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The Plymouth Rock Hoax - Ep 274
2.3k Plays3 months ago
Spoiler alert, we love the story of Plymouth Rock even if it isn’t exactly true history! This week we look at some important historical places on the coast of Massachusetts including Plymouth, the Mayflower and New Bedford.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Archaeology Show
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to The Archaeology Show. TAS goes behind the headlines to bring you the real stories about archaeology and the history around us. Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello,
Plymouth Rock and New England's History
00:00:16
Speaker
and welcome to The Archaeology Show, episode 274. On today's show, we talk about Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower, and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Let's dig a little deeper, but not too far, because you'll find out other things aren't real either. there
00:00:35
Speaker
Welcome to the historic archaeology podcast. Yeah. That is sort of our life right now, because we're in New England. Yeah. It's just full of history up here. And yeah I mean, they call it New England, but there's nothing new about it, like I feel like. Well, I wasn't new compared to the other England. So yeah. It's a joke. Because we, yeah well, I grew up in the West Coast, where everything's new over there. And it's just, you know, we watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. and they transferred over from Paris to Los Angeles where, you know, they're embracing the Hollywood and California lifestyle and just makes you realize, I mean, sure, I grew up over in that area, not California, but West Coast, and we spent a lot of time in that area, but man, is it different than over here? It's very different, yeah. So different. And I'm like from the OG 13, so...
00:01:27
Speaker
O.G. 13. O.G. 13. Yeah. Who gets that? Nobody. Literally nobody. Everybody gets that, obviously. yeah North Carolina. ah One of the originals. But it is different, you're right. Because there's just every city has this like really old part of it that you just don't have in some of the West Coast cities. so yeah You know I thought you were making a ah Hunger Games reference?
00:01:50
Speaker
Oh, for like districts? Yeah, and yeah kind I'm kind of thirteen yeah no it's district twelve i both six or twelve i'm like kind of from there too, right? It it wasn't North Carolina, that they're definitely somewhere in that area. It's definitely South. Anyway, all right, well, anyway let's get to the point. So
The Myth of Plymouth Rock
00:02:07
Speaker
we've been seeing a lot of colonial early American history while we've been traveling on the East Coast.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And one of the first things we're going to talk about right now is I think one of the most iconic things that probably every school child could mention if they said, name something of the first Americans. Well, the first colonial Americans. First white Americans. Yeah. First white Americans. First European Americans. Yeah, because we all know the first Americans are Native Americans. Right. But name something of the first Americans and they are going to say Plymouth Rock.
00:02:41
Speaker
I mean, I swear to God, even if you're not from New England or the East Coast, I knew about Plymouth Rock, right? yeah And Plymouth Rock is also one of the biggest pieces of bullshit of American colonial history. It kind of is. Of all of it, yeah right? Which is you know kind of a lot of history. I mean, a lot of history is made up by people who want to remember stuff and and just say, you know, we really need to put that in the history books, but we don't really know what happened. So let's make it this that happened. Yeah. It's like all about the marketing, right? So like somebody marketed Plymouth Rock, like really well. And the pilgrims, what's the pilgrims and the Mayflower. So we got Thanksgiving from these people, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, they were very significant. And, and before we go into it, you know, the pilgrims were, they were running from religious oppression, right? So they represent this whole,
00:03:33
Speaker
I don't know, like build a new society where people can be free and do what they want, ideal. you know So that's what makes them important. So it's important. It's not all bullshit. So fittingly Plymouth Rock right now, or what we're calling Plymouth Rock is sitting inside of a roman-esque structure. sheltered yeah structure but Like this column structure. and i You could read on the on the inscription on the on on one of the signs there. It was built back in what the 30s, I think they said. The structure was. Because back in the 30s-ish in the United States, these sort of
00:04:13
Speaker
Again, Roman sort of looking structures were thought to be a symbol of strength and you know fortitude, and it was just going to last forever. It probably will, actually. you know It looks like it's legit made of granite or marble or something. But it does look like you're walking up to this like really epic thing that you're about to see. It's a rock. and it yeah and like you sort of peer over the edge of this fence thing that is too high to hop over, obviously. yeah And down in this like mucky pit yeah is a rock yeah with the inscription 1620 engraved on it. I don't know if the tide was out. It's possible that there's actually water in there when the tide is way high. There might be. it was not Mucky is not a nice word. It was probably sandy more than mucky, right? It was muddy. muck sandy yeah It was definitely wet, so the water gets in there quite frequently. yeah and I don't know if it's splashing in, because it is right up next to the shore, obviously. yeah but Anyway, a little detail about Plymouth Rock here. so It's got 1620 engraved on it, because you know when the boat hit it, it engraved 1620 on it. so No, I'm just kidding.
