Charles Darwin: Gunboat Imperialist?

From 1832-1835, Charles Darwin traveled across South America aboard HMS Beagle, during which time he uncovered fossils which would later inform the theory of evolution.  Though many are familiar with Darwin’s exploits, perhaps few are aware of the political and historical context setting the backdrop to the naturalist’s voyage.  Judging from his diary, Darwin seems to have displayed a jarring lack of curiosity about such wider considerations, while at other times openly championing aggressive gunboat diplomacy.

How should we reconcile these stark divisions when it comes to the father of scientific progress and evolutionary theory?  I’ve come to Buenos Aires and Montevideo, where Darwin visited, to discuss fraught history with experts.  The voyage of the Beagle must be considered in light of Britain’s international ambitions: just twenty-five years before Darwin embarked, British troops landed in Buenos Aires during the Napoleonic wars, when Spain had been allied to France.  For over a century, the British had sought to gain influence in Spanish America, and the River Plate was perceived as an ideal staging ground from which to pursue commerce.

Conflict in continental Europe served to conveniently justify invasion in 1806-7, and though the British were eventually ejected from Buenos Aires after lengthy street-to-street fighting, the attack resulted in hundreds of deaths and wounded, which subsequently left a “bitter legacy.”  The British Secretary of War declared it was a “hopeless task” to conquer a continent “against the temper of its population,” though London may have maintained an “informal empire” in the region after South American countries achieved political independence.  Indeed, following botched interventions, the British turned towards commerce and some 4,000 influential merchants set up operations in Buenos Aires.  Meanwhile, the Royal Navy patrolled the Plate to protect its economic interests.

Several years before the Beagle departed, the Admiralty had begun surveying the South American coast, a task of vital significance given Britain’s rivalry with Spain and the United States for control over natural resources.  The Beagle was tasked with mapping coastlines while scoping out channels and harbors.  Through its surveying, the Admiralty sought to make crucial naval and commercial decisions while establishing a foothold in areas which had been released from trading obligations with Spain.  Héctor Palma, a Darwin scholar and professor at the National University of San Martín in Buenos Aires, told me the Beagle could have been perceived as pursuing espionage.

For more, I spoke to Andrés Rinderknecht, a paleontologist at Uruguay’s National Museum of Natural History in Montevideo, who recently helped to put on an exhibit dealing with Darwin’s legacy in Uruguay.  Though an admirer of Darwin’s scientific contributions, Rinderknecht was clear-eyed about the Beagle’s mission, remarking it would have been implausible for the British to launch an expedition without having a naturalist on board, given the vital importance of natural resources.

In August 1832, the ship sailed into the port of Buenos Aires, and a wide-eyed twenty-three-year-old Darwin witnessed a dramatic incident when a guardship opened fire on the Beagle.  The naturalist heard “the whistling of a shot over our rigging,” which prompted the crew to think they should appeal to Henry Stephen Fox, a British minister in Buenos Aires, and “inform him of the insult offered to the British flag.”  When it became clear the Argentines were simply concerned about the spread of cholera, and wanted the Beagle to submit to an inspection, Darwin would have none of it: “nothing which we could say, about being a man of war, having left England 7 months & lying in an open roadstead, had any effect.”

Beagle captain Robert FitzRoy wrote a message to the authorities, remarking “he was sorry he was not aware he was entering an uncivilized port, or he would have had his broadside ready for answering” the shot.  The Beagle later pulled up alongside the guardship, “hailed her, & said that when we again entered the port, we would be prepared as at present & if she dared to fire a shot we would either send our whole broadside into her rotten hulk.”  Pounding his chest, Darwin adds, “Oh I hope the Guard-ship will fire a gun at the Frigate; if she does, it will be her last day above water.”  When local authorities later apologized and announced the captain of the guardship had been arrested, the chest-thumping incident bound the crew closer to FitzRoy.

“That incident was tremendous,” says Palma, adding the confrontation revealed imperialistic undertones.  Curious to learn why the incident did not encourage further conflict, I caught up with Julio Djenderedjian, a historian at the University of Buenos Aires.  Even if officials wanted to display a show of force, modern Argentina did not yet exist but was rather comprised of an assortment of nearly independent provinces.  Noemí Goldman, a fellow historian, says local elites were interested in developing cattle ranching and exporting goods to Britain.  At the same time, perhaps the authorities were in no mood to pick fights: the governor of Buenos Aires at the time, Juan Manuel de Rosas, favored British business interests.

