In the Name of Science? A Tale of Exploration, Conquest, and Collecting Aboard the Wilkes Expedition

July 24, 2018 by student

Map of the Wilkes Expedition route. (Image from Northwest History, http://northwesthistory.blogspot.com/2008/10/united-states-exploring-expedition-1838.html)

On August 18, 1838, six ships departed from Hampton Roads, Virginia with 346 men, including nine naturalists. This voyage would become known as the United States Exploring Expedition, or in short, the Wilkes Expedition. Led by Charles Wilkes, the voyage was the first U.S. government funded scientific expedition, spanning from 1838 to 1842. Surveying parts of Africa, South America, and the Pacific, the journey amassed nearly 4,000 natural specimens and cultural objects were collected for future study. Some of these objects have become a part of Wesleyan’s Archaeology and Anthropology Collections. This blog post will explore the complicated history of the Wilkes Expedition, contextualizing the acquisition of these objects in order to better engage with them.

The expedition was an endeavor of massive proportions and required significant preparations. It took ten years to win Congressional approval, but when it was finally approved in May 1836, an additional two years were required to adequately prepare for the voyage. It was difficult to recruit sailors, for the long three-year voyage would prevent them from accessing promotional opportunities, and certain ships had to be reconstructed or replaced. The difficulty with the ships meant that the civilian naturalist corps had the be reduced from 21 to 9. The appointment of Charles Wilkes as captain of the expedition was not without controversy either. Wilkes was merely a junior lieutenant, and was appointed as captain over several more experienced candidates.[1]

While we now consider this voyage to be one of the major scientific expeditions of the nineteenth century, its primary motivations were commercialistic and militaristic. In November 1837, it was written that “the primary object of this expedition is the promotion of the great interests of commerce and navigation. The advancement of science is considered an object of great, but comparatively of secondary importance.”[2] The inclusion of two sloops of war and a gun brig, out of six ships in total, reflects an unstated focus on projecting military might. The reduction of the scientific corps also suggests the expedition’s true priorities. The scientists on board lacked sufficient assistants, as well as the space to both research and store specimens.[3]

Scientists were quick to take advantage of their military resources to complete their scientific objectives and studies. For example, the Expedition utilized a ‘‘running survey’’ technique in order to chart the islands visited, which used gunfire to chart an island’s geography. Anthony Adler explains: “by observing the time between the flash and report of gunfire, officers could measure angles between the ships and the shore in order to calculate distances.”[4] While not explicitly utilized for violent ends, Wilkes was firing upon the entire circumference of an island solely for mapping purposes.

In a number of recorded instances, the expedition exerted extreme brutality on the residents of Fiji. After one of their boats was stolen, Wilkes ordered a village’s structures, canoes, and crops burnt. After two crewmen, including Wilkes’ nephew, were killed while surveying the island, Wilkes burnt down one village, and massacred another.[5] For this brutality he was subjected to court martial. But while eleven charges were brought against him, Wilkes he was only found guilty of illegal punishment of seamen.[6] Wilkes also arrested the chief Ro Veidovi, who was responsible for the murder of five crew members on the Charles Daggett, a whaling vessel that had arrived in Fiji in 1833. Ro Veidovi was forcibly transported back to America, likely to be displayed as a curiosity. However, he died before the voyage was completed. His skull was separated from the rest of his body, and displayed in the Patent Office, which later became the National Gallery.[7]

While we may never know the means and methods by which these objects were collected, these acquisition efforts were certainly conducted within these militaristic and violent contexts. Over the four year journey, the expedition amassed nearly 4,000 ethnographic objects. It was traditional on such voyages that individual crewmen would negotiate and trade with the indigenous peoples for curiosities. However, the government prohibited the collecting of curiosities, ruling that all objects amassed would become part of a public collection, which eventually became the foundation of the Smithsonian Collection.[8] A small number of these objects were deaccessioned, and made part of Wesleyan’s Archaeology and Anthropology Collections. They now form part of our Oceanic Collection, an assemblage of approximately fifty artifacts from cultures throughout the Pacific.

Shell Armband

This shell armband is made from the shell of a large sea snail (genus Trochus). This bracelet is created by first placing the lower part of the shell into a fire so that it becomes brittle enough to be chipped with a stone. The bracelet is then polished on the outside using a stone slab and on the inside with a branch of coral. Trochus shells are white with red stripes, and this coloration has evidently been preserved in the creation of this bracelet.[9] The armband is commonly associated with Papua New Guinea, but it is likely to have circulated through Melanesia (Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Fiji) via extensive pre-contact trade networks. From our records, we know with good certainty that this object was collected from the Wilkes Expedition in Fiji.

