In 1845, Sir John Franklin departed from England in search of the Northwest Passage, a route in the Arctic which would bring an end to a geographical mystery. The Northwest Passage up to that point was thought to be a shorter route between Europe and Asia, serving as a new potential route for trading. When the crews of the Erebus and Terror failed to respond to correspondence for a year, an Arctic-wide search from various explorers with the backing of their governments came in search of Franklin and his men. Most of the searches ended in failure, such as Edward Belcher’s expedition, and interest in the hunt waned. But two explorers and their crews found evidence of what remained of Franklin’s expedition. In 1854, Dr. John Rae, a Scottish surgeon, found physical evidence from the Franklin expedition, which included some of the personal belongings of the crew. He was able to obtain such evidence from the local Esquimaux, or Inuit people, in modern terms. The Inuit claimed that the crew had succumbed to cannibalism. In 1859, Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, sponsored by the wife of the late Sir Franklin, was able to find the corpses of some of the crew along with their correspondence on King William Island. While both men’s discoveries were able to bring a conclusive end to the Franklin expedition, the public’s responses to their findings were varied. McClintock’s report was celebrated, while Rae’s report was chastised. McClintock’s empowerment of the British led to the wide acceptance of his findings. John Rae’s findings, on the other hand, were chastised for the methodology he used to arrive at his conclusion and his allegation of cannibalism. The discrepancy in the reactions of the British revealed how important the Franklin expedition was, the importance of myth for the Franklin expedition and subsequent expeditions in search of Franklin’s crew, the extent to which the British viewed Inuit as tools for British society, and their justifications to act as a colonial power towards the Inuit.

This paper examines chiefly the perceptions of the expedition held by upper-class Britons, namely socialites and bureaucrats. Most accounts of the ill-fated expedition were available only through privileged access to Royal Navy records. News of Franklin's demise occupied but a small portion of the Quebec Mercury and Litchfield Inquirer, implying the general public paid only passing attention to the expedition.[1][2] In McClintock’s journal, he described what kinds of gifts he received from various organizations. The organizations that provided him with goods and scientific devices for recording were of expensive quality, and there was a lack of individual donors or groups who donated gifts to the expedition.[3] While not indicative of the nature of the expeditions and who the main supporters were, it is telling of which groups had primary interest. These findings were meant for the Admiralty, rich socialites, and anyone with enough wealth to purchase a book outlining an exploration and its findings.

Franklin’s expedition, before its disappearance, had already captured the attention of the British. Before his expedition, Franklin was a famed figure in the British Navy. He was a lieutenant when he began his first Arctic Expedition. It was, at the point of Franklin’s final expedition, twenty-five years since his last expedition, as he was serving as a governor on the other side of the world.[4] His return to the Arctic was not an isolated event, but the dawn of a new era for the British, brought about by the recent coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838.[5] The new age of peace and prosperity signified by the recent coronation of the Queen would be made more successful for the British Isles if Franklin, now a commander, were to revisit and discover the rest of the Arctic after twenty-five years. If Franklin’s expedition was a success and the Northwest Passage was charted, it would signify the British’s advancements in the sciences and technology. With all of these elements together, Franklin’s expedition had the potential to create a story that would mark the proliferation of Britain’s prosperous era under Queen Victoria. In order for this vision to come into fruition, Franklin’s expedition needed to be the most prepared. For their travels, they received the most fit, able-bodied men and as many resources as they could fit in their ships.[6] The ships Franklin embarked on, the Erebus and Terror, were fitted with the latest technologies and were in as best of a shape as their shipwrights could manage.[7] They wanted to ensure that the expedition was successful, to showcase the best Britain had to offer to the naval world of exploration. The expedition was not just for scientific inquiry but also to uphold the pride Britons held in their nation to show that the wide support of the British, the return of an Arctic veteran, and the conquering of an unknown frontier would be grounds for a successful empire, symbolic of the successes as an imperial power on scientific and geographical fronts.

