Franklin Expedition Captain Was Eaten by the Crew

Jawbone traced to James Fitzjames shows cut marks indicating cannibalism
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 25, 2024 11:35 AM CDT
Franklin Expedition Captain Was Eaten by the Crew
In a Sept. 9, 2014, image, the HMS Erebus is pictured on a sonar scan in the Queen Maud Gulf in Nunavut, Canada.   (Parks Canada/The Canadian Press via AP)

James Fitzjames, captain of the HMS Erebus, penned the last known message from Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Northwest Passage. The June 1847 note told of the polar explorer's death, bringing the number of dead to 24. The remaining 105 sailors—forced to abandon Franklin's flagship and its sister ship, HMS Terror, which had become stuck in ice—would all perish, too. Bones showing marks of cannibalism were found long ago at two sites on Canada's King William Island, but only in 2013 were researchers able to remove them. A single molar has now been traced to Fitzjames, a member of the Royal Navy who'd sailed to Syria, Egypt, China, and the Americas before meeting his death in the Canadian Arctic, per the Guardian.

Douglas Stenton, an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Waterloo, worked with colleagues to extract DNA from various bones, resulting in at least 25 genetic profiles. After asking possible relatives of crew members to donate DNA samples, Stenton found a match to the DNA taken from what turned out to be Fitzjames' tooth, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The Erebus captain from London is only the second member of the doomed 1845 expedition to be identified through DNA analysis, following Erebus engineer John Gregory, identified in 2021, per the CBC.

Fitzjames' molar was taken from a jawbone with clear cut marks, indicating he was a victim of cannibalism. About 25% of the bones recovered show such evidence. It speaks to "an incredible level of desperation that they must have endured," Stenton says, per the Guardian. "And sadly, it only prolonged their suffering." He notes Inuit oral histories, key to the discovery of wrecks of the Erebus and Terror in 2014 and 2016, give a "very graphic description of cannibalistic activity" at the site where Fitzjames' remains were found, including "a huge pile of bones that had been broken and boiled for marrow." Researchers hope to identify more crew members and learn additional details about their fates. (More cannibalism stories.)

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