I'm reading accounts of 19th century expeditions as research for an original fic an it is a fantastic reminder about how people can be smart and rock stupid at the same time. White People Nonsense within.
I'm picking away at The narrative of the voyages of H.M. Ships Adventure and Beagle: Proceedings of the first expedition, 1826-30, which is the expedition prior to the one Darwin went on in '31-36
They're on a grand Voyage of Discovery authorized and generously funded by the admiralty, all ready to Science At Everything, and a few days out from Buenos Aires these dumb motherfuckers set fire to an 8x15 mile swath of coastline by accident.
"The day after the gale, while I was employed in making some astronomical observations, a party roamed about in quest of game: but with little success, as they killed only a few wild ducks. The fire which they made for cooking communicated to the dry stubbly grass, and in a few minutes the whole country was in a blaze."
"The flames continued to spread during our stay, and, in a few days, more than fifteen miles along the coast, and seven or eight miles into the interior were overrun by the fire. The smoke very much impeded our observations, for at times it quite obscured the sun."
the captain relatively soon thereafter considers a group of locals to be stupid because they aren't curious about european-made objects, despite the fact that the spanish have settled a few hundred miles away and there's whalers and sealers coming through the area a lot, as evidenced by the dudes that they just saw
a few weeks later the captain recounts how he nearly caused a Completely Unforeseen offense to another group of locals by cutting a lock of a dude's hair
they also talk shit about the local canoes on occasion but also describe how these canoes apparently have fireplaces in them that they keep constantly lit so they can use them for signaling???
StupidSexyV⚠der
: oh it's absolutely fucked, and in instructive ways for someone from a white-ass family. The racism is unvarnished and raw here, and makes a lot of the cultural assumptions that underpin it all way clearer.
"The day after the gale, while I was employed in making some astronomical observations, a party roamed about in quest of game: but with little success, as they killed only a few wild ducks. The fire which they made for cooking communicated to the dry stubbly grass, and in a few minutes the whole country was in a blaze.""The flames continued to spread during our stay, and, in a few days, more than fifteen miles along the coast, and seven or eight miles into the interior were overrun by the fire. The smoke very much impeded our observations, for at times it quite obscured the sun."