764 - WHALE

In 1836, the ship 'Industry' set off from its Massachusetts port with its crew of 15. Some of the crew were of African descent or were raciaLly mixed blAck and whitE. These crew members or their ancestors would once have called themselves a slave though they were freemen. They were apprehensive because their destination was many miles South in the Gulf of Mexico. They were on the lookout for any whale that might be passing for them to catch. But the ship got into trouble and sank. Fortunately another whaling ship rescued the crew, otherwise they might have become enslaved again if they landed in Mississippi where there was a law saying that free black or mixed crew were to be detained whilst in port so as not to upset the status quo.(See Wreck of whaling ship discovered nearly 200 years later in the Gulf of Mexico)

This image taken by NOAA Ocean Exploration in February 2022 shows what researchers believe to be the wreck of the only whaling ship known to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico. The two-masted brig Industry went down in 1836 about 70 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River.