Aukland Island is located 285 miles south of New Zealand, in the sub-Antarctic region. Battered by year-round freezing rain and storms with gales over fifty miles per hour, with few sources of food, it is one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
Auckland Island
At midnight on January 3, 1864, the Grafton, a two-masted schooner, was caught in a raging sea, with howling wind and rain, and her hull smashed onto the reefs along the southeastern coast of Auckland Island. The five men on the ship survived, but they were marooned on the island. All five were finally rescued in August of 1865. Their little shipwreck society of five men had endured for 19 months.
On May 11, 1864, the Invercauld, an 888-ton Scottish square-rigger, was wrecked in a rough cove on the northwestern coast of Auckland Island. Of the 25 crew members, 19 made it ashore. When they were finally rescued, one year later, only three had survived.
This looks like an almost perfect natural experiment in the formation of unintentional communities. Two wrecks at the same time and place threw the castaways into a state of nature with no system of government or laws over them, forcing them to organize themselves into two different groups for over a year. As measured by the rate of survival, the Grafton society was successful, because all five of the original members survived; but the Invercauld society was a failure, because only three of the original nineteen members survived. What explains the differential survival of these two groups?
Although many factors come into play, the most evident difference was that the Grafton society was cooperative and harmonious, while the Invercauld society was divided by competition and hostility.
According to John Locke, this shows us the two sides of human nature that are expressed in the state of nature. Human beings are naturally inclined to cooperate with one another in groups that are mutually beneficial for all. But they are also naturally inclined to turn against one another in ways that create disorder, in which human life becomes "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," in the famous words of Thomas Hobbes.
What were the conditions that allowed the Grafton society to manifest the good side of human nature, while the Invercauld society manifested the bad side?
For answering that question, the best book that interweaves the stories of the two groups is Joan Druett's Island of the Lost: An Extraordinary Story of Survival at the Edge of the World. Druett was a novelist as well as a maritime historian, and her book is written in her engaging novelistic style.
In his book Blueprint, Nicholas Christakis relies heavily on Druett's book. But like a good social scientist, Christakis integrates her story into a systematic survey of twenty-four shipwreck societies from 1500 to 1900, which he studies as natural experiments for testing his biological theory of human social nature as based on a social suite of eight innate capacities at the core of all societies. Christakis' theory is similar to my theory of the twenty natural desires of human biological nature (Christakis 2019: 19-58).
The Grafton crew of five men came from five different countries and speaking four different languages. The captain was Thomas Musgrave (American, age thirty). Francois Raynal (French, age thirty-three) was the mate. The three seamen were Alexander McLaren (Norwegian, age twenty-eight), George Harris (English, age twenty), and Henry Forges (Portuguese, age twenty-eight). Both Musgrave and Raynal kept journals that were later published, which provided most of the information we have about their experience.
The nineteen men who survived the wreck of the Invercauld consisted of the captain, the two officers, ten seamen, the cook, the steward, the boatswain, the carpenter, and the two ship's boys. By August of 1864, three months from the time the Invercauld was wrecked, only four men were alive: the captain, George Dalgarno, the first mate, Andrew Smith, the second mate, James Mahoney, and a twenty-three-year-old seaman, Robert Holding. On August 12, 1864, Mahoney died, leaving only three men, who would be rescued on May 22, 1865, twelve months and ten days after the wrecking of the ship. Dalgarno and Smith wrote some short accounts of their experience. But the most detailed narrative was written by Holding, many years later when he was eighty-six.
Of the many factors that shaped the social life of these two shipwreck societies, ten stand out: leadership, individual character, cooperation in a division of labor, friendship, social learning and teaching, religion, the absence of women and children, food, technology and material resources, and weather.
1. Leadership. On the Grafton, Musgrave as the captain and Raynal as the mate were the leaders of the crew. On the island, they continued to act as leaders. When the group first made it to land, they were unable to find either shelter or food, and so they foresaw that they were likely to die there from starvation and exposure to the bad weather. They sat around a fire, lamenting their fate and falling into deep depression. Raynal tried to boost their spirits by pointing out that the wrecked ship had planks, rope, and canvas that could be used to build a hut, and he told them that getting to work was the only sensible response to their difficult situation. They all agreed to this. Musgrave then began assigning different jobs to the men, so that they could work together in building a house and finding food. In his journal, Raynal wrote that the constant working on various projects "left us little leisure to think of our misfortunes."