Fish Hook and Line

This fish hook and line is believed to originate from Samoa, another one of the islands explored by the Wilkes Expedition. The hook is made from “mother of pearl” mollusk shell, a popular material for fish hook. It also has a tortoise shell point. The line is made from plaited plant fibers. This type of fish hook and line was used while canoe fishing to troll fish, a process where multiple fishing lines are drawn through the water at once. Both the shell armband and the fish hook were made from biological specimens, which is symbolic of the ecological diversity of the Melanesian area. Due to their geography, fishing was an important component of Melanesian people’s culture, economy, and foodways.

At first glance, these artifacts shed light on indigenous cultures and offer insight into the daily lives of people in the past. However, when analyzing objects it is important to be conscious of the ways in which they were collected. The Wilkes Expedition was plagued with a number of violent instances that both disrupted and actively sought to destroy the lifeways of indigenous people, all under the guise of scientific exploration and commercial enterprise. The history of an object’s acquisition can tell a story of its own.

By Ilana Newman ’18 and Steven Chen ’18

Notes

[1] Patrick Strauss, “Preparing the Wilkes Expedition: A Study in Disorganization” Pacific Historical Review, 28, no. 3 (1959): 224-229

[2] “Preparing the Wilkes Expedition: A Study in Disorganization” 223

[3] Antony Adler, “From the Pacific to the Patent Office: The US Exploring Expedition and the origins of America’s first national museum,” Journal of the History of Collections 23 no. 1 (2011): 54.

[4] Antony Adler, “The Ship as Laboratory: Making Space for Field Science at Sea,” Journal of the History of Biology 47 (2014): 336

[5] Roberta Sprague, “The United States Exploring Expedition to Fiji,” Wansalawara: Soundings in Melanesian History, (1987): 37

[6] Constance Bordwell, “Delay and Wreck of the Peacock: An Episode in the Wilkes Expedition” Oregon Historical Quarterly, 92, no. 2 (1991): 197

[7] Antony Adler, “The Capture and Curation of the Cannibal ‘Vendovi’: Reality and Representation of a Pacific Frontier,” The Journal of Pacific History, 49, no. 3 (2014): 274

[8] “From the Pacific to the Patent Office: The US Exploring Expedition and the origins of America’s first national museum,” 58

[9] “Bracelet: Cook-Forster Collection,” National Museum of Australia, http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/cook_forster/objects/bracelet_oz397

Works Cited

Adler, Antony. “From the Pacific to the Patent Office: The US Exploring Expedition and the origins of America’s first national museum,” Journal of the History of Collections 23 no. 1 (2011): 49-74.

Adler, Antony. “The Ship as Laboratory: Making Space for Field Science at Sea,” Journal of the History of Biology 47 (2014): 333–362.

Adler, Antony. “The Capture and Curation of the Cannibal ‘Vendovi’: Reality and Representation of a Pacific Frontier,” The Journal of Pacific History, 49, no. 3 (2014): 255–282.

Bordwell, Constance. “Delay and Wreck of the Peacock: An Episode in the Wilkes Expedition” Oregon Historical Quarterly, 92, no. 2 (1991): 119-198.

“Bracelet: Cook-Forster Collection,” National Museum of Australia, http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/cook_forster/objects/bracelet_oz397.

Isaac, Gwyneira and Barbara Isaac. “Uncovering the demographics of collecting: A case-study of the US Exploring Expedition (1838–1842),” Journal of the History of Collections 28 no. 2 (2016): 209–223.

Sprague, Roberta. “The United States Exploring Expedition to Fiji,” Wansalawara: Soundings in Melanesian History, (1987): 12-49.

Strauss, Patrick, “Preparing the Wilkes Expedition: A Study in Disorganization” Pacific Historical Review, 28, no. 3 (1959): 221-232.

Pennies in our thoughts (and on our shelves)

November 15, 2017 by jcohen08

While cleaning out my room over the summer, I found a box containing my old collection of Wheat Pennies. Minted between 1909 and 1956, Wheat Pennies represent US coin collecting at its most basic level. The obverse of a Wheat Penny is identical to that of a penny minted in 2017, while the reverse bears the phrase “One Cent, United States of America” in the center, flanked by two stalks of wheat along the edges. Many Wheat Pennies are still in circulation, so the task of collecting them often comes down to inspecting any pennies received as change at the grocery store.