00:05:16
Speaker
It's supposed to represent the spot that pilgrims literally got off the boat yeah in December of 1620, which is completely wrong. Which is the BS of it all, right? yeah like The pilgrims didn't write of a rock like that. And the first reference to any rock at all in this area on this coastline that was of any significance is not until 1715, almost 100 years later, and it's just called a great rock, yeah but not like,
00:05:43
Speaker
the disembarkation rock or anything like that. Right. But if you've ever seen the New England coast in movies or you've been there, it's a lot of great rocks. Well, it is, but this particular area is a little beachier maybe. So like, you know, the rocket, it's a little bit unusual to have a rock of that giant size. I don't know. There's a lot of rocks there. Yeah. i yeah If you're coming ashore, you're not doing it in the Mayflower. You're doing it in ah in a small boat, a dinghy. right and you're going to Sure, that dinghy is going to yeah beat up against something. Somebody's going to jump out in the water or jump out onto ah a rock or something like that. If a handy rock happens to be there, maybe. yeah You're going to jump on top of it. i mean If it really was December, then the water's going to be stupid cold. i mean it's
00:06:24
Speaker
August and the water's not crazy warm right now, yeah right? So December the water's like really cold and likely lots of snow on the ground Yeah, and it's it's going to be cold right and it's not like you're just gonna warm right up. So yeah Yeah, there's a lot more to this story, too, but we'll get there. It seems like this idea, the story that you just painted, which is a possibility, right? It kind of seems like it was a fiction that sort of was materialized in the head of a descendant of one of the people that landed, right? So in 1741, a 94-year-old Thomas Fonts claimed that that it was the landing place.
00:07:00
Speaker
And he is the child who was born in New England of a couple of the people that were on the ship. So he wasn't even there. He's like speaking from memory of something his parents told him. He's born like 30 years later. Yeah, exactly. Or maybe even grandparents. It might have been his grandparents. I'm not even sure.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, it just, it turned it into a symbol of this founding of the nation, but you know, it seems like it was created in the mind of this like super old man. Which is fine. I mean, they did land somewhere, so does it really matter in the end? But anyway, the thing is, it is a boulder. One of the things I thought was kind of neat is you can actually see that the boulder was cut in half. Yeah. And it says in an inscription there, again, not on the rock, obviously, but in a board, I guess, that at some point they did cut it in half, and they took half the boulder up to a city hall table place. One of the buildings. Yeah, one of the official buildings. And then at some point they took it back. It looks like they actually seamed it back together. You can kind of see these like staple looking things, like metal. But they stitched it back together, basically. And now it's got this big thing over it. And that inscription that says 1620,
00:08:10
Speaker
When do you think it was added, that inscription? 1621. No, 1880. eighteen eighty so yeah. You know, it's always about marketing and creating a story, right? So that's fine. It's fine. I'm not even mad about it. Not really. Here's the biggest BS of it all. The Mayflower didn't even land there. but right the mayflower first it was first yeah no The Mayflower first landed in Provincetown, which we did go to. yeah Provincetown, if you look at Cape Cod, Cape Cod is this big C-shaped cape, if you will, and backwards you'll see the land. yeah It's like a backward C in Massachusetts there. and and If you're going to drive out there, plan for three hours of traffic. yes
00:08:50
Speaker
We went all the way up to Provincetown, which is the the town at the very, very end. yes and Cool little town. right Little seaside town, for sure. It makes it makes sense that that's where they first landed. yeah that's like As you're coming in, that's the first little spit of land that you're actually going to contact before you get into the bay. around the top of that sea, it's probably the first protected spot that you could probably land and comfortably, right? On one side, if you look at the shark-tivity app, it is all sharks and violent water. On the other side, it's all nice and cold water and no sharks. Exactly. And that's where we hung out on the beach for a little while. We did. It was so nice. yeah so Anyway, they hung out there for like a month while they just kind of like explored the area, found a good spot, and said, that lock that rock over there looks super cool. Let's found a town there. And they found a Plymouth. yeah yeah so So it wasn't even the first place that they stopped. yeah yeah Anyway. yeah But yeah, there's a lot of politics around it because I think I read too that the whole reason that Mr. Fonts came out and was like, oh, the rock, the rock. And it's because they were building some kind of like marina in that area. And it was like but potentially just like a protest against like but messing up the shoreline, essentially. So like. A 94 year old person was protesting progress. yeah right That sounds odd. yeah And guess what? It is a marina in that area right now. so yeah
The Significance of the Mayflower II
00:10:14
Speaker
All right, well, let's take a break. And on the other side, we'll talk about how we toured the Mayflower, which is right next to the rock. Yeah, totally. Well, the Mayflower too. All right, back in a minute.