In John Rae’s reports, especially amongst the dispatches sent out to the various news publications, there is a discrepancy in what happened to Franklin’s men. In the report from Dr. Rae to the Admiralty, the department in charge of the Royal Navy, he reported that some of the crew succumbed to cannibalism, having no option but to “furnish food from their unfortunate companions.”[8] Rae had gathered this information through the testimonies from various Inuit he encountered during his expedition. He had no intention of revealing such information to the public. Charles Dickens, a man who was highly critical of Rae’s findings, cleared Rae of having any malicious intent when the report was released publicly. Dickens noted how it was not Rae’s choice, but rather the Admiralty’s, to release the report in its entirety.[9] This conflict of narrative, between what Dr. Rae wanted to be released and what the Admiralty in fact released, is seen through the newspapers. In the Quebec Mercury, they report that Franklin and his men succumbed to starvation and passed away in the spring of 1850. In this case, the story aligns with the narrative Dr. Rae sent out to the public, removing any mention of cannibalism. However, in other publications, like The Litchfield Enquirer and The New York Times, which directly received the report from Sir George Simpson, a representative of the Admiralty, their reports used the exact wording from the letter Dr. Rae sent to the Admiralty, which discussed cannibalism.[10][11] One of the reasons why Dr. Rae may have been hesitant to publish his findings to the public was because of how the press would respond. When explorers released their work, they faced major scrutiny from publications and newspapers, where everything from their findings to their attitudes was placed under a microscope.[12] Dr. Rae did receive some pushback from certain readers, specifically Charles Dickens in his journal Household Words, but most people accepted it begrudgingly, wanting it hidden from the spotlight.[13] Dr. Rae’s findings were not widely accepted due to the somber nature of Rae’s discovery, the idea of cannibalism weighing heavily on the reputation the Franklin crew held amongst the British.

In comparison to the reception Rae received, the reception of McClintock’s report by the public was much more positive. One of the reasons for such positive feedback was that McClintock had finally revealed, with physical proof, what had happened to the crew. McClintock’s narrative also participated in the dehumanization of the Inuit, taking credit for discovering the remains of the Franklin crew, which aligned with British racial conceptions. While the Inuit had pointed the expedition in the right direction, telling Franklin and his men which island they had seen white men on, it was McClintock and his men who found the cairns and the site of some of the crew.[14] Instead of the Inuit who found the crew, it was McClintock and his men who found the wreckage, without the help of the vague information which the Inuit provided, through adversity and perseverance.[15] John Rae’s narrative, on the other hand, simply relied on the word of the Inuit as the truth.[16] From Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a contemporary Arctic explorer, it was not the findings that were shocking, but rather the nature by which Rae concluded his findings.[17] When Rae returned with testimony from the Inuit that the noble explorer and his crew succumbed to the inhuman and depraved act of cannibalism, it was hard to believe. To claim cannibalism was one thing, but for the claim to have come from the Inuit and not from Rae himself was where people drew the line. The Inuit, despite being primary observers of what had happened to the Franklin crew, were dismissed for being untrustworthy. The difference between John Rae’s findings and McClintock’s findings was that both gave a certain assurance as to what the fate of the men would be. John Rae claimed that the men succumbed to cannibalism, which provided a truly tragic end to the Franklin expedition. As for McClintock, he claimed that Franklin and his men had merely died of starvation, which, while not an accurate conclusion, provided a more digestible end to the tale. While Rae’s findings were more conclusive than McClintock’s, people wanted to believe McClintock’s version of events more, which shows how the British viewed the expedition. The British adhered to McClintock’s story because it was about the British discovering the fate of their own men, not Rae’s story of the men’s bodies already being discovered and Rae being too late to save anyone.

McClintock’s findings brought a conclusion that the British would accept, which was that Franklin and his men unfortunately starved to death. While the intent of Miss Franklin, the sponsor of McClintock’s expedition, was to hopefully find any survivors, McClintock presented a story in which the men tried their best to survive but in the face of daunting natural challenges failed.[18] Nevertheless, it was British efforts to bring together a group of explorers that discovered what had happened to Franklin’s crew. When McClintock departed for his expedition, Miss Franklin requested that they find any survivors and that if they were to fail, McClintock and his men would have tried their best.[19] Miss Franklin’s request reveals the nature of the countless expeditions to find the Franklin expedition. Thousands of Arctic expeditions would embark with the noble cause of finding the elusive lost expedition. They risked their lives, uncertain that they could solve the mystery, and even though they knew the dangers, they tried anyway. Miss Franklin hoped that the expedition would, at least, showcase the perseverance and tenacity of McClintock and his men, contributing to the growing list of explorers who expressed their British spirit by engaging in such a dangerous expedition. It is with the added context of the history of Franklin’s expedition that McClintock’s expedition truly fits, not just as an expedition, but also as the somber conclusion to the epic of the Franklin expedition.

John Rae’s claim of cannibalism was a stain on this story. Cannibalism at this time was seen as inhuman, something only savages would succumb to.[20] Cannibalism would have tarnished the reputation of Franklin’s men, who, up to that point, were held in high regard as supremely noble. John Rae acknowledged the reputation of cannibalism, so his report emphasized that the men were on their last legs and that they had no choice but to succumb to cannibalism.[21] For the British, this was not a sufficient explanation to acquit the Franklin crew of such an inhumane act. Rather than accept Rae’s findings, British citizens like Charles Dickens and Lady Franklin would denounce his claims. For Lady Franklin, the claim of Rae’s report was a personal affront to her late husband.[22] For the British, John Rae’s findings were not accepted not only because they came from the word of natives, but because the claim of cannibalism for some was out of the question. For the British, it was much easier to believe the word of McClintock than Rae and Inuit testimony.

