Historian, Archaeologist and Explorer Hiram Bingham III Is Born, November 19, 1875
t the height of America’s Gilded Age, Hiram Bingham III—American paragon of self-made academic prowess and explorational accomplishment—was born on the pacific island of Oʻahu, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, before the Sandwich Islands were consolidated and inducted as the state of Hawaii.
Hiram Bingham III (1875-1956)
Born an only child and the third in a lineage of Binghams, Hiram came from old New England, Protestant, missionary stock. His grandfather, Reverend Hiram Bingham, had been among the first in a wave of intrepid missionaries who brought the Gospel to the Hawaiʻian Islands (then called the Sandwich Islands) in the 1820’s.
Hiram Bingham I (1789-1869)
Hiram Bingham II (1831-1908)
Reverend Bingham’s care, immersion into daily cultural life, and the faithful outworking of his Gospel message bore immense fruit on the island, converting many of the natives including their royalty, the Kamehameha. As a result, he became a trusted advisor and friend to their queen, even translating the Bible into their native tongue. He oversaw a change in perspective on the islands in regard to the West, the natives’ only outside contact having been the occasional exploitive whaling crew or explorer. Kawaiahaʻo Church, which Reverend Bingham designed, still stands in Oʻahu and is referred to as the “Westminster Abbey of Hawaii”. Through Reverend Bingham’s influence and that of his fellow Baptist missionaries, Hawaiʻi’s religious allegiance would eventually veer towards Protestantism to such a degree that Catholicism would at one point be outlawed by her magistrates.
Plaque at Kawaiahaʻo Church commemorating the life and work of missionary patriarch Hiram Bingham I
Kawaiahʻo Church exterior, Punchbowl Street, Honolulu, HI
Kawaiahaʻo Church interior, Punchbowl Street, Honolulu, HI
The Reverend’s grandson, Hiram the third, was born into this rich environment and thus was uniquely reared compared to his fellow Americans back in the states. Emphasis on godliness, service to one’s community, scholarship and bravery were common tenets among his family and church. Counter to many revisionist tellings of the Christianization of Hawaiʻi, the Binghams and their fellow Baptist missionaries held in great esteem their native converts, even admitting a change from their original perspectives when leaving New England. Reverend Bingham himself admitted:
Three generations of Binghams in 1908—Hiram II and his sister Lydia (Bingham) Coan, his son Hiram III, daughter-in-law Alfreda, and four grandsons: Hiram IV, Alfred, Charles and Woodbridge
“The spirit of God is showered down upon the whole extent of the Sandwich Islands and those of us who have seemed to think the Gospel could hardly gain a lodgment in the heart of this people because of their alleged stupidity or ignorance or want of consciousness have been constrained to admit that they can as readily be effected by the spirit of God as any class of men with whom we have been acquainted.”
The Hale Laʻāu which was the home to the first missionary to Hawaiʻi, Hiram Bingham I
This perspective—which set upon native populations their due value and intelligence—would serve his grandson well when Hiram III set out to explore the lost kingdoms of South America—an endeavor that would cement his name in history and that was both predictable by his hereditary makeup and yet, entirely inconceivable in the early days of his life on Oʻahu.
Hiram Bingham I preaching to Queen Kaʻahumanu and her people in Waimea, Kauai, 1826 —she had been baptized in 1823, only 3 years into his ministry there
The Bingham family’s ambition for Hiram was for him to become a missionary to China after his education in New England at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachussetts and later Yale. Hiram Bingham III soon found his passion was captivated by the study of history which he began to teach after his graduation. Bingham was an oddity at both schools, almost a foreigner by the sheer distance of his birthplace. Being extremely poor—the ministry not having set up his family to any great prosperity—he didn’t naturally fit in. He was, however, ambitious and clever, and despite being considered reserved, he made many acquaintances and friends in return for his aid in their studies. He attempted to continue this tutoring after graduation, wishing to become a teacher himself, a leader of men in another sphere, and carry on his family’s legacy in this manner. Provision and social barriers in New England proved insurmountable, however, and Bingham soon returned to Hawaiʻi and his parents’ home.
Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachussetts
His dream might have died then and his gifts been returned to obscurity had it not been for the indomitable persistence of love—quite literally! While still back in New England at a house party, rubbing shoulders with the snubbing academic elite, Bingham met Miss Alfreda Mitchell. She was lively, warm, and heiress to the Tiffany Diamond fortune. The meeting bore no immediate fruit, with Bingham himself later saying he hadn’t even gotten the nerve to speak to her on that occasion despite being enchanted on sight. However, in the course of Providence, months later, while at home with his parents, Bingham heard that the Mitchells’ yacht had sailed into Honolulu harbor. He resolved to introduce himself and found that Miss Mitchell’s intentions to vacation in Hawaiʻi had been influenced more than a little by the knowledge of his whereabouts.
Madison Avenue residence of Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902) American businessman and jeweler who founded New York City’s renowned Tiffany & Co.,
and maternal grandfather to Alfreda Mitchell
Possessing an excellent character, a head full of dreams, and blessed with a golden complexion and imposing height of six foot four, Hiram Bingham found Miss Mitchell easily persuaded. They soon married, and she would give him seven sons, supply his status and housing during his subsequent study at Harvard where he got his doctorate, and go on to fund his archaeological career and pursuits with her family fortune.
Hiram and Alfreda Bingham during his time as a student at Harvard, 1901-1905
Bingham’s doctorate was a rather radical one: in history, yes, but Latin American history. He then became the first person ever to be hired exclusively to teach the same in the United States. Pivotally, at the same time, the Spanish American war broke out, followed by the U.S. taking self-imposed responsibilities in Central America—the grand undertaking of the Panama Canal being the capstone for this expansion. With these broadened national horizons, Bingham was convinced the U.S. would need experts like himself to supply leadership in regard to Latin American culture, politics, and economics.
The Panama Canal under construction, September 14, 1910
By the turn of the 20th century, restless after years of teaching undergraduates and studying with no outlet for proving his studies, Bingham set out on his first expedition to South America. It was a small party, including only himself and a couple friends, and relying on the native populace as guides. The journey took him from Caracas in Venezuela, over the Andes Mountains, and into Bogota, Colombia—a path chosen to retrace the steps of Bolivian freedom-fighter Simón Bolívar. All the while he kept journals of his findings. His second expedition skirted the eastern coast of South America, following the old Spanish trade routes. Small though they were, these expeditions were private, independent, and wholly unique in their time for a historian to undertake. While in Santiago, Chile, Bingham’s area of study was greatly broadened by acquaintance with an array of Peruvian scholars who supplied for him the native perspective on the centuries which Bingham had studied almost exclusively from a European standpoint—dating and categorizing all things by the colonial conquest and its written narrative.
Simón Bolívar (1783-1830)
Melchor Arteaga (native guide of Hiram Bingham III) crossing the Urubamba River, July 24, 1911
By their influence, Bingham took a diversion from his intended route that changed his life and our understanding of the ancient world forever. He went first to Cusco and explored the foundations of Spanish colonial settlements there that had withstood centuries of war and earthquakes—foundations that were Inca in origin. He was further persuaded to visit Choka Corral (cradle of gold), which Peruvian excavators were uncovering and wanted his opinion on. It was said to be the last city of the Incas before their extermination by the Spanish. He wrote home to his wife from there that the ruins were one of the most incredible sights he had ever seen, and yet while beautiful and vast, he felt it did not correspond with what evidence he found for a true last city of the Incas.
Urubamba River Valley
He returned home, studied furiously, and began to outfit another expedition that would set out in 1911, this time with the backing of the Yale faculty of which he was now a part. It would become one of the greatest in the history of exploration, paramount and legendary even in a century studded with similar feats. They left Cusco in July, tracked over the mountains and down into the Sacred Valley where it was said many of the Inca Emperors had their favored estates, and from there followed the turbulent Urubamba River into the depths of the jungle. On July 23 they came to a sharp bend in the river, pitched a camp to recoup and inquired of the isolated locals regarding ruins. Their reply: a simple pointing into the mountains and the words “Machu Picchu” was thrilling beyond imagining.
Bingham (top) and guide at the ruins of Espiritu Pampa, Peru, 1911
Terraces at Machu Picchu
A farmer and his family had settled in this area and begun to cultivate their crops amongst the famed terraces. The man was actively hiding from the government draft. The family was initially alarmed by the presence of a Peruvian Army sergeant accompanying Bingham, but once assured that the big “gringo” merely wished to see the Inca ruins, they sent Bingham up the mountain with their five-year-old son as guide.
