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The Wreck Of The Mentor Changed Everything In 1832 From Eric Jay Dolin · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've checked it out yet. Arrow
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  Speaker 1: morning everybody. How's everybody doing today?
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  Speaker 2: It's just me. I'm doing fine. How are you? Just you?
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  Speaker 1: That means a lot. I mean, it's not just you,
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  Speaker 1: it is you. How are I mean, look at the
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  Speaker 1: project that you're wrapping up, and the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: world is going to learn a lot more about this
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  Speaker 1: is more than just to just you. It is you, okay,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean seriously, And maybe it's I'm the
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  Speaker 1: freak because I'm here in the South and hearing the South.
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  Speaker 1: When it comes to shipwrecks or anything they do has
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  Speaker 1: to do with history, you just dig in. It's just
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  Speaker 1: part of our nature in this part of the world.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, you're in North Carolina, right, I sure.
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  Speaker 1: Ramon, boy, I'll tell you what we take those shipwrecks
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  Speaker 1: pretty darn seriously over here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I remember when I wrote about Blackbeard in my book
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  Speaker 3: Black Flags.
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  Speaker 2: Blue Waters.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I learned a lot about North Carolina and how
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  Speaker 3: to this day he's a major part of the tourist industry.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
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  Speaker 1: They bank on that kind of stuff, which is part
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  Speaker 1: of the mystique. And that's why we rely on people
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  Speaker 1: like yourself, Eric in the way of building up that
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  Speaker 1: story so that we can say, well, I want to
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  Speaker 1: see this for myself. I just read about it. I
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  Speaker 1: want to know.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So, now, how did you even come in touch with
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  Speaker 1: the wreck of the Mentor because this is brand new
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  Speaker 1: to me, But man, it is inspiring to see what
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  Speaker 1: you have written out here.
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  Speaker 2: Oh well, thank you very much.
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  Speaker 3: Many years ago, in two thousand and seven, I wrote
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  Speaker 3: a book called Leviathan, The History of Whales in America,
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  Speaker 3: sort of a broad epic, And when I was working
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  Speaker 3: on that book, I came across this story and the Mentor.
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  Speaker 3: It didn't ultimately make it into that narrative, but then
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  Speaker 3: you fast forward to about twenty twenty four, I wrote
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  Speaker 3: a book called Left for Dead, which is about five
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  Speaker 3: men who were intentionally marooned on the Falkland Islands during
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  Speaker 3: the War of eighteen twelve. And while working on that book,
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  Speaker 3: I started thinking about the Mentor because it's a situation
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  Speaker 3: which is a shipwreck, and there's a long trail of
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  Speaker 3: events that are fascinating, and I said, this is a
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  Speaker 3: book I think I want to write, and I started
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  Speaker 3: researching it and it was just an amazing story.
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  Speaker 2: And that's how the end.
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  Speaker 1: Well, the one thing that I'm picking up on it,
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  Speaker 1: especially in eighteen thirty two, because my mind, it just
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  Speaker 1: might be my age. This is so pre internet. This
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  Speaker 1: is so pre really the newspaper. I mean we had
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  Speaker 1: printing presses, but it wasn't at what we have today.
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  Speaker 1: But I mean, you've got a story here that really
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  Speaker 1: unveils a world that relied on shipping and whaling was
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  Speaker 1: so important to the world.
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  Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, in America was a leading whaling nation at
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  Speaker 3: this time, sending hundreds of ships every year. In New Bedford,
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  Speaker 3: from which the Mentor sailed, was the leading port in
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  Speaker 3: the country.
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  Speaker 2: And you're right about communications.
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  Speaker 3: Once you took off from your port left the harbor,
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  Speaker 3: you were basically on your own for maybe a year
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  Speaker 3: or two years, up to four years, going through the
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  Speaker 3: world's oceans trying to hunt these leviathans of the deep,
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  Speaker 3: and you had no idea what was going on back home,
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  Speaker 3: and the people back home had basically no idea of
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  Speaker 3: what you were up to other than occasional stops at
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  Speaker 3: ports where mail could be sent back. And just amazing
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  Speaker 3: to think about stepping on board a ship that's maybe
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  Speaker 3: eighty feet long with twenty other men, and committing yourself
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  Speaker 3: to a cruise, a whaling cruise that's going to last
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  Speaker 3: multiple years. And you know, if you're lucky, you come
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  Speaker 3: back killed a bunch of whales, you make some money.
