Savage (30 page)

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News of the massacre reached London on 4 May 1860, two days short of six months after the event. It came in the form of a despatch from the Falklands' governor, Thomas Moore. It detailed everything he knew about the circumstances of the unhappy affair: the work of the mission station; the searches of the Fuegians; the names of the dead; the evidence and rescue of Alfred Coles; the indignant response in Port Stanley; his refusal to seek reprisals; and the few details known of the bereaved. Moore threw in a note of personal opinion: ‘I am bound to say that I do not think Mr Despard's measure of searching the men in any way judicious, nor do I think that the natives were contented with their enforced residence at Keppel, and I must note that those natives were foremost in the murders.' He had, he added, also banned the further importation of natives by the Society and instituted an inquiry into the slaughter under the 433rd clause of the Merchant Shipping Act.

The following day the story emerged in the press. ‘
HORRIBLE MASSACRE OF A MISSIONARY SHIP
' was the headline in the
Daily Telegraph
which, along with the
Morning Advertiser
and the
Western Daily Press,
was the first to pick the story up. By Monday 7 May the news won wider circulation: the
Observer
and the
Morning Star
were among those that printed the story, and the
Daily Record
carried a letter from the secretary of the Patagonian Missionary Society, Waite Stirling. In this he attempted to put a positive gloss on the killings. He praised the work of the missionaries and, after vowing to keep up the struggle with the heathen, finished with a flourish:

From one who speaks out of a warm heart, and with a strong faith, but who utters sentiments held by one, at least, high in the Church's ranks, we have received these words, ‘We are Englishmen – not to say Christians – and must not give up.' Oh, Sir, speed these words forth. They may be the rallying cry of a thousand sorrowing hearts.

In Bristol, the home of the Society's headquarters and the
Allen Gardiner
's port of embarkation, all the local papers covered the story, and in the region's only daily newspaper, the
Western Daily Press,
Waite Stirling was given space on 8 May to issue a long and melodramatic call for support on behalf of the organisation:

We have, indeed, to lament the cruel treachery of a supposed friendly people, but do we not thereby recognise the urgent duty of making known to them the word of truth and righteousness? If Christian missionaries are mere romantic enterprises, it is time to give them up in Tierra del Fuego at least. But if they are great and serious matters, undertaken in order that the Grace of God may be brought to bear upon and change the fallen hearts and consciences of mankind then is the treachery of Woollyah a more imperious call than ever to continue the work of this society …

Is the faithfulness unto death of the men whose loss we now deplore, a signal for us to forsake the work they loved? Assuredly not. The work must go forward.

Other papers were less generous. The liberal weekly the
Bristol Gazette
scolded the Society from its leader column, reminding its readers of the claims made in a recent court case:

Without entering into the question of the squabbles between Captain Snow and the Society, this is established, that nothing was done towards converting the Fuegians. Mr Despard was set up as a grazier or cattle-breeder at Falkland, and a few Fuegians were enticed or entrapped into becoming his servants, or rather his slaves, but we never heard or read that any of them were made Christians … Now, we do ask what has been done by this Society to compensate for the loss of so many brave Englishmen? These Fuegians are, perhaps without exception, the lowest in the scale of humanity certainly not above the Bosjesmen of Africa or the Mousemen of Australia. For more than a quarter of a century we have been trying to Christianize and civilize them, and we see the result. We have spent treasure, we have sacrificed many valuable lives, and yet the Society cannot show us one single native whom they can confidently point out as converted. Is it not time, then, that this Quixotic enterprise should be abandoned? It is all very pleasant for gentlemen who stay comfortably at home to make eloquent speeches on platforms, to fair and sympathizing auditors, but they should remember that a vast responsibility rests upon them.