At around the same time I was rediscovering my collection of old coins, Wesleyan University Archaeology and Anthropology Collections (and follow us here!) was making a similar discovery: an enormous numismatic collection tucked away in the back of the Earth and Environmental Science storeroom. (See this News @ Wesleyan story for more information on the project which yielded this coin discovery!) Most of the coins in this collection did not originate in the United States, and those that did are well over 100 years old, and would be unlikely to surface in a cash register in 2017; thousands of coins, spanning at least three continents and at least 1000 years, waiting patiently for someone to do some spring-cleaning.

Old coin cabinet discovered in summer 2017 in the Earth and Environmental Sciences storage space

Although the collection was housed in the E&ES storeroom, the coins do belong to the Archaeology Collections. We know this for several reasons: First of all, as a general rule, numismatics falls under the purview of archaeology and anthropology, not earth and environmental science. Secondly, previous collections managers have attempted to integrate the coins into the modern archival system and, consequently, a small portion of the collection already lives in our storeroom. Lastly, many of the coins possess accession numbers that correspond to the Archaeology Collections’ earliest method of cataloging artifacts dating back to the Orange Judd Museum of Natural History, which opened in 1871 and closed in 1957. One of our ongoing projects for all of our collections is the assignment of trinomial catalog numbers to all of our artifacts, but for a long time, Wesleyan’s museum simply gave items a number as they arrived. A separate catalog was created for numismatics, but these designations were also simply numerical, beginning with 1 and ending somewhere after 3000. Many of the coins I have catalogued thus far appear to have been some of the earliest numismatics acceded into the collection; I have encountered coins with accession numbers as low as 36!

Indian head penny, minted 1802, Wesleyan University Archaeology and Anthropology Collections

The only complete record of these numbers lives in an accession book so old that it could belong in a museum itself. In fact, Archaeology Collections had to receive permission from Special Collections in order to keep the book in our storeroom, rather than in the archive in Olin. The entries in this book are handwritten, often in hasty scrawl that requires a bit of imagination to decipher. The descriptions are limited, but they are generally enough to confirm that the number written directly on a coin matches the corresponding entry in the book.

Coin accession book from the Wesleyan Museum (1871 – 1957); on loan from Special Collections and Archives, Olin Library

This brings us to the task at hand. One by one, each of these coins must be examined, entered into a spreadsheet, and given a place in our collection, where it belongs. I cannot stress the “one-by-one” aspect of this project enough because, again, this collection comprises THOUSANDS of coins. To put that amount into perspective, in over a month I have catalogued fewer than 250 entries. There are thousands of coins now, and when I graduate in the spring, there will still probably be thousands of coins left. Like so many of the projects I have encountered as a student worker in Wesleyan’s Archaeology Collections, including Steven Dyson’s old records and the NAGPRA process, I won’t see the end of this endeavor.

New coin storage cabinet and recently inventoried coins, Wesleyan University Archaeology and Anthropology Collections

I’ve learned that working on a long and drawn-out project takes patience, but working on a project I know I will leave unfinished takes a different kind of endurance. As a whole, the process has a specific end-goal, but my part of it doesn’t. It’s not depressing, exactly, but it’s not invigorating either. Setting smaller goals helps. A new cabinet was purchased for the numismatic collection—we will likely need at least one more to fit them all—and I am very slowly filling up the very first drawer in this first cabinet. Coin by coin, row by row. I’m hoping to finish that first drawer by winter break, and then next semester, I’ll start the second drawer. I think I’ll fill that one was well, but maybe I won’t. Someone will, though.

Thinking about the handwriting in the old accession book helps, too. I have encountered at least three distinct scripts in that book, which means at least three different people had a hand in maintaining the collection, holding a dialogue over time in the pages of the catalog. My handwriting isn’t in the book, but it’s on the labels I write out for each of the coins before I place them in their new case. It makes me feel like I’ve joined that dialogue because from now on, whenever someone wants to learn about those coins, they’ll start with the labels I’ve written and they’ll end with the entries in the accession book. It’s a process, of which I am now a part, and that won’t change when I graduate. And who knows? Maybe one day, I’ll visit for a reunion to find that whole case filled, top to bottom. And maybe there will be students working on a new project, with no end in sight.

By: Sophia Shoulson, ’18

Collections and Food Part I: What can anthropology tell us about the preparation of food?

November 22, 2016 by student

This blog post is the first installment of a blog series about food-related objects in the Wesleyan Archaeology and Anthropology Collections!

From extravagant White House state dinners to family gatherings during the holiday season, food is simultaneously a performance, an expression, and a place where people can find common ground. Food is a powerful social and political tool that brings people together, a symbol that defines and distinguishes cultural identities, and something that can hold profound meaning for individuals and societies. For this month’s blog post, we selected objects from the collections that were used in the preparation and presentation of food. Examining this material evidence reveals the significance of food to the customs and identities of the cultures that used each object.

