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Pacific Science (1998), vol. 52, no. 4: 287-293© 1998 by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved
"That Extensive Enterprise": HMS Herald's North Pacific Survey,1845-1851 1
ABSTRACT: Despite its enormous scope, the survey of HMS Herald, likemost British scientific voyages after the time of Captain Cook, is little known.This article's discussion of naturalist Berthold Seemann's accounts of the voyage challenges the impression, still common in some naval history circles, thatthere is a difference between scientific expeditions and other naval activities(that is, between science and politics). The article considers evidence of imperialaesthetics in Seemann's responses to landscape and notes connections betweenthe collection of scientific data and the interests of British commercial and political expansion. Examination of Seemann's racial views shows that, just as heviewed landscape and natural resources with an imperial eye, so he judgedother peoples by his own standards of achievement and "improvability."
north to assist the search for Sir JohnFranklin's missing expedition in the Arctic.Pandora returned to Britain in 1849, but theHerald was out for 6 years, finally returningin 1851.
Although this article focuses on the survey's natural history, the Herald expeditionhad a wider significance that should be notedfirst. Even by the 1840s, a half-century afterCook and Vancouver, much of the Pacificregion remained uncharted. The NorthPacific whale fishery and the sea otter furtrade between the northwest coast and Chinahad drawn attention to the area's economicimportance since the 1790s (Steven 1983,Mackay 1985). The North West Company'soperations had been moving westward fromthe Canadas, taking advantage of the AngloAmerican war to found a base at Ft. Vancouver on the Columbia River in 1813. Warsof independence in South and Central America had drawn the Royal Navy into closerinvolvement throughout the region, andBritish support for the revolutionaries hadsecured the use of a number of importantharbors. The focus moved steadily towardthe Pacific, as reflected in the shift from theold "Brazils" or "South America" station,based at Rio or Buenos Aires, to the newPacific Station, founded in 1837, with itsheadquarters at Valparaiso on the Chilean
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THE PACIFIC SURVEY voyages of the Herald,like most British voyages after the time ofCaptain Cook, are little known. A recentstudy by Andrew David has examined thehydrographic significance of the Herald'sSouth Pacific expedition in the 1850s and1860s (David 1995), but there is no overviewof the northern survey in print; it is that expedition that I discuss in this paper. Twoships were involved-the 26-gun frigateHMS Herald under Captain Henry Kellett,and the six-gun barque HMS Pandora, commanded by Lieutenant Commander JamesWood. The survey had an enormous scope:the Hydrographer of the Navy, FrancisBeaufort, invited Kellett "to complete theWest Coast of America from Guayaquil upto the Arctic Ocean. Are you in the mind toaccept of that extensive enterprise?" (Hydrographic Office Archives, Taunton, u.K.,Letter Book Series 12, Beaufort to Kellett, 4November 1844). The expedition left Britainin 1845 to survey the Falkland Islands andthen proceeded along the west coast of SouthAmerica and north to the coast of what isnow British Columbia, making three detours
I Manuscript accepted 15 January 1998.2 Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth
Studies, London, United Kingdom.
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coast (Graham and Humphreys 1962, Gough1971).
The Royal Navy's Hydrographic Officeknew the importance of the Pacific regionand had dispatched a number of surveyvessels there in the early nineteenth century,notably HMS Blossom, under the commandof Captain F. W. Beechey, in 1825-1828.Beechey was commissioned to lead anotherPacific survey in 1836 with HMS Sulphur andStarling. Illness forced him to return to Britain, and in his absence Lieutenant HenryKellett took command of Starling. Overallcommand of the expedition passed to Captain Edward Belcher in 1837. Farther north,there had been Russian surveys of the BeringStrait area under the Estonian captain Ottovon Kotzebue in 1816. But probably themost famous surveyor in the eastern Pacific,and the one whose writings had the most influence on the Herald's officers, was CaptainRobert Fitzroy. HMS Beagle's work in SouthAmerica and the Galapagos Islands during1835 was then legendary, and naturalistCharles Darwin's role had not yet eclipsedthat of his captain.