00:10:24
Speaker
Welcome back to Episode 274 of The Archaeology Show. and Let's talk about the Mayflower. The Mayflower was of course the ship that the pilgrims came over yeah on. and of course The Mayflower no longer exists, or at least I don't think it does. I doubt it. i mean It's a 400-year-old boat. yeah it's That would be a long time ago. Now, the Mayflower II is a recreation, so and it's a very faithful recreation. i mean This boat actually works. Apparently, it costs thousands of dollars a day to just operate because it takes so many people, and all those people want to be paid. so I heard overheard one of the people when we actually went on board the Mayflower II, which is just a few hundred steps away from Plymouth Rock.
00:11:08
Speaker
and I heard them talking about it, and they said that it's been several years since it's actually been out of port. It was so cool getting on that ship. It was really cool. It's a legit tall ship. Yeah, it is. You do feel like you're stepping back into the environment. well you are because it is a pretty faithful reproduction and yeah so you like you walk on a gangway I guess that's probably what it's called right the gangway up onto it and then you come out and you're sort of in the captain's area where the oh and this I thought was so cool they wouldn't have had the big wheel for steering the ships like you see they didn't have that back then they just had this like back and forth like
00:11:50
Speaker
lever thing for the rudder for the rudder yeah yeah I don't know stuff about ships but I didn't know that the wheel hadn't been invented yet for steering the ship so it was it was a lever yeah yeah yeah it's just a rudder yeah yeah but that seems crazy that that's how you would steer this giant ship I know I mean I'm blown away by that yeah you're not I don't know why I don't know, because for thousands of years, that's how they steered ships. Well, sure, but I don't know. That was crazy to me. Well, it was really cool. What I liked about it was it was a lot shorter than I expected it to be, but a lot deeper than I expected it to be. Yeah, there's like three levels, right? Yeah, three or four, actually. Maybe even four with some of the stuff going up the sides, yeah.
00:12:33
Speaker
And you could see the captain's quarters weren't as likes are big as I thought they would be. yeah They weren't as fancy. It wasn't Captain Hook's ship, that's for sure. It definitely was not. That's my touchstone. That's what I know of an old ship to look like. Right. Well, and you know the crazy thing is too, i mean this wasn't obviously like a slave ship or anything like that, but it sure as hell felt like it to some people because yeah when they were coming over, there weren't There were like sleeping quarters no or beds or anything like that. People basically were told, basically, get in the hold. that's what you' That's where you're going to be for a couple of months on this voyage. And some people built beds and like walls and things for their loved ones to sleep in for a little bit of privacy. And other people just slept on the floor yeah you know for months yeah while they were making this but Atlantic crossing. Yeah, it's absolutely crazy that that was it. They didn't even try to like create personal space at all. it was just yeah
00:13:26
Speaker
and I mean, not really, like they kind of did, like you said, but not it was very, very much out in the open. Yeah. yeah I liked the the crane, basically, with the block and tackle system for cargo. yeah I thought that was really cool. I mean, they really created everything in a very faithful to a a early 1600s ship of that nature. yeah And I'm just looking at some stats about it. And it says that it carried ah approximately 135 people to Plymouth.
00:13:55
Speaker
yeah I don't think I knew that there was that many people on the Mayflower. yeah You just think of it as being smaller, right? But 135 people, that's a lot to be crammed into that small space. Keep in mind, too, this wasn't like a voyage of exploration or anything like that. This was just people who paid for passage. yeah right yeah There was a lot of crew members, yeah so a lot of people that just went back. yeah I remember the people who were on this ship, they were seeking they religious freedoms and they had actually left England yeah and you know I think went to Denmark and some of those areas up there, but they were not very happy up there either. Not Denmark, the Netherlands. The Netherlands, that's right. yeah
00:14:31
Speaker
Anyway, I was up there somewhere, yeah but they weren't happy up there either, and they heard about the New World and they were like, let's go there instead. yeah They still had to seek, I thought this was interesting too, they still had to seek like a charter from the King of England for the land, and the land that they had a charter for to basically establish a colony was off the Hudson.
00:14:50
Speaker
And because the weather was starting to get bad and they just basically they basically pulled into the Provincetown area and that Cape up there because the weather was starting to get bad and the captain was like, you know what, we're not going any farther because it's December and you're done. yeah And he said he said, you've got two choices. He said, basically, you can either just read commission for a charter and it's going to take probably a year and going back and forth with mail and stuff like that to England to try to get the king to to give you your charter.
