Allen Gardiner

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Allen Francis Gardiner

Allen Francis Gardiner (born June 28, 1794 in Basildon , Berkshire , England , † September 6, 1851 in Bahía Aguirre, Tierra del Fuego ) was a British naval officer and missionary .

Life

childhood

Allen Francis Gardiner was born to pious and wealthy parents, the fifth child. His father, Samuel Gardiner, was lord at Coombe Lodge, County Oxford . He received a careful and religious upbringing from his parents, but his mother died early, so that he lost his inner support. Contemporary sources later speak of a reckless and godless way of life. Seafaring and adventure seemed to have been a great attraction for him from childhood, and consequently he entered the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth on February 13, 1808, when he was just 14 years old .

Service in the Royal Navy

From June 1810 Gardiner went to sea in the service of the Royal Navy , initially as a volunteer on the Fortunée under Captain Henry Vansittart. From March 1811 to August 1814 he sailed on the Phoebe under Captain Hillyar. He was involved in several naval battles: In May 1811 he fought in a battle with three French frigates, two of which, the Renommée and the Néréide , were captured, in August 1814 the naval battle of Valparaíso took place as part of the war between America and Great Britain ( 1812–1814), in which the American Essex was captured. Gardiner was among the officers selected to bring the prize to England. In December of the same year he was promoted to lieutenant. In 1815 he served on the Ganymede and in 1819 on the Leander , the flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood. With this ship he sailed over the Cape of Good Hope to Trincomalee ( Ceylon ). In 1820 he switched to the Dauntless under Captain Valentyn Gardner, with whom he was traveling in the Far East, Madras , Penang ( Malaysia ), Malacca , Singapore , Manila , Macau and again Trincomalee. In Trincomalee the Dauntless was overtaken and with new leadership under captain Gambier it went via Port Jackson ( New Zealand ) to Chile and Peru , from there back via the Marquesas , Tahiti and China to Sydney . Due to illness he was hired and returned via the Cape of Good Hope to England, where he arrived in Portsmouth on October 31, 1822.

The time on the Dauntless fell into an important phase of his personal development: the (re-) conversion to Christianity and the emergence of the desire to do missionary work himself. As early as 1818, the meeting with a very devout friend of his mother, Lady Gray, seemed to give the first impetus. Then, on the Dauntless , serious admonitions in his father's letters and written reprimands from said mother's friend seemed to bring about the ultimate return to the faith. The will for mission arose from the negative experience with the Catholic Church in South America and from the freshness of the beginning Anglican mission in Tahiti.

After his return to England in 1822, he tried unsuccessfully to interest the London Missionary Society in serving the "neglected" Indians of South America . A conversation with the Bishop of Gloucester finally made him stay with the Royal Navy for the time being.

In 1823 Gardiner married Julia Susanna Reade, the second daughter of John Reade, Lord of Ipsden House (County Oxford). The marriage produced five children, four of whom survived the mother. The young husband's service in the Navy continued, in 1824 on the Jupiter , in 1825 as captain on the Clinker . In 1826 he finally became a commander. This ended his career in the Navy. In the following years he devoted himself to his increasingly sicker wife and the support of various church associations. He was also on the road for the Church Missionary Society .

Gardiner's wife died on May 23, 1834 and he finally followed his calling to be a missionary.

Mission in South Africa

On August 24, 1834, Gardiner sailed on the barque Wellington with the intention of Cape Town to prepare the ground for the proselytizing of the Zulu . Together with his Polish companion Berken, he traveled overland from Cape Town via Grahamstown to what was then Port Natal , a settlement whose inhabitants consisted of a few English traders, several Khoikhoi and three thousand Zulu. Gardiner managed to win the trust of the ruling Zulu king Dingane (also Dingaan). Dingane gave Gardiner the area between the Indian Ocean and the Drakensberg Mountains (east-west direction) and the Tugela and Umzimvubu rivers (north-south direction), all in all more than 50,000 km². The nature of this transfer of territory is unknown. In any case, it was meant so seriously that Gardiner did not want to accept it for himself but only for the British crown. To vote, he first traveled to Grahamstown to talk to the governor of the Cape Colony Benjamin D'Urban and then on board the Liverpool to England (1836).

