Nancy Shoemaker examines how New England Native American whalemen experienced race in their global movements. Drawing on recent claims that race is contingent on an individual’s location within different social structures, Shoemaker highlights how Native Americans, disenfranchised in nineteenth-century New England, encountered constructions of race differently as they ventured into the global economy. Relying on Native American–authored logbooks and diaries and Pacific region newspaper accounts, Shoemaker’s book encourages rethinking Native Americans as colonized New England subjects and recognizing their participation in the exploration and colonization of the Pacific.
Untangling the shifting complexities of race experienced by traveling Native Americans, Shoemaker divides her book into four sections, each devoted to a different setting challenging the meaning and relevance of race for Native Americans: Native Americans’ integration into the social hierarchy of whaling vessels, Native Americans’ interactions with indigenous groups in the Pacific and the Arctic, Native Americans’ assimilation into colonial societies...
