Latest / Sankofa Chronicles: A Black History Podcast
Black Whalers of Alaska: Before America Knew Alaska Existed
A Black man at the wheel of a ship, steering through Arctic ice off Alaska — decades before Alaska was America.
Black History, Alaska History, Whaling History, Sankofa, American History
In this episode of Sankofa Chronicles, we leave the plantation South and the urban North behind and head for the open ocean. From the 1840s to the 1880s, nearly 20% of New England whaling crews were men of color — free Black men, escaped men, and mariners from the Caribbean and Cape Verde — chasing freedom, wages, and rank that land would never give them.
We follow the logbooks of New Bedford, the ships…
The skinny
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