ABSTRACT
Between 1775 and 1825, and for a few years beyond, Antarctic exploration was integral to the expansion of capitalist methods of pro tmaking into sub-Antarctic and Antarctic waters. In these decades the search for fur delineated and expanded the boundaries of the Antarctic frontier. Predictably, conventional historiography attributes the major discoveries that occurred within this process – the exploration of South Georgia, the discovery and exploration of many other sub-Antarctic islands, the discovery of the South Shetland Islands, Deception Island, and the rst continental landings on the Antarctic Peninsula – to the heroism, exploratory drive and skills of the so-frequently memorialized captains of the sealing vessels. Yet, as we have seen in the previous chapter, these discoveries were underpinned by the mostly unacknowledged labour of workers who sailed the ships and who experienced exploration and discovery as work.
