When the Australian naturalist and lawyer Morton Alport died in 1878, one obituary praised the man as “the foremost scientist in the colony,” as indicated by his position as Vice President of the Royal Society of Tasmania (RST) at the time of his death, along with numerous other international honors. However, according to a new research paper published in the Archives of Natural History, Alport’s esteemed reputation was based less on his scientific merit and more on his practice of sending valuable samples of Tasmanian tigers (thylacines) and remains of indigenous people to European collectors in exchange for scientific accolades. Alport acknowledges this in his private correspondence, preserved in the State Library of Tasmania, as well as directing efforts to rob graves to obtain those human remains.
The History of the Tasmanian Devil
Tasmanian devils have been extinct since 1936, but at one time they were the largest living carnivorous marsupials. Europeans first settled Tasmania in 1803 and viewed the thylacines as a threat, accusing the animals of killing their sheep. They did not perceive the indigenous people in a more favorable light, and there were conflicts resulting from the settlers displacing the indigenous population and increasing competition for food. In 1830, a farming company placed initial bounties on Tasmanian tigers, and the government implemented its own bounty in 1888. (Ashby writes that the dogs raised by the settlers to hunt kangaroos are the real sheep killers).
Morton Alport and the Trade of Remains
Alport’s letters serve as evidence of how he significantly invested in developing his scientific reputation – particularly in gaining recognition from scientific communities – by supplying human and animal remains from Tasmania in a reciprocal agreement, rather than through his own scientific efforts. Alport wrote about how he helped assemble a complete collection of Tasmanian mammal specimens for the RST museum, “and I would gladly do the same for any of the English societies if I were elected a Fellow in return. Is that possible?” It was highly possible. Alport was a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and the Zoological Society and the Royal Botanical Society. He was a Corresponding Member of the Royal Anthropological Institute (elected after providing a skeleton of an indigenous person) and a lifetime member of insect and mollusk societies, as well as a foreign member of numerous continental scientific societies, in addition to other honors.
The Trade in Human Remains
In addition to contributing more Tasmanian tiger specimens to museums in the UK and continental Europe than any other known donor, Alport claimed to be the “chief source” of indigenous remains to Europe. European scientists coveted these human specimens, making grave robbing a common practice. Alport was involved in such efforts, as evidenced by his 1872 letter to the skull scientist Joseph Barnard Davis. “I can assure you that I never tires too much to make sure that the bones were extracted from a place where only the indigenous people were buried,” he wrote. The German national Amali Dietrich had no problems asking Queensland settlers to shoot an indigenous man for her own collection.
Consequences of the Trade in Remains
Unlike the Tasmanian tigers, the Tasmanian indigenous people did not go extinct, but at that time, a native man named William Lani was believed to be the last Tasmanian man. When he died in 1869, his body was deemed a valuable specimen. Lani’s body was taken to the “dead house” in the hospital where both Alport (who wanted the body for RST) and William Crowther, another natural collector wishing to send the remains to London, claimed the remains. When the Colonial Secretary decided in favor of Alport, Crowther and his son broke into the hospital, removed Lani’s skull, and replaced it with the skull of a white man they had taken from another body.
Response
Alport requested a partner to remove the feet and hands of Lani, considering it not defilement since the remains were already damaged. Lani’s body was buried, but the grave was not guarded. Of course, Crother attempted to steal the body, but he found an empty coffin containing only the skull of a white man. It was the same partner of Alport who had removed Lani’s body, brought it to the hospital, and “removed his bones,” according to Ashby.
Impact of Trade on Indigenous Peoples
Alport later tried to recover Lani’s skull and wrote a letter to a colleague at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCSE), which was rumored to be keeping Lani’s skull and two vertebrae. Alport almost acknowledged that RST was holding Lani’s skeleton in that letter, stating that “the best bones are in the RST museum” – and offered to provide those bones to the RCSE until the skeleton was complete. The college did not have the skull. It may have ended up in the RCSE collection or with the University of Edinburgh, but it has not been officially identified by either.
An Indigenous woman named Truganini was the female counterpart of Lani. She died in 1876 and requested that her body be cremated to avoid ending up in a museum collection. This request was not honored. She was buried in the women’s prison factory, and within two years, RST – with Alport now serving as vice president – secretly exhumed the body and turned her skeleton into a traveling exhibit, before being displayed in the Tasmanian Museum between 1904 and 1947.
Impact of Trade on Human History
The collection of the Cambridge University Museum, where Ashby works, holds 40 Australian mammals and 11 birds donated by Alport, including nine Tasmanian tiger skins sent in 1869 and 1871. Ashby stated: “Although Alport didn’t send any human remains to Cambridge, I cannot look at these Tasmanian tiger skins without thinking about the human story connected to them. It shows how natural history samples are not just scientific data – they also reflect significant moments in human history, many of which were tragically violent.”
Source: arstechnica.com
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