History of Whaling - Greenland Whaling

Greenland Whaling

Encouraged by reports of whales off the coast of Spitsbergen in 1610, the English Muscovy Company sent a whaling expedition there the following year. The expedition was a disaster, with both ships sent being lost. The crews returned to England in a ship from Hull. The following year two more ships were sent. Other countries followed suit, with Amsterdam and San Sebastian each sending a ship north. The latter ship returned to Spain with a full cargo of oil. Such a fabulous return resulted in a fleet of whaleships being sent to Spitsbergen in 1613. The Muscovy Company sent seven, backed by a monopoly charter granted by King James I. They met with twenty other whaleships (eleven-twelve Basque, five French, and three Dutch), as well as a London interloper, which were either ordered away or forced to pay a fine of some sort. The United Provinces, France, and Spain all protested against this treatment, but James I held fast to his claim of sovereignty over Spitsbergen.

The following three and a half decades witnessed numerous clashes between the various nations (as well as infighting among the English), often merely posturing, but sometimes resulting in bloodshed. This jealousy stemmed as much from the mechanics of early whaling as from straightforward international animosities. In the first years of the fishery England, France, the United Provinces and later Denmark-Norway shipped expert Basque whalemen for their expeditions. At the time Basque whaling relied on the utilization of stations ashore where blubber could be processed into oil. In order to allow a rapid transference of this technique to Spitsbergen, suitable anchorages had to be selected, of which there were only a limited number, in particular on the west coast of the island.

Early in 1614 the Dutch formed the Noordsche Compagnie (Northern Company), a cartel composed of several independent chambers (each representing a particular port). The company sent fourteen ships supported by three or four men-of-war this year, while the English sent a fleet of thirteen ships and pinnaces. Equally matched, they agreed to split the coast between themselves, to the exclusion of third parties. The English received the four principal harbors in the middle of the west coast, while the Dutch could settle anywhere to the south or north. The agreement explicitly stated that it was only meant to last for this season.

In 1615 the Dutch arrived with a fleet of eleven ships and three men-of-war under Adriaen Block, occupied Fairhaven, Bell Sound, and Horn Sound by force, and built the first permanent structure on Spitsbergen: a wooden hut to store their equipment in. The ten ships sent by the Muscovy Company were relegated to the south side of Fairhaven, Sir Thomas Smith's Bay, and Ice Sound. The Danes meanwhile sent a fleet of five sail under Gabriel Kruse to demand a toll from the foreign whalers and in doing so assert Christian IV's claim of sovereignty over the region, but both the English and Dutch rebuffed his efforts—two ships from Bordeaux chartered by a merchant in San Sebastian were also sent away by the Dutch. The following year, 1616, the English, with a fleet of ten ships, occupied all the major harbors, appropriated the Dutch hut, and made a rich haul, while the Dutch, preoccupied with Jan Mayen, only sent four ships to Spitsbergen, which "kept together in odd places... and made a poor voyage."

In 1617 a ship from Vlissingen whaling in Horn Sound had its cargo seized by the English vice-admiral. Angry, the following season the Dutch sent nearly two dozen ships to Spitsbergen. Five of the fleet attacked two English ships, killing three men in the process, and also burned down the English station in Horn Sound. Negotiations between the two nations followed in 1619, with James I, while still claiming sovereignty, would not enforce it for the following three seasons. When this concession expired, the English twice (in 1623 and 1624) tried to expel the Dutch from Spitsbergen, failing both times.

In 1619 the Dutch and Danes, who had sent their first whaling expedition to Spitsbergen in 1617, firmly settled themselves on Amsterdam Island, a small island on the northwestern tip of Spitsbergen; while the English did the same in the fjords to the south. The Danish-Dutch settlement came to be called Smeerenburg, which would become the centre of operations for the latter in the first decades of the fishery. Numerous place names attest to the various nations' presence, including Copenhagen Bay (Kobbefjorden) and Danes Island (Danskøya), where the Danes established a station from 1631–58; Port Louis or Refuge Français (Hamburgbukta), where the French had a station from 1633–38, until they were driven away by the Danes (see below); and finally English Bay (Engelskbukta), as well as the number of features named by English whalemen and explorers—for example, Isfjorden, Bellsund, and Hornsund, to name a few.

