I don't argue with this general point, and I think the same is true to a lesser extent of 1632. But it's disingenuous to say that the Nantucketers were worse than Walker. In intention, perhaps, but not in execution (ahem).
I think you missed my point. I said that Walker was portrayed as the traditional "antagonist" of the 19th century feuilletons, while the Nantucketers who remained faithful to the constitution and the traditional values of every red-blooded American (there including the right of bearing arms, blah, blah, blah) were obviously the "good guys" (ok, and then there were a limited number of nuts). Say that the original number were 6 or 7 thousands. Walker's followers were just a dozen, which is a pretty low number. Lisketter's followers were three dozens? (I'm guessing, not much more than that, I'd assume). Add suicides, general nuts (like the pastor who destryed the guns) and so on: shall we say 200 of them? It means that 96% of the other Nantucketers stayed sane, busted their asses working to overcome the famine in first winter, and then went on a spread, bringing freedom, democracy and potatoes to the Iron Age world, converting Iraq to democracy (sorry, it was Babylon. My bad) and winning a worl war. After which they were so generous and far-sighted that they even made peace with the Tartesso king (forgot the name) who had just one year earlier tried to conquer and enslve all of Nantucket. Ok, ok: the narrative necessity, and all that. It would not be nice if the book just said that Nantucket failed to survive, except for the smart guys who stole the boats and went to live like kings among the savages. Very long winded, sorry.
To get to the core: Walker was possibly the only guy who realised where he had to live the rest of his life
. All the other poor bastards missed that, and had a very short life-expectancy.
Mind, I liked the ISOT books: they were readable, and a good yarn. You just had not to look for the obvious impossibilities.
