Jemmy Button

Abstract

Jemmy Button was an Indian of Tierra del Fuego who inadvertently inspired four generations of nineteenth-century English missionaries to risk their earthly lives to save his eternal soul. These earnest evangelicals made five expeditions to Jemmy's South American homeland to make Christians of him and his countrymen. One of these ventures was an embarrassing fiasco, another ended in death by starvation, and a third led to a treacherous massacre.This young Indian's unintended influence also touched evolutionary thought. Jemmy Button was a friend and companion to Charles Darwin on the famous voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. Jemmy's versatile personality was intriguing to Darwin. He could be a naked Indian hunter when in Tierra del Fuego, and a foppish English gentleman when in the company of British naval officers. His ability to change like this inspired Darwin's earliest written reflections on the human capacity to progress from savagery to civilization.