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4:00 P.M.
December 19, 2002
The Mystery of the Isle of the Iguana:
the Galapagos Islands
by Allan D. Griesemer Ph.D.
Assembly
Room, A. K. Smiley Public Library
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Abstract
The Galapagos Island chain owes its
existence to a deep-seated mantle plume that remains stationary as the earth’s
lithospheric plates move over them at the surface. It
has been determined that the Galapagos chain has existed for at least eight million years,
and probably much longer. These plumes rise
to the surface beneath the lithosphere and exert enough pressure to crack this upper 150
km thick crust, allowing the lava formed at this depth to rise to the surface and form
volcanoes – hence chains like the Galapagos and Hawaiian Islands. This geologic
phenomenon has produced over 60 islands in this chain, with a total landmass of about 5000
sq. miles, and volcanic peaks reaching as high as 5600 feet. The islands can be characterized as having very
warm, dry, scrub-dominant coastlines, with relatively moist volcanic slopes covered by
grasslands and small forests. Marine
iguanas, sea lions, and sea birds make up the dominant biota at the shore, while the
tortoises, feral cattle, goats, horses, and dogs compete with one another on the volcanic
slopes.
Five major milestones are discussed in the
paper, starting with the islands discovery in 1535, to their first appearing on a map in
1569, to their take-over by Ecuador in 1832, to the publishing of Beebe’s widely
circulated book on the archipelago in 1924, to the first serious efforts to save this
unique environment in the 1960’s. The
paper relates the stories of the earliest inhabitants, the period when the buccaneers were
using them as a hide-out and launching ground for their attacks, to the whaling history
and the role the Islands played in the War of 1812, to finally the many attempts to
colonize the islands locally as well as from abroad.
Even though the Islands have been made into a National Park, their future is still
very tenuous, due to Ecuador’s inability to commit the resources to protect this
delicate ecosystem. The age-old battle of
people maintaining their livelihood versus the preservation of nature may prove unwinnable
at least at this battleground.
About the Author
The Author retired from the directorship of
the San Bernardino County Museum in 1997. He
had served in the Museum profession for thirty- six years, having started out as an
apprentice at the Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey.
He also served as a Curator for three years at the Dayton Museum of Natural History
in Dayton Ohio, and filled various roles at the University of Nebraska State Museum in
Lincoln for nineteen years, leaving that institution to come to Redlands in 1984. He received his Bachelors Degree from Augustana
College in Rock Island, Illinois, his Masters from the University of Wisconsin in Madison,
and his Doctorate from the University of Nebraska. He
has published twenty-three museum related articles, and eight academic papers in his
career. He is a member of several
community-based organizations and of Sigma Xi. He
is married to his wife Nancy and has three sons living in the Midwest.
Introduction – The Geologic History of the Galapagos
Islands
It seems strange that such a small
collection of youthful volcanic rocks, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has assumed such
a critical role in the history of humankind’s intellectual growth, in particular our
insight into the earth’s biological processes. At
the time of Charles Darwin’s famous visit to the islands in 1835, there was no reason
to suspect that this archipelago had anything significant to offer. They repeatedly, since their discovery in the 16th
century, had been written off as worthless and very inhospitable to all who tried to find
some redeeming value in these 60 odd islands and islets.
This paper will explore some of the major
historic milestones of this archipelago and elaborate on some of the intervening periods
to provide the reader with a better understanding and flavor of the extraordinary, but
often tragic road this small island chain has followed over the past five hundred years.
Those milestones begin in 1535 when the
islands were first seen by human eyes (at least to anyone’s knowledge); 1569 when
they first were placed on a published map by Mercator; l832 when they were first claimed
by Ecuador; 1924 with the publication of Galapagos: World’s End by William
Beebe, which hit Europe at just the time when a general disillusionment with life was
growing following WW I, and a return to a simpler and more idyllic life, was becoming
popular; to finally 1959 through the early 1960’s
when both private and public entities stepped forward to try and form a protective
umbrella of sorts. This included the
formation of the Galapagos National Park in 1959; the Charles Darwin Foundation for the
Galapagos Islands incorporated in Belgium the same year, and finally the establishment in
1964 by UNESCO, of the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz. These latter efforts
have only been modestly effective primarily due to financial issues, both public and
private. One only has to visit the Islands briefly to understand the economic issues, the
age-old fight between the livelihoods of humans versus the preservation of our ecosystems,
a conflict that we may have to accept as unwinnable.
Population growth is a never-ending problem. A
look at the 1950 census shows only 1346 inhabitants on the islands, however by the year
2000 the estimated population ballooned to more than 17,000. In addition, the related tourism numbers increased
by similar amounts from a few thousand to over 60,000 per year, all of which suggests less
than a positive future for the preservation of this unique ecosystem.
Even with their stark and primitive
appearance, the islands do provide many contrasts. With their many volcanoes they offer
highly variable environments, from warm and dry coastal areas teaming with vertebrate life
in the form of marine iguanas, sea lions and extremely numerous sea birds, to the more
humid highlands on the flanks of the volcanoes complete with forests and grasslands where
the famous tortoises reside (along with feral horses, burros, goats, cattle etc.). Of course since the islands are so young,
geologically speaking, volcanic eruptions still are occurring at a regular pace.
