Nathaniel Palmer Discovers Antarctica: First American on the Peninsula

Twenty-one-year-old seal hunter Nathaniel Palmer steered his tiny 47-foot sloop Hero through Antarctic waters and became the first American to sight the Antarctic Peninsula on November 17, 1820. Palmer was already an experienced sealer despite his youth, having made multiple voyages to the subantarctic islands in search of the fur seal pelts that fetched high prices in the China trade. He was part of a fleet from Stonington, Connecticut, one of the leading sealing ports on the American coast, and the Hero was small enough to navigate the ice-choked channels that larger vessels could not enter. His sighting of the peninsula came during the Antarctic summer of 1820-1821, as he aggressively searched for new seal rookeries south of Cape Horn. The discovery was not unique: the Russian naval officer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and the British naval officer Edward Bransfield had both reported sighting Antarctic land earlier in 1820, and the priority dispute has never been definitively resolved. Palmer encountered Bellingshausen's expedition in the Antarctic waters, and the two navigators exchanged information about their discoveries. Along with English sealer George Powell, Palmer also co-discovered the South Orkney Islands archipelago. His discovery opened the region to commercial sealing and whaling fleets that would eventually drive several Antarctic species to the brink of extinction. Palmer Land, the southern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula, bears his name. The sealing industry that motivated his voyage decimated fur seal populations within decades, and the environmental destruction prompted the international treaties that now protect the continent from commercial exploitation.