Free Soilers Failed as a Third Party and Prospects for Successful New Ones now are Dim

 

An anti-Free Soil cartoon shows party leaders as warlocks brewing up a poison pot.

Note--You would think the political chaos of the second Trump residency would invite new third party challengers to the polarized warring establishments but once promising alternatives--Libertarians on the Right and Greens on the Left have faded as adherents of each answered the call not to divide forces in an Armageddon like final battle.  Anti-Trump Republicans have failed to rally an alternative to the MAGA cult.  Instead of taking the opportunity to launch a new Socialist party on the heels of recent election triumphs, the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) are locked in an increasingly bitter battle with establishment centrists for the future of the Democratic Party. 

The history of third party movements in this country is strewn with failure, futility, and frustration.  Yet often they set the stage for great change to come.  That was certainly true of the first important third party, the Free Soilers, born on August 9, 1848 at an outdoor convention in Buffalo, New York’s Court House Park.

The party arose from the bitter debate about the status of territories recently obtained by conquest in the Mexican War.  Southern zealots wanted the whole territory including parts of Texas, New Mexico (including the future Arizona), California, and parts of the future states of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada open to slavery without reservation.  Northern states had enough power in Congress to block that.

Northern Democrats, always seeking accommodation, officially advanced the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty—letting the citizens of the new territories decide their status by popular election.  

The areas shown in tan on this map of U.S. territorial growth include Texas and the lands acquired by conquest in the Mexican War.  The Wilmont Proviso would have banned slavery from all but Texas.  It was doomed to failure in Congress, but its ardent supporters would form the nucleus off the new Free Soil Party.

This outraged anti-slavery Northern Whigs and a minority of Democrats centered in Up State New York. These factions endorsed the Wilmot Proviso as an 1846 proposed rider to an appropriation bill for the costs of negotiating a peace with Mexico.  The Proviso would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico.  Although it was defeated, advocates hoped to resurrect it in some form.

In the run-up to the 1848 Presidential Race the Whigs, always an unstable coalition of former anti-Jacksonians, side-stepped the issue in their platform but nominated war hero Zachary Taylor, a Louisiana plantation and slave owner who was presumed to be sympathetic to the extension of slavery.  Although it later turned out that Taylor was not, outraged anti-slavery Whigs centered in Massachusetts and New England began to look for alternatives.

Up-state New York Democrats dubbed Barn Burners for threatening to split the party in support of the opposition to the extension of slavery into Western territories, a policy first advanced in Congress as the Wilmont Proviso.

Meanwhile the Democrats nominated Michigan Senator Lewis Cass, the leading proponent of Popular Sovereignty leading to a similar crisis among anti-slavery elements of that party.

Things came to a head earlier in 1847 at the New York State Democratic Convention where the majority refused to endorse the Wilmot Proviso.  Almost half of the members of the convention, the so-called Barn Burners, centered in heavily anti-slavery Up State, walked out.  But they did not entirely abandon the party until Cass’s nomination.

Opponents of the Free Soil Party--and they were legion--mocked its embrace of the tiny, largely symbolic abolitionist Liberty Party. A reluctant Martin Van Buren, third from left is shown being shoved into the arms of Negros by Democratic Barn burners and Boston Whig snobs.

A meeting was called in Utica at which it was decided to invite anti-slavery Whigs and members of the tiny abolitionist Liberty Party to join the Buffalo Convention and form a new party.

Although the meeting was engineered by the Barn Burners and supporters of the old Albany Regency, the nation’s first state-wide political machine, which had been put together by Martin Van Buren in the late 1820’s, the leading strategists at the convention became Ohio’s Salmon B. Chase, a Whig and erstwhile maverick Democratic Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire.  Since his election to the Senate by a surprise coalition of minority Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats in the New Hampshire legislature in 1847, Hale had quickly established himself as the most voracious opponent of slavery in the Senate.  His experience led him to have faith in the possibilities of a fusion of the anti-slavery factions of the two established parties.