By contrast, after the wreck of the Invercauld, Captain Dalgarno was too paralyzed with fear and depression to show any leadership. When the 19 survivors reached land, they gathered a few planks from the wreckage to throw together a teepee-like lean-to on the beach where they had landed. They stayed there for five days and nights without making any plans. During the day, the men wandered aimlessly, eating whatever fish or plants they could find. Robert Holding decided that if he was to survive, he would have to rely on his own resourcefulness, without any help from the others.
When the boatswain first suggested that they should draw lots to see who should die, so that the others could eat him, Holding said he would never become a cannibal. But thinking that others might be considering murdering him, he ran away. In fact, some of the men did eat from the corpses of those who died.
Later, after Musgrave had read Dalgarno's description of how his men had lived on the island, Musgrave wrote in a letter that Dalgarno's story "proves that there has been no unity amongst them, neither has the Captain attempted (or he has not been able) to hold any authority or influence over them; to which cause I attribute the great number of their deaths."
We should notice that of the three people of the Invercauld crew who survived to be rescued, two were officers (Captain Delgardo and first mate Smith). Holding was the only ordinary seaman to survive. High rank has its benefits.
Showing the leadership that Delgardo lacked, Musgrave organized his men in salvaging useful material and tools from the wreck of the Grafton. With this, they built a tent as shelter. Musgrave knew, however, that winter in the Southern Hemisphere would be coming in a few months, and that they would need to build a house if they were going to survive all through the winter. They began to build a hut. From Raynal's experience in the goldfields of Australia, he had learned how to build huts out of tree branches and to construct adobe chimneys. By February 2, one month after their arrival on the island, the men had built a large cabin with a chimney. But it needed to be weatherproofed with straw thatching. By March 27, the thatching of the house was completed. The house even had glass windows.
In the house there was a long dining table in the center and a smaller table that Musgrave could use as a desk. Musgrave and Raynal occupied the north end of the house, the three seamen occupied the opposite end, with a cook's table and other furniture.
This division of the house--one half for the captain and his officer, the other half for the three ordinary seamen--replicated the organization of accommodations on board the ship. By tradition, the captain and his mate lived in a cabin in the stern of the ship, while the rest of the crew lived in the crowed forecastle.
On the island, however, the seamen did not necessarily agree that the shipboard ranking should be preserved. Druett observed: "Since they had been cast ashore, a mood of democracy had prevailed in the party, each man being considered as important as the rest" (2007: 72). Musgrave noticed this, and it bothered him. Writing on February 7, 1864, only a month after the wreck, he complained:
"Up to the present time, the men have worked well, and conducted themselves in a very obedient and respectful manner towards me; but I find there is somewhat of a spirit of obstinacy and independence creeping in amongst them. It is true I no longer hold any command over them, but I share everything that has been saved from the wreck in common with them, and I have worked as hard as any of them in trying to make them comfortable, and think gratitude ought to prompt them to still continue willing and obedient. . . . They have not as yet objected to do anything that I have told them to do, but they did it in that manner which says plainly, Why don't you do it yourself?" (Musgrave 1866: 11-12).
After they had built the house, designed to replicate the shipboard ranking of officers above seamen, Raynal sensed the resentment of the seamen against being ruled by the officers, and he feared that this would break up the harmonious unity of their little society. He decided that they needed to replace their informal governmental structure with a written constitution for a government to which all could explicitly consent. It's worth quoting at length his account of his plan:
"It was not enough to provide for the material needs of life; its moral wants also claimed our attention. Assuredly we had lived together since our shipwreck in peace and harmony--I may even say in true and honest brotherhood; yet it had sometimes happened that one or the other had yielded to a fit of temper, and let drop an unkind word, which naturally provoked a not less disagreeable repartee. But if habits of bitterness and animosity were once established amongst us, the consequences could not but be most disastrous: we stood so much in need of one another! Was not this demonstrated in the erection of our hut, to which each of us, according to his capacity, had contributed his best? It was evident that we had no strength except in union, that discord and division must be our ruin. Yet man is so feeble that reason, and self-respect, and even the considerations of self-interest, do not always suffice to keep him in the path of duty. An external regimen is necessary, a strict and formal discipline, to protect him against his own weakness."