Therefore, from the rims of the calderas to the coast, many lava flows in various stages
of erosion occur, making travel very difficult in these areas, and in fact, people time
and again naively found out they could be life threatening.
The reactions to these islands were so negative at the time of their discovery,
that no one even considered them worthy of names or charting them on a map for a hundred
years, and thus they remained formally unclaimed for almost three hundred years.
So what is the history of these volcanic
islands, what is their source, how old are they, and what is their future? To understand
the geologic history of this archipelago, I would like to take you back to 1998 when I
gave a paper to this body on plate tectonics. If
you may recall, the essence of that paper dealt with the discovery in 1958 that the
Earth’s lithosphere is made up of a dozen or so major plates that are in constant
motion. This means that these plates are
either pulling apart or colliding with one another, which becomes the source of all major
structural elements in our crust and accounts for the existence of our mountain chains,
oceanic trenches, and those dreaded volcanoes, which in oceanic areas often become
islands. The plates responsible for the
Hawaiian and Galapagos archipelagos are the Pacific and Nazca Plates respectively (see
Figure 1). In the case of the Galapagos and
Hawaiian archipelagos, clearly islands of volcanic origin, their existence stems from an
alternate source of heat. This heat
source is referred to as a ‘mantle plume’ (see Figure 2). Such plumes are described as rising columns of hot
rock, perhaps 100 km in diameter that emanate from the base of the mantle, which you may
recall is the largest division of the Earth’s interior and about 2900 km thick. Therefore, the plumes, which rise at about 10 cm
per year, are independent of the crustal plates, and remain fixed as the plates move above
them. This is why the Galapagos and Hawaiian
Islands have remained the same distance apart for millions of years, even though the
Pacific and Nazca Plates have moved hundreds of miles in that time. The Nazca Plate, which
has been calculated to move at about 5 cm per year, will carry the remnants of the
Galapagos Islands to its eastern edge and beneath the South American Plate in about 14
million years. As the plumes reach the lithosphere, the upper 100 km of the Earth’s
interior, they tend to heat up and flatten out as the plume’s upper surface
experiences a loss in overlying pressure about 150 km below the surface. This begins the
liquefaction or lava forming process. At
this point a doming of the lithosphere occurs due to the upward push of the plume,
resulting in a cracking of the rigid lithosphere, cracks that allow molten lava to make
its way to the surface. After
thousands of flows, volcanoes thousands of feet tall can develop, and if this is beneath
the ocean, islands appear. Since the plates
tend to move in a linear fashion, the surface expression results in an island chain or
archipelago such as the Hawaiian or Galapagos islands.
Therefore, in these cases, one end of the chain is much older than the other, which
is true in both the chains noted above. In
the case of the Galapagos Islands, the oldest and most eastern island, Espanola is about
five million years old and small in size due to erosion, and the youngest and most
westerly; Fernandina is only seven thousand years old (see Figure 3). As plate motion moves the volcanic masses off of
the plume, they cool and contract, causing them to sink beneath the surface. In an attempt to prove this concept, geologists
recently completed a search to locate a seamount east of Espanola that would be in line
with the existing islands, and did so at a depth of 1500 meters. As predicted, it had beach gravels on its surface
and a radiometric date of eight million years.
The Galapagos volcanoes are referred to as ‘shield’ volcanoes for they form from
very fluid basaltic lava flows, which emerge
from large central calderas. These calderas in some cases are several miles in diameter. These kinds of volcanic flows result in very
shallow outer slopes, looking something like inverted bowls. Kilauea in Hawaii is a good example. The central caldera is usually flat, but can,
without notice, collapse hundreds of meters due to the voids left by the periodic
expulsion of lava from beneath the surface. In
the case of the Galapagos Islands, this process over five million years, has produced a
cumulated land mass of almost 5000 square miles, with the largest Island, Isabella making
up almost half that amount. Isabella is also
the site of the tallest volcano, Wolf, which stands at 5600 feet. All this action makes the Galapagos archipelago
one of the most active volcanic areas in the world, which has been ideal for many animals
and plants, but relatively inhospitable, or should I say challenging, for humans.
II The Earliest Human Contact – the 16th
Century
Due
to the archipelago’s position 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, directly on the
equator, and in the path of the strong Humboldt Current, the islands are situated as a
perfect spawning ground for Darwin’s evolutionary process to function (see Figure 4). At the same time the islands are just far enough
away from the mainland so that human intervention was substantially delayed, in no small
part due to the significant difficulty sailors would have returning to the mainland
against the Humboldt Current in their small balsa raft, (see Figure 5). Based on these presumptions, and the lack of
any artifactual evidence, there is no proof that anyone had ever seen the Galapagos
Islands prior to the year 1535, at least to tell about it.
There are some unsubstantiated suggestions that an Inca king in 1400 had made the
voyage and returned, but most feel he actually had traveled to the Easter Islands instead,
for his account said something about bringing back Negro slaves.
