{"id":3515,"date":"2013-03-13T11:05:04","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T14:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/?p=3515"},"modified":"2021-06-03T16:28:43","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T19:28:43","slug":"el-experimento-del-capitan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/the-captains-experiment\/","title":{"rendered":"The Captain\u2019s Experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

In these pages we will revisit the unbelievable story of the Y\u00e1mana<\/em> aborigine Jemmy Button, who was kidnapped in his town of Cape Horn by the officer of the British Royal Navy, Robert Fitz Roy. Together with other three members of his ethnic group, he was taken to London, where he would be educated in the Victorian way with the intention of turning him into an agent in charge of spreading \u201ccivilization\u201d in the New World. This is the story of an\u00a0 overseas adventure in which Charles Darwin himself was involved, and which was crucial for the creation of his famous “Theory of Evolution”.<\/h2>\n

1 – The Kidnapping<\/h2>\n

\"BeagleThe ship crashes into the waves of the South Atlantic. The coasts of \u201cTerra Incognita Australis\u201d are already at sight. The aborigines<\/a>\u2019 bonfires<\/strong>, which would later serve as inspiration for the name by which Tierra del Fuego<\/a> <\/strong>is currently known, have not been lit yet.<\/p>\n

The HMS Beagle<\/strong> throws its anchor near the coast of Wulaia<\/strong> (name given by the natives to their land), and Captain Robert Fitz Roy<\/strong>, to whom the command of the brigantine had been entrusted by the Royal Navy after the suicide of his predecessor, commander Pringle Stokes, wakes up from his rest and joyfully contemplates the sight of his accomplished objective. He can now start his mission of charting the island and studying its geography.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"CapeA group of Y\u00e1mana <\/em>canoes sails out to meet the Beagle. One of the boats carries Orundellico among its crew, a teenager of about 14 years. This young man would later be known as Jemmy Button<\/strong>, after the captain took a mother-of-pearl-made button <\/strong>off his coat and gave it to him as payment in return for keeping the Fueguino<\/em> (native of Tierra del Fuego<\/a>) on board. The Captain is enraged because \"Captainone of the ship\u2019s whalers has been stolen, and he is willing to make an exchange to recover it. The aborigines do not seem to show signs of the whaler, and Jemmy ends up as a hostage on the Beagle<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This is how the story of Jemmy Button begins, for whom 1831 meant the opening of a new chapter in his life and would lead him far away from the origins of his people, unknowingly turning him into an officer of the British Empire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 – Old World, New Life<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Jemmy is not alone on the Beagle. The loot of the British mission is completed with some other three Y\u00e1manas<\/em>: Fuegia Basket<\/strong>, 9 years old, York Minster<\/strong>, 25 years old, and Boat Memory<\/strong>, 19 years old. At \"HMSfirst, this company, however, is not comforting to Jemmy, because despite sharing their ethnic group, they belong to an enemy tribe, so he is subject to hostility as soon as he is captured on the Beagle.<\/p>\n

The aborigine group\u2019s fate would be dictated by the Captain\u2019s intentions: submitting them to a perverse experiment by which they would be educated according to Victorian “civility” principles.<\/strong> They would be taken to England, dressed in nineteenth-century British costumes, converted to Christianity, instructed in the English language typical of a lord, and taught the manners and customs of upper London bourgeoisie.<\/p>\n

It is clear that the Captain would not admit the kidnapping; for this reason, he would say that the relocation was justified under the \u201ccertainty that, in the long term, the benefits of knowing the British customs and language would compensate for the temporary separation from their country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"BeagleIn fact, the British Crown<\/strong>, knowing the Captain\u2019s actions, already had specific plans for them: they would become interpreters and fulfill a civilizing task in the lands of South America. The actual objective consisted in evangelizing the Y\u00e1manas<\/em>, settling domain in the New World, and ensuring the path to the Pacific <\/strong>through the Straits of Magellan and the later called Beagle Channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"JemmyThe spread of Illustration values among \u201cthe savages\u201d was related to the prejudices prevailing in 18th Century Europe, according to which the aborigine lifestyle only depicted the sad testimony of the primitive, the decadent, and the abject, withdrawn from the progress and spiritual integrity ideals on which the Western Christian culture was based.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jemmy soon showed evident signs of adaptation.<\/strong> He was the smartest one in the group of Fueguinos<\/em>, and he rapidly took in the teachings of his instructors. He gained the acknowledgement of the rest of the ship crew members, with whom he ended up building a close bond.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"At<\/p>\n

Jemmy and the rest of the Y\u00e1manas<\/em> were bewildered by the clothes and it took them some time to understand their usefulness<\/strong>, as they were used to being naked in their lands. They were also obsessed by the food storage room; <\/strong>food was scarce in Wulaia and stocking up demanded great effort. They soon understood that by obeying their orders, they obtained food as a reward.<\/p>\n

Once in England, the problems of the experiment would appear, since Boat Memory would die from measles as soon as he reached Plymouth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Jemmy<\/p>\n

Jemmy and the other two were enrolled in a Catholic Church farm-school in the outskirts of London. <\/strong>In the case of Jemmy and Fuegia Basket, the learning and integration showed encouraging signs (most of the public opinion referred to them as \u201cgood savages\u201d), but York Minster, the older one, was not in the best mood, perhaps as a result of having left his wife and kids behind in his homeland.<\/p>\n