"I revolved these thoughts in my mind during a part of the night. On the following morning, I communicated them to my companions, as well as the plan I had conceived for ensuring the preservation of order and peace in our little community. My idea was that we should choose among us, not a master or a superior, but a 'head' or 'chief of the family,' tempering the legal and indisputable authority of the magistrate by the affectionate condescension of a father, or, rather, of an elder brother."
"His duties would be:
"1. To maintain with gentleness, but also with firmness, order and harmony among us:
"2. By his prudent advice to put aside every subject of discussion which might lead to controversy:
"3. In case any serious dispute arose in his absence, the parties to it were immediately to bring it before him; then, assisted by the counsel of those who had held aloof, he was to adjudicate upon the matter, stating who was in the right, and reprimanding him who was in error. If the latter, disregarding the sentence pronounced, persisted in his wrong, he would be excluded from the community, and condemned to live alone in another part of the island, for a longer or shorter period, according to the gravity of his fault:
"4. The chief of the family would direct the hunting expeditions, as well as all other labors; he would set to each man his appointed task, without himself excused from giving a good example by the strict discharge of his own duty:
"5. In urgent circumstances, he would not be allowed to give a decision without the assent of all, or, at least, a majority of his comrades.
"This project was much approved by my companions, who felt, as I did, that necessity of organizing our little society, and, after adding the following clause, they adopted it unanimously:
"6. The community reserves to itself the right of deposing the chief of the family, and electing another, if at any time he shall abuse his authority, or employ it for personal and manifestly selfish purposes.
"This last clause was a prudent precaution against the despotic tendencies which develop themselves in almost every person whom the confidence of his equals has invested with authority. It was of easy application, and, consequently, of assured efficacy, since the president of our little republic possessed no 'standing army' to support his ambition. I must add, however, that throughout the time we lived together we had no occasion to act upon it.
"Without delay, our ideal scheme of government was written out on one of the blank leaves in Musgrave's Bible--we read it formally every Sunday before prayers--and then all of us, placing our hands on the sacred volume, swore to obey and respect it. We performed this action seriously, and in good faith. It was no empty ceremony. Each of us felt there was a certain solemnity in this voluntary engagement of our conscience, which we had called God to witness.
"It now remained for us to elect our chief. I proposed Musgrave, who was our senior, and a unanimous assent was given to the proposition.
"Thenceforth he sat at the head of the table, and was released from all share in the work of cooking, which was undertaken by Alick, George, Harry, and myself; each discharging the important duties of cook for a week at a time" (Raynal 1874: 151-54).
Here we see how people with equal liberty in a Lockean state of nature establish government by a social contract to which all must consent, but with the proviso that they may withdraw their consent if the ruler becomes despotic, and they can select a new ruler that they trust.
Considering the obvious importance of this "ideal scheme of government" for the Grafton society, it is strange that while Raynal devotes a long section of his book to explaining it, Musgrave says nothing about it in his book. I wonder whether Musgrave's silence implies that he didn't like the idea that his authority depended on the consent of the group, and that it could be withdrawn if he lost that consent.
This is what Christakis identifies as "mild hierarchy" in his social suite. In every society, human beings are naturally inclined to recognize some people as having high rank, with the right to rule over them. But this is a "mild" hierarchy insofar as all individual adults are equal in their right to consent to this and in their right to withdraw their consent when the ruler becomes oppressive.
This is what I identify as the natural desire for political rule. Human beings are by nature political animals, because they naturally live in social systems that require (at least occasionally) central coordination by leaders to which all or most people have consented (either implicitly or explicitly).
One of the primary reasons that the Grafton society was more successful than the Invercauld society is that the men of the Grafton established a clear social order of central coordination by rulers.
2. Individual character. Each person in these two societies had his own individual personality with a unique set of moral and intellectual traits. The social success or failure of these groups depended on the interaction of these individuals. As it happened, the Grafton society had in general men of better character than those in the Invercauld society. The social importance of individuality is what Christakis calls "the capacity to have and recognize individual identity."
3. Cooperation in the division of labor. The Grafton society made use of this individuality by having the men cooperate in a division of labor, so that different jobs were assigned to different individuals according to their talents and temperaments. For example, the Norwegian McLaren was recognized as an unusually strong and skillful swimmer; and so when they needed a good swimmer, he was chosen. Raynal was skillful in using and making tools, and so he specialized in that. Each man did whatever he was best at doing. This belongs to "cooperation" in Christakis' social suite.