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  Speaker 3: If you're unlucky, you don't kill any whales and you
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  Speaker 3: make no money. And if you're really unlucky, like the
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  Speaker 3: men of the Mentor, you crash into a reef. Then
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  Speaker 3: you have to survive the best way you can.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things that I picked up on immediately,
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  Speaker 1: and it's only because I live in these modern times,
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  Speaker 1: is that when I'm thinking about the Mentor, I'm thinking
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  Speaker 1: about these reality TV shows where they're out getting the
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  Speaker 1: tuna and all that kind of stuff these days, and
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  Speaker 1: I sit there and I wonder, why hasn't somebody teamed
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  Speaker 1: up with you, Eric, to say, let's reenact this. Let's
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  Speaker 1: figure out how we can get one of these reality
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  Speaker 1: fishing shows to team up with you, and then you
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  Speaker 1: go out there and give us the real, honest to God,
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  Speaker 1: because I mean, my God, I mean we're talking about
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  Speaker 1: reefs that were not destroyed by man made objects.
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  Speaker 2: Shat.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this is a boat that hits a reef,
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  Speaker 1: and if people that haven't been to the ocean, those
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  Speaker 1: reefs are really dangerous. They're not beautiful, They're just dangerous.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, not dangerous and unseen. And you heard the
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  Speaker 3: problem with the part. I mean it was during a
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  Speaker 3: horrific st so if all they were seeing were massive
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  Speaker 3: waves and they thought they were about one hundred miles
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  Speaker 3: north of Palau and open water, but unfortunately for them,
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  Speaker 3: they weren't. They crashed into this reef. The ship was
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  Speaker 3: a total wreck, and the men had to decide what
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  Speaker 3: to do, and unfortunately, eleven men lost their lives within
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  Speaker 3: the first day. Ten of them decided to go off
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  Speaker 3: in a whale boat and they were never seen again.
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  Speaker 3: And then a few other men tried to get off
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  Speaker 3: the ship in a whale boat, and one of them
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  Speaker 3: drowned in the attempt, and then the remaining eleven men
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  Speaker 3: were facing in some cases years of being in Palau
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  Speaker 3: before they ultimately made it back to the United States.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think we can get DiCaprio to star in
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  Speaker 1: this movie, because man, I heard he's pretty good when
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  Speaker 1: you have to float in water like.
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  Speaker 3: That, that would be great. I can't tell you how
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  Speaker 3: many times people have read my books and said that
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  Speaker 3: would make a great movie, but so far Hollywood has
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  Speaker 3: not come calling. So if anybody's listening, I'm happy to
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  Speaker 3: help out.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things that really gets inside my heart
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  Speaker 1: because because of where we are in this place in history,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people, especially families, will rewrite a story,
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  Speaker 1: and it's like, how do you go in there, Eric
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  Speaker 1: and do the digging and make sure that it's the
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  Speaker 1: authentic side of it and not a family member's interpretation.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you just have to do the best with the
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  Speaker 3: materials you have and realize that history is at some
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  Speaker 3: levels subjective. It's one person's interpretation of the events based
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  Speaker 3: on the available information. With the story of the mentor,
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  Speaker 3: I was lucky because two of the men on board
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  Speaker 3: the Mentor wrote, in effect memoirs of their time in Palau,
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  Speaker 3: and there are oral traditions in Palau that have come
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  Speaker 3: down through the years. And also because this was a
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  Speaker 3: major event at the time, newspapers all over the country
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  Speaker 3: covered the travails of the men of the Mentor, the wreck,
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  Speaker 3: the escapes of a couple of the men, the naval
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  Speaker 3: rescue mission, so there was a lot of material that
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  Speaker 3: I could rely on to weave the story. But I
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  Speaker 3: think it's important to emphasize that a different historian. I
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  Speaker 3: don't think they tell a different story, but they'd come
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  Speaker 3: at it, maybe with a different angle. And when you're
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  Speaker 3: writing about something that happens in the early eighteen hundreds,
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  Speaker 3: or even something that happens ten or twenty years ago,
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  Speaker 3: the information you have is going to dictate the story
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  Speaker 3: you tell and also your own perspective. And I tried
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  Speaker 3: my best to tell the most complete, fair and objective
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  Speaker 3: story of an incredibly fascinating and complicated tale.
