Bahía Wulaia

Bahía Wulaia, on the east shore of the Murray canal

Bahia Wulaia is a bay on the western shore of Isla Navarino along the Murray Channel in extreme southern Chile. The island and adjacent strait are part of the commune of Cabo de Hornos in the Antártica Chilena Province, which is part of the Magallanes and Antartica Chilena Region. It became known in 1859 as the site of a massacre of the crew and captain of the Allen Gardiner, a ship used by the South American Missionary Society.

An archaeological site at Bahia Wulaia has been associated with the Megalithic settlement there of the Yaghan peoples. Known as the Wulaia Bay Dome Middens, the site revealed that the people created fish traps in the small inlets of the bay. The stonework for those traps has survived, according to C. Michael Hogan.

Wulaia Massacre

George Packenham Despard of the South American Mission Society was stationed at the mission at Keppel Island in the Falklands. He persuaded Jemmy Button, a Yahgan native of Tierra del Fuego, one of his wives, and three children to visit Cranmer Station. After many months, the group were returned to Wulaia in December 1858. At the same time, the British recruited a party of nine Fuegians to visit Cranmer.

This party, without having Button's earlier European experiences (he had traveled to England with the crew of the HMS Beagle), soon became homesick. In addition, there were serious cultural misunderstandings between them and the British. In October 1859 a British crew in the Allen Gardiner departed Keppel Island to return the natives to Wulaia. They arrived on 2 November after a very rough passage.

Four days later, angered over an altercation with the crew, the Yahgan attacked and killed Captain Garland Phillips and all but one of the ship's crew on shore. They had been holding a Sunday service in a small chapel built at the settlement. The British men were all clubbed to death. The only survivor was the ship's cook, who was still on board the Allen Gardiner when the massacre occurred, and escaped the area in a dinghy. He managed to make peace with the natives and was found by the search parties that came to investigate and discovered the stripped and abandoned schooner on 1 March 1860.

As a result of the attack, Despard petitioned to return to England with his wife and children. His adoptive son, Thomas Bridges, then 17, stayed on Keppel Island at the mission. He learned the Yahgan language and began his life's work of compiling a grammar and dictionary of Yámana, containing more than 30,000 words. In 1871 he was successful in setting up a mission at Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego.

References

• C. Michael Hogan (2008) Bahia Wulaia Dome Middens, Megalithic Portal, ed. Andy Burnham
• Sergio Zagier (2006) Patagonian & Fuegian Channels Map: Chilean Fjords Cruise Chart - Cape Horn, Ushuaia, Magellan Strait, Zagier & Urruty Publishers ISBN 1-879568-96-9