Herald's naturalist, at least its final one,was the Hanoverian botanist Berthold Seemann, and he was assured prominence whenthe task of writing up the voyage narrativefell to him after the Herald's return to Britainin 1851. Seemann, who was still relativelyunknown at that time, had not been the firstchoice for the naturalist's post; that had fallento the young botanist Thomas Edmondstonfrom the Shetland Islands, a protege of SirWilliam Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Just before sailing in theHerald, Edmondston had been appointedprofessor of botany at Anderson College,Glasgow. "Hurrah! for Natural History," hewrote to a friend. "Who says it is a bad profession!" (Edmondston 1868: 235). Edmondston was obviously a young man of greatpromise, but he was killed in a tragic accidentin 1846 during the Herald's survey of theEcuador coast; a loaded rifle left by accidentin the bottom of one of the ship's boatswent off, killing him instantly. He was onlynineteen.
Berthold Seemann joined the expedition
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late in 1847, also through Hooker's patronage. Thus, although Seemann wrote boththe Botany and the Narrative of the voyage,he was not actually present at many of theevents he described. This explains some ofthe oddities of his account, which was prepared from various journals and correspondence loaned to him by some of Herald's officers, as well as his own diaries. This articleexplores some of those different voices, especially with regard to the ethnography of theexpedition.
Only brief comments are needed about thezoology of the voyage. The Zoology of theVoyage of H.M.S. "Herald" was edited byBritish zoologist Edward Forbes, but waswritten by Sir John Richardson, the famousArctic explorer and scientist, and it is notwhat it claims to be. Rather than a zoologyof the whole survey, it is exclusively a studyof the "fossils" (as they were known then)taken from the Eschscholtz ice cliffs of Kotzebue Sound near Bering Strait in the Arctic.These were mostly the remains of prehistoricmammoth, ox, and deer. The volume waswritten solely as a contribution to the emerging science of paleontology; the KotzebueSound ice cliffs were a phenomenon unrelated to the usual stratigraphy that allowedscientists to gauge the age of fossils onCharles Lyell's scale. Richardson suggestedthat the absence of human bones or artifactsmeant "that the drift era must have been antecedent to the appearance of man uponearth" or at least to human colonization ofthe Arctic (Forbes 1854:2). He also arguedfor an indigenous origin of the remains(rather than drift), which meant that thesewere American versions of the prehistoricanimals already found frozen in northernEurope. He chose to gloss over the issue ofextinction, which was a controversial issueat the time-difficult to reconcile with theBible.
In addition to describing the natural history of Herald's survey in this paper, I challenge the impression, still common in somenaval history circles, that there is a clear difference between scientific expeditions andother naval activities (that is, between scienceand politics). Barry Gough, who dominates
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the study of the ninteenth-century RoyalNavy in the North Pacific, sees a distinctionbetween eighteenth-century voyages of discovery, which he regards as mainly scientific,and the politically motivated Victorian navaloperations (Gough 1971: xiv). Gough is interested in the story of maritime empire; thusany voyage that seems to be merely scientificholds little interest for him. My work, onthe other hand, emphasizes the difference between modern concepts of scientific objectivity and neutrality, and nineteenth-centuryperceptions of "truthfulness" and "fact" invoyage narratives. Men like Seemann feltduty-bound to present their observations ina way that would serve Britain's imperialinterests. In this was their truthfulness andhonor as chroniclers, allowing Seemann todeclare that "Fact is the object I have aimedat throughout the following pages, on thestrict adherence to which will rest their solerecommendation" (Seemann 1853: vol. 1, xi).For him there was no conflict between scientific observation and an imperial gaze.
In recent studies of the history of science,distinctions between science and politics areusually regarded with suspicion. Instead, weare invited to consider the tangled motivesand multilayered perceptions of Western science. A veritable publishing industry nowsurrounds the pioneering British explorationsof Captain Cook and his circle. I only addthat the neglected nineteenth-century recorddeserves the same attention. Let me begin byconsidering imperial aesthetics in BertholdSeemann's responses to landscape during theHerald survey.