00:15:18
Speaker
and to give you land up here, or you can hike down to the Hudson. yeah and They're like, I'm not going to do that. yeah and ah so that That's where the Mayflower Compact came from. is They basically said, you know what? We're just going to defy the King of England, and we're just going to establish a town here, whether they like it or not. yeah and I don't know. We didn't do and any really research into that because we were talking about the Mayflower itself. but yeah It all worked out eventually in the end. But yeah, they basically said, we're just going to do this anyway. Yeah. And they did it. I mean, it was very rebellious for a Puritan society. But they just wanted to be left alone to do their own thing. Yeah. Yeah, and I guess it was probably far enough away from basically everything at the time that England was probably like, yeah, okay, we'll just deal with them later. We just can't manage all this, so whatever, it's fine. Pay us the taxes, we'll be fine. Yeah, we'll deal with the guys in a bit. We'll come back to haunt them later. But for the first 100 years or so, I guess it was fine. Yeah, indeed.
00:16:18
Speaker
all right Well, I think that's all about all we have to say, probably about the Mayflower. was ah It was a worthy tour. It was. It was super cool. and I'll just put in a little like genealogy plug here. The thing that happens to me when I research stories like this is I start seeing these names of people, and I'm like, I wonder if I'm related to any of these people. because i do have Some of my family lines are much older than some of the others. so And it's really easy to to search this stuff. In fact, I'll put the link in the show notes, but you can actually go to this website, take a ah family name of an ancestor of yours and type their name in. And it'll tell you if that name has ancestry to somebody who was on the Mayflower.
00:17:00
Speaker
And you'll have to piece through a list and see like, oh, well, this Elizabeth Smith was born in this place. And it's not the right Elizabeth Smith to be my Elizabeth Smith. But you know like ah you have to like pick through it a little bit. But it was really cool. And I didn't find any connection to any may Mayflower ancestors with any of my family's names. But it was really cool to like find that connection.
00:17:23
Speaker
It's like a personal connection with history that makes it so much more interesting to me than just reading the words, you know? yeah And I didn't find that connection this time, but that's okay. It was so really fun searching for it. I looked for your family too. I also did not find any connection for you. Not any Webster's at all. I thought Webster being like,
00:17:41
Speaker
You know, kind of an old name, but... Well, the research that my brother did found that the Webster's were actually from a town I can remember the name of in England. And it was about the early 1600s, but came over. And one of the Webster's that I'm related to was one of the first governors before there were governors of Connecticut. Yeah. I don't think he was called a governor. It was something before Connecticut was actually a state, I think. Yeah, something with the colony, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. And probably just they just came over in a different boat system rather than through the Mayflower funnel, too. And funny thing is, when we were in New York up at Niagara Falls, we went out to eat somewhere. And I was paying for our food. And the kid who was in his 20s. Yeah.
00:18:30
Speaker
He saw my card, and he's like, Webster? He's like, my last name is Webster. I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, yeah, I'm from up around here. He's like, oh, I'm not. And we just started talking. And the guy who came over, he came over with nine kids. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm willing to bet every Webster up in this area is probably related to that guy. Probably. Most of the Webster's in this country probably are, if he just spread out across the country. He's the Genghis Khan of the United States. Totally.
00:18:56
Speaker
so it looked anyway Yeah. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about New Bedford. Yeah. Massachusetts. Massachusetts. And then we'll finish up this discussion in segment three. Yeah. But this is one of the other places we went. And it's down south, actually quite next to Rhode Island. Yeah. The park we were in was in this really great location where we could get all the way out to the tip of Cape Cod. We could get over to Plymouth, up to Boston, which is why we talked about all the stuff we talked about in the last episode. And now we were able to go more to the West to New Bedford. and Or South. West and South, yeah yeah. New Bedford and Plymouth were about the same distance. Yeah, they were. It was crazy. it was such a They called it the gateway to Cape Cod Park, but it was like the gateway to all of that. Yeah, gateway to everything. Yeah, gateway to everything. yeah It was a cool place.
00:19:43
Speaker
So, New Bedford National Historic Park was kind of like right in the middle of New Bedford. yeah It's like a collection of buildings in that downtown area that were part of the basically the whaling industry in New Bedford 100 years ago. yeah yeah If you've ever heard of 19th century whaling, 1800s whaling, and ah well we even even earlier than that, Moby Dick, yeah just you your iconic picture of these whaling ships and these people and all that stuff, yeah New Bedford is where all that happened. All of it, all like all of it worldwide, all of it. yeah which is crazy to me. Cause you think of whaling as, I mean, there was other places that were doing whaling, indigenous populations doing whaling on a different level with different materials and everything. But this like worldwide, like hunt anywhere for a whale thing was basically based out of New Bedford. So crazy. Yeah. i So crazy. Yeah. A couple of the buildings that they have left are sanding that you can do tours of, although we didn't cause again, things were closed, but that's fine.
