Savage (17 page)

*   *   *

After dinner, Jemmy and his brother went for a stroll along Wulaia with the surgeon Bynoe. He pointed out where the sailors' tents had sat in 1833, and where the boundary trench had been dug. Bynoe tried to persuade the Fuegian to return to London.

On the ship, FitzRoy was disenchanted. His grand scheme had been frittered away. Ever since the events of 1833 and the rescue of Matthews, he had feared an outcome like this. He had always been uneasy with York Minster. Where Jemmy had a gentle, light side, FitzRoy felt that York had always been a brute, except in his dealings with Fuegia. He had failed to capture the hearts of shipmates and home friends alike. FitzRoy saw what York had done as the fulfilment of a long-term, well-calculated strategy. He wrote in the
Narratives
that when York decided he would rather go to Wulaia than to his own country, he had already made the plan:

York's fine canoe was evidently not built for transporting himself alone; neither was the meeting with his brother accidental … He meditated taking a good opportunity of possessing himself of every thing; and that he thought, if he were left in his own country without Matthews, he would not have many things given to him, neither would he know where he might afterwards look for and plunder poor Jemmy.

Early that evening, with Jemmy still on the
Beagle,
a rumour reached FitzRoy's ears. A canoe had come alongside and in it sat a beautiful young woman, crying. She said she was Jemmy's wife. Jemmy had not mentioned her and, when asked about her, he denied knowing anything about her until an older Fuegian announced to the ship's company, ‘Jemmy Button's wife, Jemmy Button's canoe and Jemmy's wife come!' Then he admitted it, sparking off a general celebration and gentle mirth. Handkerchiefs, shawls and a gold-laced cap were given to the woman as presents. She was ‘decidedly the best-looking female in the company', commented Lieutenant Sulivan, but she was distressed: since her young husband had raced out to greet the ship she had feared that another attempt might be made to take him away. Her tears were only stemmed by his appearance on the deck.

Her arrival lightened FitzRoy's mood. Jemmy was married, he was happy. Here was the proof. He might not make a missionary, but at least he was reconciled to his people.

To his sister Catherine, back in England, Darwin wrote, ‘The Captain offered to take him to England, but this to our surprise, he at once refused: in the evening his young wife came alongside and showed us the reason.'

*   *   *

One of the remarkable things about the day's visit was the language in which it had been conducted. When the
Beagle
had returned to Tierra del Fuego at the end of 1832, FitzRoy had been dismayed that Jemmy could no longer speak Yamana. As the Fuegian's family – his brothers and their wives – had walked around the ship this afternoon, it had become obvious that even now Jemmy had not fully recovered his mother tongue. He had, however, taught his friends some English. The two languages had coalesced into a variety of pidgin, shared now by those around him. ‘Strange as it appears he had actually taught his family more English than they had taught him Fuegian,' wrote FitzRoy. ‘Every word which we heard him use – either to them or to his wife – was broken English – and he told me that he could say very little in his own language – that he knew English better – and that his family understood him when he spoke in English.'

‘Give me knife', ‘canoe', ‘come' echoed around the decks from Fuegian mouths. And he remained Jemmy Button: there had been no return to Orundellico, the name of his childhood. This was, perhaps, his most significant tribute to his time in England.

*   *   *

The next morning, 6 March 1834, broke on a warmer but dull day, an overcast sky threatening squally showers. FitzRoy was keen to be moving on, and greeted Jemmy for breakfast at first light.

Their discussion in the captain's cabin was lengthy and private. FitzRoy was keen to pump the young Fuegian for whatever information he had on York and Fuegia, and the threat of the Oens-men returning.

As FitzRoy listened to his former charge, he convinced himself that even if the grand scheme had fallen apart, the ‘good effects' on Jemmy and his family, whom FitzRoy thought much more ‘humanized' than the other ‘savages' in the region, were unmistakable. He took comfort in crumbs:

I cannot help still hoping that some benefit, however slight, may result from the intercourse of these people, Jemmy, York and Fuegia, with other natives of Tierra del Fuego. Perhaps a ship-wrecked seaman may hereafter receive help and kind treatment from Jemmy Button's children; prompted, as they can hardly fail to be, by the traditions they will have heard of men of other lands; and by an idea, however faint, of their duty to God as well as their neighbour.