The London correspondent of the
Bath Chronicle
speculated on the cause of the killings when he repeated the rumour doing the rounds in the capital that the Fuegians, ‘it seems, had been made so thoroughly miserable by being washed, clothed, pulled about, pawed over, and preached at, that they resolved on revenge, and when they found themselves once again in their wigwams, happy, naked, and free, they caught the unhappy Christian party … and killed them with clubs and stones…'

The most furious debate was reserved for the letters columns where the killings unleashed a torrent of emotion in both the national and local press. It was a foregone conclusion that the disaster would pitch the prolific and increasingly vitriolic William Parker Snow against the increasingly defensive Society. In the
Morning Post
of Friday 11 May, Snow demanded a full inquiry into both the massacre and the activities of the Society, adding that ‘it may be thought that these natives are so savage as to make all precaution useless against them. If so, all I can say is that I did not find them so; and my wife as well can testify to their kind and friendly disposition, even at the very place where this massacre has occurred.'

In the
Western Daily Press
of 12 May, an anonymous correspondent, hiding behind the alias ‘Scrutator', joined the attack, accusing the Society in picturesque language of not only being responsible for a reckless loss of life, but also of being complacent in their response. A searching inquiry was needed into the instructions given to the dead men and the means provided to avoid catastrophe.

That such a dreadful announcement should be made, and then allowed to pass over in silence, as the secretary fondly thinks it will, or result in increased efforts in the same direction, is to suppose us deaf to the cry of the bereaved widows and orphans. No quack doctor would think of heading the placard announcing the virtues of his nostrum with the device of a Death's head and cross bones. Nor should the society, as I take it, commence a fresh appeal to the public without at first satisfying them that their efforts will be more wisely and prudently directed and the public secured, humanly speaking, from again being horrified by such sickening details.

It was strong stuff and the Society was stung by the criticisms. Waite Stirling, rapidly becoming the organisation's whipping boy, replied to Scrutator by admitting that there may have been over-confidence on the part of the party aboard the
Allen Gardiner,
but if that was so then it was because the treachery of the Fuegians had been masked and unknown. This was a mistake, but the missionaries had not been the only ones to make such an error in the face of ‘barbarous people'. Britain was still reeling from the ‘glorious' bloodbath of 1857's Indian Mutiny: was there not a direct parallel?

It is not very long since we deplored the frightful slaughter in India of whole companies of Christians. Lucknow, Cawnpore, Merut, and Delhi are names written in letters of anguish on the hearts of thousands of our countrymen. Does ‘Scrutator' want to know why? I will tell him. The blood of Englishmen and Englishwomen – the blood of martyrs – has been shed there – shed because of the over-confidence of Britons and the treachery of a too trusted native soldiery.

The dispute raged on. Scrutator retaliated, accusing the Society of kidnap, of disregarding the native disaffection and of lack of precaution. Stirling countered that, naturally, some might find cause for the massacre in the bad temper of three or four natives four days before the slaughter, but ‘reflecting minds will scarcely accept as satisfactory such an explanation of events'. He attacked the correspondent for hiding behind an alias, and concluded with the words, ‘I will not gratify “Scrutator” by any further remarks. His gross insinuation that I have invented “an interesting episode in the dark story” is sufficient reason for his writing under a mask.'

But Scrutator was not the only one who hid behind a pseudonym to take up cudgels: in the
Western Daily Press
of 29 May A.B. joined the fray:

GENTLEMEN
, – I have read with interest the very able letters of ‘Scrutator' on the late massacre in Patagonia, and with pain the feeble and evasive replies of the Secretary.

The object of my intruding on your columns is to inquire if any provision is being made for the widows and orphans of the sufferers, for although the committee have been reminded – is it not a disgrace that they should require to be reminded? – by the Rev. Mr Bull and ‘Scrutator' of its necessity, yet they seem to have taken no steps in the matter, and it was not mentioned at the prayer meeting held some time since in St Paul's Schoolroom.

The letter encapsulated the widespread annoyance at and dissatisfaction with the behaviour of the Society, and its apparent unwillingness to accept responsibility.