Although the Free Soilers were a party devoted to stemming the expansion of slavery, they were not the single-issue party often portrayed in history.  Their platform adopted planks shrewdly designed to appeal to former partisans of the older parties.  On the one hand they endorsed Federal spending on internal improvements, a cause dear to Henry Clay Whigs and Westerners and on the other opposed protective tariffs, long a cornerstone of Democratic platforms.  They also advanced a proposal for disposing of government land in the West by homesteading.

Still, their party platform proclaimed, “...we inscribe on our banner, ‘Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men,’ and under it we will fight on and fight ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions.”

The convention turned for the head of its national ticket to former President Van Buren, who had been ousted after one term by the Whigs who smeared him, unfairly, as an elitist fop and William Henry Harrison who aped the populism of Andrew Jackson.  The aging former Red Fox of the Kinderhook was a shrewd politician and saw a possibility of a comeback, or at least a vindication of his tarnished reputation.  But Van Buren had been strangely mum about slavery in national office, understandable as Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of State, second Vice President, and protégée.  As President he maneuvered for the annexation of Texas, which was bitterly opposed by anti-slavery factions.

But Van Buren announced he had always been an opponent of slavery’s expansion in his heart.  And hoping that a ticket led by a former President would give them instant respectability, the convention went along.

Opponents of the Free Soil Party--and they were legion--mocked its embrace of the tiny, largely symbolic abolitionist Liberty Party. A reluctant Martin Van Buren, third from left is seen as being shoved into the arms of Negros by Democratic Barn burners and Boston Whig snobs.

For Vice President the convention turned to a familiar family name—Adams.  Charles Francis Adams was the son and grandson of Presidents.  His father, John Quincy Adams was lionized by Massachusetts Whigs as Old Man Eloquent for his long post-presidential service in the House of Representatives as an outspoken anti-slavery man.  The studious young Adams was supposed to garner support among the Boston elite.

The new party gained some important support, notably from intellectuals like educator Horace Mann, who had filled John Quincy Adams’s House seat after his death; journalist and editor Richard Henry Dana, Jr.; Charles Sumner leader of Boston’s Conscience Whigs and future Senator; poet/editor William Cullen Bryant of New York City; the Quaker Hoosier John Greenleaf Whittier; and Walt Whitman who became a Brooklyn party leader and editor of the Brooklyn Freeman, a party newspaper.

The Free Soilers also ran candidates for Congress and for several state legislature seats.

This Massachusetts Free Soil rally featured former anti-slavery Whig, rising Party star, and future U.S., Senator Charles Sumner.

The party was careful to pitch itself as moderate.  It did not attack slavery as a fundamental evil or advocate for its abolition where it was in force.  Instead, it argued that the extension of slavery was a threat to Free Labor and that blocking expansion would eventually cause it to “wither away” even in the Deep South.  That drew the scorn of Abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison who charged that it was “White manism.”  Still, a lot of moderate slavery opponents were drawn to the party.

During the campaign it became apparent that things were not working out as hoped and planned. Of course, the party had no hope in the South.  That region was split between Democrats supporting Cass, and Whigs in the corner of slave holding Taylor.  But Van Buren could not shake the elitist reputation so successfully hung on him damaging his appeal to Northern voters, particularly in the big cities.  Worse, New England Whigs deeply distrusted him as Jackson’s former crony.  Many held their noses and voted for Taylor or sat on their hands in the election.

When the votes were counted, the ticket of Van Buren and Adams got a respectable 291,501 votes and 10.1% of popular votes cast for a distant third place.  They failed to get a single Electoral College vote and were probably the margin of difference that gave the close race between Taylor and Cass to the old general.

On the bright side, the party won seats in Congress and enough state legislative seats so that in combination with liberal Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs they were able to elect candidates like Sumner to the Senate.  Although a small minority in both houses, the Free Soilers in Congress became an important voice in the national debate.