The other reason that Rae’s discovery was not so widely accepted was due to how he received said evidence. Rae had learnt the fate of the Franklin expedition crew through an oral retelling of what some of the Inuit saw of the remaining men and the physical belongings of some of the crew members. For the British, such testimony was unacceptable to be admitted as the whole truth. Charles Dickens downplayed the importance of the Inuit testimony, painting the Inuit as savages and removed enough from Christianity to succumb to the act of cannibalism.[23] There is a dehumanization, a removal of humanity, that separates the Inuit from the British. This can also be seen in McClintock’s expedition, where he dehumanized the natives. From McClintock’s report, he constantly emphasized the societal differences between Inuit and British ways of life and the desperation of the Inuit. Many of the Inuit he encountered were experiencing frequent deaths in their tribes, always desperate to trade with McClintock’s party, and left their children out in the cold.[24] Compare these reports to those of the “Christianized” natives along the coast of Greenland, who were described as being closer to the British in terms of civility. The Greenland natives were all well-educated and literate, fit for the British standard, and living within forts built by exploration groups.[25] McClintock presented the Greenland natives as being “modern,” more in line with what the British wanted out of the natives of the area. These natives were molded by the colonizers, made to read and understand English, follow the Christian religion, and live in the forts built by the colonizers, which gave the British justification to view native groups in general as groups to be subjugated and modernized to British standards.

McClintock’s narrative presented natives who do not fit within the “modernized” frame as foreign to British society. In his journals, McClintock described the Inuit as being heavily superstitious. When the Inuit dealt with the dead, they would not touch their own dead, but they were more willing to take the possessions of the dead who were not their own, as long as it was useful.[26] When describing the superstitious nature of the natives, McClintock created a contrast between the Inuit and the British, implying that the natives adhered to a belief structure that was flexible in nature. McClintock wrote of this specific experience to highlight perceived hypocrisy within the Inuit’s beliefs, pointing out how even though the natives respected their own dead, they wouldn’t do so for outsiders if there was something they could gain from the corpse. This outlook, which McClintock observed among the Inuit, differed heavily from Christianity. Comparing the natives from Greenland to the Inuit, the British presented the Greenland natives as being more civilized. McClintock utilized the foreign nature of the Inuit to showcase them in a negative manner, suggesting that Christianity is the belief system natives should follow to become more modern and like the British.

It is not just beliefs that McClintock used to separate the British from the Inuit peoples, but also how he dehumanized them as tools. In his journal, McClintock described the natives as useful, but only when they provided their services to the British. They are described as useful only when they served McClintock and his crew, whether that be providing the right direction to find the Franklin wreck or when they offered to trade food and hide.[27][28] McClintock also attributed intelligence only to certain natives who gave them help to eventually find the wreck.[29] When the natives were simply living their lives, McClintock described their desperation, mentioning nothing of intellect or usefulness.[30] By only emphasizing the perceived negative aspects of how the Inuit lived, McClintock presented a notion that the Inuit could only come closer to being civilized when they were useful to the British. It is only when they provided a solution to one of the expedition's goals that they were acknowledged positively. This view of the Inuit makes them akin to tools, only seen as necessary when they provide services the British have demanded of them. When they are removed from the expedition, they return to being uncivilized and helpless, always needing colonial intervention to help sustain themselves. The narrative presents the Inuit as groups deserving of colonization and relying on the colonial state, and because of how much the British have invested and traded with the Inuit, it is only fitting to use them to reach the explorer’s goals.

Upper-class Britons thought very highly of the Franklin expedition, as well as of the expeditions afterwards in search of Franklin’s crew. There was an epic created around the expeditions, which included the subjugation and colonization of the Inuit as a necessity for reaching its end. John Rae’s claim of cannibalism was seen as an affront to the Franklin expedition, while McClintock’s narrative was accepted. Franklin’s expedition ensnared the nation because of the history of Franklin as a famed navy figure, the recent crowning of a queen, and the positive implications the success of the expedition would mean for Britain as a scientific power. John Rae knew the implications of claiming that the Franklin expedition succumbed to cannibalism, so he tried to release a censored version of the events but failed, receiving backlash from various figures. McClintock’s narrative, on the other hand, made no such conclusion and instead empowered the British by showcasing British explorers as being dominant in their travels, taking charge in not only the discovery of the remains of the Franklin crew but also the colonization of the Inuit. McClintock in his journal constantly dehumanised the Inuit and subsequently turned them into tools for exploration. It was through the power of the Franklin expedition’s nationalist myth that rallied the British into becoming invested in the Arctic exploration, as it showcased the nation’s ability to stand as one of the great superpowers of the early 1900s, as a leader in the scientific world, and as a colonial power.