Machu Picchu amongst the clouds
What lay atop the mountain was a kingdom amongst the clouds. Out before him stretched a maze of nearly intact Inca temples, altars and palaces, constructed in a manner we have still not solved, with statues and icons singular in their kind due to being spared desecration by Conquistadors. Bingham, an amateur archaeologist, had been led by a five-year-old to the final citadel of an advanced and vast South American empire and civilization that European kings had dreamed of claiming for centuries.
First photograph ever taken of Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu as clearing of ancient vegetation begins to reveal the discovery
When Bingham returned home with photographic proof of his fruitful explorations of one of the lost Wonders of the Ancient World, donors and politicians were quick to crowd in with resources and stipulations for sending him back. National Geographic made their April issue of 1912 all about the mysterious Machu Picchu “discovered” by the now-celebrated Hiram Bingham III.
Map of Bingham’s 1912 Expedition
Bingham returned to Machu Picchu twice in the following years with the backing of both institutions and began extensive excavations of the ruins. He uncovered thousands of artifacts: ceramics, tools, jewelry and human bones—all, it is important to note, with the consent of the hosting Peruvian government. The laws that had been placed to prevent looting of such cultural artifacts were waived under the understanding that Bingham would take them back to Yale to be studied and that they would be returned back to Peru whenever requested. Some were indeed returned in the coming years, but many were kept at Yale in the Peabody Museum for over a century, and when their return was requested, it was denied on grounds of longstanding warden-ship. Peru would eventually sue Yale in 2008, and those artifacts once on display there were again returned to their country of origin.
Bingham outside his tent at Machu Picchu during the 1912 Expedition
Artifact collected by Bingham during the 1912 Expedition
Peru itself is now almost synonymous with Machu Picchu, and the tourism revenue it brings to the country is massive—a benefit that was felt almost immediately after Bingham brought international awareness to the remote site. Consequently, many cultural traditions, artifacts and even language of the Peruvian tribes were revived, respected and protected as they had not been since before the Spanish conquest. The occupation of explorer often leaves behind a legacy of outsider disturbances and the pilfering of the native environment, but the peaceful and prosperous reputation of Machu Picchu as a preserved site may, in many respects, be accredited to Hiram Bingham’s own respectful conduct to the native population and their history—a missionary’s son to the very end.
Machu Picchu in 1912 after rigorous cleaning efforts
Bingham would go on to serve his country in World War One as a Lt. Colonel in the Signal Corps while organizing the United States Schools of Military Aeronautics at eight universities to provide ground training for aviation cadets in what would become our country’s fledgling Air Force. He was elected to the Senate in 1925. Amusingly, he was elected to the governorship of Connecticut during the same cycle, serving only a single day—the shortest term to date—in order to serve as a Senator. He continued to lecture and teach until his death in 1956, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Bingham in uniform, 1917
Machu Picchu in 2007, beautifully uncovered and open to the world’s view, thanks to the tenacity, vision and persistence of Hiram Bingham III
Image Credits: 1 Hiram Bingham III (wikipedia.org) 2 Hiram Bingham I (wikipedia.org) 3 Hiram Bingham II (wikipedia.org) 4 Kawaiahʻo Church plaque (wikipedia.org) 5 Kawaiahʻo Church, exterior (wikipedia.org) 6 Kawaiahʻo Church, interior (wikipedia.org) 7 Three generations of Binghams (wikipedia.org) 8 Hale Laʻāu (wikipedia.org) 9 Bingham I preaching (wikipedia.org) 10 Phillips Academy (wikipedia.org) 11 Charles Lewis Tiffany home (wikipedia.org) 12 Hiram and Alfreda (wikipedia.org) 13 Panama Canal (wikipedia.org) 14 Simón Bolívar (wikipedia.org) 15 Crossing the Urubamba River (wikipedia.org) 16 Urubamba River Valley (wikipedia.org) 17 1912 Expedition Map (wikipedia.org) 18 Bingham at Espiritu Pampa Ruins(wikipedia.org) 19 Machu Picchu terraces (wikipedia.org) 20 Machu Picchu in the clouds (wikipedia.org) 21 First photograph (wikipedia.org) 22 Machu Picchu overgrown (wikipedia.org) 23 Bingham at tent (wikipedia.org) 24 Artifact (wikipedia.org) 25 Machu Picchu cleared (wikipedia.org) 26 Bingham in uniform (wikipedia.org) 27 Modern-day Machu Picchu (wikipedia.org)