Between words and oceans. Logbooks and the Antarctic sealing industry

MELISA A. SALERNO; MARÍA JIMENA CRUZ

Ushuaia

Congreso; SC-HASS Conference Antarctic Connections at the End of the World: Understanding the Past and Shaping the Future; 2019

Conference of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR)

In the nineteenth century, sealing vessels representing the interests of capitalist companies (mainly from the United States and the United Kingdom, among other nations) visited the South Shetland Islands (Antarctica) and exploited animal resources to feed a large world market of oil and skins. One of the duties of the merchant captains of that time was to keep a logbook to record observations on weather, the location of vessels, incidents on board, etc. on a daily basis. Logbooks represent a valuable source of information to shed light on the sealing industry. However, both historians and archaeologists dealing with Antarctic sealing still need to explore in greater depth the potential of these documents. Considering logbooks from American sealing vessels, written in the early and late nineteenth century, in this presentation we will try to show how these documents can offer synchronic and diachronic information on: 1) The complete trajectory of the sealing voyages bound to Antarctica, from their port of departure to their port of return (including visits to intermediate ports, other hunting grounds, etc.). 2) The nature of the sealing operations on the South Shetland Islands (including the establishment of sealers? camps on specific locations; the composition of the gangs; the amounts of resources obtained; the animal species hunted at each location ?seals, elephant seals; etc). Finally, as historical archaeologists and members of the Landscapes in White Research Project, we will try to discuss how the information gathered through the analysis of logbooks could be integrated to archaeological evidence.