Black History Month Heroes You Should Know: Matthew Henson
Happy Black History Month! This is the 13th blog of a series of blogs called “Black History Month Heroes You Should Know”. Each blog focuses on the life and career of a Black American whose life has shaped American history.
The focus of today’s blog is Matthew Henson, an explorer who became the co-discoverer of the North Pole.
Early Life
Born in 1866 to freeborn Black sharecroppers, Matthew Henson lost both of his parents in childhood (Biography). After his mother passed, the family moved to Washington D.C. Unfortunately, a few years after that, Henson’s father died and he and his siblings were taken care of by other family members. But, when Henson was just 11 years old, he left home to find work at a restaurant (Biography).
Life At Sea
Shortly after, he found work as a cabin boy on a ship called Katie Hines (Biography). The captain of the ship, Captain Childs, took him under his wing and provided him with an education. This included how to captain a ship. This experience led Henson to his next opportunity. After Captain Childs died, Henson came back to Washington D.C. and met an explorer named Robert Edwin Peary. Peary was so impressed by Henson’s ship experience, he hired him for his next voyage to Nicaragua (Biography).
Expeditions Begin
Over the next few years, Henson got married to Eva Flint and traveled with Peary to Nicaragua and many times to Greenland (Biography). There, Henson learned language and survival skills from the indigenous people of the area. On one expedition, they collected meteorites and eventually sold them to the American Museum of Natural History. The money they earned funded their future trips (Biography).
Discovering The North Pole…
Ultimately, Henson traveled so much that it affected his marriage. His wife, Eva divorced him in 1897 (Biography). After this, Henson and Peary attempted several times to travel to the North Pole, with some attempts being quite tragic after losing team members to starvation. For their 1905 expedition, they had the funding and resources from President Theodore Roosevelt himself. But even that turned unsuccessful when the ice forced them to turn back. The pair of explorers and their team finally reached the North Pole in 1909 (Biography).
Life After The Last Expedition
However, afterward, Peary was applauded for his triumph for a while, while Henson’s contributions were overlooked (Biography). Many people started to doubt the verifiability of their expedition, many thought it never happened. It is still unclear if these doubts are valid or not… Years later, in 1912, Henson wrote the memoir A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. He became a member of the Explorers Club in New York and was honored with a Congressional Medal in 1944 for the expedition. Henson passed away in 1955 (Biography).
Source: Biography
READ NEXT: Black History Month Heroes You Should Know: Barbara Smith