In England he married Elisabeth-Lydia Marsh, the eldest daughter of Reverend Edward Garrard Marsh, for the second time. After negotiations with the Church Missionary Society, the Reverend Francis Owen sent to Port Natal to do missionary work. With his wife, three daughters from his first marriage and the Owen family, Gardiner embarked again on December 24, 1836 for Port Natal. Shortly before arrival, the eldest daughter Julia died, who was buried on the grounds of the Berea mission station founded by Gardiner. The grave can still be seen today in the St. Thomas cemetery, and a neighboring street is named Julia Road after her. Gardiner built the Hambanati mission station halfway between Port Natal and the Tugela on the Toongat River .

Boers , having heard of Dingane's kindness to Gardiner, wanted similar concessions from Dingane. However, the contacts ended in the massacres of 70 Voortrekkers in the royal kraal (February 6, 1838) and the one at Bloukrans . The situation for the continuation of the work was hopeless in the troubled atmosphere, so that Gardiner left the country to continue his work elsewhere.

Allen Gardiner was also involved in the renaming of Port Natals in Durban - after Gouverneur d'Urban - on June 25, 1835 .

Once around the world

On May 15, 1838, Gardiner embarked with his wife and two remaining daughters in Cape Town for Rio de Janeiro and then Buenos Aires . From there it was 900 miles through the pampas to Mendoza and over the Cordilleras to Concepción on the Río Bío-Bío (Chile), which you reached in December 1838. From Concepción he made several trips to explore destinations for proselytizing. Among other things, he visited the Mapuche people , who at that time still maintained complete independence from the Spaniards (later his son, Allen W. Gardiner, evangelized with the Mapuche). These trips but also the onward journey to Valdivia did not bring the desired success. So Gardiner embarked on May 29, 1839 in Valparaíso in search of a suitable place to proselytize.

He reached Timor via Tahiti and Sydney in October 1839 . This was the starting point for the envisaged destination of Ternate in New Guinea . He narrowly escaped shipwreck and pirates, the family developed a severe fever, earthquakes and other difficulties stand in his way. Ultimately, however, Gardiner's efforts to set up a mission in Ternate failed because of Dutch governors and Muslim sultans. The family went to Cape Town to restore their health. Soon, however, they traveled back to South America. The family finally reached the island of Chiloé via Valparaíso (July 1841). On the way to the island, he was recognized by a Catholic monk who had already thwarted Gardiner's projects during his first stay in Chile. Even now he knew how to cause Gardiner so many difficulties that Gardiner finally traveled by sea to the Falkland Islands in November 1841 , where he arrived in Port Louis on December 24, 1841 . From there he explored, initially successfully, opportunities for missionary work in the Strait of Magellan (March 1842). Since his letter for support to the Church Missionary Society was unsuccessful, Gardiner finally sailed back to England with his family via Rio de Janeiro (from there on board the Swedish ship Fanchon ).

In February 1843, after almost six years of absence and traveling around the world, Gardiner returned home. He sought support in England for his missionary projects in Patagonia and, due to lack of success, went to South America again in 1843 on behalf of the Bible Society to distribute Bibles. This trip lasted seven months. Upon returning, Gardiner founded the Patagonian Missionary Society (PMS) in July 1844. On their behalf, he set off again for the Strait of Magellan.