Almost everyone agrees that the first
reliably recorded visit to the islands occurred by accident in the 1535. This visit was made by Tomas de Berlanga, the
Bishop of Panama, on behalf of King Carlos V, attempting to reach Peru to check on the
reportedly barbarous exploits of Pizzaro. Unfortunately his ship became becalmed after a
week at sea and drifted with the currents for eight days, eventually sighting land – the Galapagos Archipelago! They landed on the
small Santa Fe Island, but soon found there was no water – a common and never ending
problem for all who sought refuge over the years. They renewed their voyage, but were
again becalmed, this time for three days, and now were very short of water. They
eventually lost two men and ten horses, and had to rely on small pockets of rainwater and
chewing cactus pads for moisture, but finally made it back to the mainland. The Bishop had
little good to report to the King, but did say he saw small crystals (diamonds?) in the
beach sands, which undoubtedly did stir some interest back in Spain. His report also spoke of the strange tame animals
on the islands, especially the giant tortoises with saddle-like carapaces – hence the
name Galapagos. Later, this Bishop turned out
to be a burr in Spain’s side, for he also took a stand against Spain’s right to
subjugate the natives of the Americas, and the right to confiscate the native resources
and wealth. He also suggested the possibility
of digging a canal in Panama, and even laid the groundwork for the creation of the
independent state of Ecuador – a real revolutionary for his day.
Other Spanish travelers in the late 16th
Century, sailing along the west coast of South America, perhaps deserters from Pizzaro,
were said to have reached the Galapagos Islands but gave them a different name, Las Islas
Encantadas, or the enchanted isles. This name
arose apparently due to the numerous strange currents that swirl around the islands making
distances difficult to determine, as well as from the frequent fog that makes travel
rather frightening at times. Sailors were
known to swear that according to their charts the islands would move, and they would end
up sailing “right through them” and never see them!
However, it was due to the Spanish that the
islands first appeared on maps, the Mercator map of 1569 and the Ortelius map of 1570,
where they are referred to as the Insulae de los Galapeagos. This was a major milestone, for from this date on
the abuse of the islands went into high gear as they became a hideout and source of fresh
turtle meat for thousands of buccaneers and whalers over the next one hundred and fifty
years.
III The Buccaneer Period – the 17th Century
Although there are reports of buccaneering
going on in the Pacific in the late 16th Century, pirate influence was not a
dominating force until the 17th. Spain’s
rivals, particularly England were becoming very much aware of the Spanish conquest and
plundering of the New World peoples, and decided they wanted to claim some of that wealth
for themselves. Apparently England
partnered with various pirates to capture as many of the Spanish galleons as possible. The buccaneer captains began to use the Galapagos
Islands as a base of operations, where they could rest, and stock up on easily acquired
fresh meat and even some water. One of their
favorite hideouts was on Santiago Island at what is now called Buccaneer Cove, because
water is available here most of the year. Obviously
the islands were in a very strategic location between Mexico and Peru, as the galleons
from the north had to pass by the Islands, and were within easy striking distance of
Spanish shipping leaving Peru. In 1684 the
pirate Ambrose Crowley made the first crude, but fairly accurate, navigational charts for
the islands (see Figure 6). He named many of
the Islands after English noblemen who helped the pirate cause. These were the first names that came into common
use, and were not changed until Ecuador took over one hundred and fifty years later.
It was during this time that it was learned
by the visitors that the easily caught tortoises could be tuned upside down and stacked
alive on ship for up to a year without providing food or water, making them a great fresh
meat supply. Of course when the animals
weighed up to four hundred pounds, it became somewhat of a task to get them from the
highlands to the shore, but over the next couple of centuries, it is estimated from the
logs of buccaneers and whalers, that they removed as many as 200,000 animals, seriously
affecting their viability on all islands, and in fact totally decimating them on some.
The most serious threat to the Spanish
galleons came in the early 1680’s when several pirates formed an alliance, which
brought together ten ships and over one thousand men.
Its effectiveness was mostly psychological, as it really caught the Spanish
governments attention, but in reality resulted in only one major skirmish involving
fourteen Spanish ships. There was a lot of
shooting, but not much else occurred.
One of the most famous pirates was John Cook
who started his journey to the Pacific from Chesapeake Bay.
His first encounter was with a 36 gun Danish ship off of Sierra Leone, which he
captured and renamed the Bachelor’s Delight. With
this vessel, Cook and his crew rounded Cape Horn in 1684.
They encountered very bad weather and were forced further south than any one had
ever gone before (or so he said), 60 degrees and 30 minutes south latitude. The story goes that while passing the Horn they
were discussing the “intrigues of women”, but after the bad time they had with
this terrible storm, they vowed never to discuss women at sea in such a fashion again. The afore mentioned Crowley was actually a
crewmember on Captain Cook’s ship. He
not only made good navigational charts, he also was the first to record what the islands
were like, both physically and biologically; it seems he was more of a naturalist then a
pirate at heart. The most intense period of buccaneering ended in 1688 when King James
finally severed England’s relationship with the pirates and extended them a full
pardon.
One other brief episode of buccaneering did
take place in the early 18th century in and around the Galapagos Islands when
several English merchants from Bristol financed two ships, the Duke and the Duchess, to
prey on French and Spanish shipping. The most
interesting thing about this story is that the crew of these ships rescued a marooned man,
Alexander Selkirk on Juan Fernandez Island off Chile. The story goes that he had gotten
into an argument with a Captain Straddling and consequently put ashore almost four years
earlier, and during that time had almost totally lost the ability to speak or more
importantly, drink rum. However, he apparently could write, and in fact kept an account of
his experiences. This eventually became the
story of Robinson Crusoe. The end of this
saga suggests that the story was stolen from him by a well-known writer of the day, Daniel
Defoe, and Selkirk ended up dying in poverty. The Duke and Duchess did stay in the
Galapagos area for four years, raiding when possible, including the city of Guayaquil in
Ecuador. They returned to Bristol in 1711, with booty that did not even cover the cost of
the excursion, which ended pirating as a business in the eastern Pacific.