00:20:48
Speaker
was the Seaman's Bethel, which and was created by the New Bedford Poor Society for the Moral Improvement of Seaman. They built it as a church for whale men, basically to keep them from gambling, drinking, and whoring when they came into port. I don't know how they kept it from gambling, drinking, and whoring while they were out whaling for three or four years. Well, like they gave them a church. They gave them a place to worship, basically, so they could yeah do that instead of the bad things. Let's see how that worked out for them. yeah Also, still present is the US Custom House, and I thought this was cool because it was completed in 1836, and it's still in operation today, and it's the oldest continuously operating Custom House in the nation. That's cool. Crazy thing, New Bedford was known as the city that lit the world. yeah so We watched this really cool
New Bedford's Whaling Industry
00:21:38
Speaker
video. Now, anybody that's been to a national park knows that there's always some little video that you can see. yeah Somewhere and they are bad yeah, some of them are really bad some of them are 40 years old yeah This one I thought like I could have sat there, I could have grabbed some popcorn and probably sat there for another hour and just continued watching. The thing it did is it made me feel like I didn't need to do anything else. Like I didn't need to read every sign. I didn't need to look at every picture because it was such a comprehensive overview of the whaling industry in this area. So I mean, I like a nice little packaged bit of information and that's definitely what we got in this like 20 minute video. I know it was really cool. Yeah.
00:22:15
Speaker
One of the things that we learned there was that New Bedford was the center of the whaling industry in New England in the 19th and 20th century. So the land New Bedford was on was purchased, I'd like to see that received, from the Wampanoag people in 1652. I wonder what they got for it. A couple of blankets probably. There wasn't more information on that, but I don't know. I'm guessing it wasn't a fair trade, but that was colonialist in the 1600s.
00:22:41
Speaker
In the mid-1700s, it was developed as a whaling port because whales were consistently caught in nearby waters that were on their migratory path, so it was just kind of a logical place to pop out, grab some whales, bring them back in for processing, that kind of thing. All right, with that, let's go ahead and take a short break. We'll talk about another little island you've probably heard of that was part of this little story on the other side, and we'll finish our little whale tail. A whale of a tail? Well, it's not a whale of a tail. It is a whale tail, though. OK. Yes. We'll do that on the other side back in a minute. Welcome back to the Archaeology Show episode 274. Talking about whaling in New Bedford, Massachusetts and the island I mentioned that you might have heard of if you were a fan of the TV show Wings. Oh, geez. Why is that your only reference point for this island? Because I grew up on the West Coast and I didn't even know about it until that show came out. Talking about Nantucket, which is like the rich person's vacation island. Well, in addition to Martha's Vineyard, which is right next to it. but When we looked at going out when we looked at it coming out here, I was i was thinking about taking a ah little plane ride out to Nantucket yeah because I wanted to take one of the little twin engine planes like they did in the show Wings back in the 90s.
00:23:54
Speaker
First off, those little twin-engine planes, they're basically American Airlines now. i mean You could take little corporate jets out there, too. like It's like $400 or $500 for two people to take a day trip out there. That's so stupid. Which is dumb. And then it's full of people because it's the middle of the summer. So you're not going to do anything. If you want to spend the night, you're going to spend $1,000 a night. Which is insane. Yeah. It's just ridiculous. Yeah. yeah So so we didn we didn't go. We did not get to go to Nantucket. But we did get to learn about it a little bit. Yes, you know who did go to Nantucket? Whales. Well, not when they were alive, but yeah. yeah and So, New Bedford was beginning to establish itself as a whaling port, but also at the same time
00:24:36
Speaker
the island slash town of Nantucket, because I think the main town is also called Nantucket there. It's all one and the same? Yeah. They were also a whaling town and they had an advantage because being an island, they were closer to the migratory the migratory route sell whales were taking and it was just easier to get to that whaling activity from Nantucket.
