Dear Governor Patrick:

I have recently learned of your intent to declare Oct. 1, 2012 as “John Kendrick Day” in the Commonwealth. The draft of the proclamation I have seen, written by Scott Ridley, cites Captain Kendrick’s career as a Revolutionary War privateer, and, more importantly, his role as commander of the Columbia Expedition – the first American voyage ‘round the world.

Having spent the last 17 years on the track of Kendrick and the Columbia, in libraries from Barnstable and Salem to Vancouver, London, Hong Kong and Manila, writing one novel and countless news articles, and producing an ongoing series for WGBH for which we received over a dozen grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, this is a topic in which I hold, clearly, a great deal of interest.

As a native Cape Codder who claims John Kendrick as a kinsman, who grew up on and fished the same waters of Pleasant Bay and the elbow of Cape Cod, and like him has gathered a crew from all over New England to travel to Cape Verde, the Falklands, Cape Horn, Argentina and Chile en route to the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, China and Japan, it is with great sincerity and in all seriousness that I ask you to reconsider.

Please do not proclaim Oct. 1, 2012 as “John Kendrick Day” in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

This is not a request I make lightly, and I am sure other historians expert in the topic and humanities professionals would concur with my reasoning.
I do not argue that this is a date unworthy of commemoration. Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, the ship Columbia Rediviva and its smaller consort, the sloop Lady Washington, were preparing to depart for parts unknown, in a desperate gamble to pull the local economy out of post-Revolutionary War Recession. An ad hoc syndicate composed of former war profiteers, privateers and slavers were brought together in the house of architect Charles Bulfinch (who designed the very building in which you are reading this letter), fresh from the Paris salon of Ambassador Thomas Jefferson.

The goal of this private enterprise was no less than to replace the old trade routes inside the British mercantile system from before independence with global trade with China and Pacific, making the very most of the open markets that lay before the new United States. Yankee ingenuity at its best.

And John Kendrick, born and raised on the Harwich-Orleans line, who had married in Edgartown and raised a family in Wareham, a successful privateer and whaler, was chosen to command.

What he did with that command,the legend that surrounds it, and the fact that he never returned home have been a matter of controversy. But controversies among academics alone are certainly not enough to deny a man acknowledgment.

Rather, there is a chapter to this story that is very dark. Upon two visits to what we know as Queen Charlotte Islands, off the west coast of Canada, Captain Kendrick came into conflict with the people who refer to their archipelago as Haida Gwaii.

His first visit ended in undisputed humiliation of two chiefs, the second in the deaths of scores of Haida. This, in turn, resulted in the deadly capture years later of the schooner Resolution by the Haida, with only one survivor.
Having grown up next to the last village of the Nauset tribe, and maintaining exceedingly cordial relations with the First Peoples at Nootka Sound and Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, John Kendrick’s conduct at Haida Gwaii seems oddly out of step. Why it happened remains in dispute. The result is not.

To the people of Haida Gwaii, this is a very painful episode in their history, with repercussions through the generations. Kendrick’s visits coincide with the breakdown in their traditional society. Christie Harris’ painstaking research with the Haida and their oral histories resulted in Raven’s Cry, first published in 1966. John Kendrick casts a dark shadow in the memory of the Haida. The wound is still fresh.

It is clear Mr. Ridley is very enthusiastic about his book on Captain Kendrick, and wants to spread the word far and wide, seeing this 225th anniversary as a good opportunity to do so. However, in his recent headlong hero-worship, Ridley has greatly glossed over the incidents with the Haida.

But there is another man whose opinion and expertise I ask you to consider. Robert Kennedy has served for years aboard Washington state’s official tall ship, the replica of the Lady Washington, and is a member of the Haida Nation. In response to your intended proclamation, Bob observed: “The inability of ‘history’to incorporate the impact on the Native Peoples of the Americas is, to those Native Peoples, criminal, but not unexpected.”

In approaching the story of the Columbia Expedition, I have felt there was no actor in it wearing a completely white hat. I have always been clear as to my background, my personal connection to Captain Kendrick, and my affinity for his talents as a navigator, diplomat, trader and storyteller. I still see him in the faces of the fishing fleet and the flats of Chatham every day.

But when we raise John Kendrick far above us on a pedestal, we remove him from humanity. He becomes unapproachable, inaccessible.

We diminish those who worked with him, supported him. Worse, we ignore those who still bear wounds he inflicted. I am sure you would agree there is never a better time than now for a lot more understanding and a lot less bluster. Let us move with less haste as we carve him into white marble.

For more practical terms, my own concern is that anyone, myself, my daughter and my crew included, from Massachusetts heading out to Haida Gwaii from here forward will be received in the context of your proclamation. Is this how we want Bay Staters to be known to a coastal people with a long and rich cultural tradition on the Pacific Rim? Long after you leave office, the memory of your proclamation will remain in the minds of the Haida.

However, the alternative is not to simply ignore this anniversary on Oct. 1, 2012 and the very real – and leading – role that John Kendrick played. So instead, I call upon you to instead be more inclusive and proclaim it “Columbia Day.”

Include in that the roles of all members of the Columbia Expedition. First Officer Joseph Ingraham, who served in the Massachusetts Navy and ended up as a prisoner of war on the prison ship Jersey. Robert Gray, the captain of the Washington, whose past is still in dispute. Include all the backers of the voyages: chief investor Joseph Barrell, privateer John Derby, blackbirder Crowell Hatch and refugee Samuel Brown, as well as Charles Bulfinch. You would honor Robert Haswell, the loyalist who returned to the United States to service as a junior officer and wrote the log of Columbia. The shipbuilders of Scituate, Marshfield and Essex. And the dozens of other men of Massachusetts, and their families who remained at home, and served as the foundation of our Republic.

Additionally, you would honor the people around the world who had never seen an American before. Who helped the men of Columbia on their way, curious about this new democracy and its people, and who helped her return home three years later.You would honor young Marcus Lopes, who joined at Cape Verde and certainly had no idea the hardships he would face rounding Cape Horn in the tiny sloop Washington. You would certainly spark greater interest in the whole topic of the Columbia Expedition (and not just one man), as that story still lies in shards about the globe.

In the service of history and of humanity, I humbly ask you to take a broad view of the event that commenced on that morning on the first of October 1787 off Pemberton Point in Hull. There is much good to be done by your words, and I ask you to make the very most of this anniversary.

Sincerely,

Andrew Giles Buckley

Chatham, Mass.