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In government circles the news of the massacre sparked off a serious debate, in which little sympathy was shown towards the Patagonian Missionary Society. Stirling had alluded to the notorious tragedies of the Indian sub-continent, and it was fair to say that the scale of the deaths on Wulaia paled into insignificance in comparison with the hundreds slaughtered on Indian streets, in Indian rivers and thrown down Indian wells. Nevertheless, the issue aroused serious concern at the Colonial Office. The murder of Britons abroad was always vexatious, and missionaries were generally backed by powerful lobbying organisations. As a consequence set procedures had to be followed and appropriate responses calculated. The actual discussions in the Colonial Office are not recorded, but the tenor of the arguments may be construed from the minutes scribbled on the back of documents as they passed from civil servant to junior minister to minister to Secretary of State – the Duke of Newcastle.

Some of the notes written on Governor Moore's initial despatch, received on 4 May 1860, are revealing. It is clear that the most immediate priority of the office was to scotch the possibility of reprisals. A.B. (most probably A. Blackwood, senior clerk of the Colonial Office) noted that the idea of avenging the catastrophe by an onslaught on the Yamana was ‘preposterous':

It is indeed open to doubt whether we could possess ourselves of the actual offenders we should be justified in applying to Barbarians that measure of retribution which is dealt out to criminals in Christian countries. The Patagonians probably slay any person who offends them without much regard to the degree of the offence, and for us to punish them in the same way as they have treated our intruders – who offered the first affront – would be descending, on our parts, to their scale of morality.

The Assistant Under Secretary of State, T.F. Elliot, launched a scathing attack on the Society. His comments were for private viewing only and his vitriolic assault leaves no doubt as to where his sympathies lay. His jottings talk of a ‘gratuitous waste of life' arising from ‘folly and obstinacy … and carelessness'. Despard, he says, ‘acted badly throughout' and then, most startlingly,

Captain Snow has always asserted that the natives were retained at Keppel against their will, to work for the missionaries. His evidence is doubtless to be perceived with caution, but the present testimony of the man called Button tends to its confirmation. If the Chief Missionary kidnapped natives, and then kept them to forced labour, it is not surprising that murder should follow.

In its frankness and its acknowledgement that events in the South Atlantic were illegitimate, this last phrase, ‘… it is not surprising that murder should follow', is a remarkably powerful indication of the way high-ranking members of the government were thinking. Elliot followed it up by hammering home this message to his colleagues: ‘The poor men who have perished cannot with truth be represented as sufferers for religion: they have paid the penalty of the wilfulness of one gentleman who still lives and of their own subsequent rashness – They are victims, but not martyrs.'

This was extraordinary stuff, and Elliot's fellow Assistant Under Secretary, Chichester Fortescue, concurred, adding that it had been the right course of action to prevent the importation of any more natives by ‘this foolish mission scheme'. With the Duke of Newcastle's agreement, no further action should be taken until the results of a promised inquiry were received, and until HMS
Buzzard,
which had been despatched to the Falkland Islands, reported back.

The impression that the Colonial Office really did not want any reprisals against the Fuegians is reinforced by a minute to the Admiralty of 4 June. Alfred Coles had positively identified one of the Fuegians, Billy Button (Macalwense), as the killer of Garland Phillips. It had been his stone that had crashed against the fleeing catechist's head. A note on the draft letter reads,

Whilst indiscriminate revenge is a thing not to be thought of, both on account of its injustice and of the future evil it would produce, it certainly is a different question whether, if he fell into our power, the very individual who murdered an unarmed and unresisting Englishman should be suffered to escape with impunity. The important point to weigh would be the probable future effect on these natives, on which a great deal might be said on both sides. I have intentionally omitted the topic from the letter to the Admiralty, as being at all events premature.

The Colonial Office waited for over a month before communicating with the Patagonian Missionary Society. It wanted the results of the governor's inquiry in its hands before making any public pronouncements on the massacre, but when news failed to arrive, the Duke of Newcastle decided that there should be no more delay. On 19 June his office forwarded the governor's correspondence to the Society with a covering note explaining that statements in the accompanying letter ‘seriously impugn the prudence of part of the proceedings which preceded this calamity', and requested explanations. The note also demanded to know whether the missionary superintendent was indeed forcibly holding Fuegians at Cranmer, because if so, it was ‘scarcely necessary to say that Her Majesty's Government could not sanction the detention of any people on a British territory against their will'.