous Encounters and the Contingency of Race. By Nancy Shoemaker. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. xii + 303 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95.) It is surprising to learn that during the nineteenth century—an era obsessed with racial classification—the U.S. Customs Service did not classify seamen on the basis of race. Native American seamen, not considered citizens at home, received all the protections of citizenship abroad. Further, in an industry that privileged rank and merit over race (also surprising in the 1800s), Native American whalemen, despite being stereotyped as having racial characteristics that suited them to harpooning (“hunting instinct, naturally keen eyesight, and an innate aptitude for killing”), often advanced into officer positions (p. 38). In Native American Whalemen and the World , Nancy Shoemaker brilliantly shows us how “the lived experience of race is full of exceptions, contradictions, and … darnold{at}columbiabasin.edu