00:24:57
Speaker
yeah By the 19th century, the shallow harbor, sandbars, and dangerous shoals caused Nantucket to fall out of favor. yeah Boats were like, this is too dangerous. yeah so That's when when New Bedford really came in hot. Plus, the whaling voyages started moving further and further offshore because they were you know yeah killing all the whales, yeah so they had to go elsewhere. They started going around Cape Horn, which is down the bottom end of South America, Chile, and Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. yep and Like, for comparison, in 1815, 50 whaling ships left Nantucket and 10 left New Bedford. Yeah, so it's still very heavily Nantucket at that point. At 1815. Yeah. But by 1820, you had 45 ships leaving Nantucket and 36 ships leaving New Bedford. Yeah. In five years, yeah it practically caught up. And then in 1823, just another three years later, New Bedford surpassed Dantucket. And really, that's where the the scales tipped. and And New Bedford really like became the center of the whaling industry at that point.
00:25:58
Speaker
Also, it helps that in 1840, the railroad arrived to New Bedford and that gave the merchants who were selling the things made out of whaling products, gave them easier access to Boston, New York, and but know basically the entire Northeast, probably even beyond that too. I bet they could get to Chicago fairly easily once the railroad got there. So yeah, that's just, it it made New Bedford one of the wealthiest cities in the world because of all of the whaling products that they were selling.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah, the whales they were taking began with basically four primary species. There were right whales and sperm whales, which could be basically found everywhere. Gray whales, which were found on the west coast of the west coast of America, and bowheads, which were in the Arctic. yeah By the 1800s, in the North Atlantic, sperm and right whale populations were basically gone. They were nearly decimated completely.
00:26:49
Speaker
How did they not see the decimation of whale populations coming? Like these guys would like head out on these voyages to kill as many whales as possible. And then all of a sudden the whales were gone? Like what did they expect? And I read too that sometimes they would like take, like there would be a mother and a baby and they'd want the mother obviously cause she's bigger, but they'd end up killing the baby too because you know, why not? Baby's there. And so like- I think this short sighted money grab. Yeah, where's the logic? If that baby doesn't grow up, then there's no big whale in two years or ten years. Anyway, the short-sightedness of it is crazy. It's selfishness. You've got the whaling captains. It's want to be rich. Yeah, they probably didn't even own their boats. The boats had owners. Yeah, they boats had to bring home a certain amount of oil and products, and it was just, if they didn't, everybody was looking out for themselves. And that's where that went, had owners. unless you got federal programs that are
00:27:49
Speaker
doing something else. Yeah, which didn't even happen until the 1970s from what I was reading. So yeah, but this is still the mid 1800s and oil made from whale blubber is the craved item that is basically lighting the world at this time. So whale hunting is not going to stop anytime soon. And these big ships out of New Bedford were able to go further and further away. Like in 1846, the gray whale breeding grounds in the Baja California area were discovered.
00:28:17
Speaker
And those populations were decimated in just a few decades. yeah That's where I think they were really taking like mothers and babies because they were breeding grounds and just killed the entire population. What I don't get is that, I mean, it said a few decades, right? 1846 they were discovered, which means yeah that's going up into the 1850s, 1860s.
00:28:39
Speaker
You've got a number of major cities growing on the West Coast. I still don't understand. what yeah Yeah. Why are they going all the way around South America? I do not understand that either. Why wasn't there a whaling center set up on the West Coast for processing? It makes no sense to me. like Even these super rich guys in New Bedford could have just established like a satellite office in San Francisco or something, right? like Why didn't they do that?
00:29:01
Speaker
but you know, the gold rush hadn't happened yet. So San Francisco was still like just a pile of sticks. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's crazy, but this, that's, it might've been the processing, right? Cause they had sure they could kill the whale, but they had to then process it. So maybe it was just more efficient to bring it back to new Bedford for, I don't know. They processed and barreled and put everything together on the boats. Yeah. I think the first steps they did, right. But then it was just shipping after that.
00:29:27
Speaker
Well, there was candle making. What they weren sure doing and but they were making candles on the West Coast, they didn't have electricity. yeah that's true you know i mean I'm just saying, the people in New Bedford, they died because they couldn't adapt.
00:29:41
Speaker
and they could, and the their their lack of adaptation, A, not being able to put centers up on the West Coast, and B, not being able to figure out what to do when they had no more whales yeah caused basically their decline. yeah yeah Yeah, I mean, and that's what they did, right? like They were just taking out population after population. The bowheads in the Arctic were almost extinct by 1900.
00:30:04
Speaker
And this is where it' sort of the downfall began because in the early 1900s, technology was improving as everything kind of did in that time period. And the Norwegians actually pioneered steam powered boats with harpoon cannons that allowed them to catch the faster, bigger species that were too dangerous for the older technology to go after.
00:30:26
Speaker
And because they could get these bigger, faster species, they it it almost like the industry kind of shifted to these Norwegian boats and New Bedford began to decline and it it just like never really caught up. yeah The whole city just sort of whaling just kind of left the city at that point.