Poi Pounder

This object was used to make poi, a staple food throughout Polynesia and a common part of Hawaiian cuisine. This pounder was made of volcanic rock and stands 20 cm high. Wesleyan obtained this object in 1940 from the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hi. Poi (pohaku ku’i ‘ai) is made by using a poi pounder to mash together baked taro against a wooden board and enough water to reach the desired consistency. The taro plant is culturally and spiritually significant to Hawaiians as well. Hawaiians believed that the taro plant was the elder brother to the very first Hawaiian that provided sustenance for his younger sibling. Therefore, care and respect in the process of growing, making, and eating taro symbolized proper relationships between family members, and between the people and the land. Through the performance of agriculture and the preparation of poi, Hawaiians were able to reflect their own temperament and character to the rest of their community. Not to mention, poi is also delicious! Read more about the cultural significance of poi to Hawaii’s indigenous peoples here.

California Cooking Basket

This woven cooking basket originates from one of the Northern California indigenous tribes (Hupa, Yurok) and was most likely created between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Because acorns were easy to grow and store, California tribes relied on them as a staple carbohydrate in their diet. To prepare acorns, they first had to be pounded into a meal, or fine flour. Cooking baskets were covered in acorn gruel so nothing would leak out while cooking and placed over hot rocks. Acorn meal and water was combined and boiled into a thick soup, or a version of porridge. Hungry for a quick snack? Before you run outside to grab a couple of acorns that the squirrels left behind make sure that you take the proper precautions to remove the natural tannins found in acorns! Wesleyan acquired this particular basket in 2004 as part of the Burford collection. Professor Gilbert Burford (1911 – 2002) was the E.B. Nye Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Wesleyan University (and a Wes alum, class of 1932) where he started teaching in 1936! Professor Burford also held a passion for Native American Indian culture and artifacts. Not only does this cooking basket provide insight into the culinary practices of Northern California indigenous tribes, the intricate weaving patterns of the basket also reflect the tribes’ faculties for technology and innovation.

Cooking Vessel

This ceramic cooking vessel was created during the Proto-Historic period, between 1400 to 1500 A.D. This particular object was excavated near Millstone, CT in 1959 and was most likely manufactured by the Nehantic or Niantic Indians. Ceramic vessels of this type were generally made out of a mixture of clay, wood ashes, and pulverized shells. This wet clay mixture was then used to line a woven basket that was dried, placed into a fire, and baked in the sun. The basket part of the vessel burned off in the fire, leaving the ceramic pot imprinted with the criss-cross design of the basket. While it is unknown exactly what kind of food was prepared in this particular cooking vessel, Native American diets consisted primarily of maize, squash, and beans. While this cooking vessel has seen better days, it is indicative of the staple foods that constituted indigenous diets and the craftsmanship of the indigenous tribes that created ceramics.

Rabbit Stick

This wooden throwing stick was used by Native American tribes to hunt rabbits, squirrels, prairie dogs, fowl, and other game. This particular object is part of the Melville Collection, collected from the Hopi Mesas in Arizona. On a road trip across the country, the Melville family became acquainted with the local Hopi population and collected objects they believed provided insight and understanding to the Hopi culture. Along with plants that constituted a large part of indigenous diets, meat was also an important part of sustenance. The red and black design on this particular throwing stick represented a rabbit’s feet. This object is significant because it provides insight into Native American spirituality that respected animals and believed in asking permission to take the spirit of an animal before hunting. Additionally, hunting allowed members of the community to hunt together for the needs of the community as a whole. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly imagine the skill required to hunt with such an object!

It’s amazing how much one object can tell us about the different histories, cultures, and practices of people around the world! The objects in this blog post are among some of the food-related artifacts that are housed at the Wesleyan Archaeology and Anthropology Collections. We hope that they provided a glimpse into the past (and perhaps will spark a conversation at your next holiday gathering)!

…and stay tuned for Part II that will focus on actual “food” from the collections!

Further Reading:

Archaeology of Food: An Encyclopedia edited by Karen Bescherer Metheny & Mary C. Beaudry (2015)

Daily Life of Native Americans from Post-Columbian through Nineteenth-century America by Alice N. Nash & Christopher Strobel (2006)

Hopis, Tewas, and the American Road edited by Willard Walker & Lydia L. Wyckoff (1983)

The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii’s Culinary Heritage by Rachel Laudan (1996)

Posted by Steven Chen ’18