IV The Hunting Ground for Whalers – the 18th and
19th Centuries
Many more whalers than pirates came to the
east coast of South America and the Galapagos Archipelago starting in the late 18th
century, due to the discovery of the rich hunting grounds for sperm whales, including the
majestic Blue whales. One of the first to
respond to this revelation was Captain James Colnett, who was sent by the British
government in 1793 to investigate the possibilities.
In the process, he charted the Galapagos Islands in more accurate detail, and
established a rather unique “institution” on Floreana’s northern coast, The
Post Office Barrel, which still exists today (see Figure 7). This unmanned ‘post office’ operates on
a very simple basis, people leave messages in the barrel with appropriate addresses, and
as other people come by at some later date, if they are willing to deliver the messages,
they take the letters with them and act as the postman when they get back home. Although the original barrel, of course, is no
longer in existence, the system still works well, even though the post office structure
leaves something to be desired.
Several countries soon were sending whaling
fleets into the area, including the United States. Since many of these fleets took
advantage of the Galapagos chain as a stopping off place (especially once it became known
that Floreana had a year round water supply) the earlier carnage of the turtle populations
became a blip on the screen compared to that wrought by the whalers. And these crews didn’t stop with tortoises;
they also decimated the fur seal and sea turtle populations as well.
It is interesting to note that the War of 18
12 between the United States, England and France found its way to the Galapagos Islands
because of these competing whaling fleets. Apparently
the American government sent Captain David Porter to the area commanding the U.S.S. Essex
with the intent of destroying or capturing as much of the British whaling fleet as he
could. He rounded Cape Horn in 1813, and
arrived at San Cristobal Island in April of that year.
Within two weeks, he had captured three whalers loaded with oil worth $500,000.
Before he was finished, he had captured seven more ships, in fact was having trouble
commanding them all. The story goes that as a
last resort, one of the captured ships was put in charge of a twelve-year-old midshipman
who later became the first full admiral in the United States Navy, David Farragut. Porter was able to get some feeling for which
ships were in the area, by checking the mail that had been put in the Post Office barrel. Porter found that many of the sailors on the
British ships were actually Americans, those he reemployed.
To keep things manageable, he would paint the captured ships and sell them to the
Spanish. He also frequently painted his own
ship to fool the whalers long enough for him to be able to get close enough to capture
them. His run came to an end a year later,
when he captured three more British whalers, one of whom had recently captured an American
whaler. Although the description of these captures sounded as if things normally went
quite gentlemanly, with little aggressive action necessary, in the case of this last
British capture, because of the previous American ship’s capture, he put this British
Captain in irons, a Captain Stavers. Captain
Porter’s total take from all his captures of British whalers amounted to over
$2,500,000. However, his luck did run
out eventually. On his way back to America he was captured by two British warships. He was allowed to return to the United States on
one of the whalers he had captured. Porter
later became the Commander-in-chief of the Mexican Navy, and even later the Ambassador to
Constantinople. Whaling came to an end in
this area finally in the mid 19th century with the discovery of petroleum and
the growing scarcity of sperm whales.
Among the whalers who visited the Galapagos
Islands as a youth was Herman Melville who did not speak of the Galapagos in very glowing
terms. In his 1856 book The Piazza Tales he describes the Galapagos, which
he calls Los Enchantodas, as “Man and wolf alike disown them. Little but reptile life is here found; tortoises,
lizards, immense spiders, snakes, and that strangest anomaly of outlandish nature, the
aguano. No voice, no low, no howl is heard;
the chief sound of life here is a hiss”
V Colonization is initiated – 19th Century
The very first person to call the Galapagos
Islands home was an Irishman, by the name of Patrick Watkins. Patrick came to Floreana
Island in the year 1807 from an English ship, whether by choice or sentence is not known. Captain Porter came upon him and described the man
and his enterprise in some detail. Apparently,
Patrick was a very wild looking individual “He appeared to be reduced to the lowest
grade of which human nature is capable and seemed to have no desire beyond the tortoises
and other animals on the island, except that of getting drunk”. He apparently had red
hair and few clothes, but was an enterprising person. He found a two-acre plot of land
that could be cultivated about a mile from what is now called Pats’ Landing. On this piece of land he grew potatoes and
pumpkins, which he periodically sold to passing ships.
On one occasion, he was treated in a very inhospitable manner by one ship’s
crew, and was robbed of $500.
After this, he began planning his revenge
and also a way to get off the Island. He told
an American Captain to send some men ashore to help pick his crop so they could make their
purchases. The Captain sent four boats of
people, but when they got to his place, he was nowhere to be found. When they returned to their boats, they found
three of them destroyed, and the fourth one missing.
Patrick left a note saying he felt he deserved what he took, due to the previous
injustices he had suffered. It turns out he
left with four of his own men, but when he arrived at Guayaquil, he was alone, When he was
found he looked so suspicious, that he was arrested and later died in prison.