00:30:44
Speaker
So, aside from whale oil and spermaceti, spermaceti is the highest quality oil. That made the best candle wax, yeah lighting up homes and things like that. It just was a ah pure illumination apparently. yeah's like amazing it was the best It was probably the most expensive too, don't you think? yeah yeah yeah But something I never really realized until we watched that video, or at least forgot, I guess I probably knew this at some point in my life, but baleen, which is like the strainer on the on the mouth of a whale that would, they would suck in all this krill and stuff like that. And and that would, and yeah yeah, things like that. But the baleen's basically bone. yeah and And that would be, It's like a cartilage, it's almost like a flexible, yeah <unk>s like firm, but like with some flexibility to it, so you could bend it, right? Yeah, it'd be used for corsets, collars, hooped frames for a skirt, yeah but the fashion industry just like jumped on it and they were using it all over the place. Yeah, what's so funny about that is, because I have done some sewing,
00:31:42
Speaker
in my day, oh have you yeah a little bit. And the fashion industry called baleen whale bone, even though it's technically not officially bone, it's like more of this like cartilage substance, which maybe not even cartilage technically, I'm not sure what scientifically it is, but it's it's still, it's not made of whale bone and and anymore obviously, but you still like, here of course it's made out of whale bone.
00:32:06
Speaker
And it's just like a plastic substitute these days, but the word is still in use to describe the the hard bits that are inside of corsets, which is crazy. Yeah, another thing they got out of the whales, because they used, ah I mean, most of the whale. Yeah, they yeah tried to anyway. um Ambergris was produced from the whale intestines. Yeah, gross. And apparently it was used in fine perfumes, and it would keep the scent from changing. Yeah. It was also occasionally added to wine as an aphrodisiac. So is this the first preservative?
00:32:35
Speaker
I don't know. alone yeah and like How is it an aphrodisiac and what would it make wine taste like? I just don't know about any of that. I'm very uncomfortable with that. happened to me I'm so uncomfortable with all that. No, thank you. That's just super weird. All right, so to wrap up this segment here and this podcast, let's talk about some of the people who were on the ships. yeah yeah So they had any number of different types of men, men only typically, yeah who were on these boats. yeah You had your people who were married, but these ships' voyages were typically three to four years long. yeah i mean They were out for a long time, and then they came back and they were home for you know a year, six months, whatever, and then they were off on another journey. They made a lot of money on these voyages. Some of them weren't paid. they said well though okay so There different types of people on these voyages. yeah and One of the types, and I really liked that the National Historical Park kind of highlighted this, but there were escaped slaves
00:33:37
Speaker
yeah And they were getting on these ships, these whaling ships, and leaving for years, and hopefully would be gone before you know by the time the dust settled on whoever was looking for them, whatever slaver was looking for them.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, but there was people who just liked the sea, people who were trying to escape, people who wanted to be gone, people who wanted to see the world. And people who wanted to make money. And people who wanted to make money. Yeah. yeah like they The town itself was a big mishmash mix of cultures, including the African-Americans and the natives. But there was Cape Verdean, Pacific Islanders, and you know also various different Europeans. Right. so well That was the other cool thing too is not only was there a lot of different people from New England, the Native Americans and the ah you know African Americans and and escaped slaves, but they would yeah pick up and recruit people from other areas yeah and bring them onto the ships and then they would end up just settling. yeah In New Bedford. So there's like in New Bedford currently you can find restaurants and things like that for like Cape Verde and cuisine and you know Pacific Islanders yeah scene and and stuff like that and people who just heritage yeah because that was only like ah you know 150 years ago. Yeah totally. One of the best breakfast spots in town that we didn't get to try was a Portuguese place. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah totally. It's such a weird mix of of cultures up there, which you wouldn't expect in New England. Yeah, for sure. And they had a much more relaxed view of what these sort of immigrants could do, including black people and black men, not the ladies, not yet. We weren't there yet for the ladies. But black men could own property, pay taxes, vote, and basically be participating members of society. What? I know. So it was a very inclusive community by by lots of of the people there, not everybody, of course, but... Yeah, by those standards, in the 1800s. Exactly, and so it was a place where escaped slaves and even free black people too were just moving too, because it was a nice place to be for them, so. and By 1837, the population of New Bedford had grown to 16,000, and that included 1,047 African Americans. Of those, 400 of them were fugitive slaves, yeah so that was the breakdown of that population there.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yep. The entire community, black and white, protected the fugitive slaves so and they created the New Bedford Anti-Slavery Society. Yeah. So big abolitionist movement up there. Yeah. And this is where the National Historical Park comes in because there was a couple, Nathan and Mary J, who went by Polly Johnson, and they were a free black couple living in New Bedford and their house is still there, which is another structure we didn't get to see because it wasn't open the day that we were there. We were going to go get a tour, but yeah.
