by Edouard A. Stackpole

The Falkland Islands and Nantucket

by Edouard A. Stackpole

THE FALKLAND ISLANDS, some 400 miles off the east coast of South America in the South Atlantic, have occupied the center of the world's stage these past few months. As Great Britain and the Argentine Republic challenge each other for possession, the war clouds obscure the unusual history of these remote islands. Journalists advance the modern scene and ignore the background of the past, and this latter aspect is the important feature in judging the present controversy.

It is of more than passing interest to review the role that Nantucket has played in the maritime past of the Falklands. As far back as 1770, when the whalemen of Nantucket were penetrating deeply into the South Atlantic in their pioneering voyages, word had reached this center of American whaling that our ships had observed large schools of whales in the area around the Falklands.

It was at this time that the Colonial troubles with Britain were nearing the breaking point. When the Revolutionary War did at length erupt, Nantucket's whaleships and merchant vessels were caught between two fires-the Royal Navy and the Continental privateers. It was at this time that Francis Rotch, of Nantucket, a brother of the better known merchant, William Rotch, proposed a most daring plan. Realizing that the Island's whaleships could not hope to continue running the gauntlet of the Royal Navy blockade and the swarm of Continental privateers, (as well as vessels owned by Tories that preyed on shipping), he proposed that a fleet of whalers should fit out here and then sail to the South Atlantic, and use the Falkland Islands as a base of whaling operations.

After obtaining enough oil, these ships would sail directly for London. As Nantucket was still a part of the British Empire, its ships would not be molested in the English Channel. In this plan, Francis Rotch was joined by Aaron Lopez, of Newport, and Leonard Jarvis, of Dartmouth. Rotch accompanied the first vessels sailing and set up his headquarters on the West Falkland Island, at Port Egmont. The daring plan, however, was not at all a success, as the Royal Navy captured the whaleships, some en route to the Falklands, others bound to England with oil.

It was during Francis Rotch's brief stay in the Falklands that he was able to observe the vast number of fur seals which made their home along the rocky shores. He wrote to his brother, William, about these seals. In London, a few years later, William, who afterwards settled a whaling colony of Nantucketers at Dunkirk, in France, wrote to his firm (still active here) suggesting that his captains stop at the Falklands for fur seal pelts. The astute Rotch had read in Captain Cook's Journals, then appearing in British printings, that the market at Canton, China, for fur was a most lucrative venture.

THE FALKLAND ISLANDS AND NANTUCKET 21

The first Nantucket ship to embark on this joint whaling and sealing voyage was the ship States, under Captain Benjamin Hussey, which returned to Nantucket in 1784 with a quantity of fur seal pelts from the Falklands. These pelts were sent to New York, taken aboard the ship Eleanora, Captain Metcalf, sailing to the Far East, and eventually reached Canton in another vessel from Calcutta. Thus, in this roundabout way, the first seal skins from the Falklands, taken by ar: American vessel, reached the Chinese market.

This was the first of many such voyages by Nantucket vessels. In 1786, the Canton, Capt. James Shippey, delivered 4,000 fur pelts to William Rotch at Dunkirk, France, which Rotch sold to a French firm. Captain Latham Gardner, in the Swallow, returned in 1793 with 4,000 skins, and on his next voyage he had 16,000 skins as well as sea-elephant and whale oil. Captain Griffin Barney, in the Barclay, came back from the Falklands in 1799 with 21,000 fur seal pelts.

On the West Falkland there are still names left by Nantucket men t hat m ar k l oca t i o n s t her e , s uc h a s S t a t e s H a r b o r a n d C a n t o n H a r b o r , and New and Eagle Islands. Sealing gangs from other New England ports arrived before the advent of the 1800's, groups from New Bedford, Stonington, New London and Hudson, New York, the latter port another colony of Nantucket. The lives of these sealers was a hard, bitter existence, often wet and cold, sailing in uncharted and remote areas. New York and New Haven merchants fitted out vessels with Nantucket officers, following a pattern borrowed from the whaling experience, when Nantucketers were the pioneers.