No other colonization was attempted or
encouraged by the Spanish government, which had de facto control of the Islands for three
hundred years. That began to change in 1830
with the formation of the new country of Ecuador. Within
two years they annexed the Galapagos Islands, and changed the official name to Archipelago
del Ecuador, and later yet, the name was changed again to Archipelago de Colon in honor of
Columbus. In addition, they changed the names of all the Islands to reflect their now
permanent Spanish-speaking enclave.
The first try at colonizing the islands fell
to a gentleman from Louisiana, Don Jose Villamil. He
also picked Floreana because of its stable water supply, and became its first Governor in
1832. Don Jose thought he could successfully
achieve his dreams for the islands by using prisoners as his colonists. Several other colonizers also utilized this
unfortunate plan in later attempts, none of which succeeded. In fact the islands became a de facto penal
colony, often badly managed, but with the blessing of the ineffective Ecuadorian
government, for much of the 19th century.
This first group of colonists was mostly
made up of mutinous soldiers who had been condemned to die.
Vilamil’s logic was that they would be so grateful for this second chance that
everything would work out – not so. He
also brought out normal townspeople, as well as farm animals. His farm community was called Asilo de la Paz. By
1835, the year of Darwin’s visit, he had amassed a contingent of 300 people, half of
which were convicts. Villamil was a decent man with a dream, but became disillusioned and
resigned in 1837 and left the Islands. A
Colonel Williams took over, but he was not well liked and there was an uprising in 1841.
Villamil unsuccessfully returned to try to save the colony, but the great majority of the
people had already left.
Villamil did not give up easily. He tried once more, hoping to harvest tallow from
the thousands of feral cattle now on the islands, as well as develop a cattle ranch, but
this too failed, and he finally gave up in 1860. Unfortunately
Villamil’s contribution was to increase the dreaded feral population of cattle, pigs
and goats to devastating numbers.
A second attempt to colonize Floreana
occurred in 1869 by Don Jose Valdizan, a very decent person of Span
ish decent.
His hope was to be able to harvest orchilla, a type of lichen common to the
islands, used in the manufacture of dyes. This
worked for fifteen years, but he also based his hopes on the use of convicts, and the
almost inevitable revolt occurred, resulting in Valdizan being murdered, the colonists
scattered and the project abandoned. By the1880’s the island was totally abandoned
again.
The most successful of the 19th century efforts was also the saddest for all involved, due to that most common of all
human frailties – greed. This occurred
on San Cristobal, and was organized by a man by the name of Manuel Cobos in1869. Cobos took advantage of Ecuador’s inability
to really govern the islands, and essentially established himself as the ruler of San
Cristobal. He was a good businessman, but
ruthless in his handling of people. He would
pay off convict’s debts, thus making them indentured servants on his island. In fact they could never leave the island, for he
was in total control, and the length of sentences were ignored. He had as many as 400 men working for him. He had his own company store and currency, and of
course no one ever got out of debt. The
President of Ecuador, at one point, had issued an arrest warrant for Cobos, but there was
no one to enforce it. He successfully raised
sugar cane, and had 10,000 head of cattle. The
name of his complex was El Progreso, and he attempted to expand his empire by farming and
ranching on two neighboring islands, Floreana and Isabella, and brought in 100,000 coffee
trees. Things began to get a bit more
difficult in 1885, when Ecuador made the Islands a Territory, which meant that a
Territorial Head, Inspector and six policemen were assigned to the Islands – of
course Cobos very quickly owned them all. By
1904 Cobos was at his peak, and he was considering selling his holdings to an American
firm for $500,000. His ruthlessness was his downfall.
He would discipline offenders by whipping an individual up to 500 times or
marooning them on one of the other islands – both of which often meant death. Revenge for his cruelty finally occurred in
January of 1904 when one of the foremen shot him to death on his front porch. The group of conspirators that left for the
mainland and landed in Quayaquil were immediately arrested, but only the leader stayed in
jail after their story was told.
There was one other attempt to colonize the
Islands in the 19th century, by Don Antonio Gil in 1897. He settled on Floreana first, but then went to
Isabella, and hoped to raise cattle for their hides, take the tortoises for their oil, and
harvest sulfur from the volcanic calderas. His ranch was called Santo Tomas, which was
situated just below the volcano Sierra Negra. He asked the Ecuadorian government for
police protection, which he got in the form of twelve men, all of whom deserted within two
years, and the project failed.
Therefore, although several had attempted to
colonize the islands, all failed in the 19th century, due to the type of people
chosen, the lack of governmental control, the scarcity of good water, and the mistreatment
of the colonists. All of this activity did
receive attention abroad, particularly in the United States. Our country offered to take
the Archipelago de Colon off Ecuador’s hands, since they were having so little
success in dealing with all the issues, but were politely refused. Ecuador however, did entertain the possibility of
giving the islands to England to pay off some debt, but got such a strong negative
reaction from Spain, Peru, and France, they gave up the idea.
VI Colonization is Begun Again With Some Success - the 20th Century
Even before the end of the 19th
century, the growing interest in the Galapagos Islands in Europe and America resulted in a
proposed colonization by August Christensen from Norway.
