One could hardly believe the immense success of the whaling industry. By 1760, the local whale population of Nantucket had been practically wiped out. By the time the Revolutionary War came about, whalers had made it to the verge of the Arctic Circle and the west coast of Africa, to the east coast of South America, and as far south as the Falkland Islands. Nantucketers were a new breed of people whose success in whaling was surpassing that of all of England. Ralph Waldo Emerson called them the "Nation of Nantucket." The community of Nantucket and the larger region of New England were both strongly represented by class, race, leadership, and man's relationship to nature. Yet they were still considered very separate communities.

Class was an obvious division in the local Nantucket community. It occurred often when dealing with off-islanders. "Nantucketers took a dim view of off0islands. They...