\"Saint<\/p>\n

The assimilatory progresses made by the Y\u00e1manas<\/em> led to an audience, together with the Captain, with King William IV and Queen Adelaide in St. James\u2019s Palace, <\/strong>something unusual at the time. The interview was a success. The anthropological interest actually concealed the imperialistic ends pursued by the United Kingdom.<\/strong><\/p>\n

3 – Beagle\u2019s Return with an Unexpected Companion<\/strong><\/h2>\n

After 15 months, the Captain, who was aware of the repeated criticisms to his project by the English press and the public opinion in general, considered that it was time to\u00a0return the\u00a0Fueguinos<\/em>\u00a0to their land and put the experiment into practice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"AThe Captain had a hot temper and caustic personality. Suicidal ideas hovered in his mind, since he was aware of his family background and, what is more, his predecessor in command of the Beagle had taken his own life. This is why he needed a nice travel companion that would help him to drive away those ghosts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Stevens Henlow, a Botany Professor at Cambridge, recommended a\u00a022 year-old<\/strong>\u00a0naturalist, who had never before crossed the ocean, for this position.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A young Charles Darwin, who had not had a really successful academic performance and who still believed in the divine creation according to the Bible\u00a0<\/strong>(he was a\u00a0\"Plymouth<\/strong>priest apprentice),\u00a0left in 1834 from the port of Plymouth.\u00a0 He started, with the Captain and the three aborigines,\u00a0<\/strong>what would eventually become a\u00a0paradigmatic journey in human history.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Captain looked forward to seeing the fruits of his experiment, but Darwin discouraged him and minimized the importance of the matter. A letter to his sister, Susan, reveals his belief in the reversibility of the education: \u201cIt will be very interesting and -I\u2019m afraid- also painful to see poor Jemmy Button and the others. I guess we will find them naked and half starving, or otherwise devoured in the last winter\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was interested in specimens of living organisms and fossils he found in the expeditions. These\u00a0observations would be the basis for the renowned Theory of the Origin of Species, which would be a benchmark in the history of Modern Science.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite Darwin\u2019s little enthusiasm in the experiment, the\u00a0Captain<\/strong>\u00a0would not give up and\u00a0decided to go back for Jemmy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 – The Experiment Fails<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Captain is nervous, walks from side to side of the deck. The village where he had picked up Jemmy had been abandoned, the huts are\u00a0\"Beagleempty. For him, Tierra del Fuego represents a sepulcher filled with dead people.<\/p>\n

It is already night. A group of canoes approaches the Beagle. Disappointment cannot be greater. There is\u00a0Jemmy, showing an almost complete nakedness but for a rotten cloth hanging from his groin. His hair is long and dirty; his body is undernourished; his skin, abandoned; his eyes, worn out. Nothing is left of the gentleman who used to impress London\u2019s high society.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Half an hour later, he is sitting at the Captain’s table, holding the cutlery so as not to offend his host, though he cannot hide a strangeness gesture, the same that showed in that first overseas trip.<\/p>\n

The conversation between the Captain and Jemmy must have been something like this:<\/p>\n

– \u201cWhat has happened, Jemmy?\u201d Is it that you don\u2019t remember anything of what happened these last years?\u201d<\/p>\n

-\u201cI\u2019m sorry. I\u2019d rather not remember. Besides, I\u2019m really well just like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

-\u201cBut, you look sick! You need to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n

-\u201cI\u2019m fine, Captain, I appreciate your concerns, but I\u2019m really fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

-\u201cAre you sure you don\u2019t want to travel with us? We’ll have a great time together and we’ll keep you in good shape.”<\/p>\n

\"TheBut\u00a0Jemmy has no intention of moving away from his place or looking alike another culture.<\/strong>\u00a0This time no one forces him. He reaches out his hand to the Captain with enough pride and assurance, and comes back to his\u00a0canoe. <\/strong>Lit by a torch, it\u00a0stirs up the waters with the glow of the living fire of the end of the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jemmy Button was tried and acquitted in Port Stanley, in the Malvinas Islands, after having been accused of slaughtering missioners in one of the Beagle Channel islands. <\/strong>He died in Cape Horn due to a smallpox epidemic that dramatically reduced the Y\u00e1mana\u00a0<\/em>population by half.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In these pages we will revisit the unbelievable story of the Y\u00e1mana aborigine Jemmy Button, who was kidnapped in his town of Cape Horn by the officer of the British Royal Navy, Robert Fitz Roy. Together with other three members of his ethnic group, he was taken to London, where he would be educated in… Read on<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[59,12],"tags":[122,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-3515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-historia-patagonia","7":"category-tierra-del-fuego","8":"tag-monte-fitz-roy","9":"tag-otras-historias-patagonicas"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3515"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7081,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions\/7081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patagonia-argentina.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Upon reaching the bay of Wulaia, Jemmy and the other\u00a0Y\u00e1manas\u00a0<\/em>were set free,\u00a0<\/strong>with some items they had brought from England but which would be useless in their villages.\u00a0The Captain and Darwin continued with the journey,\u00a0<\/strong>traveling along several places of South America. Fitz Roy became the first captain to go into the Beagle Channel. Among other places, in 1834 and after sailing up \"Fitzthe Santa Cruz River, they reached the Cerro Chalt\u00e9n<\/a> area, which in 1877 the Expert Francisco Moreno would name after the Captain, in recognition of his important\u00a0pioneer activity in Patagonia<\/a>.<\/p>\n