While observing the New Granadian jungle along the river Iscuande in February1846, Seemann welcomed the sight of smallshoreline villages because "An uninhabitedplace, however beautiful, has always a forlorn and desolate aspect" (Seemann 1853:vol. 1, xi, 76). He was never comfortable withthe vast, apparently uninhabited coasts thatHerald frequented, taking little apparent interest in marine biology or botany and disturbed-even threatened-by jungles andforests. North of the Iscuande he mused that"In England the confines of a wood remindone of a park; trees excite ideas of refine-
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ment, elegance, luxuriance, and retirement:there are so many feelings connected withtrees, that it cannot but influence one in beholding for so many leagues the vast forestswith which the Pacific Ocean is skirted"(Seemann 1853: vol. 1, xi, 78-79). Seemannwas well aware that he was imposing European associations on a foreign landscape andclear about wishing that he could remakewhat he saw to imitate Europe. He madeparticularly ominous observations about therain forests of the Isthmus and northernSouth America. He hoped that the Californian and Australian gold rushes wouldbring colonization and intensive agriculturein their wake, and that land clearance would"improve" the climate of these areas. Henoted that the seasons at Rio de Janeiro usedto be similar to those of Panama "but sincethe axe was laid on the dense forests surrounding the city, the climate has becomedry" and he speculated that "the same effectwill probably be produced in the Isthmus.When the immense forests ... shall have beenreduced, and a free circulation of air from seato sea has been established, the rainy seasonwill be considerably shorter, and the climatebecome cooler and more healthy" (Seemann1852-1857: 73). Only the absent industry ofEuropeans was required to mold the politicaland economic landscape, and the ecosystemitself.
Seemann made similar observations onthe northwest coast of North America, atNeah Bay in Juan de Fuca Strait, observingthat "The country around our anchorage wasrather pretty. But an uninhabited, uncultivated country is always wanting in one grandattribute of the picturesque-the industry ofman.... Houses, cleared land, and symptomsof attention and labour, wonderfully improvea landscape" (Seemann 1853: vol. 1, 97). Hewas comforted by the sight of the HudsonBay Company settlement at Victoria withits enclosed pastures and fields of wheatand vegetables. "Civilization had encroachedupon the beautiful domain," he noted withapproval, "and the savage could no longerexist in the filth and indolence of mere animallife.... The prospect is cheering, the changegladdening ..." (Seemann 1853: vol. 1, 102).
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Seemann's reaction against unimprovedlandscapes was most striking in the Arcticwhere he found "a death-like silence" aswinter approached. "His own breath, thesolitary beating of his own heart, is all the earperceives," he wrote, and it was "in thedreary steppes of the Polar region" that Seemann recognized longings for "those circleswhere his exertion may be beneficial to hisneighbours, and his wants be supplied by theaid of his fellow-creatures" (Seemann 18521857: 16). Once again, we see the Herald'snaturalist turning away from direct observation to describe the landscapes of his ownmemory and aspirations. .
Seemann also linked the collection of scientific data with the interests of commerce. Itis clear that both he and Edmondston hadbeen instructed to observe some parts ofthe world more closely than others. At theFalkland Islands, where the British Governorwas struggling to improve agricultural andgrazing yields, the Colonial Office asked Edmondston to collect samples of grasses forKew Gardens. The connection between Kewand the Falklands was already so strong thatGovernor Moody had recently named apeninsula near Stanley Harbour "HookerPoint." Edmondston also reported directly tothe Colonial Office on the resources of theGahipagos Islands and their prospects formore intensive colonization. As the use ofsteam power by the navy and British merchant shipping grew, the need for coalingstations was imperative. Although rumorsof Galapagos coal proved false, depositson Vancouver Island were very real andprompted Captain Courtenay of HMS Constance to declare a makeshift British jurisdiction over part of the island in the wake ofHerald's survey.
