Roy Chapman Andrews: Thief of Time — Part 1

Posted on October 13, 2006 in Commons Theft

Reading Charles Gallenkamp’s Dragon Hunter: Roy Chapman Andrews and the Central Asiatic Expeditions brings to mind my ire when I saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Indiana Jones — who some say was based on Andrews — finds himself amid a horrific Thugee cult which has the evil plan to drive the Christian god out of India. Sacrifice upon sacrifice must be performed to the Black Earth Mother Kali for this to happen. In the end, all is saved by the intervention of a British column.

Though the book does not portray him as such, Andrews was an opportunist who expropriated important fossils and works of art from Asian countries wracked by revolution and civil war. Gallenkamp is incensed by intimations that Andrews acted in such a fashion — often writing off the explorer’s high-handed tantrums as merely a personality quirk, namely a short temper without examining just what thinking informed those episodes. He writes:

Andrews’ reputation has suffered from the “political correctness” mania. Various magazine writers and the authors of a catalog for a student-organized exhibition in 1991 on Andrews’ career…have lambasted him for his supposedly “patronizing” attitude towards the Mongols and Chinese. In an unrealistic effort to push history forward to reflect today’s often naive approach to such issues, Andrews has been denounced for referring to his servants and workmen as “boys” or “coolies”. Yet in Andrews’s day, these terms had been used by foreigners and Chinese alike for generations. Moreover, to anyone familiar withy the Museum’s archives pertaining to Andrews’ expeditions, it is clear that he regarded many Mongols and Chinese with genuine affection….

This is the old “they had slaves but they treated them well” defense. The fact is that Andrews’ affection — as cataloged by Gallenkamp — did not prevent him from treating Mongols and Chinese officials, supposedly his equals, with contempt whenever they failed to gratify his wishes. Furthermore, Gallenkamp ignores the movement among anthropologists contemporary to Andrews to overturn the racial profiling so common in Andrews’ time.

Andrews’ biographer goes on to contradict himself:

Like so many such ventures by colonial powers, the Central Asiatic Expeditions carried indisputable “imperialistic” overtones. Osborn, Andrews, Granger, and everyone else connected with the project never really questioned the Museum’s right to enter Mongolia and China in the name of science and carry off discoveries to enhance the American Museum’s collections. Even though there were no enforceable laws in these countries governing the removal of scientific material in the 1920s, Andrews always negotiated legitimate permits with the governments involved. Yet he was obviously caught in a difficult dilemma. His epic explorations opened the way for much of the modern scientific research in these regions, but with the advent of a Communist government in Mongolia, the approach of all-out war in China, rampant nationalism, and a fierce determination to purge the last vestiges of imperialism — clearly represented by the massive, heavily financed Central Asiatic Expeditions — Andrews found his venture swept away by a tidal wave of history.

Oh, Gallenkamp seems to say, if only he had arrived, say, shortly after the Boxer Rebellion when Euro-American power was at its greatest.

To be continued.