After the Compromise of 1850 most Democrats drifted back to their old party.  But a stalwart few remained steadfast with the Free Soilers.

In the election of 1852, the Party offered little known John P. Hale for President and Representative George Julian of Indiana for Vice President.  The ticket garnered half of the popular votes won by Van Buren and just over 5% of the total.

Salmon P. Chase of Ohio led the remnants of the Free Soil Party into the new Republican Party and in 1860 was a major contender against Abraham Lincoln and others for the Presidential nomination.  Lincoln held his nose and appointed Chase as his Secretary of the Treasury. 

After Northern outrage against the Kansas Nebraska Act, most remaining Free Soilers followed leaders like Salmon P. Chase into becoming an important part, even the backbone, of the new Republican Party, which in the four short years between its nominations of John C. Frémont in 1856 and Abraham Lincoln in 1860 became the first and only third party ever to achieve major party status.

It Was Hoopla and Bewilderment in Chicago for Picasso’s Gift

                     

                                          Unveiling the Picasso in Daley Center Plaza in 1967 drew a crowd of gawkers.

The Chicago Picasso—it has no other name—turns 59 years old this August with a little less hurrah than in a milestone year. How big a deal it is remains a might mystifying to non-Chicagoans who underestimate the Toddlin’ Town’s municipal vanity .    Aspirations to be lauded as a World Class City and center of the fine arts meets common Babbitt boosterism. 

The original dedication was held on August 15, 1967 during a summer that had been in the news mostly for the riots that swept the South and West Sides.  Mayor Richard J. Daley, whose crown as Boss of the City that Works was tarnished, was mighty glad for the opportunity to show off just how highbrow the Hog Butcher to the World could really be.

Today the Picasso is a—mostly—beloved Chicago icon.  Back in 1967 many of the city’s elite cultural gatekeepers, some of whom had never gotten over the shock of the 1913 Armory Show and were widely looked down upon as mere provincials by Manhattan sophisticates, and the blue collar lunch box proletariat were united in despising and being mystified by the Spanish artist’s gift to a city he had never seen.  Many suspected a commie plot or foresaw a fall into decadence and corruption.  Others just thought it was ugly and dumb.

Classic Chicago chroniclers Studs Terkel and Mike Royko were both on hand to document the Picasso dedication.

Count Chicago’s keenest observer, Daily News columnist Mike Royko in the latter category.  He called it “big, homely metal thing …[with] a long, stupid face…[that] looks like some giant insect that is about to eat a smaller, weaker insect. It has eyes that are pitiless, cold, mean.”  Which meant it was perfect for the city. “Its eyes are like the eyes of every slum owner who made a buck off the small and weak. And of every building inspector who took a wad from a slum owner to make it all possible.”

That other tireless chronicler of Chicago voices, Studs Terkel was on hand lugging around his heavy old reel-to-reel semi-portable tape recorder to capture the wisdom of the hoi polloi. Quotes from that tape litter almost all of the stories about the original dedication.  You can almost hear the hard-bitten accents of some.  From Rick Hogan’s magazine piece from the 50th anniversary:

“A pelvic structure of a prehistoric monster,” “A politician because it’s got so many faces,” “A bird, “A big butterfly.” Some people were befuddled (“Is that the front view?”) and one was obviously a loyal Democrat (“If Daley says it’s good, it’s good enough for me”).

And from Neil Steinberg, the younger Chicago Sun-times columnist the same year:

“At first glance, it looks rather grotesque…” said one. “You got something like this, 99 percent of the people don’t know what it resembles,” observed another. “A nightmare,” added a third. “A woman!?” marveled another. “A woman, yes, definitely, now it makes some sense. At first, when they had no idea what it was, I didn’t think too much of it. But now I like the idea of a woman being placed at the civic center. It seems like the woman has to do with everything in life, and this has to do with the good things in life. This is a civic center and the goodness of a woman. That’s my idea.”

