Savage (29 page)

PART FIVE

This Studied Concealment …

Chapter 21

Back in England the new year 1860 began optimistically for the Patagonian Missionary Society. Over the previous couple of years its missionaries at Keppel Island had received two groups of Fuegian Indians and, as far as they knew, were at that very moment shipping a third party back to Cranmer. More importantly, the case brought against them by their former employee, William Parker Snow, had been brought to a triumphant conclusion for the Society, after four years in which he had waged an unremitting war of attrition.

Snow's action had first reached the courts on 18 December 1858 when the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas had agreed an adjournment to allow several crucial documents to be obtained from the Falkland Islands. Snow lobbied the Colonial Office relentlessly, but the civil servants and ministers there were convinced he ‘was not completely in his right mind' and was of a rather ‘excitable character'. These views were confirmed when the case resumed on 8 December 1859 and lasted less than two days, the jury giving their verdict without retiring from the court room. There was, they said, no case for the missionary society to answer: William Parker Snow had not been unfairly dismissed and he was not owed any money or any compensation for the way in which he had been treated. Fresh allegations that the Lloyd's agent in the Falklands had suggested he scupper the
Allen Gardiner
for mutual profit were laughed out of court.

The publicity, however, had not flattered the Society. On the day after the verdict
The Times
lambasted its behaviour: ‘One would suppose from the way in which he [Snow] calls Heaven to witness against them that his employers were Turks and monsters, instead of being enthusiastic and devoted missionaries burning with the love of human souls … As it is, the Patagonian Mission has ended very ill, and can show a list, not of heathen converted, but of a number of excellent Christians quarrelling and abusing one another.' The Society clearly had work to do to restore its reputation, but it was a great relief for the ordeal to be over. The first
Voice of Pity
for 1860 boasted,

Most hopeful are the present prospects of the Mission abroad. At no time in the history of our work did ever such signs of blessing appear. The Christian mind will not fail to appreciate the mercy of the Lord in permitting us to report of natives of Tierra del Fuego, outwardly at least, joining in work, and in worship, and in prayer, and praise, with our Missionary brethren.

Unknown to anyone in England on 8 December 1859, the day that Snow's case reached its final verdict, eight missionaries had been lying dead in Tierra del Fuego for over a month.

*   *   *

The
Allen Gardiner
had been expected back at Keppel Island on 1 December 1859. By February of the next year those at the mission station were growing increasingly alarmed at its failure to return and Despard took the Society's second boat, the
Perseverance,
to Stanley, where he commissioned the American seafarer William Smyley, owner of the brigantine
Nancy,
to go in search of the missing ship.

Smyley was a rumbustious Rhode Islander in his late sixties, whose reputation as a seal and cattle hunter had earned him the nickname ‘Fat Jack of the Bone House'. He was a maverick seafarer, whose legitimate dealings in the South Atlantic occasionally verged on the piratical. In 1854 he had supported an American corvette threatening Port Stanley with bombardment in a dispute over the power of the British authorities there. Nevertheless, in spite of his notoriety in the eyes of some of the local establishment, it was recognised that he had a great streak of humanity and an unrivalled knowledge of both the Falklands and the Fuegian archipelago. It had been Smyley who had discovered the bodies of the missing Gardiner expedition in 1851 and this, combined with his unmatched knowledge of the South Atlantic and its islands, made him the man most likely to find the lost schooner.

Smyley arrived at Wulaia Cove on 1 March 1860 and discovered the
Allen Gardiner
at anchor. As the
Nancy
drifted it was surrounded by canoes. On one of them a white man stood and waved – Alfred Coles. The crew hauled him aboard, and behind him Jemmy Button clambered onto the ship then headed off to the galley for bread and water. Smyley welcomed the mission party's cook, gave him food and blankets and asked him for his story.

Coles, trembling with relief and holding his head to one side from the pain of a huge boil under his right ear, told how in November 1859 he had rowed the
Allen Gardiner
's gig away from the massacre. Over his shoulder he had seen the killers climbing into their canoes and racing towards the ship, one canoe peeling off in his direction. He had paddled hard, and within minutes was scrambling ashore and dashing into the dark security of dense woodland. The three small loaves he had placed in his Guernsey had fallen out during his panic-stricken flight. From the upper branches of a tree, he had watched his pursuers land their canoe nearby. He had seen them climb out of their boat, run ashore and look around for him before abandoning their pursuit, and settling for his small boat, which they took in tow.