When the conversation was over it was time for goodbyes to be said. As his family waited in canoes below, Jemmy and the crew exchanged a final sad farewell. Darwin noted in his diary: ‘Every soul on board was as sorry to shake hands with poor Jemmy for the last time, as we were glad to have seen him. I hope and have little doubt he will be as happy as if he had never left his country; which is more than I formerly thought.'

If the Fuegians made a profound and lasting impression on anybody it was Charles Darwin. His writings show a man deeply affected by his contact with the primitive peoples of the Cape Horn region. He had first met Jemmy, York and Fuegia in Plymouth. They were the first natives he had ever come across and had been away from their homes for almost two years, but were well-mannered, politely spoken and neatly dressed. What he experienced in Tierra del Fuego was a shocking contrast. When he thought of how far Jemmy Button had come, he wrote, ‘It seems yet wonderful to me when I think over all his many good qualities, that he should have been of the same race and doubtless partaken of the same character, with the miserable, degraded savages whom we first met here.'

Darwin did not mince his words on the Fuegian Indians: he believed that here on the tip of South America ‘man exists in a lower state of improvement than in any other part of the world'. But in Jemmy, York and Fuegia he saw the possibility of change and adaptation. The native Fuegians, he said, were more base than even the Australian Aborigine, who could at least ‘boast of his boomerang, his spear and throwing stick, his method of climbing trees, tracking animals, and scheme of hunting. Although thus superior in acquirements, it by no means follows that he should likewise be so in capabilities. Indeed, from what we saw of the Fuegians, who were taken to England, I should think the case was the reverse.' He concluded, ‘Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe that they are fellow creatures, and inhabitants of the same world.' Yet he saw them mirrored in FitzRoy's Fuegians. It was possible to change, to grow, to evolve. In his account of the voyage of the
Beagle,
Darwin wrote,

Whilst beholding these savages, one asks, whence have they come? What could have tempted, or what change compelled a tribe of men to leave the fine regions of the north to travel down the Cordillera, or backbone of America, to invent and build canoes, and then to enter on one of the most inhospitable countries within the limits of the globe? Although such reflections must at first occupy one's mind, yet we may feel sure that many of them are quite erroneous. There is no reason to believe that the Fuegians decrease in number; therefore we must suppose that they enjoy a sufficient share of happiness (of whatever kind it may be) to render life worth having. Nature by making habit omnipotent and its effects hereditary, has fitted the Fuegian to the climate and the productions of his country.

In Tierra del Fuego the kernel of an idea was born in him that would come to dominate his life. Nevertheless he left the area for the last time feeling pessimistic about its future …

until some chief shall arise with power sufficient to secure any acquired advantages, such as the domesticated animals or other valuable presents, it seems scarcely possible that the political state of the country can be improved. At present, even a piece of cloth is torn into shreds and distributed; and no one individual becomes richer than another. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand how a chief can arise till there is property of some sort by which he might manifest and still increase his authority.

Jemmy waited for the
Beagle
to leave. As the ship lurched forward, his wife in a canoe below shrieked with anguish, and his brother screamed, ‘Jemmy Button – canoe – come!' Loaded with as much booty as he, his family and the three canoes could carry, Jemmy climbed out of the
Beagle
for the last time and paddled off to the safety of the island that he had informed the captain was his. The ship pulled away from Wulaia and, as it stood out in Ponsonby Sound, those who looked back observed a curling plume of smoke from Jemmy Button's farewell pyre.

PART FOUR

The Selfish Crotchet

Weep! weep for Patagonia!

In darkness, oh! how deep,

Her heathen children spend their days;

Ah, who can choose but weep?

The tidings of a saviour's love

Are all unheeded there,

And precious souls are perishing

In blackness of despair.

