When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing. — Job 41:25

In the spring of the first year of the Second World War, three submarine-like shapes were sighted some 15 miles to the southwest of Bermuda, not, one hastens to add, an advance trio of German U-boats, but a more traditional foe, the humpback whale. Perhaps getting the wrong end of the harpoon, it is we who are the enemy in that instance, as humans on Bermuda had been hunting down those poor mammals, almost from the time of settlement in July 1612, until the last was ‘caught’ 330 years later. Just prior to settlement, the ‘Three Kings of Bermuda’ almost committed collective regicide, as they fought over another whaling product, a lump of ambergris, being otherwise stated as whale vomit, perhaps a fitting entry point to centuries of bloodshed for Megaptera novaeangliae and their relative Leviathans of the ocean seas and local waters.

The ‘industry’ was described ultimately that ‘in a way, whaling for Bermudians was a type of fool’s gold’, for it did not produce, for example, the type of return found by whalers out of Massachusetts. However, it did provide, from time to time, some supplement to local diets, especially among slaves before Emancipation in 1834, but also to many other Bermudians of the day, who considered whale meat a delicacy not to be foregone. Mention has been recorded of great raft-ups and congregations of people at a particular spot, once the Island telegraph signalled the capture of a whale in the seas in an arc between St David’s Head and Wreck Hill.

The doyen of whaling studies of Bermuda, Professor Aldemaro Romero, has noted that such an assembly was described thus by one Richard Cotter, who visited the Island in the late 1820s, “the noise and confusion is beyond description, women, and children calling to the operators, who from time to time throw large pieces of the flesh on shore. In a few hours, a whale approaching sixty feet is reduced to a skeleton, and scarcily [sic] a house, whether occupied by whites or blacks, where a treat of whale beef does not take place that day or the next. The English have a strong prejudice against this food, but the Bermudians have a method of cleansing it, which leaves no fishy flavour, and it is as tender as veal’.

The earlier known image (and as such a whale of a picture) of such a congregation is to be found in the Johnson Savage MD Collection in his album of paintings executed here in 1833—36 and recently donated to the National Museum. In that view, which the surgeon for the Royal Artillery at Bermuda drew from a vantage point on Smith’s Island, St George’s, seven small sloops have congregated around the whale, which is having its skin and blubber removed by a block and tackle on a tall pole, while several rowboats and dozens of people are also evident. On the wooden dock, men are walking around in a circle with a capstan that supplies the power for the hoist; others appear to be cutting up whale meat or blubber.

On the hill to the right a trio are boiling the blubber to extract oil, which was a necessary illuminant before the discovery of petroleum. There were over ten ‘whaling stations’ at Bermuda, but only two apparently had permanent ovens for trying blubber into oil, namely those on Smith’s Island in the east and Whale Island in the west: evidence of the ovens and cast iron trying pots survive in both localities.

Remarkably from 65 years later, in a postcard published by the Phoenix Store in 1901, a similar scene was photographed and seems to show the same type of congregation at Smith’s Island, but the ladies appear in what might have been ‘Sunday dress’ in all white, a fashion noted accounts of the period. Bishop Inglis, who was in Bermuda several times and recorded much, wrote in his diary of 17 April 1826 that on ‘a very charming ride to Somerset Church … we also passed the place where whales, when taken at this end of the island, are brought. One was taken yesterday, and quickly disposed of, much having been purchased for eating, for 5d. a pound’. A couple of days later, he noted that ‘three whales have been taken within a few days. This is a sort of Jubilee to the negroes, who prefer the flesh of the whale to all other food. We met them carrying portions of it in all directions’.

It is said that the Bermudians were the first whalers to understand that the best way to catch a whale was to attack its calf, a method adopted in other jurisdictions. In May 1826, Bishop Inglis recorded such a method. ‘This was a female 50 feet long, of immense weight, and having a calf about three months old, which was first killed, but sunk, and so was lost. The calf is regularly suckled, and the milk of the whale is as white and pure as that of a cow. The affection of the mother for its young is described as very remarkable; upon the calf being struck, she bore it upon her fin, taking it sometimes far below the surface and again to the top of the water, and turning it every way while life remained. On the present occasion, the calf literally died upon the mother’s neck. The whale affords food for hundreds of negroes and for many whites who are also fond of it, and the blubber of this one will produce about 50 barrels of oil.’

A sad tale of death at sea, a process that author, E.A. McCallan, suggested first began in the New World at St David’s Island, Bermuda, several decades before the industry was picked up in the ‘American Plantations or Colonies’, about 1640. Slow off the mark in modern times, whales at Bermuda were not protected under the law until 1978. Andrew Stevenson, with others, is hunting whales at Bermuda these days, but for scientific recording, to aid in their preservation: ‘In seven seasons, we have identified 827 individual whales at Bermuda. This compares to 145 identified around Bermuda in the previous 40 years.’

Dr Aldemaro Romero has written of the whaling industry at Bermuda from first to last, so it may be fitting to let his words end this article, albeit about an end that ended in a hail of bullets: ‘The last taking of a whale in Bermuda took place on 13 November 1942. After an unsuccessful attempt by Joseph Soares to capture what seemed a distressed animal inside the reefs off Duckling Stool in Pembroke, the whale, a 38-foot male humpback, was machine gunned and towed to Darrell’s Wharf in Hamilton Harbour (someone even proposed the use of a plane to dive-bomb the animal). The whale died at 7am on 18 November.’ Requiescat in pace, oh Leviathan.

Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Director of the National Museum. Comments may be made to director@nmb.bm or 704-5480.