00:36:14
Speaker
It wasn't open, so it didn't happen. But they were basically a stop on the Underground Railroad, kind of like the final stop on the Underground Railroad, because this was a place where escaped slaves wanted to set up camp. Or like you were saying, hop a ship and get out of town until things weren't so hot anymore. yeah And Nathan and Polly were a very interesting couple. Polly, in particular, was the one who devoted herself to assisting these escaped slaves. And she was instrumental in helping to house Frederick Douglass and his wife when they ended up in New Bedford for a little while before they settled elsewhere in New England. I can't remember where, but they were in New Bedford in her house for a while. so Oh, Fred Douglass.
00:36:57
Speaker
And what she did partly as a cover is she established a confectionary business, not even a cover. It was just a successful confectionary business. And she was able to use the money that she made off of that business to support her family and also all of these underground railroad efforts that she was involved in. Yeah. so She was a candy lady. She was a candy lady. Yeah, Nathan on the other hand wasn't so good at business. ah Yeah. I mean, he would they were still married. but He left her in 1849 after several failed business attempts to seek his fortune in the California Gold Rush. Should have brought knowledge of the whaling industry with him. Would have made a fortune. Polly continued selling candy and baked goods and helped escape slaves until she died in 1871. Yeah, and by all accounts, Nathan never returned to New Bedford from California. I guess he he liked his West Coast. West is best, right? yeah yeah He never returned until after she died, because he had to return in order to claim the house, I guess. And then the house went to their children for a little while, and then it ended up becoming part of this National Historical Park. So you can go see this really, really important stop on the Underground Railroad if you if you head into that town, and if you also check the hours before you go, and to make sure that that is actually open.
00:38:11
Speaker
Yes. The one thing that we can say about every place we've been to this summer is check the hours before you go, don't you think? I think so. And if you're interested, we didn't go to this either because half of us just aren't interested in these things. But there was a museum not associated with the National Historic Park about whaling and just basically ships and things like that, the whaling ships. Apparently there's a big whale skeleton that I didn't get to see and a huge ship I didn't get to see. You saw it when we walked in the door.
00:38:42
Speaker
Okay, look, we had big plans for that day. We had a lot of places to go and we didn't have time to meander through an entire giant building dedicated just to catching whales.
00:38:53
Speaker
We just didn't have time. And it was more expensive than we wanted to pay for what was going to be a blitz excursion to run through that museum. okay whatever I learned my lesson. Don't ever say no to something shipping related with this man. Good Lord. All right. Whatever.
00:39:12
Speaker
ah But yeah, if you had a whole day, too, because we were off to another place after that. If you have the whole day, though, I think it would certainly have been worth it. It looked like a really cool museum. And the whole town, yeah like you're walking along cobblestone streets. The buildings are also old. And because they were built by you know these rich whaling people back in the 1800s and 1900s, they were all quality buildings, too. And they just have stood the test of time. They're like just really neat old structures. So the whole town vibe was really cool.
00:39:43
Speaker
All right, well, there weren't a lot of pictures to take in New Bedford to be honest with you. It was a video and some other stuff. But I did take pictures of the Mayflower II and Plymouth Rock. So if you want to see those, you can check our Roadster Adventures Instagram account if you want to join the many, many hundreds of other, many, many, many dozens of other people there. They're not even a thousand.
00:40:10
Speaker
The many tens of people there enjoying the masses. R-O-D-S-T-E-R adventures, maybe that's why people can find us if they think it's R-O-A-D. R-O-D-S-T-E-R, it's a mixture of Rachel's last name and my last name, Roadster Adventures. Because there's a little line over the O. We made it complicated and grammatical. Yeah, I just like, my last name is Roden. I know it's not spelled like Roden, but it is. That's what it is, so. It's crazy. It's the world. Change your last name. No. I could just be Webster Adventures. Ugh, that's so boring. Like the dictionaries, adventures. Blah, blah, blah. Adventures of the dictionary. Actually, that would be kind of funny. Dick's Adventures. Adventures of the Dicks. Wow. That is quite a quick way. Bye. You did it, bye.
00:41:06
Speaker
Thanks for listening to The Archaeology Show. Feel free to comment and view the show notes on the website at www.arcpodnet.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at arcpodnet. Music for this show is called, I Wish You Would Look, from the band C Hero. Again, thanks for listening, and have an awesome day.
00:41:30
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at w www.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.