The Forgotten History of Slavery in the North

[alice wellintown]

Who aint a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old
sea-captains may order me about - however they may thump and punch me
about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that
everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way -
either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so
the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each
other's shoulder-blades, and be content.

Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer,
cried Peleg. Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers --it takes the
shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty
sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out
of all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never
came to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he
shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps in case
he got stove and went to Davy Jones.


'It was not atypical to see a massive school of sharks darting in and
out of the wake of the ships filled with human cargo plying the
Atlantic. For miles they followed the battered and moldy vessels,
waiting to attack the disease-ravaged black bodies that were
periodically tossed into the ocean...If the Atlantic were to dry up,
it would reveal a scattered pathway of human bones, African bones
marking the various routes of the Middle Passage.'

http://www.juneteenth.com/middlep.htm


Chapter LXIV

STUBB'S SUPPER

Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight,
sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like
hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to
bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while
the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving
each other's live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled,
the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely
carving away under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to
turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the
same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for
all parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of
all slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting
alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or
a dead slave to be decently buried; and though one or two other like
instances might be set down, touching the set terms, places, and
occasions, when sharks do most socially congregate, and most
hilariously feast; yet is there no conceivable time or occasion when
you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more
jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a
whale-ship at sea. If you have never seen that sight, then suspend
your decision about the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency
of conciliating the devil. But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings
of the banquet that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks
heeded the smacking of his own epicurean lips.