Matthew Alexander Henson was a pioneering African American Arctic explorer whose seamanship, craftsmanship, and mastery of polar travel helped make Robert E. Peary’s expeditions possible. On April 6, 1909, he was among the six men who reported reaching the North Pole. Henson recalled traveling ahead of Peary and finding that his footprints were the first at the spot they identified as the Pole.
Henson was born on August 8, 1866, in Charles County, Maryland. His parents were African American sharecroppers. His family moved to Washington, D.C., during his childhood, and his mother died when he was seven. Orphaned at a young age, he spent part of his childhood with relatives and attended school in Washington.
As a boy, Henson went to Baltimore and set sail. Biographical accounts say he joined the merchant ship Katie Hines as a cabin boy at about twelve, under a captain named Childs, who encouraged his education and taught him seamanship. Henson’s own memoir recalls that he subsequently became an able-bodied seaman and traveled to China, Japan, the Philippines, North Africa, Spain, France and southern Russia.
By 1887, Henson was working in a Washington shop when he met Peary, a civil engineer in the United States Navy. Impressed by his sea experience, Peary hired him to join a canal-surveying expedition to Nicaragua. It was the beginning of a working relationship that would last more than two decades.
Learning to Travel in the Arctic
Henson first traveled to Greenland with Peary in 1891. Over the following eighteen years, he accompanied him on a series of Arctic expeditions, developing the practical knowledge that made him much more than an assistant. He worked as a carpenter, mechanic, hunter, interpreter and dog-team driver, building and repairing sleds and helping keep the expeditions moving through difficult conditions.
He gained expertise through close contact with the Inuit communities of northwestern Greenland. He learned their language and methods of hunting, dressing, building snow shelters, and traveling over ice. These were not incidental additions to the expeditions’ equipment: Inuit knowledge and labor were fundamental to their survival. Henson formed enduring friendships within these communities and became known as Mahri-Pahluk, commonly translated as “Matthew the Kind One.”
In his memoir, Henson wrote:
“I have come to love these people. I know every man, woman, and child… They are my friends and they regard me as theirs.”
Henson became an exceptionally accomplished dog-team driver. In the introduction to his memoir, Booker T. Washington quoted Peary’s assessment that Henson could handle a sled better than any living man except some of the most skilled Inuit hunters. His ability rested on years of experience and knowledge learned from Arctic residents.
The 1908–1909 Expedition
On July 6, 1908, Henson and Peary sailed from New York aboard Roosevelt for their final expedition together. The ship reached Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island in September, where the expedition spent the winter preparing for the journey north.
The undertaking depended on a much larger community than the six men who would make the final journey. Inuit men hunted, drove dog teams, and transported supplies, while women prepared the fur clothing essential for travel in extreme cold. Supporting parties carried provisions north and returned in stages, leaving a smaller group to continue towards the Pole.
After preparations along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, the polar journey began from Cape Columbia in March 1909. The travelers faced severe cold, broken pressure ice and stretches of open water that could halt their progress or threaten their route home.
For the final stage, Peary selected Henson and four Inuit men: Ootah, Egingwah, Seegloo and Ooqueah, using the spellings recorded in the expedition accounts. Their experience as hunters and dog drivers was essential to the journey.
Henson frequently traveled in the lead, breaking the trail. He later said that he had passed the location subsequently identified as the Pole before Peary arrived. In a newspaper account quoted by later writers, he recalled:
“I was in the lead that had overshot the mark by a couple of miles. We went back then and I could see that my footprints were the first at the spot.”
The party recorded April 6, 1909, as the date of its arrival. Henson’s memoir describes Peary planting an American flag on top of his igloo and taking observations to establish their position.
Their claim became one of the most enduring controversies in exploration history. Peary received official recognition, but questions remained about his navigational records and the distances reportedly covered during the final stages.
Recognition Delayed
After the expedition returned, Peary received the greater share of national acclaim. Henson lectured about his experiences and received recognition within African American communities, but his contribution did not bring him comparable standing or financial security.
In 1912, he published A Negro Explorer at the North Pole, with a foreword by Peary and an introduction by Booker T. Washington. The book records both the hardships of Arctic travel and the many responsibilities Henson carried during the expeditions.
In February 1913, President William Howard Taft appointed him to a suitable position in the federal service. Henson began work as a messenger at the U.S. Custom House in New York City and later became a chief clerk. He retired in November 1936 after his position was abolished and received a pension for 23 years of service.
Wider recognition came gradually. In 1937, Henson became the first African American admitted to the Explorers Club, which later elected him an honorary member. Congress authorized the Peary Polar Expedition Medal for him in 1944, and Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower welcomed him to the White House. He also worked with Bradley Robinson on the 1947 biography Dark Companion.
Family and Descendants
Henson married Eva Flint in 1891. They divorced in 1897 after years marked by his prolonged absences on expeditions. In 1907, he married Lucy Jane Ross, who remained his wife for the rest of his life. They had no children together.
During his years in Greenland, Henson had a relationship with an Inuk woman named Akatingwah. They had a son, Anauakaq, born in 1906. After leaving the Arctic in 1909, Henson never saw Akatingwah or their son again.
In 1986, S. Allen Counter, a Harvard scientist and explorer researching Henson’s life, met Anauakaq and members of his family in Greenland. The following year, Counter arranged for Anauakaq and Peary’s Greenland-born son, Kali, to visit the United States and meet their American relatives. Anauakaq died later in 1987, but members of his family attended the ceremonies honoring his father at Arlington the following year. Counter told this story in North Pole Legacy: Black, White and Eskimo.
An Enduring Legacy
Henson died in New York City on March 9, 1955, aged eighty-eight, and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Lucy was buried there after her death in 1968.
Following Counter’s campaign for greater recognition, President Ronald Reagan approved an exception to Arlington National Cemetery’s burial policy. On April 6, 1988, the remains of Matthew and Lucy Henson were reinterred at Arlington, Virginia, near the graves of Robert and Josephine Peary. Members of Henson’s extended American family and his Inuit descendants attended the commemoration.
Further honors followed. In 1986, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Henson and Peary. The oceanographic survey ship USNS Henson was launched in October 1996 and entered service in February 1998. In 2000, the National Geographic Society posthumously awarded Henson its highest honor, the Hubbard Medal.
Henson’s place in history rests on more than a disputed point on a map. His years in the Arctic demonstrated exceptional craftsmanship, adaptability and endurance. His story also highlights the Inuit expertise the expeditions depended on—and the unequal recognition that long shaped how their achievements were remembered.
Sources:
http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/matthewhenson.html#ixzz39oS0QEtk
http://www.biography.com/people/matthew-henson-9335648
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Henson
http://www.biography.com/people/matthew-henson-9335648#final-years