Despite great efforts, Gardiner was unable to raise funds for another mission to Patagonia. So he set out on a new major missionary trip to the west coast of South America. On September 23, 1845 he sailed with the young Spanish Protestant Federigo Gonzales on board the Plata from Liverpool to Montevideo , from there with the brig Alciope to Valparaiso and then with the French ship Leonie on to Cobija (February 5, 1846). Cobija became the starting point of the journey over the Cordilleras to Tarija , then it went to Caraparí , from there via Zapatera ( 21 ° 10 ′  S , 63 ° 49 ′  W ) to San Luis and Santa Cruz and back to Tarija (July 25, 1846 ). Gardiner mentioned in his diary that he and his companion had covered 1061 miles "over, perhaps, the worst roads in the world" in the five months since Cobija. Both were seriously ill during this time. In September Gardiner had an audience with the President of Bolivia in Chuquisaca and received from him far-reaching powers to proselytize the Indians. But this success was also dashed when a coup d'état cost the president the office a little later. After a stay in Potosí Gardiner returned to England, in February 1847 he landed in Southampton .

Patagonia / Tierra del Fuego

From the beginning, but especially since his visit to the Falkland Islands in 1842, Gardiner was particularly interested in missionary work in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Back then, in 1842, he had desperately sought a way to travel from the Falkland Islands to the Strait of Magellan . But only whalers moored in Falkland to catch whales and not want to travel to the Strait of Magellan. Gardiner offered £ 200, the equivalent of a whale, for a passage, but no ship was willing to make the voyage. Eventually he hired a rickety schooner , the Montgomery , for £ 100. The first contact with the local population on the inhospitable south side of the Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego, was so unsuccessful that Gardiner sailed to Cape Gregory on the north side, on the second narrow in the Strait of Magellan. There, in Oazy Harbor (Seno Oazy, 52 ° 41 ′ 0 ″  S , 70 ° 32 ′ 0 ″  W ), he was welcomed by a tribe. In order to raise the necessary funds for further missionary work, Gardiner sailed to the Falkland Islands and from there to England with his family. But it was not until 1845 that he was able to return to this tribe, equipped with the funds of the PMS he founded. In February he met the principal Robert Hunt on the brig Rosalie in Oazy Harbor. The situation with the tribe had changed in the meantime. In addition, a padre of Indian blood thwarted Gardiner's efforts. Unsuccessful they drove back to England on the Bark Ganges , where the two missionaries arrived in June 1845. The failure led to great disappointment in the mission society.

Isla Gardiner in front of Isla Picton

Even after this failure, Gardiner did not give up his missionary plan in Patagonia. After the experiences in the Strait of Magellan, his attention was now directed to the extreme south of the continent, where the Spanish influence and thus the influence of the Catholic Church did not extend. He traveled around the UK trying to promote the idea and raise funds with lecture tours. Finally, in January 1848, he was finally able to embark on board the Clymene , which was destined for Payta (Peru) , in the direction of Tierra del Fuego with three companions and equipped with two launches and tents . In March they went ashore on the southeastern tip of Picton Island (Isla Picton). Since the area did not seem suitable for a mission station, they moved to Banner Cove (Caleta Banner) on the north coast of Picton. While trying to return to the Clymene, they got into a storm and were shipwrecked on Lennox Island (Isla Lennox). Fortunately they were found there by the Clymene the following day . The missionaries returned to Banner Cove on the Clymene . A warehouse was built, but the hostile behavior of the locals brought the mission to a temporary end. Gardiner and his men drove on the Clymene on April 1st to Payta and from there via Panama back to England.

After this renewed failure, Gardiner tried to win over the Moravian Brethren, who were successful with the Greenlanders mission, for the project, but they consider the missionary in Tierra del Fuego as impracticable. Gardiner did not give up and still managed to equip a new expedition to Tierra del Fuego.

The dramatic ending

On September 7, 1850, Gardiner embarked with six fellow soldiers in Liverpool on the Bark Ocean Queen . He was accompanied by Joseph Erwin (carpenter, he had already accompanied Gardiner on the voyage of 1848), John Maidment (as a catechist), Richard Williams (doctor and lay preacher) and the three sailors John Pearce, John Badcock and John Bryant. The Ocean Queen under Captain Cooper was destined for San Francisco and was supposed to drop Gardiner on Tierra del Fuego. On board the ship were provisions for six months and the two 26-foot barges Pioneer and Speedwell as well as two dinghies, each 8 feet in length, with which Gardiner wanted to move in Tierra del Fuego.

