Nancy Shoemaker, “Native American Whalemen and the World” (UNC Press, 2015)

New Books in Indigenous Studies · May 18, 2015 · 59m

For as long as Herman Melville’s Moby Dick has been a staple of the American literary canon, one element often goes unnoticed.

The ship commanded by the monomanacial Ahab on his quest to slay the great white whale is named the Pequod, just one letter of difference from Pequot, a Native nation living within what is now southern New England. Perhaps Mellville was just participating in the widespread romantic nostalgia of the age, when many corporate enterprises and vessels took the name of the supposedly disappearing and noble Indians.

Or, maybe he was simply gesturing at the reality of the…