Which reminds us of the huge controversy about just what the hell the thing was, anyway, much of it fueled by the media.  There were many theories put forward—a vulture, the artist’s pet Afghan hound, a baboon, a starving lion, a woman of course, and just a big practical joke on the city.  As for me, youthful as I was at the time, I never had any doubt it was a woman.  Despite attempts to revive the controversy, it turned out that I was right.

                                            

                                                    Picasso's Head of a Woman sketch from 1962 is pretty definitive in confirming the artist's subject.

Art scholars have found doodles and sketches of similar forms dating back to Picasso’s halcyon days in Paris back in 1913.  Somewhat definitive is a 1962 sketch of a nearly identical form that the artist clearly labeled Head of a Woman.  Hard to argue with that.  And we even know pretty certainly which woman—a teen age girl actually. 

Sylvette David was about 17 or 18 when Picasso spotted her in the company of her boyfriend walking by his studio in 1954.  The old satyr was smitten, as he often was.  He was able to get the girl with the long swan-like neck and the high ponytail that spread out behind it to pose for him for several studies, including a realistic profile and several cubist deconstructions.  Unlike many of his other muses he was never able to bed girl and in fact named one of his 40 compositions of her was called The One Who Said No.  That ponytail not only became the “wings” of the Chicago statue, but it also inspired the signature casual look for Brigit Bardot.  Sylvette went on to her own successful career as a painter and artist now known as Lydia Corbett.  She lived a lively 80+ years and recently said of Picasso, “I never thanked him enough. He immortalized me. I’m like the Mona Lisa. Amazing, don’t you think?”

Silvet David in 1954 with one of dozens of studies Picasso did of her.  That high ponytail that splayed out behind her head and neck would be echoed in a monumental sculpture more than a decade later.

Back in 1957, I was not at the unveiling.  I had graduated from Niles West High School in Skokie that spring and was spending the summer washing dishes at a Howard Johnson and getting ready to start Shimer College in Mt. Caroll, Illinois that fall.  I read all about the controversy in the papers, and undoubtedly devoured Royko’s sour take on it. I first saw it in person a few months later at an anti-war rally in the Plaza.  As a matter of fact, all of my early encounters were at rallies and marches where the towering sculpture dominated the wide-open space. 

I remember being impressed by its size and how its rust brown surface echoed the cladding of the Dailey Center itself.  I was pretty sure that Picasso was not an art-to-match-the-sofa kind of guy.  I was right, he had not dictated a color.  That came from the supplier of the steel to construct it, the American Bridge Company division of the United States Steel Corporation which used naturally oxidizing COR-TEN steel, the same material as used in the building.  Over the years both have darkened to what is now a grey with only hints of reddish brown depending on the light.

Picasso was hands down the most famous artist in the world when he was visited by a committee of Chicago boosters bringing tacky gifts from Hizzoner with a request for him to create a monumental artwork for the otherwise  desolate plaza of the new monument that the Mayor was erecting to himself.  The artist was amused, flattered, and skeptical.  But among the gifts was a photo of Oak Park’s native son Ernest Hemingway.  Picasso excitedly exclaimed, “My friend! I taught him everything he knew about bullfighting. Was he from Chicago?”  His visitors may have been a little vague in their reply.  At any rate he agreed—and more over agreed to make his creation a gift to the city.

                                    

                                                          Picasso hastily sketching out his intention.

He started work in May, 1964 basing his design on sketches he had already made, including the Head of a Woman.  He translated those two-dimensional images into three dimensions by making sketches on plywood, cutting out the parts, and assembling them with glue and wire.  He had been using a similar process to make smaller scale painted-on-sheet metal sculptures from his cubist reflections since Sylvette posed for him.  But this time he proposed to leave the surface of the finished work raw, rather than painted in order to emphasize the shapes that seemed to shift when viewed from different angles.