Plea for Patagonia,

Patagonian Missionary Society

Chapter 14

The Patagonian Missionary Society was born of the religious fervour and Protestant determination that gripped Britain in the nineteenth century. The haphazard, almost accidental, spread of the country's overseas power and influence in the late Georgian and early Victorian periods roused in the hearts of the pious a desire to carry the Gospels to newly opened territories. Missionaries were in the vanguard of empire. In Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Australasia the onward march of Christian soldiers cleared the path for colonial and imperial exploitation. And yet they were often more trouble than they were worth: British missionaries, driven by intense religious passions, led the empire up alleyways and down dead-ends in which it had little business and along which it should never have wandered.

It was up one of these alleyways that the Patagonian Missionary Society had been heading ever since its foundation. Its creator, Allen Gardiner, was a former naval officer possessed of remarkable energy, enviable charisma and an insatiable desire for adventure. Where Gardiner began and the Patagonian Missionary Society ended was impossible to tell: his beliefs, vigour and intellect informed the character of the venture and in him were embodied all the organisation's strengths and weaknesses: its flair, dash and courage, and the naïvety and fragility of thought that eventually brought calamity and tragedy.

Born in 1794, Gardiner had received his calling to Christ when in his thirties. He responded with a fundamentalist fanaticism and devotion that plunged him, time and again, into horrifying situations. Just three months after his first wife had died in 1834, he entered Zululand intent on building a mission station on land controlled by the Zulu king Dingaan. At first rebuffed, for the King was more interested in guns than gods, Gardiner persevered, brokering a treaty between white traders and the Zulu people. This promised the forced repatriation of Zulu fugitives from Natal to Zululand in return for the guaranteed safety of the white residents of Port Natal. Dingaan was delighted, and granted the missionary land near kwaBulawayo.

Gardiner soon discovered the awful truth of the treaty he had helped bring about: under it his first duty was to transport seven runaways into the hands of Dingaan. These unfortunates, who included a woman and three children, were starved then executed. Then, in February 1838, Dingaan's Zulus slaughtered 283 Boers, ripping the heart and liver out of their leader Piet Retief for use in magic. Although Gardiner could not be held directly to blame for the massacre, it took place near one of his mission outposts, and had been caused principally by conditions he had helped foster in the area.

Zululand was a dispiriting experience, even for a man of such indomitable enthusiasm, so Gardiner moved on. Over the next twelve years he tried unsuccessfully to establish mission stations in New Guinea, Chile and Gran Chaco – an area at the heart of South America bordered by Bolivia, Argentina and Paraguay. He had no commission for such work, little support and even less financial backing. Conditions were frequently different from what he had been led to believe, and his difficulties were often exacerbated by local political feuds and what he saw as the scheming of small but powerful Catholic oligarchies.

Tierra del Fuego, Gardiner decided, would be different. It was virgin territory, beyond the pernicious tentacles of Rome. Most importantly, he had heard of a group of friendly Fuegian Indians who had been brought to England in 1830 by Captain FitzRoy and who not only understood the basic tenets of Protestant Christianity but also spoke English. If he could find Jemmy Button, success, he felt, was guaranteed.

After a visit to the Magellan Straits in 1841, in which he made friendly contact with a small tribe of Indians under Chief Wissale, Gardiner returned to Brighton and founded the Patagonian Missionary Society. He had plans to establish a foothold at Oazy Harbour on the northern shore of the straits, but when he returned there in 1845, with Robert Hunt, a school teacher, the locals had turned threatening. The two men fled to England, but Gardiner did not give up. Three years later he and five men hitched a lift to Tierra del Fuego, on board a ship taking coal to Peru. For a day or two things went to plan, and at Banner Cove they began to build an encampment, but news of their presence spread. Swarms of Fuegians descended on them, stealing everything they laid hands on. In exasperation the frustrated party climbed back onto the ship that had brought them and headed for Lima, whence they made a slow and expensive return to England. The mission had been years in the planning, and barely a week in existence.