His attempt to settle on Floreana in the 1870’was foiled however, when the
Ecuadorian Government required that he and his colonists renounce their Norwegian
citizenship. They refused, so the colony
never materialized. However, Christensen
tried again in 1926, this time with some success and he set up a fishery on Floreana near
Post Office Bay. He came to an agreement with the Government and the first group of 40
people built a fishing and whaling center called Casa Matriz. This caused a bit of a stir
on the mainland for the Norwegians were known for their ability as fisherman, and it was
feared they would over-fish the area. While this group was struggling to get established
on Floreana, a second group of 80 Norwegians arrived the same year and settled on Santa
Cruz. However, within a year, both colonies
were already in the throes of disbanding. In
1930 Christensen was still trying to save at least his investment, by selling his
equipment to the Van Camp Company of California, but Ecuador would not allow the sale and
the effort collapsed. The many problems they
faced included, inadequate equipment, the very hot climate which resulted in trouble
preserving the fish, a significant shortage of fresh water, the distance to markets, and
the psychological problems that resulted from the fact that the community was all men. Most of these issues should have been anticipated,
but obviously weren’t.
This brings us to one of the most bizarre
stories to come out of the Islands – the 1929 establishment of a very small German
colony on Floreana. It has been suggested
that the reason for this early 20th century interest in Europe for places like
the Galapagos Islands was because of the disillusionment Europeans felt with western
civilization following WW I, and the related desire to lead a simpler life – perhaps
on some paradise isle in the distant Pacific. The
first couple to emerge in this story to flee the perceived problems of the West was Dr.
Frederick Ritter, and his mistress Dora Strauch. They
decided to leave Germany for a more idyllic life, after having read Robinson Crusoe; both
were married at the time. Ritter was a
dentist (he removed all his teeth before he left), and Dora a trained musician. She had multiple sclerosis, which had left her
with a limp and barren. They decided to leave
Germany so that their spouses could perhaps get together, in fact they invited their
spouses to their going away party, just so they could meet.
They first considered the Azores, but when they got there, there already were too
many Europeans, so they decided to continue on to the Galapagos Islands. They left on the
3rd of August and arrived on the 31s t. The only person living on Floreana at the
time was a man called Hugo who spent his time capturing wild cattle. They settled near a fresh water spring in the
interior of the island, calling the site Friedo. - their “garden of peace”. Unfortunately Frederick was a loner, and not a
very caring person, and shortly after arriving began to show his indifference to his new
mate. News of their affair and escape to the
Pacific became front-page news back in Germany, and they were called the “Adam and
Eve of Paradise”. The problem with this
was that this publicity caused numerous visitors, which Frederick particularly hated. For this they only had themselves to blame for
they regularly sent letters to friends telling of their idyllic lives, which of course
ended up in local papers. In the next few years, several groups came, stayed a while, but
in the end always left, realizing it was not quite the paradise they had expected. This
was true until 1932, when finally two groups came and stayed, much to Frederick’s
displeasure. These also were primarily from Germany.
The first came in August - the family of Heinz and Margarita Wittmer and their
12-year-old son Harry - Margarita was five months pregnant.
In fact they chose Floreana because they knew that Frederick was a doctor of sorts. The second included the mysterious if not
bizarre Baroness Eloise Wagner De Bosquet, and her entourage of three companions/lovers,
Rudolf Lorenz, Robert Philippson, and an Ecuadorian by the name of Valdivieso, who had
been to France, all of whom were in their 20’s and 30’s Heinz Wittmer had been
the secretary to the Burgermeister of Cologne, Conrad Adenauer. Once their desire to become permanent was clear,
Frederick in particular became very cold towards them all. The Wittmers initially lived in
one of the lava tube caves that had housed pirates; it was also near the central spring.
The Baroness came in October of 1932 and
settled at Post Office Bay, using what was left of the Norwegian buildings. She immediately dubbed herself the “Empress
of the Island”, and began taxing anything coming or going, which greatly irritated
the others. Her background was very murky. Lorenz later told the others that she was once a
spy in WW I, also a singer in Constantinople where she met a French nobleman, and from
that time on referred to herself as Baroness. It
also came out that she left Paris right after shortages were found at a dress shop where
she was employed. She walked around the
Island wearing black boots, and often carried a whip and revolver. Other things she did to
annoy her fellow colonists, included writing to Germany and making obnoxious comments such
as “Dr. Ritter is a lowly dentist, really not much more than a nurse” and that
he had been arrested on the island due to a reign of terror. She frequently claimed to own the island and was
going to make it into another Miami for rich Americans.
She also angered everyone by bathing nude in the community’s common water tank
that provided their only drinking water. And
of course her sexual escapades became notorious, with many tales even reaching the
mainland, causing governmental officials to come to Floreana to investigate – they
went home praising her.
These circumstances caused Heinz Wittmer to
comment that he was ready to take matters into his own hands – a statement that
caused concern later. At about his time, the
Baroness built her own house, also in the central region, not too far from the spring,
which she called Hacienda El Paraiso, and was joined at her abode by three additional
companions, Trygwe Nuggerud, the German journalist Brockman, and his brother Linde. The latter only stayed a short time, for on a
hunting expedition one day, the Baroness shot Linde, apparently on purpose. She nursed him back to health, and he quickly
left. She told Frederick that God had spoken to her and told her to move to Floreana, and
that her job was to purify the earth, in any way she could.