Commercially marketable plants were ofeven greater interest to the expedition thanthe discovery of new species. Seemann foundlittle to praise in the Arctic flora. "In a commercial point of view," he found "no productions which would playa prominent partin the traffic of civilized nations," adding that"should the country ever be inhabited by acivilized people, they will have to ... ex-
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change walrus-tusks, eider-down, furs, andtrain oil, for the spices of India, the manufactures of Europe, and the medicinal drugsof tropical America" (Seemann 1852-1857:21). The Arctic was of value, not in itself, butas part of a global system of trade. In SouthAmerica, on the other hand, there were cinchona plants and their quinine derivatives.Admiring the "high mountains, extensivemeadows, and valuable Quina-forests" ofEcuador, along with its temperate climate,mineral resources, and fertile soil, Seemanalso noted its position "in the centre of theinhabited globe, between one of the largestrivers in the world, the Amazon, and thegreat Pacific Ocean." A discussion of Ecuador's botany was quickly turned into something else, as Seemann went on to say that"Ecuador presents a vast field for enterprise.... It is now ... inhabited by so limiteda number of whites, that about twelve thousand immigrants would effect surprisingchanges" (Seemann 1853: vol. 1,202).
Seemann's racial views emerge regularlyin both the Narrative and the Botany of theHerald's voyage and, just as he viewed landscape and natural resources with an imperialeye, so he judged other peoples by his ownstandards of achievement and "improvability." At first Seemann praised what was, tohim, the surprising practicality and expertiseof indigenous peoples in the Americas. Buthe paid double-edged compliments. For example, along the river Iscuande, he noted theingenious use of mangrove posts, bamboo,and palm-leaf roofs in the construction ofhouses. These buildings had open sides "sothat every breath of air could enter, which insuch a climate, to an idle, lounging, lollingrace, is a comfort. We were surprised tosee so much neatness in the construction"(Seemann 1853: vol. 1, 75). Seemann addedthat bamboo was "in architecture what theBanana is in food, the most bountiful andbeautiful production in nature, and, by thevery facility with which it is procured andapplied, an incentive to indolent ease, an encourager of the too prevalent idleness of thetropics" (Seemann 1853: vol. 1, 76). Behindsuch statements lay the current debate about
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environmental influences on human societiesand the assumption that warmer climatesdiscouraged exertion and innovation.
Seemann's most extensive ethnographiccomments were made about creole andmixed-race communities. He made particularly detailed observations of Panama'spopulation after crossing the isthmus fromthe Atlantic side to meet the Herald on thePacific coast. Although Seemann recognizedthe diversity of the Isthmus' population, hefelt able to trace the effect of different European genetic and cultural influences. "Spanish priestcraft and tyranny," for example,had destroyed the intellectual and entrepreneurial capabilities of the creoles, "Butwhen the Anglo-saxon appeared the countrybegan to revive and prosper" (Seemann 1853:vol. 1, 76). When it came to the black population, however, Seemann saw no hope. Environment was not everything; he also believed in essential racial differences and wecan glimpse the man who would speak to"anti-negro" demonstrations in the wake ofthe Jamaica rebellion of 1860: "The negroesare treacherous, thievish, and extremely indolent ... for this reason they will always fillsubordinate situations, although the law places them on a level with the rest of theircountrymen" (Seemann 1853: vol. 1, 301).
Even worse, as usual, were the "halfcastes," which in this case meant the offspring of black-Spanish or Indian-Spanishparents. These people had inherited "all thevices and none of the virtues of their parents," were physically weak, and their children died young. Although forced to admitthat people from different races could reproduce-this had been much debated in earlieryears-Seemann concluded that the childhood death rates in mixed-race familiesshowed that "there must really be a specificdistinction between the races, and their intermixture be considered as an infringementof the law of nature." He made a similarpoint later with reference to the populationsof Ecuador and Peru, where he believed thatthe Indians were the only part of the population that was growing: a reflection of thestrength Seemann believed lay in maintain-
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ing racial purity (Seemann 1853: vol. 1, 200,302).