Picasso, with few revisions translated this first model into a 42-inch-high maquette that was first displayed to the public in London during a major retrospective exhibit.  It drew raves from the British art cognisante.  Then the excited Chicago City Hall put the model on display at the Art Institute where it remains to this day.  So, Chicagoans, at least the museum visiting slice of the population knew what the pig in the poke was going to look like.  Some shared an excitement of being in the avant garde, but many were furious on both esthetic and political grounds—the artist was a known leftist and had recently been glad to accept a Lenin Prize, the Soviet Union’s answer to the Nobel Prize.  There was loose talk in some captive nation taverns in the city’s ethnic neighborhoods of blowing the damn thing to smithereens.  

The Woods Charitable Fund, Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Foundation, and the Field Foundation ponied up the roughly $352,000 cost of erecting the 50-foot-high sculpture that would weigh 147 tons.  American Bridge created a final 12 high model for Picasso to approve that included some structural reinforcements to support the enormous weight.  The artist agreed and fabrication work began at the U.S. Steel rolling mills in Gary, Indiana.

The parts were delivered by truck and installation began on a re-enforced pedestal on May 2. 1967.  As it rose it was shrouded in scaffolding and canvas.  Work was completed in early August and final touches were put on dedication plans.

                            

                                            Gwendolyn Brooks looks as conflicted as she felt getting ready to read a poem before the unveiling of the statue.

On the big day the Plaza was filled with the curious. Mayor Daley and every other politico with enough clout crowded the dais along with all of the accredited art lovers.  Gwendolyn Brooks was asked to compose and read a new work for the occasion. Chances were strong that Daley never read the works of the Black woman with strong opinions about race relations in the city, urban renewal, rampant police brutality, and the rising voice of Black Power.  On the other hand, the poet scored Pulitzer Prize and someone named her Chicago’s Poet Laureate, so she was just what the doctor called for in a program meant to buck-up the city’s cultural credentials.  For her part Brooks was flattered to be asked and aware that this sort of thing was just what was expected of the Poet Laureate.  But she was conflicted.  She hardly knew what to think of what she had seen of the sculpture and wasn’t sure she liked it or approved.  “Man visits Art, but squirms...” was as much enthusiasm as she could muster that day just before the canvas shroud dropped.

The ever-vigilant Royko took note, however, of the symbolism of Brooks’ prominent presence.  “When [Aldermen] Keane and Cullerton sit behind a lady poet, things are changing.”

By the time the 25th anniversary rolled around in 1982 and Brooks was invited back for another crack at it, she had grown used to and fond of the Picasso.  She could be more honestly effusive.

Set,
seasoned,
sardonic still,
I continue royal among you.
I astonish you still.
You never knew what I am.
That did not matter and does not.

When the drapery finally dropped that first day some observers thought they observed a scowl on the Mayor’s face.  Others thought it was more of a bemused smirk as if he was pleased as punch at getting away with a world class con.  Likewise, there are conflicting reports on the crowd reaction.  Loyal machine partisans in the media reported cheers and applause.  Others described stunned silence giving way gradually to the kind of polite pro-forma clapping you would give to a third-rate singer.

Whatever the immediate reaction, the Picasso quickly became a Chicago icon.  As critic Desmond Morris, author of The Naked Ape, predicted in defiance of the chorus nay sayers, the sculpture would “become an art landmark, one of the most famous sites in the world.”

                              

                                                          Sometimes the Picasso was crudely rendered and hardly recognizable in souvenirs like this bracelet charm.

And thanks to city Law Department faux pas Chicago lost the copyright on the monument’s image by publicly displaying it at the Art Institute without protection.  Souvenir stands were soon awash in post cards, posters, t-shirts, jewelry, snow-globes, bronze trinkets of all sizes, and high-end collector edition art models.  Something for every budget.  No one could come home from a Windy City visit without some kind of Picasso memorabilia.

On the cultural front the statue was the first monumental outdoor modern public art in the country.  It immediately blew heroic bronzes and classical motifs out of the water. Within a decade it seemed that no public project could go up without a head-scratching set piece from downtown plazas and government buildings to modest village halls, suburban shopping malls, and even office and factory campuses.  This trend was accelerated with a Federal Government policy of 2% of the cost of new construction set aside for the arts and state and local policies that aped it.  A lot of sculptors got work, not all of them a creative genius like Picasso.

