On Frobisher’s second voyage to the Arctic, all thoughts of the Northwest Passage were forgotten, and the quest became simply to find gold. On 31 May 1577, Frobisher sailed from Harwich with three ships and about 120 men. He captained Queen Elizabeth’s ship the Ayde, piloted by the expedition’s chronicler George Best. Aboard the three ships were a group of miners, and the artist John White who would produce the first pictures of Inuits and later would gain fame as the artist of the Raleigh’s Roanoke Colony.
They arrived at the shore of Greenland on 4 July, but ice prevented them from landing. On 17 July they reached the island from which the now famous little black stone had originally been taken that led to the gold speculation. Little additional ore was found there but on another nearby island (now Kodlunarn Island) they did discover a large quantity. While five miners and some of the crew dug ore and loaded it into the Ayde, Frobisher and a group of 40 men explored the Island.
Frobisher began by claiming this land and its supposed riches for England. In a brief ceremony, Frobisher and crew piled a cairn of stones to mark possession at the island’s highest point, which Frobisher dubbed Mount Warwick in honor of the Earl of Warwick, one of the investors in the expedition.
The land claim did not go unnoticed by the Inuit. As Best described: “… marching towards our boats, we spied a certain number of the country people on the top of Mount Warwicke with a flag, waving us back again and making a great noise, with cries like the mowing of bulls, seemingly desirous of a conference with us … “(Collinson, 1867, p.129)
Each side sent two unarmed representatives to the center of the mountain to trade. The English representatives were Frobisher and a compatriot who tried to take captive one of the Inuit’s in a prearranged plan. The man proved to be too slippery to grab and ran away, and the two Inuits recovered their weapons, and then chased the two Englishmen down the mountain to their boats, wounding Frobisher with an arrow in the buttock. A volley from the English guns sent the two fleeing, but a man named Nicolas Conyer charged after them and was able to capture one and bring him back to the boat.
Frobisher and the landing party then rowed to the other side of the island, where they were assaulted by another group of Inuit on the bluffs above them. Frobisher and his party were eventually able to land, located an abandoned village, and destroyed a group of Inuit tents. They then attacked a nearby settlement, where five or six Inuit were killed, and one Englishman was seriously wounded. The English aptly named the location “Bloody Point.”
They also captured two women and a child. One of the women they described as being so old and ugly that they were sure she must be a witch. They had “her buskins picked off to see if she had cloven feet” and they let her go when her feet proved normal. The other woman and the child were taken back to their ship (Morison, 1971, p. 523).
Best suggested that the female captive was taken on board for the comfort of their male captive: “The two were brought together, surrounded by a circle of Englishman to see what would happen.” The Inuit behaved with great dignity, and even though the two were forced to bunk together on the voyage home, they “did never use as man and wife.” (Collinson, 1867:144-145)
A few days after visiting “Bloody Point,” the crew discovered on a small island “a tomb, wherein the bones of a dead man lay together … Here they also found hid under stones a good store of fish and other things of the inhabitants including sleds, bridles, kettles of fish skins, knives of bone and such other like.” Their male captive “took in his hand one of these country bridles, he caught one of our doggies, and hampered him handsomely therein, as we do our horses, and with a whip in his hand, he taught the dog to draw a sled.” (Collinson, 1867, p. 136)
Another discovery, which gave them particular delight, was a dead narwhal on the shore with a two yard long unicorn-like nose. The horn was taken back to England and given to Queen Elizabeth, who kept it in her wardrobe, handy for bringing out to stimulate the art of bawdy conversation that she is said to have loved. (Collinson, 1867, p.136)
On 20 August, the mining work was done. The minors had gathered 200 tons of supposed gold ore while Frobisher and the others were exploring. The ice was now forming around their ship at night, signaling it was time to return home. On 22 August, after lighting bonfires and firing Volleys into the sky, Frobisher and crew headed back to England.
Once home, the ore samples were sent to a number of assessors who again produced a wide range of estimates on the amount of gold in the ore. Several reported no sign of gold, while others claimed it contained up to ten profitable ounces of gold per hundred pounds. The Queen chose to believe the highest estimate, and incredibly, another larger expedition was organized without any ore having been processed.
Illustration:
A painting by John White of a violent encounter with Inuit during the second Arctic voyage of Martin Frobisher. (British Museum, London) https://www.worldhistory.org/image/12371/inuit-skirmish-by-john-white/
Bibliography:
Collinson, R. (1867) The three voyages of Martin Frobisher, in search of a passage to Cathaia and India by the North-west, A.D. 1576-8. Reprinted from the first ed. of Hakluyt’s Voyages, with selections from manuscript documents in the British Museum and State Paper Office. Hakluyt Society, London.
Cooke, A. (2003) Frobisher, Sir Martin. In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography,vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/frobisher_martin_1E.html.
McCoy, R.M. (2014a) Explorer Martin Frobisher infects the Queen with gold fever. Part 1. Explorer’s tales. https://www.newworldexploration.com/explorers-tales-blog/archives/08-2014
McCoy, R.M. (2014b) Explorer Martin Frobisher infects the Queen with gold fever. Part 2. Explorer’s tales. https://www.newworldexploration.com/explorers-tales-blog/explorer-martin-frobisher-infects-the-queen-with-gold-fever-part-2
McFee, W. (1928) Sir Martin Frobisher. John Lane the Bodley Head LTD: London
Catalysts of trade and exploration 
Nicely done!
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