The first discoverer of the Falklands was a famous English shipmaster, Captain John Davis, in the year 1592. Davis was a renowned navigator, who designed the back-staff and revolutionized taking sights. While the Falklands were sighted by a number of outstanding mariners, notably Sir Richard Hawkins, de Wert, and Roggewein, it was not until Commodore Byron, of England, came there in 1761 that the British established Port Egmont and later claimed the Islands. The two principal islands, which are about 40 miles square, and the smaller islands were called the Falklands by Captain Strong (or Strahan) many years before, and named the Falklands. The French sailors from St. Malo, who had sighted them early in the 1700's, named them the Malouines, while the Spanish explorers called them the Malvinas. Spain and England nearly went to war over them in 1771. In 1820 the Republic of Buenos Aires laid claim, but in 1831-33 the British took possession and hoisted their flag at Port Stanley in East Falkland. The principal industry by the English colonists is sheep raising.

Although Captain Byron landed on West Falkland in 1765, and promptly claimed the islands for England and the French hoped to colonize them after losing Canada, basing a claim from Bougainville's survey, and Spain put in a claim in 1774, it was the English who actually established a colony. Always aware, from its maritime experience, of the strategic naval value of the Falklands, Great Britain has never lost sight of this value.

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

The seal herds that thronged along the rocky shores of the Falklands soon brought English adventurers. The Diana, of London, under a Captain Barrett, arrived in 1786, soon followed by the Venus and the Sappho in 1787 and 1788, also from London. The Sydenham, of Bristol, England, arrived in 1791. But the American mariners were not idle and, led by such men as Captain Obed Paddack, of the Olive Branch, of Nantucket, and Captain Benjamin Pendleton, of Stonington, Conn., the Yankees dominated the seal hunters of the Falklands.

The early years of the next century (1800-1812) saw many adventures of the seal-hunters in these islands. A number of ships from New York joined in the enterprise, and among the men who made history here were Captain James Sheffield, of Stonington, Captain Pendleton, already noted, Captain Edmund Fanning, in the Betsey, of New York, along with the Swallow, Captain Gardner, of Nantucket, the Neptune, Captain Steele, of New Haven, and the Juno, Captain Paul Bunker, of Hudson, and Barclay, Capt. Barney of Bedford.

During the War of 1812, a rather unusual incident took place in the Falklands, one which involved Nantucket men. The sealing brig Nanina, of Hudson, commanded by Capt. Charles H. Barnard, had been in the islands for several months when an English passenger ship, from Australia for England, was wrecked on East Falkland. The ship's pinnace had been dispatched for the nearest port, Buenos Aires, when Captain Barnard found the shipwrecked people and went to their aid. When the rescue vessel arrived from the mainland, the officers promptly confiscated Captain Barnard's brig and sailed away in her, marooning him and three men. It was over a year before Barnard and his companions were rescued. The fact that England and the United States were at war (the War of 1812) was given as the reason for the incident.

It was at West Point Harbor, in West Falkland, that Captain Christopher Burdick, in the schooner Huntress, of Nantucket, met the ship Huron, of New Haven, commanded by Capt. John Davis. The two vessels sailed in November, 1820, for the mysterious South Shetland Islands, 250 miles south of Cape Horn, searching for seal pelts in this far corner of the world. In February, 1821, both of the logbooks of these shipmasters reported land sighted to the southeast which they both declared to be "a continent." Thus, in the pages of forgotten sealers' journals, was written the first recognition of this last of the great continents of the world.

The Falkland Islands was the first of the great sealing areas in the South Atlantic, and the experiences of the mariners who went there brought about realization of the strategic importance of these islands. It was a long time after that that the military significance was appreciated. In World War I, on December 8,1914, British and German naval units engaged in a fierce fight off the southern waters of the Falklands. The German flagship, Scharnhorst, was sunk with her commander Admiral Graf Von Spee going down with his ship, and the