When it seemed safe, Coles had descended from the tree and stolen away in the direction of the sun across open countryside. Over the next few days he had wandered to the east, through a land teeming with guanaco and geese, living off berries and sleeping at night under makeshift shelters of sticks and grass. After four days he had arrived, cold and hungry, at a river too wide and deep to cross. He followed the water's course to a beach where he found limpets and mussels, but without matches he could not make a fire to warm himself or dry his sodden clothes. A short while later, despite everything that had passed, he hailed a passing canoe steered by Tellon's eldest son.

The murderous rage of a few days earlier had gone, replaced by the hand of friendship and the offer of a lift. Coles climbed into the canoe and warmed himself by the fire at its heart. For over a week as the two men drifted from island to island, he was forced to fend off gangs of locals who begged and robbed him of almost everything he possessed. All of his clothes were taken, except his belt and earrings, his beard and eyebrows were plucked out by their roots or shaved off with sea shells. Among the inhabitants he had seen one wearing a Mission Yacht Guernsey and another sporting Captain Fell's blue coat. Despite their rough treatment of him, the Yamana had shared their food with him, and after ten days he was taken back to Wulaia, where, out at sea, the
Allen Gardiner
rode at anchor. She was little more than a carcass: masts, deck lights, rigging poles, steps and anything metallic had been stripped from her. The Fuegian mob had dispersed, and among the few that remained were Jemmy Button, his brothers Macooallan and Macalwense, Schwaiamugunjiz and the boys Ookoko and Lucca, all of whom were sympathetic, feeding him with mussels, shellfish and occasionally fish. They gave Coles stockings, his own hat and trousers, and a pair of boots belonging to the dead captain. They had even handed over one of the ship's muskets, a nightcap full of powder, some shot and percussion caps, with which he hunted geese and became known as a ‘very good fellow'.

For almost four months Coles had been treated as one of the Yamana, and the women looked after him with particular kindness – one of those who had been at Keppel Island even selected him to attend her during her confinement, owing to the special skills he was believed to possess. Every day he had taken his share of the food when the men returned from their fishing expeditions, and as the sun went down he had joined in the native wrestling matches that had filled the nights. He had gone to Button Island in a canoe and had visited the
Allen Gardiner
a dozen times, but found her rifled of everything. On some days he had searched from dawn to dusk without success for the bodies of his dead comrades. One Fuegian told him that the corpses had been thrown into the sea, another that they had been buried at a secret location.

As Coles spoke, Smyley wrote down his testimony. The twenty-three-year-old cook recounted the events leading to the slaughter, the awful sight of the killings, the screams, the blood and the merciless brutality. He concluded with some serious allegations:

The boys of the tribe told me that Jemmy Button and the others went on board the
Allen Gardiner
the evening of the massacre and that Jemmy Button slept in the captain's cabin. There was no one living on board when I got back.

My belief is that the cause of the massacre was Jemmy Button being jealous that he did not get as much as he thought he had a right to, and that he was at the head of the whole proceedings.

As to what became of the bodies I don't know, the boys told me that they saw Jemmy Button fight; I did not see him from the nest, I could not tell him. I could only tell Billy Button; he was a little on one side from the rest when he knocked Mr Phillips down.

Smyley heard out Coles with great seriousness. The
Nancy
only had a crew of six: to stop would be dangerous and the man Coles accused of being the chief assassin was still below in the galley. Without putting down anchor, he cut the painter of Jemmy Button's canoe adrift and sailed out of Wulaia. The unsuspecting Fuegian had been abducted and was once again on his way to the Falklands.

