Grab your passport and experience a new world encountered by New Bedford whalers. Voyages connected world cultures through commerce and helped establish American hegemony in far-flung ports.
Through both commercial activity and crewmen enlisting and disembarking, these voyages set in place the initial pattern of immigration that follows to this day. Most voyages first reached the Atlantic Islands of the Azores and Cape Verde, where captains fully outfitted with supplies and crew for the long voyage ahead.
This strategy made the Portuguese influence of these voyages and their cultural dissemination quite strong. Whaling literally took these men around the world, across all oceans, even to the polar extremes of the globe. The cultural exchanges and connections made through these voyages of commerce left evidence still visible today not only in the large Portuguese and Cape Verdean communities in New Bedford but in communities on the opposite side of the country where whaling was once an important industry.
The fact that California and Hawaii have significant populations of Portuguese is rooted in whaling, and the exhibit explores the Portuguese communities that remain an important legacy of the Luso-American whaling experience.
A Voyage Around the World demonstrates the remarkable geographical breadth of a real whaling journey. On this imaginary voyage you will begin with the Atlantic Islands of the Azores and Cape Verde, as you start with the many cultures encountered by whalemen.