The Picasso has weathered to gray with just hints of the former rust brown.  Children continue to use it as the world's most expensive piece of playground equipment.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in Chicago’s Loop where Alexander Calder’s Stabile adorns the Dirksen Federal Building, Claus Oldenburg’s ironic Bat Column rises, Marc Chagall’s mosaic covered monolith graced the First National Bank of Chicago Plaza, as well as works by Joan Miro and Henry Moore.  But so does mediocre stuff not to mention the hideous Snoopy in Blender outside the white elephant former James R. Thompson State of Illinois building.

The Windy City's new cultural landmark Cloud Gate a/k/a The Bean serenely reflects a shining city.  Compare and contrast to the edgy and raw urban drama of the Picasso.

Today Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate a/k/a The Bean in Millennium Park may have taken the title of Chicago’s most famous and photographed work of public art, just as the Picasso once upstaged the former leading icon, Buckingham Fountain.  But tourists still snap the old girl in Dailey Plaza and, yes, marches, rallies and demonstrations still swirl around her. She will always have a gritty edge that the serene Bean can never match. 

 

Walking the Walk and Compassion for Campers Update for August 7 2026

 Look for new opportunities for action, education, community, and solidarity in and around McHenry County here every week.  

                                                            Walking the Walk 

Planet Palooza is an outdoor event aimed at ways to “Make our planet a better place to live” now in its 4th year on Woodstock Square on Sunday, August 16 from 11 am to 3 pm. It will highlight and showcase McHenry County Non-Profit Groups and Organizations that address environmental issues, groups that advocate for diversity and equality, veterans, groups that combat hunger, homelessness, domestic violence, addiction, human trafficking, suicide, gun violence, as well as those groups who provide other essential services to our growing and diverse communities will all be exhibiting. Featuring information and outreach booths and table, entertainment, family activities, and food trucks. Hosted by Together We Stand McHenry County and the McHenry County College Sustainability Center. Visit the website at https://togetherwestandmchenrycounty.org/Planet-Palooza/

Compassion for Campers

Our distributions are usually held on the first and third Fridays of the month from 10 am to 2 pm at the new McHenry County Resource Center (MCHC) at the McHenry County Mental Health Board offices, 620 Dakota Street in Crystal Lake.    Due to a Mental Health Board event the MCHC will be closed today, August 7.  The following C4C distribution will be Friday, August 21.  

With at least a temporary home base, C4C can resume accepting donations of supplies including clean used sleeping bags and tents in their bags or cases, tarps and other basic camping gear, rain gear, and especially mosquito and tick repellents and sunscreen.  Contact Sue Rekenthaler at tomatos@mc.net or Patrick Murfin at pmurfin@sbcglobal.net for more information.

Financial support is critical to fulfilling our mission. The best thing you can do is offer your critically needed financial support. Money donations are always welcome at     https://tinyurl.com/3bz96axe.   Look for updates here.  Email compassionforcampers@treeoflifeuu.org .

Kon Tiki Made the Epic Voyage That Proved Nothing

 

Kon Tiki under sail.  She flew the flags of not only Norway of other nations represented on the crew or which offered material support to the voyage including Peru, Italy Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Sweden.

On August 7, 1947 the sailing raft Kon Tiki crashed into a barrier reef off an uninhabited islet near Raroia Atoll in the Tuamotu Group of French Polynesia. The ship’s Norwegian crew led by explorer Thor Heyerdahl managed to drag the craft safely to the beach.  After a few days of being stranded, they were rescued by Polynesian natives from a near-by island who came to investigate the source of unusual jetsam that washed up on their shore.  It was the end of a grand adventure that Heyerdahl would chronicle in a world-wide bestselling book and in a documentary film of the voyage.  