Like his attitude toward Central andSouth American Indians, Seemann's attitudeabout northwest coast peoples was ambivalent. In Juan de Fuca Strait, he was impressed at first by the Indians, who managedtheir canoes with "great skill, seeming goodhumoured and friendly, holding up fish,skins, etc., to trade with." After his paeon toagriculture at Victoria, however, he declaredthat "after making every allowance for thecrimes of civilization, still man in a savagestate exists in all his grossness.... Whilenature has imparted to most animals a desireof cleanliness, uncivilized man, with all theintelligence, ingenuity, cunning, and skill ofhis class, seems in general to be uncleanly, torevel in filth" (Seemann 1853: vol. 1, 102).Seemann recognized that the Indians had tobuild solid, enclosed dwellings to keep outthe cold, but added that "Several familiesoccupy the same house-one large shed, littlebetter than an open cow-house or stable in anindifferent inn, [with] the compartments orwalls hardly excluding the sight of one familyfrom another. There are chests and boxesrudely made, in which blankets, furs, andsmaller fishing gear are kept ..." (Seemann1853: vol. 1, 105-106). It is interesting tonote how much aesthetics have changed:these "rudely made" cedar chests, carvedwith the distinctive abstract designs of thenorthwest coast, are now reproduced for saleas part of a multimillion dollar industry inIndian art. So are the "grotesquely carved"figures and masks Seemann described: modem versions of these objects now grace thehomes and offices of upwardly mobile BritishColumbians at a cost of several thousanddollars apiece.
As usual, Seemann was particularly critical of the mixed-race population. Victoria,like most fur trade posts, included BritishIndian or French-Indian (Metis) men andwomen on its staff. These, Seemann decided,"appear to inherit the vices of both races;they are active and shrewd, but violent andcoarse." What disgusted him even more wasevidence of the usurpation of racial privi-
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leges, as when mixed-race men identifiedthemselves with Europeans. "We felt quitedisgusted," he wrote, "in seeing one of thesehalf-castes, bearing as good a name as anyin Scotland, beating and kicking a score ofIndians out of the fort, with as little compunction as if they had been dogs, scorningthem as natives, though his mother had beentaken from one of their tribe and had been nomore educated than they were" (Seemann1853: vol. 1, 104-105). In light of Seemann'sown remarks about the animal nature ofIndians, this outburst seems bizarre. Thepoint, however, was that only Europeanswere entitled to look down on "natives"; thedespised "half-castes" could not be permittedto view indigenous people from a Europeanperspective.
We can sometimes recover other voicesthan Seemann's from the Herald's records.Seemann's discussions of the expedition'sArctic cruises were based mainly on thejournals of Midshipman Bedford Pim, whowintered in Bering Strait in 1849-1850 andspent a great deal of time living with the localMaliemut people. Pim found the interiors oftheir underground wood-roofed houses sur.prisingly comfortable. Oil lamps diffusedlight and heat throughout the tidy interiors,"and when the traveller has put off his wetclothes, and reclines on the soft deerskins regardless of the boisterous and snowy weatherwithout, the pity he felt for the condition ofthe poor Eskimos rapidly evaporates, and hefinds that, remote as they are from civilization, their condition is by no means so deplorable as is generally considered" (Seemann1853: vol. 2, 58). Then the familiar voice ofSeemann intrudes-perhaps in intentionalcounterpoint-to warn readers against seeing"the savage as a model of excellence" or "hisactions as honourable."
Seemann made the same point with regardto Peruvian Indians, dismissing criticismsabout the introduction of alcoholism andvenereal disease as "mere cant" perpetratedby naive humanitarians (Seemann 1853:vol. 1, 198-199). Such statements were animportant part of Seemann's view of naturalhistory: the natural world was incompletewithout the introduction of European eco-
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nomic and social organization. To observeanything of real value in an indigenous culture interfered with this worldview and introduced unwelcome moral uncertainties to aprocess that, for Seemann, was simply thetriumph of civilization over savagery.