*   *   *

The people of Port Stanley greeted the news of the massacre with shock and anger. Volunteers queued up to go to Tierra del Fuego and exact revenge; the commander of the marines, Captain Abbott, proposed taking twenty of the Falklands' garrison to Wulaia to punish the culprits by force. Smyley wanted to take a posse of vigilantes on board the
Nancy.
However, the governor, who harboured misgivings about the activities of the Patagonian Missionary Society, withheld permission for reprisals. He was unwilling to rush into harsh and potentially unjust action to avenge something he considered as tricky and dishonest as the mission station at Keppel Island. At the time, to have voiced such sentiments would have been unfeeling and controversial. Instead he argued that the killings were beyond his jurisdiction; only one Indian had been identified as involved, and the various tribes had dispersed after the murders. The innocent were as likely to be hurt by reprisals as the guilty. Nevertheless, when he wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies with news of the deaths, he conceded that

If in calmly reviewing all the circumstances of the case you think it right to send a small vessel of war to visit the scene not to revenge the fate of the murdered men so much as by a salutary display of force to ensure the safety of any seamen hereafter cast ashore on those islands … I am bound to say that such a demonstration would be very useful.

Jemmy was taken from the
Nancy
neither as a prisoner nor as a free man, but his life was in danger. No official report records it, but the people of Stanley wanted him strung up as the supposed architect of the killings. George Packenham Despard later remembered that as Jemmy was taken to Government House he was lucky to survive, ‘hardly escaping Lynch-law execution…' Here in the colonial secretary's office on 12 March 1860 he was cross-questioned on the massacre.

In the presence of Governor Moore, the Colonial Chaplain, Captain Smyley and the undersigned, James Button Terra del Fuegian states:

I staid at Keppel Island 4 moons with wife and children – did not like to stop, don't want to, don't like it. Despard say go back Jemmy your old, your children stop – would like children to stop at Woollya – want to go back with you (Captain Smyley). All like to go back to Woollya, Mr Despard ask you to go to Keppel, Mr Despard said go two time, Keppel two time a year. Woollya no work at Keppel. Cask of water in big hut at Keppel, spear fish at Keppel, no catch seal. Catch fish big fish, I did not see them search the bags. Oens country boy very angry boy, when Despard look in bags. Oens country men killed Captain Fell – all same as Patagonias bow and arrow men – my country in small channel, others from big waters, my country at Woollya their's near Patagonia – Oens country boys say we no kill you you go away we kill them – Captain Fell was killed with stone by Oens country – I see Captain Fell killed – Carpenter another man saw and killed – I no see Mr Phillips killed – I put four in the ground, I no see the others – I will show Captain Smyley – I no see one live. I think one get away in the field run away – I bury Captain Fell and the Carpenter and two others Swedes. I no sleep in schooner run about on mainland – no more sleep run about – I have been all round island no see white man, me look for body Captain Fell my brother say – all by ground near house – my brother dig. Every tribe speaks differently – woman at Woollya is ‘keeper' my tribe has 15 canoes (counting on his fingers) plenty canoes other side over water plenty. Your people no speak Woollya Oens country no speak (Lennox Island described) they no speak. Yorks country two ships broke long time ago – York man eat man – Scratch country. My brother perhaps go back to Keppel. I had plenty of it – no want to go back – been away three times – country men perhaps go back (accompanied by look to say no) – (afterwards added) my country boy no want to go back to Keppel.

Taken down the day and year before mentioned from Jemmy Button's lips as far as he could be understood or made to understand the questions.

J.R. Longden Colonial Secretary

Charles Bull Colonial Chaplain

There were inconsistencies, contradictions and some outright lies in the Fuegian's statement, but amid these, and his memories of conditions at Cranmer – the cask of water, the fishing, the lack of seal – there emerged another version of events leading to the massacre. Jemmy had resented his time on Keppel Island: he had not wanted to go there in the first place and did not want to return. Moreover, it was clear that he had not believed the enterprise was viable – ‘Woollya no work at Keppel,' he said. There had been great anger at the searching of the bags, but the killers had not been from among his people; instead they were the much demonised Oens-men, the deadly enemies of the Yamana. He added that he had buried four of the dead men and had not slept in the captain's cabin of the deserted schooner. He finished with a quick snipe at York Minster and his cannibalistic people and added that he had had enough of Keppel Island. Perhaps his brother would go back, he suggested, but then immediately reconsidered this: ‘my country boy no want to go back to Keppel'. His people had had their fill of the mission station.