On January 1, 1933 Rolf Wittmer was born,
and for a while relations between the colonists actually became civil. A fairly common
visitor to the island was Allan Hancock, a wealthy California businessman on his yacht,
the Velero III. He would usually bring presents for the colonists, and a rivalry developed
to curry Hancock’s favor. So although
1933 had started off on a positive note, things rapidly went down hill throughout the rest
of the year. Lorenz, who was the Baroness’s favorite when they arrived, had slipped
badly to second behind Phillippson, and was becoming quite neurotic and even reclusive. He would disappear for long periods, usually
ending up at someone else’s home, before crawling back to the Baroness. Frederick’s indifference to Dora was becoming
very pronounced, and he was even becoming physical with her. There were rumors of a lot of at least flirting
between the Baroness and Frederick, and Dora with the Baroness’s groupies. In reality, no one really was getting along with
anyone else for very long periods of time, only Margarita seemed to be reasonably sane by
the end of the year. Nineteen thirty-three
was bad, but the year 1934 would turn out to be tragic for the colony. Before the year is out, five of the twelve people
in the Colony will have died, and all by mysterious means. Later, the natives would refer
to the island as the man-eater place.
Early in the year Allan Hancock arrived with
a producer from Hollywood with the idea of making a movie using the Baroness and
Philippson as pirates – it turns out the Baroness couldn’t act, so the whole
idea was a flop. By March the temperatures
had risen into the 120-degree range, and the islands were also experiencing a drought - things were not going well.
Margarita’s version of the next few
days are as follows: On March 27th, The Baroness came to Margarita, since that
was where Lorenz was living at the time, and asked that he take care of her place since
she and Philippson had been offered a trip to Tahiti, and that she anticipated moving to
Tahiti. Everyone was pleased with the thought of no Baroness. On the 30th, Lorenz reported to the
colony that the Baroness was gone as were all her things. When the Wittmers went to the
Hacienda a few days later, they found Frederick going through all the things that were
left, and he said that she was gone and would not be back, he guaranteed it. However, no one ever saw a boat come or go from
the island.
Dora’s version of the events: On March 21st Lorenz showed up at their
house looking calm and serene for the first time in a long time. He reported, however, that the Baroness had
threatened to kill him. On the 25th
the mail arrived from Europe, containing two articles authored by the Baroness that
depicted the Ritters in very negative terms. They all went to the Hacienda on April 1st and found the Baroness’s favorite
hat and a copy of the book The Portrait of Dorian Gray, of which she was very fond,
and would never leave behind.
On April 21st a yacht does come
to the island to pick up the Baroness, a Mr. Howell from Chicago. Nuggerud finally appears in mid-July with friends
from the mainland. He had married an
Ecuadorian woman with a baby. Nuggerud met
with Lorenz at the Wittmer’s where he learned of the Baroness’s disappearance. Nuggerud and Lorenz, plus an Ecuadorian boy named
Jose, decided to sail back to the mainland so that Lorenz could work his way back to
Germany. It is known they got as far as Santa
Cruz, and left for San Cristobal where they hoped to catch a ship for Guayaquil – but
they never arrived. So to date, four
members of the colony have disappeared.
Now the story turns to the Ritters. Dora reported that the two of them were getting
along very well, that a stability had developed, a real sense of happiness. On the other hand, Margarita indicated that they
were separating and essentially not even speaking. In
November, it was reported that the Ritter’s chickens had died from eating poison
meat. A few days later, Dora came rushing to
the Wittmers saying that Fredeick was dying because he had eaten infected canned meat. Apparently, Frederick believed that anything could
be eaten if boiled. But the strange thing about this story is that Frederick was a
vegetarian. He died on the 21st of
November. Dora did not attend the funeral.
Again the accounts of Fredericks’s last moments differ vastly between Dora and
Margarita. Dora says he died peacefully
reaching out for her saying that he had fulfilled his work.
Margarita indicated Frederick had written a note saying he cursed Dora to his last
breath, and that he tried to kick and hit her when she came to his bedside to give him a
shot of morphine. The two women from this
time on obviously became dire enemies even after they both returned to Germany.
To make matters worse, four days before
Frederick died, they found Lorenz and Nuggerud, far to the north on the beach of Marchena – mummified (see Figure 9). Neither the
boat nor the young Ecuadorian boy was ever found.
Hancock returned in December to this amazing
string of tragedies. He agreed to take Dora
to the mainland so she could get back to Germany. On
the ship she said some very strange things, including that she killed her husband and that
the Wittmers were involved with the disappearance of the Baroness. This caused Hancock to return to Foreana and he
and Dora sat down with Margarita until they agreed to sign a joint statement clarifying
the events. Basically it was Margarita’s
version that was agreed upon. Dora was
questioned by the Governor of the Islands, but allowed to leave for Germany on January 2,
1935, which meant there would be no investigation. Were
there murders, if so who, by whom?