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  Speaker 1: Please don't move. There's more with Eric J. Dolan coming
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  Speaker 1: up next. The name of the book The Wreck of
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  Speaker 1: the Mentor, from author and historian Eric J. Dolan they
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  Speaker 1: faced the impossible. It's like they want to be a
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  Speaker 1: fly on the wall and just listen to the conversations
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  Speaker 1: because I don't think there was that much anger. I
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  Speaker 1: think there was a lot of fear, and there's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people looking into each other's eyes trying to
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  Speaker 1: figure out. You know, we've got the disappearance of all
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  Speaker 1: these men at night. Everything was going wrong. There had
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  Speaker 1: to be a solution somewhere. But they faced the impossible.
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  Speaker 1: How many people can say that today?
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  Speaker 2: Not many. We live more protected lives in general.
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  Speaker 3: I can't imagine being put in their situation.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, just think about it.
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  Speaker 3: The next day after the crash, the weather gets better.
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  Speaker 2: They see a small a small island far off in
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  Speaker 2: the distance.
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  Speaker 3: They get into their rickety whaleboat, which is leaking at
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  Speaker 3: this point, and they row and sail to that island
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  Speaker 3: and they're sitting there and they have no idea what's
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  Speaker 3: going to come next. They know that there are natives
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  Speaker 3: in the vicinity, they know they're in Palal. They have
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  Speaker 3: heard stories about how Westerners have been treated by There
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  Speaker 3: are good stories and there are bad stories, and they have.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely no idea what's going to happen next. Where they're
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  Speaker 2: going to get their food, how they're going.
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  Speaker 3: To survive, and much less how they're ultimately going to
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  Speaker 3: make it back to the United States.
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  Speaker 1: See now you've got the next episode of Survivor right there,
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  Speaker 1: or at least the next season beginning. I mean, you
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  Speaker 1: see what I mean. I mean, you're writing about a
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  Speaker 1: real event, and it seems like everything we're seeing on
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  Speaker 1: TV today Man created about something that they probably face
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  Speaker 1: back in eighteen thirty two, and yet we're trying to
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  Speaker 1: recreate it here.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well I think their situation was much more
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  Speaker 3: desperate than Survivor.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but it brings out the challenger inside of
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  Speaker 1: me in the way of going, oh my god. I
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  Speaker 1: would love to watch something like this coming too being
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  Speaker 1: so that we can all learn from it, because I mean,
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  Speaker 1: how many people face these things and then they turn
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  Speaker 1: and walk away, or as the preacher Man would say,
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  Speaker 1: you got to face the chariot, you gotta walk into
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  Speaker 1: the fire. You know, I'm out of this one, dude,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm not going in there.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah no, it's well, there's that old saying adversity introduces
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  Speaker 3: a man to himself, and there these are the most
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  Speaker 3: adverse conditions imaginable, and they many and then held up
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  Speaker 3: fairly well. I mean, I don't know how I would
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  Speaker 3: have handled this situation, and when you read the book,
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  Speaker 3: how any.
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  Speaker 2: Individual would have handled that situation.
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  Speaker 3: But desperation often, you know, brings to the four your courage,
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  Speaker 3: and sometimes it brings to the four your cowardice.
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  Speaker 1: Something that's always very big on my heart, especially when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to islands in different regions of the world,
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  Speaker 1: the indigenous. I mean, there's a story here, and I
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  Speaker 1: want more people to understand, you know, how the community
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  Speaker 1: comes together rather than we we're going to sit here
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  Speaker 1: and you know, in pieces part this story together.
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  Speaker 3: Right, No, Well, the natives of Palau, the Palawan's are a.
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  Speaker 2: Critical part of this story and from.
