It seems like something out of a science fiction horror film, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s a true story. The Franklin Expedition set sail in 1845, only to have all 129 men die off in a horrendous fashion. Some died from starvation, some possibly died from scurvy or lead poisoning or other diseases. In 1848, the crew, now already reduced to 105 men, abandoned The Erebus and The Terror. They began the arduous and treacherous journey across the Arctic in hopes of being rescued. As the crew continued to die off, the remaining alive men resorted to cannibalism.

Cannibalism is not unheard of in dire situations. Take a look at the Donner Party, for example. The Donner Party was a group of American Pioneers who were traveling West, but ended up becoming stranded in the Sierra Nevadas during the winter and resorted to cannibalism of those who had already died from disease or starvation. So it is not surprising that a similar situation arose within the Franklin Expedition.

One account from 1869 remembers one body’s hands were cut off while others “had their flesh cut off as if some one or other had cut it off to eat.” Evidence of decapitation is consistent but not conclusive on some of the remains. In addition, defleshing marks found on the recovered remains from an archaeological dig on King William Island in the 1990s support this notion of cannibalism. In 1992, bones cut to expose the marrow were discovered. Approximately one quarter of the recovered remains of Franklin’s men have these cut marks, indicating cannibalism.

To make the situation even more traumatic, this cannibalism was not desperate. It was methodical. Evidence shows that brains, hands, anything that was edible – was scavenged in an attempt to stay alive. These allegations of cannibalism were largely ignored by the English public as Englishmen did not eat other Englishmen. It was too horrific to accept. Most of these cannibalism allegations stemmed from Inuit accounts, so the idea that Inuits were so different from Englishmen allowed them to be ignored. They were simply discredited because the sources weren’t deemed “credible.”  Instead, English society upheld Franklin as a hero, and erected bronze statues in his honor. Accepting the fact that the crew of the Franklin Expedition resorted to cannibalism meant accepting the fact that men will return to their true animalistic nature. As much as the English tried to ignore this fact, it could not be covered up. The Franklin Expedition did resort to cannibalism, and it was gruesome.