The Leviathan Drives the Plot: An Atlantic Whaling Voyage as a Case of Multiple Agencies in the Writing of Historical Narratives

This article examines the voyage of the Leviathan, a brigantine that sailed from Newport, Rhode Island, in 1773, in search of new sperm whale grounds in the South Atlantic but ended its journey off the coast of Brazil. There, its crew was arrested and persuaded to teach sperm-whaling techniques under Portuguese colonial authorities. Bringing together the trajectories of a Jewish merchant, a New England captain, a Portuguese viceroy, and sperm whales themselves, the voyage marked the beginning of sperm whale hunting in Brazilian waters. At the same time, it triggered an unplanned process of technological and environmental knowledge transfer across imperial borders. Drawing on Environmental History, Blue Humanities, and Atlantic Studies, the article argues that the Leviathan functioned as both a borderscape and as a boundary-crossing device, linking human and nonhuman actors across political, ecological, social, and oceanic frontiers. By reconstructing this incidental voyage through a connected and more-than-human perspective, the article proposes a transdisciplinary approach to the writing of Early Modern Atlantic history.