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  Speaker 3: Beginning to end, and how they reacted to these Americans
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  Speaker 3: in their midst, how they reacted to British sailors who
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  Speaker 3: had crashed their decades before. One of the big storylines
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  Speaker 3: is the provision of guns and ammunition to the natives,
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  Speaker 3: which had a major impact on the power structure in
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  Speaker 3: Palau and sort of pulled the Americans into this web
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  Speaker 3: of you know, if you help us escape, we're going
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  Speaker 3: to give you guns and ammunition later. It's just a
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  Speaker 3: fascinating story to me of interactions with natives in the
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  Speaker 3: Pacific Ocean and part of a larger story of the
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  Speaker 3: role of the West.
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  Speaker 2: Over the East.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you got my attention there, because all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 1: when you started talking about guns, my eyes went directly
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  Speaker 1: right back to eighteen thirty two, and I was thinking
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  Speaker 1: of Colorado and everything that was taking place here in
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  Speaker 1: the United States with the you know, the introduction of
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  Speaker 1: guns to the Native Americans here. I'm going, my god,
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  Speaker 1: this was the same time period.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely, there's this strong parallel of the role of the
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  Speaker 3: United States westward and encountering Native tribes, in the role
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  Speaker 3: of the United States and their whale ships going to
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  Speaker 3: the Pacific and encountering natives there as well, And many
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  Speaker 3: of the interactions were similar, and unfortunately, many of the
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  Speaker 3: outcomes were similar, and a lot of the native cultures
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  Speaker 3: were diminished and to some extent.
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  Speaker 2: Destroyed because of their contact with the West.
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  Speaker 1: As a researcher and historian, do you find it kind
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  Speaker 1: of odd that his history here in the United States
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  Speaker 1: has always been based on what we did on land
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  Speaker 1: and not necessarily what we've done on sea and it
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  Speaker 1: needs journalists as well as researchers such as yourself, Eric,
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  Speaker 1: to step out there and say, by the way, there
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  Speaker 1: was something going on that you need to know.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think maritime history has taken a back seat
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  Speaker 3: to terrestrial history, so to speak. But there are a
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  Speaker 3: lot of good books on maritime events, and I think
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  Speaker 3: that we're getting a broader understanding of it as time
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  Speaker 3: goes on.
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  Speaker 2: And it is critical.
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  Speaker 3: You cannot understand the history of any country in the
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  Speaker 3: West or anywhere without understanding their connection to the maritime
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  Speaker 3: world because for time, since time immemorial, even today, transportation
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  Speaker 3: and commerce on the open ocean is a major factor
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  Speaker 3: and influence on society.
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  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 1: I got to ask you on this one here only
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  Speaker 1: because what you just said about history and how everything
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  Speaker 1: happens before we get here. That's what we're taught. We're
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  Speaker 1: taught as martial artists that that black belt around my
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  Speaker 1: waist does not mean anything if I don't know the
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  Speaker 1: history of the maritime or the land that was involved
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  Speaker 1: with the country that that belt comes from. My god,
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  Speaker 1: are you a martial artist? How do you know about
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  Speaker 1: this connection?
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  Speaker 2: I am not a martial artist.
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  Speaker 3: My wife is a second degree black belt in Taekwondo's.
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  Speaker 2: Language right there.
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  Speaker 3: Nothing Maybe I've learned it through osmosis, but I've always
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  Speaker 3: you know, all of my books, I've always I always
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  Speaker 3: try to look for the larger context. You can't tell
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  Speaker 3: a story without and divorce it from what's happening in
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  Speaker 3: the broader society. And in eighteen thirty two, during the
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  Speaker 3: age of sail, I mean, most of the important things
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  Speaker 3: were happening on the ocean and interactions that took place
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  Speaker 3: after ships traveled somewhere and encountered different countries and different cultures.
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  Speaker 2: It was just incredibly important.
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  Speaker 1: If you could go back to eighteen thirty two, would
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  Speaker 1: you talk about modern day technology or would you let
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  Speaker 1: them discover it themselves? Because I mean, look at what's happened.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, look at what's going on now. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I mean they're sending out boats that don't even have
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  Speaker 1: human beings on it anymore. Can you imagine that in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty two?
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  Speaker 3: No, I think if I went back and I started
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  Speaker 3: talking about things like that, I'd soon be killed as
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  Speaker 3: a devil incarnate.
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  Speaker 2: I've often thought about that thought experiment.
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  Speaker 3: If you could go back one hundred years, would you
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  Speaker 3: know enough about modern society to create inventions or do things.
