Matthew Henson

Matthew Henson was an African American explorer who became the closest and most experienced expedition partner of Arctic explorer Robert Peary, accompanying him on nearly all of his Arctic expeditions over roughly two decades and serving as the party's most skilled sledge driver and dog handler, as well as its main interpreter with the Inuit communities the expeditions relied on for survival skills and supplies. On Peary's 1908 to 1909 expedition, Henson was part of the small final party that reached, or came very close to, the North Pole in April 1909, and by several accounts, including his own, he actually arrived at the pole position ahead of Peary, having gone forward to scout the route. Despite this central role, Henson received far less public recognition and financial reward than Peary for decades afterward, a disparity widely attributed at the time to his race, and he worked as a low-level government clerk for many years before belated recognition began, including a Congressional silver medal and a later reburial with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Henson published his own account of the expeditions, "A Negro Explorer at the North Pole," and he is now widely honored, alongside Peary, as a central figure in the history of polar exploration.