Unravelling the whales of Brazil, ghosts in the global history of whaling

Abstract

Whales are ghosts of history and ghosts of today’s oceans. Their capture by humans in all oceans of the planet resulted in the drastic reduction of natural populations. In Brazil, commercial whaling began in 1603 and was practiced, by different promoters and with different styles of capture, until 1986. This paper examines the whaling activity established under a monopoly regime between 1614 and 1801, in a colonial scenario, in which, I argue, whales played a role, and their hunting was a stimulus for the appropriation of territory and natural resources. The products and their uses in Brazilian territory are analysed here, as well as their shipment to Lisbon, reinforcing the importance of these commodities in colonial dynamics and Atlantic circulation. The way people perceived the coast and the coastal activities that are practiced, and their impact on the physical and emotional construction of the spaces is discussed. We approach the history of whaling from the perspective of marine environmental history and animal history, in an attempt to rescue these oceanic ghosts and to include them in the construction of narratives of respect and empathy for people and all the other animal protagonists of history.

Keywords
Environmental History; Animal History; Blue Humanities; Colonial Brazil; South Atlantic