Essay On Franklin's Final Expedition

629 Words2 Pages

The fate of the two ships that took part in Franklin’s final expedition in 1845 has been a question pondered by Canadian and British historians for centuries. The purpose of Franklin’s mission was to explore the Canadian Artic and find a trade route to China, “Her Majesty's Government having deemed it expedient that further attempt should be made for the accomplishment of a north-west passage by sea from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean”. However, this expedition went terribly wrong as the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror as well as all of the crew disappeared without a trace and were never seen again. One of the main questions that is asked, is how did Franklin, an experience sailor who was on his third trip to the Artic, manage to have this expedition end so tragically. I believe that for a historian to find a convincing source he/she must find a strong primary source and then branch out from there. In my mind, the best primary sources are either journals or logs that came from that specific time period. I find it very helpful and very thought provoking to be able to read someone’s first had experience of how they were feeling during the event that I am researching. In addition, by reading and analyzing …show more content…

The first mention of cannibalism that I found was in an journal from 1869 that claimed, “one man's body when found by the Inuit’s flesh all on & not mutilated except the hands sawed off at the wrists – the rest a great many had their flesh cut off a s if some one or others had cut it off to eat.” Where on a different account, another Inuit was said to have seen, “is human flesh that had been boiled.” The belief that the crew on the Franklin expedition might have turned to cannibalism after they were ship wrecked and ran out of food, was a very popular theory that has been revisited since its original

Open Document