Hostilities continued after 1619. In 1626 nine ships from Hull and York destroyed the Muscovy Company's fort and station in Bell Sound, and sailed to their own in Midterhukhamna. Here they were found by the heavily-armed flagship of the London whaling fleet; a two-hour battle ensued, resulting in defeat for the Hull and York fleet and their expulsion from Spitsbergen. In 1630 both the ships of Hull and Yarmouth, who had recently joined the trade, were driven away clean (empty) by the ships from London. From 1631-33 the Danes, French, and Dutch quarreled with each other, resulting in the expulsion of the Danes from Smeerenburg and the French from Copenhagen Bay. In 1634 the Dutch burned down one of the Danes' huts. There were also two battles this season, one between the English and French (the latter won) and the other between London and Yarmouth (the latter won, as well). In 1637 and again in 1638 the Danes drove the French out of Port Louis and seized their cargoes. In the former year they also seized a French ship in the open sea and detained it in Copenhagen Bay, while in the latter year they also held two Dutch ships captive in the same bay for over a month, which led to protests from the Dutch. Following the events of 1638 hostilities for the most part ceased, with the exception of a few minor incidents in the 1640s between the French and Danes, as well as between Copenhagen and Hamburg and London and Yarmouth, respectively.

The species hunted was the Bowhead Whale, a baleen whale that yielded large quantities of oil and baleen. The whales entered the fjords in the spring following the breakup of the ice. They were spotted by the whalemen from suitable vantage points, and pursued by shallops, chaloupes or chalupas, which were manned by six men. (These terms derive from the Basque word "txalupa", used to name the whaling boats that were widely utilized during the golden era of Basque whaling in Labrador in the 16th century.) The whale was harpooned and lanced to death and either towed to the stern of the ship or to the shore at low tide, where men with long knives would flense (cut up) the blubber. The blubber was boiled in large copper kettles and cooled in large wooden vessels, after which it was funneled into casks. The stations at first only consisted of tents of sail and crude furnaces, but were soon replaced by more permanent structures of wood and brick, such as Smeerenburg for the Dutch, Lægerneset for the English, and Copenhagen Bay for the Danes.

Beginning in the 1630s, for the Dutch at least, whaling expanded into the open sea. Gradually whaling in the open sea and along the ice floes to the west of Spitsbergen replaced bay whaling. At first the blubber was tried out at the end of the season at Smeerenburg or elsewhere along the coast, but after mid-century the stations were abandoned entirely in favor of processing the blubber upon the return of the ship to port. The English meanwhile stuck resolutely to bay whaling, and didn't make the transfer to pelagic (offshore) whaling until long after.

In 1719, the Dutch began "regular and intensive whaling" in the Davis Strait. Nevertheless, encouraged by import duty exemptions, the South Sea Company financed 172 unprofitable whaling voyages from London's Howland Dock between 1725-32. In 1733 the Government introduced a 'bounty' of £1.00 per ship ton, increasing to £2.00 per ton in 1749. These subsidies along with high oil and whalebone prices encouraged expansion. London sent out six whalers in 1749; 45 in 1777 and 91 in 1788. However, reductions in the bounty, and wars with America and France saw London's Greenland fleet fall to 19 in 1796.

During the 17th and 18th century the people from the North Frisian Islands enjoyed a reputation of being very skilled mariners, and most Dutch and English whaling ships bound for Greenland and Svalbard would have a crew of North Frisian islanders. Especially Föhr island has been recorded as a stronghold of whaling personnel. Around the year 1700, Föhr had a total population of roughly 6,000 people, 1,600 of whom were whalers. At the height of Dutch whaling in the year 1762, 1,186 seamen from Föhr were serving on Dutch whaling vessels alone and 25% of all shipmasters on Dutch whaling vessels were people from Föhr. Another example is the London-based South Sea Company whose commanding officers and harpooners were exclusively from Föhr.

The British would continue to send out whalers to the Arctic fishery into the 20th century, sending their last on the eve of the First World War.