Nothing illustrates this better than a comparison of Midshipman Pim's response to thewarmth of Maliemut hospitality and Seemann's impression of their village. The naturalist visited the area at the end of the summer, when the inhabitants were still huntinginland, and his account of their settlementwas designed to emphasize their lack of civilization: "Villages exist, yet all that ourminds associate with them is wanting. Onapproaching we expect to meet with roadsand bridges and smiling fields, to beholdpeaceful dwellings peeping through greenboughs, and the steeple of the church towering heavenwards: in an Eskimo village thesepleasing features are looked for in vain....The underground dwellings look cheerlessand are filled with water ... the paths areovergrown with herbage-the whole presenting a picture of misery and desolation.The Eskimos have not yet learned that migratory habits and progress in civilizationare opposed to each other ..." (Seemann1853: vol. 1, 19). But Pim had more insightinto that migratory life. As the freeze-up ofwinter approached, he wrote, "They appeared almost different beings. Their lightand filthy summer dresses had been exchanged for others which fitted more closelyand were better made. They were no longerthe apparently overawed people who, in theirsmall skin baidars, paddled near the sides ofour huge ships, but seemed conscious thatthey were moving in an element for whichnature had admirably adapted them. Theirstep was firm, their movements graceful, theirdread of the white man had vanished, andthey appeared to communicate with us on thefooting of perfect equality" (Seemann 1853:vol. 1, 133-134). Where some naturalistsmight have been excited by viewing a pristinenorthern ecosystem, Seemann lamented that"The mineral wealth rests undisturbed in thebowels of the earth; the vegetable kingdomstill exercises an absolute sovereignty; and
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the animal creation swarms over the boundless steppes, rarely disturbed by the sight ofthe hunter, and uncontrolled by the voice ofthe herdsman" (Seemann 1853: vol. 1, 20).Amid the terrible beauties of the Arctic, thisanxious imperialist found "death-like silence" broken only by "his own breath, thesolitary beating of his own heart" (Seemann1852-1857: 16). Perhaps it is no wonder thathe could hear only his own voice, never giving the landscape or its inhabitants a chanceto challenge or beguile him.
For Seemann, and for so many other explorers and naturalists in the nineteenth century, the essence of civilization was its control and exploitation of nature. Naval surveyexpeditions did far more than chart coastlines; they also mapped Europe's conquestof the non-European world, cataloging thefuture of empire. Accounts of the Herald expedition's natural history reveal how deeplyentwined were the issues of scientific investigation and imperial expansion. Natural resources of commercial value to Britain weregiven top priority, and the indigenous populations living near them were described asunfit custodians of their value in a globalmarket. Hydrography, natural history, andethnography must be considered togetherwhen studying these survey voyages, or wewill miss the themes that connect them. Eventhen, after marshaling all available sources ofinformation, one thing usually eludes us: indigenous views of these scientific incursions.At best we can get only brief glimpses ofwhat other peoples thought of exploring expeditions. Telling stories to while away thelong Arctic winter, one of Midshipman Pim'sMaliemut hosts explained that the origins ofthe British were obscure to him, but he supposed that they were "trees grown in thesame soil as the drift-wood, only living, whilethe wood left on our shores is dead" (See-
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mann 1852-1857:68). There is much to ponder in this elegant metaphor. There is irony,too: this living driftwood moved with a deliberate yet ambivalent purpose, both desiring and despising the alien shores it touched.
LITERATURE CITED
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EDMONDSTON, ELIZA. 1868. The YoungShetlander, or, Shadow over the Sunshine:Being the life and letters of ThomasEdmondston, naturalist on board H.M.S."Herald." William P. Nimmo, Edinburgh.
FORBES, EDWARD, ED. 1854. The zoology ofthe voyage of H.M.S. "Herald." LovellReeve, London.
GOUGH, BARRY M. 1971. The Royal Navyand the northwest coast of North America, 1810-1914: A study of British maritime ascendancy. University of BritishColumbia Press, Vancouver.
GRAHAM, GERALD S., and R. A. HUMPHREYS,EDS. 1962. The Navy and South America,1807-1823. Navy Records Society,London.
MACKAY, DAVID. 1985. In the wake of Cook:Exploration, science and empire, 17801801. Croom Helm, London.
SEEMANN, BERTHOLD. 1852-1857. The botanyof the voyage of H.M.S. "Herald." LovellReeve, London.
---. 1853. Narrative of the voyage ofH.M.S. "Herald," 2 vols. Reeve andCompany, London.
STEVEN, MARGARET. 1983. Trade, tactics andterritory: Britain in the Pacific, 1783-1823.Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.