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  Speaker 3: And unfortunately, I'm not sure I would be able to
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  Speaker 3: recreate a lot of inventions, so I'd just be viewed
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  Speaker 3: as sort of a kook.
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  Speaker 1: I can't even make jello pudding pops. I'm telling you
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  Speaker 1: that right now. But I am jealous of you, Eric,
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  Speaker 1: because I am a daily writer. I've been doing it
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  Speaker 1: since July of nineteen ninety four, So journals mean a
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  Speaker 1: lot to me. And you got to go into these
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  Speaker 1: sailor's journals, and I'm very jealous because you got to
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  Speaker 1: hopefully touch them, smell them, to experience them, to see
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  Speaker 1: their handwriting. Because of handwriting just melts me like you
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't believe.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's both a curse and a benefit of writing.
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  Speaker 3: Well. Sometimes reading those journals, the handwriting is not very good.
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  Speaker 3: I flumped handwriting an elementary goal. So sometimes it's a
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  Speaker 3: real slog to read what they're saying. But other times
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  Speaker 3: the penmanship.
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  Speaker 2: Is very good. But yeah, that's an important part of writing.
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  Speaker 3: History in yourself to some extent, in their shoes, or
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  Speaker 3: at least appreciating the circumstances that they had to face.
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  Speaker 1: Well, they were all doctors. That's why we can't read
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  Speaker 1: their handwriting. We all knew they were going to be doctors.
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  Speaker 1: Somewhere Where can people go to find out more about
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  Speaker 1: you and what you're doing, because this is not your
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  Speaker 1: only research project. I want people to know how serious
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  Speaker 1: you are about sharing the past with the present.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I've written seventeen books. A lot of them are maritime history.
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  Speaker 3: Some are on what you call terrestrial history, like the
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: fur trade. But yeah, all of my books are the
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: popular narrative histories with deep research, informative and on a
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  Speaker 3: whole bunch of topics. In addition to this the Wreck
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: of the Mentor, I wrote a book on hurricanes. I
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: wrote a book on the China Trade. I wrote a
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  Speaker 3: book on pirates, whaling, a lot of different topics, privateering
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  Speaker 3: during the American Revolution. So my greatest hope is that
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: when somebody reads one of my books, they're sort of
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: taken away for that period of time, and they put
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: down the book and say, man, that was a great story.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: And I also learned a lot more about my country's
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: past and how we got to this point.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: You bring up something about the China Trade, And just
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a few weeks ago I did a story on iHeartRadio
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: because I like doing a thing where I hear different
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: things as phrases or idioms that people share. Well, I
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: want to know the history of that. And one of
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the things that I put focus on was, you know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: what's that got to do with the price of rice
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: in China. I did not know that that rice was
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: so important to the British and that it arrived from there,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and that when you talk about the the the trade
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: in China, I'm going, oh, my god, that's tea, that's China.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's I mean, that's rice, that's China. I mean,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that's another area, dude, that a lot of people don't
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: realize the importance of that connection and that trade that
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: was going on.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Absolutely after the American Revolution, you know, the United States,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: the United States was suddenly free to go places in
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: the world where the British had restrained them before. And
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: one of the first places that American merchants decided to
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: invest their money and send their ships was to China
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: to get tea porcelain silk rice and also later on
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: engage in the opium trade, which is another interesting part
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: of the story. But yeah, no, China was critically important
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: to the United States after the American Revolution, and of
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: course remains important today.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Will you ever do a story on the gumball tree?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And the reason why I bring that up is because
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: we're talking about China, because I always heard the story
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: that the gumball tree here in the South is actually
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the gum that they chewed in China, and that if
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: more people understood that, they came here to get goods
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: as well, such as these gumball trees that everybody can't
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: stand today. But there needs to be a story and
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: an author to bring it out.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Well, this is news to me. I'm not familiar with
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: that story.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: I'm the person to do it, but there are so
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: many great stories and picking a topic is hard.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Well, you got to come back to this show anytime
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: in the future. The door is always going to be
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: open for you.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: You be brilliant and history. Thanks you for what you're doing,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: because other than that, we would be lost. It would
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: be chat GPT and I ain't going there.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Thanks. I'm glad I'm a good alternative. Thank you, sir.