The stops of Gardiner's last journey

After a three-month voyage, the Ocean Queen anchored off Picton Island on December 5, 1850. Gardiner went ashore with his men in Banner Cove (Caleta Banner), the Ocean Queen continued her voyage on December 19th. From the contradicting reports it must be concluded that at least some of the ammunition for the missionaries on board the Ocean Queen was forgotten. At first there were big problems with the locals. The plan was to use the two launches further west to the English-speaking Yámana Indian Jemmy Button, who was brought to England on the Beagle at the time . With his help as an interpreter, it was hoped to communicate with the Indians on Picton. Before that, the supplies brought with you should be deposited in a safe place, but attempts to reach Blomfield Harbor on the north side of the Beagle Channel for this purpose failed three times due to the stormy weather conditions; the third time one was even driven to Lennox Island (Isla Lennox) south of Picton Island (January 6, 1851). There the two barges were slipped open for repair purposes, the dinghies had been lost during the attempts to reach Blomfield Harbor.

Contemporary representation of the note for the rescuers

The missionaries sailed from Lennox Island to Spaniard Harbor (Puerto Español in the northwest corner of Bahía Aguirre, January 18, 1851, 54 ° 55 ′  S , 65 ° 59 ′  W ). But new adversity was approaching, on February 1st a storm left the Pioneer stranded. There was no longer any thought of contacting Jemmy Button. The only option remained to wait for the supply ship expected in five months. The stranded Pioneer was pulled higher onto the beach next to a cave and used as night quarters (Earnest Cove). At the end of March, because supplies ran out, they drove back to Banner Cove to fetch supplies that were buried there. The castaways buried a message in a bottle here for the expected supply ship and wrote in large letters on the looming rock: “Dig below. Go to Spaniard Harbor. March 1851 ". Fish could be bartered from the local population, but hostilities increased and on March 29th they drove back to Spaniard Harbor for good.

The last page of Gardiner's diary

The Speedwell was drawn into Cook's River (Río Bonpland). They now had two locations in Spaniard Harbor, Cook's River with the Speedwell and Earnest Cove with the stranded Pioneer , both about two miles apart. The supply situation deteriorated noticeably, Williams and Badcock developed scurvy . The winter of the southern hemisphere began. The remaining fishing net was destroyed at the end of May. Badcock was the first to die of hunger and exertion (June 28th), then Erwin (23rd) and Bryant (26th) followed in August. Maidment died on September 3rd or 4th and Gardiner died on September 6th. Both were most recently at the Pioneer in Earnest Cover. Williams and Pearce, who were with Speedwell , also died these days.

epilogue

Help comes too late

The mission company in England tried to get a ship for supplies, but to no avail. One relied a little too much on the statements of Captain Gardiner that there was enough fish and game for food in Tierra del Fuego, and on his connection to Samuel Lafonte. Indeed, this Falkland-owned Montevideo trader had already instructed three ships to stop over on Picton Island and deliver supplies, but these instructions had not been followed. Lafonte then sent the John Davison to Tierra del Fuego under Captain Smyley for the sole purpose of searching for Gardiner and his men . On October 21, 1851 they found the inscription on the rock in Banner Cove and dug up the message in a bottle, on October 22 they arrived in Spaniard Harbor. They found the bodies of Pearce and Williams and Badcock's grave there. A violent storm prevented further investigations, the fate of Gardiner and Maidment remained open.

At the same time, concerned about the fate of Gardiner, the English Admiralty had given HMS Dido under Captain Morshead the instruction to make a detour to Picton Island on the way to the Pacific and look for the missionaries. The Dido reached Banner Cove on January 19, 1852, and although there no longer found the message in a bottle that had already been dug up by the men of John Davison , the message on the rock was enough to point the way to Spaniard Harbor. There they discovered the Pioneer and the bodies of Gardiner and Maidment. Gardiner had left the stranded Pioneer before his death and had not been able to get back on because of weakness. Just as John Davison was able to secure Williams' diary, Dido found Gardiner's diary almost intact.

