Historedia
Episode 3 of 3

Survivors Rescued

When
February to April 1821
Where
Henderson Island and South America
Part of
Whaleship Essex sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific

Three men were rescued from Henderson Island in April 1821, while five others reached South America in February 1821.

Of the 20 men who began the journey, eight survived. The five who reached South America had resorted to cannibalism. Chase returned to Nantucket on June 11, 1821.

Sources

  1. Essex (whaleship) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27
  2. Owen Chase Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-26

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.