Ep. 76 Michael Rockefeller: How a Famous Son's Mysterious Disappearance May Not Be Such a Mystery After All

Michael Rockefeller was the great grandson of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil and the richest man in the world. He was also the son of Nelson Rockefeller, New York governor, Vice President of the United States, and a well known art collector. Michael had big shoes to fill. To do that, he followed in his father's art collecting footsteps, traveling to the Asmat region on the west coast of New Guinea to collect wood carvings for his father's Museum of Primitive Art in Manhattan. The Asmat people were hunter gatherers living in the jungle with almost no western contact. They led a very different life than Michael, practiced head hunting and cannibalism. Michael admired the Asmat, their culture, their art. But he never truly understood them. He couldn't. So when his sailboat capsized near the village of Otsjanep and he disappeared attempting to swim to shore, never to be seen again, his family assumed he had drowned. But did Michael Rockefeller really drown? Or was his fate far more violent? Let's fix that. 

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Sources: 

• "Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art" by Carl Hoffman
• Smithsonian Magazine "What Really Happened to Michael Rockefeller"
• The Met Museum "Bis Pole"
• Rockefeller Archive Center "John D. Rockefeller"
• PBS American Experience "Biography: Nelson A. Rockefeller"
• NPR Author Interviews "Cannibals and Colonialism: Solving the Mystery of Michael Rockefeller"