Margarita was brought to Germany to help
clear the air on these strange events. What
this did was to start a verbal war between Dora and Margarita, with each writing a book. And to this day, the mystery continues, only
Margaraita is still alive, and she has refused in recent years, to speak of that time to
anyone. What of that statement that
Margarita’s husband Heinz made, on more than one occasion, that he would take things
into his own hands, and Frederick’s guarantee the Baroness would not be back, the
scorned Lorenz, or the unstable Dora? After
reviews by numerous people, with little real evidence, the general conclusion is that
Lorenz killed the Baroness and Philippson, perhaps with the help of Frederick and Dora.
There was one more attempt at establishing a
penal colony on the southern tip of Isabella in 1946.
However, as in the past little supervision was provided, and by 1958 a breakout was
easily planned and carried out by about 40 inmates. They
eventually confiscated a fishing boat and a small yacht, and sailed with 21 men for
Columbia. There they were captured and sent
back to Quito. The penal colony was removed
the next year and thankfully this use of the islands was ended.
The final colonization effort, coming from
the outside of Ecuador, was attempted in 1960 by a relatively unschooled thirty-five year
old science fiction addict from Seattle. He
called his dream the “Filiate Science Antrose” He was an atheist, racist, and an
anti-government type person who wanted to create a utopia for scientific investigation, as
a service to the world. Somehow, he got a university professor to support him, and with
his backing advertised for participants – and had over 300 applicants! Perhaps that was because he indicated there would
be free love and equality for all. Out of
that number he chose 106 people from all walks of life, each of which was to pay a $2,500
membership fee. With this money they were
going to buy 20-60,000 hectares of land on Isabella, grow pineapples and cacao, and also
sell biologic specimens. They seemed to have forgotten that the Islands belonged to
Ecuador and that they might have some concerns about such a venture. In fact, Ecuador had only recently made the
Islands a National Park, and had not yet drawn up the necessary regulations on the private
ownership of land. They arrived in March, and hoped to catch a boat full of lobsters to
send back to the States, for a profit of $40,000. The
only trouble was that they couldn’t catch many lobsters, and their refrigeration
system on the boat failed. They then bought a
refrigeration plant, but it was not working, and couldn’t be fixed – someone
really saw them coming! In addition, this
was all happening right after Castro had taken over Cuba, so the leftists on the mainland
were very resentful of the capitalists taking over their islands. When a second contingent
was about to leave Seattle, the ship was stopped by the Coast Guard for being unsafe for
the number of people it was carrying – so many had to get off. On the trip south, for a lack of leadership, chaos
reigned on this ship. By the time they got to
Isabella, all was in turmoil and they found the first group was ready to return home,
saying they had been duped, and were bankrupt. Everyone
was very bitter. They all eventually boarded both ships and left in January of 1961. On the way home, one boat sank, but thankfully all
were saved.
The only successful colonization effort was
made by another German family in 1935 on Santa Cruz Island.
This involved the four Angermeyer brothers. Their
parents sold their home in Germany so that they could buy a boat that would allow the
brothers to get away from Hitler by sailing to the Galapagos Islands. Some of their descendents still live on the
Island operating a yacht rental and a hotel in Puerto Ayora. Johanna, a daughter of one of
the brothers wrote a book about their exploits entitled My Father’s Island. She now lives in England, but still spends time on
Santa Cruz.
Thankfully
for the Islands, the colonization days are over.
VII Conclusions
Even though the colonization days are over,
overpopulation and over-fishing are still major problems for this most important natural
treasure. The fishing problem in this case involves the excessive harvesting of sharks and
sea cucumbers, both of which are sold to Japan in large numbers as aphrodisiacs and other
medicinal cures. The local fishermen are demanding their right to fish as they wish, and
the government seems to have neither the will nor the means to stop them. The feral animals, currently mostly goats, are
still ravaging several of the islands, making life very tough for the tortoises,
especially on Isabella. There has been some
improvement on some islands. Goats and dogs
have been removed from several of the smaller islands, and the Charles Darwin Research
Center has a successful tortoise breeding and egg hatching program that has allowed them
to release about 2000 tortoises back into the wild.
We were told recently that there are again about 20,000 tortoises in the Galapagos
Islands, but of course several species had already become extinct by the time any effort
was made to save them.
One writer, native to the Islands, tried to
explain the rationale of those 18th and 19th century visitors. She noted that they only killed for their own
subsistence, and at that time they viewed these resources as endless. In addition, they
considered the natural world as almost an adversary, as a threat to their survival, and
they certainly knew nothing of ecology or the balance that exists in nature, or for that
matter that they too were part of that balance. She
further laments the coming of modernization, of the associated greed, of the hotels and
roads that are being built. She notes that
her neighbors are changing from relaxed residents to aggressive businessmen. As a crowning blow, she indicated that a local
lagoon is now so regulated with dikes that the tides are only allowed to raise and fall
under the supervision of the hotel staff. It
sounds as if colonialization has been replaced by industrialization, and of course,
tourism. Our poor Mr. Darwin must be rolling
over in his grave.
References
-
Angermeyer,
J., 1989, My father’s Island, Urchin Press, 303p.
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Beebe,
W., 1924, Galapagos, World’s End, G.P. Putnam’s & Sons, New York, 441p.
-
LaTorre,
O., 1990, The Curse of the Giant Tortoise, printed in Ecuador, 237p.
-
Moore,
T. de R., 1980, Galapagos: Islands Lost in Time, Viking Press, New York, 71p.
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