South American Mission Society, Mission to Tierra del Fuego

The Allen Gardiner

The news of Gardiner's death caused a tremendous echo in England. Despite the previously depressing course of the mission attempts, the Patagonian Missionary Society founded by Gardiner made a new attempt with the Reverend George Packenham Despard. The schooner Allen Gardiner was built and set sail from Bristol on October 24, 1854 under Captain William Parker Snow . On Keppel, a small island belonging to the Falkland Islands, a mission station was founded as a starting point for the missionary work of Tierra del Fuego. During an initial exploration trip to Tierra del Fuego, contact was made with Jemmy Button, as was planned by Gardiner. There was a lively exchange, the Tierra del Fuego traveled to Keppel, the missionaries to Wulaia ( Isla Navarino ), together with the local population they began to build a mission station. However, on November 6, 1859, locals slew eight of the nine missionaries and sailors of the Allen Gardiner . The Button family's part in the bloody act was never fully clarified.

With Waite Hockin Stirling, first bishop of the Falkland Islands, and Thomas Bridge , who later published a dictionary of Yámana-English, there was a long-awaited upswing. In 1864, Gardiner's Patagonian Missionary Society was renamed the South American Mission Society (SAMS) . The mission stations in Ushuaia (1869), on Isla Bayly near Cape Horn (1888), on Bahia Tekenika (Peninsula Hardy, 1892, 55 ° 21 ′  S , 68 ° 15 ′  W ) and on the Rio Douglas (Navarino, 1907, 55 ° 11 ′  S , 68 ° 6 ′  W ). But European diseases and the clash with the European way of life quickly meant death for many locals, as early as 1905 only 650 Yámana were counted.

Memorial plaque for Gardiner

Charles Darwin , who had a close connection to the scene of the events described due to his two stays in Tierra del Fuego in 1832/33 and 1834, was so impressed by the success of the mission and the "change" of the local population that he became a sponsor of the SAMS.

The SAMS, which is still in existence today, celebrated the 150th anniversary of the death of its founder Allen Gardiner in 2001.

In honor of Gardiner, the small island in Banner Cove (Isla Gardiner, 55 ° 0 ′  S , 66 ° 56 ′  W ) and a cove on the Hardy Peninsula near the mission station mentioned above (Bahía Allen Gardiner, 55 ° 24 ′ 0 ″  S , 68 ° 18 ′ 0 ″  W ) named after him. In the Anglican Church, the anniversary of Gardiner's death, September 6th, is celebrated as Allen Gardiner Day.

swell

• Charles Dickens: A weekly Journal, July 1857 - December 1857 , pp. 416 ff
• John Ritchie: The Story of Captain Allan Gardiner, Missionary Martyr of dark Patagonia , Kilmarnock
• Hamilton, James: A memoir of Richard Williams, surgeon: catechist to the Patagonian Missionary Society in Tierra del Fuego . London 1854, James Nisbet and Co.
• Charlotte Mary Yonge: Pioneers and Founders , London 1874 Macmillan & Co ( as e-book )
• Robert Young: South America Missionary Society. From Cape Horn to Panama , 1905 ( as e-book )
• John W. Marsh, Waite H. Stirling: The Story of Commander Allen Gardiner , London, James Nisbet & Co. 1883 ( as e-book )
• Robert Steel: Doing Good or the Christian in Walk of Usefulness , Philadelphia, 1859, Perkinpine and Higgins
• BB Travel Pictures or Scenes and Adventures in Foreign Lands , London 1860, T. Nelsons and Sons
• Page, Jesse: Captain Allen Gardiner, Sailor and Saint , London 1889, SW Partridge & Co
• The Gentleman's Magazine , London 1852, John Bowyer Nichols and Son, Volume 38, July-December 1852

Web links

• The last expedition of Allen Gardiner (English)
• The Life of Allen Gardiner (English)