If Darwin’s exploits in Buenos Aires underscored imperialistic undertones, the next stage of the naturalist’s voyage would highlight skewed power relations yet further.  Sailing to nearby Montevideo, the Beagle crew was faced with political chaos.  Just a month before the naturalist arrived in Montevideo, supporters of local political figure Juan Lavalleja had attempted to kill President Fructuoso Rivera.  In response, the city garrison revolted while calling for Lavalleja to be made Commander-in-Chief.

Britain was hardly a disinterested player in Uruguay, or the “Banda Oriental,” as it was known then, though Darwin once again omits important history from his Beagle diary.  During the Napoleonic Wars in 1806-7, Britain had occupied Montevideo, once again leading to loss of life amongst local combatants.  It was only after the military debacle in Buenos Aires that the British withdrew from Montevideo, though a power vacuum ensued.

After José Artigas launched a revolt against Spain, Uruguay was subsequently invaded by Brazil.  In 1825, a threatened Argentina propped up forces under Lavalleja, which led to a stalemate with Brazil.  It was only in 1828 that Uruguay managed to declare independence, and to protect its commercial interests, Britain brokered peace through the skilled diplomatic efforts of Lord John Ponsonby.  Creating a buffer state served strategic British objectives, and helped to ensure the Plata River would remain an international waterway.

Just how much of this history Darwin fully grasped is open to question.  In Montevideo, the naturalist witnessed “an eventful day in the history of the Beagle,” when a government minister came on board and “begged for assistance against a serious insurrection of some black troops.”  The latter had turned against Lavalleja, making for a chaotic milieu, and Beagle captain Robert FitzRoy sent a force ashore, including Darwin himself, to retake a fort and protect the property of British merchants.

“The head of the police,” Darwin wrote, “has continued in power through both governments and is considered as entirely neutral…he gave it as his opinion that it would be doing a service to the state to land our force.”  Decked out with pistols and cutlass, the naturalist added in his diary, “there certainly is a great deal of pleasure in the excitement of this sort of work, quite sufficient to explain the reckless gayety with which sailors undertake even the most hazardous attacks.”  In the end, nothing transpired: the rebels disappeared, and the Beagle’s crew sailed back to the ship.

“It is probable…the two adverse sides will come to an encounter: under such circumstances Capt Fitz Roy being in possession of the central fort, would have found it very difficult to have preserved his character of neutrality.”  Shrugging his shoulders, Darwin remarks “the politics of the place are quite unintelligible.”  Writing to a friend in Cambridge, he went back on the adventurous tone from his diary: “we Philosophers do not bargain for this sort of work and I hope there will be no more.”  Carina Erchini, a Montevideo archaeologist who helped coordinate the exhibit dealing with Darwin’s legacy, said the incident revealed vested British interests upholding economic stability and political order.

If Darwin was aware of the political and historical context, there’s little indication in his diary, which later served as the basis for Voyage of the Beagle.  What is more, Darwin does not even mention Argentina or Uruguay in his autobiography.  Scholars remark that Darwin’s views “typified those of the era’s upper-class Englishmen.”  At the time, many dismissed the continent’s politics as operatic, while “Darwin’s comments on political instability in the Plata…overlooked London’s ongoing aspirations to create informal empires in the region.  Likewise, his views minimized the role of British diplomatic interference in Montevideo.”

While the natural response is that Darwin was simply focused on science, social Darwinism later sought to justify imperialism by claiming European powers were superior and hence expansion served the best interests of human evolution.  Though Darwin wasn’t involved in the interpretations of his theories, he viewed the advance of civilization as “a triumphant progress, morally justified and probably inevitable.”  Sounding imperialistic, he wrote how “civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”

On the other hand, Darwin was a liberal, and argued that as civilization progressed, society would be united by cooperation, liberalism and kindness.  “I’m not interested in judging Darwin morally,” Palma says, let alone judging the naturalist by the standards of contemporary society.  “Darwin was contradictory,” the historian remarks, adding “he’s emblematic of the nineteenth century, but at the same time he is well intentioned and believed in the idea of societal improvement.”