4. Friendship. It was easy for the Grafton men to cooperate with one another because they became friends. They enjoyed one another's companionship, and they felt a deep sense of comradery. Friendship belongs to Christakis' social suite, and it's one of my 20 natural desires.
5. Social learning and teaching. The social suite also includes the capacity for social learning and teaching. This was seen in the Grafton group. Raynal foresaw that after their daily work was finished, they would often have free time, especially in the evenings. He proposed that they establish "evening school, for mutual instruction" (Raynal 1874: 159). Harry and Alick could neither read nor write. The other three men could teach them. Harry and Alick could in return teach their native languages, of which the other three were ignorant. George wanted to be taught mathematics. Raynal could teach French. They began doing this every evening. Raynal said that "we were alternately the masters and pupils of one another." This teaching and learning "still further united us; by alternately raising and lowering us one above the other, they really kept us on a level, and created a perfect equality amongst us" (159-60). This could also be seen as manifesting what I have called the natural desire for intellectual understanding.
6. Religion. Every Sunday, they had someone read aloud from the Bible; and they would pray. As indicated, they also swore their allegiance to their constitution after it was read from the text in Musgrave's Bible. Raynal reports:
"We belonged to different communions; but who bethought themselves of such divisions? How utterly were they all effaced! How every barrier was broken down! The five of us were now of the same belief, the same faith--that of the man who finds himself alone, face to face with the Creator, with the Being infinite and all-powerful, and who humbly confides to Him his troubles, his wants, and his hopes" (105).
At one point, Musgrave read some passages from the Gospels. "At these words, 'Come to Me, all ye who suffer, and I will comfort you,' and at this command, 'Love one another,' we burst into tears."
Christakis does not include religion in his social suite. But I include the natural desire for religious understanding.
7. Absence of women and children. There were no women or children in either of these two groups, unlike any normal human society. The men did often speak about the suffering of being separated from their families. Musgrave, in particular, constantly worried about what had happened to his wife and children in Australia. Their natural desire for familial bonding--or for what Christakis calls "love for partners and offspring"--was frustrated during their time on the island.
From another point of view, however, it might have been good for them that there were no women in their groups. If there had been an imbalance in the sex ratio--perhaps more men than women--this could have provoked the men into fighting over sexual mates. (This is what happened in the famous case of those mutineers on the Bounty, who settled on the Pitcairn Island with women they had taken from Tahiti.)
8. Food. The greatest threat to their health came from starvation and poor nutrition. The men of the Grafton were lucky in that they landed on the island during one of the two periods in the year when seals and seal lions were plentiful, which were a primary source of food. The men of the Invercauld were unlucky in landing when these animals could not be found, and they became desperate in their search for food.
9. Tools and materials. The men of the Grafton were also lucky in that their wrecked ship remained stuck on rocks along the shoreline, which allowed them to salvage from the ship many tools and valuable materials (such as wood and copper). This toolkit and the collection of materials made them successful in fishing, hunting, building structures, and making clothing and shoes. By contrast, the men of the Invercauld were remarkably unlucky when their ship was totally destroyed, and so they retrieved very little from the ship.
10. Weather. Another stroke of good luck for the Grafton group is that they arrived on the island in the Southern Hemisphere's summer, with four months to prepare for what they knew would be a harsh winter. The Invercauld group had the misfortune of arriving at the beginning of winter with no time to prepare for the severe winter weather.
These ten factors constitute the conditions for any naturally good society--on Auckland Island or anywhere else.
REFERENCES
Christakis, Nicholas. 2019. Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society. New York: Little, Brown Spark.
Druett, Joan. 2007. Island of the Lost: An Extraordinary Story of Survival at the Edge of the World. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonguin Books.
Musgrave, Thomas. 1866. Castaway on the Auckland Isles: A Narrative of the Wreck of the 'Grafton' and of the Escape of the Crew After Twenty Months' Suffering. London: Lockwood and Company.
Raynal, F. E. 1874. Wrecked on a Reef: Or, Twenty Months Among the Auckland Isles. London: T. Nelson and Sons.
Great account of a dramatic demonstration. We really do know something about human nature and civil society! Now I'll read Druett's book. I'm a little surprised this has never before come to my attention. Thanks.
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