Thor Heyerdahl, the intrepid captain.

Heyerdahl’s epic nearly 4,000-mile trip across the Pacific from Peru to Polynesia was meant to test his theory that the islands of the South Pacific could have been populated by people from the South American mainland, carried westward by the prevalent Humboldt Current. 

Heyerdahl built his raft from local materials using only technology available in the pre-Columbian era and based on observations of native crafts described by Peru’s early Spanish Conquistadores. Heyerdahl named his craft after a variation on the name of the Incan sun god, Viracocha.

The raft was built with nine light weight balsa tree trunks ranging up to 45 feet long and 2 feet in diameter, lashed together with heavy hemp ropes. Balsa cross-pieces 18 feet long and 1 foot in diameter were lashed across the logs at 3-foot intervals to. The bow was clad in hand hewn Pine boards about 1 inch thick and 2 feet wide. Similar boards were wedged between the balsa logs and used as centerboards—retractable keels.

The main mast was made of lengths of mangrove wood lashed together to form an A-frame 29 feet high. The spars were a laminate of wood and reeds. The main sail was 15 by 18 feet on a yard arm of bamboo cane lashed together with hemp. The raft also carried a small top sail and a mizzen-sail mounted at the stern. With a partial deck of split bamboo, a cabin of plaited bamboo 14 feet long and 8 feet wide and nearly 5 feet high was built and roofed with banana leaf thatch. At the stern was a 19 feet long steering oar of mangrove wood, with a blade of fir. No metal was used in the construction.  

                        Heyerdahl at the steering oar.

Local provisions and storage techniques were used, although U.S. Army donated some canned rations for emergencies.  The Kon-Tiki carried 250 liters of water in bamboo tubes, 200 coconuts, sweet potatoes, bottle gourds, and other assorted fruit and roots.  For protein the crew relied on—and was successful in obtaining—abundant fish caught along the way including flying fish, dolphin (the fish, not the mammal), yellow fin, bonita, and shark. 

The ship also carried radios, watches, metal knives, and a sextant which Heyerdahl said did not compromise the integrity of the experiment since they did not affect the sailing ability of the ship or the sustainability of the crew. 

On April 28 Heyerdahl and his crew of 5 were towed aboard the Kon Tiki by a Peruvian Navy tug from the harbor at Callao to a point about 50 miles offshore.  This was to prevent tidal forces from bashing the raft back against the shore.  Heyerdahl maintained that a similar raft could have been towed beyond the danger by teams of canoes.  

            The voyage of Kon Tiki.

Once set adrift, the raft caught the Humboldt and was on its way.  On July 30 the crew spotted their first land, the atoll of Puka-Puka, and on August 4 they met inhabitants of Angatau Island in their canoes but could not land safely there.  Three days later they struck the reef that ended the voyage after 3,770 nautical miles in 101 days, at an average speed of 1.5 knots. 

The raft was salvaged and eventually brought to Oslo where it is the centerpiece of the Kon-Tiki Museum, one of Norway’s leading tourist attractions.  Heyerdahl, who died in 2002, is still celebrated as one of the nation’s great heroes.  

Kon Tiki on display in Oslo in her own museum.

Ironically, although the voyage proved that the journey was possible, ethnologists have long since discounted Heyerdahl’s theory of a South American origin for the Polynesian people.  Their origins are still wrapped in some mystery but the prevailing thought, based on DNA evidence and linguistics is that they originated on Taiwan and spread more or less slowly, depending of which conflicting theories are applied, through Micronesia, the Malay Peninsula, and the islands of Austronesia (including most of modern Indonesia and the Philippines) while mixing with even more ancient local populations in the area.   

Polynesians heading east and south explored and settled islands across vast stretches of the Pacific ocean using double hull sailing canoes like this.  Their navigation system including probable astronomical observation and knowledge of currents is still a mystery.

Scientists are still puzzled by how the Polynesians navigated regularly across wide expanses of ocean in canoes—not rafts—with no known navigational aids.