Cruisin’ with Crusoe

 

About 300 years ago a man named Daniel Defoe wrote a novel about a sailor whose ship was caught in a vicious storm.  When the tempest subsided the sailor found that he was the only survivor of the crew.  He went to work and managed to survive very well on a desert island, even finding a friend who he rescued from cannibals.

Defoe named the protagonist of his fictional work, Robinson Crusoe.

But Robinson Crusoe didn’t leap full-grown from Defoe’s imagination.  Nope.  He was based on a real man.

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Most of you know I fell in love with reading early in my life.  In those days when people didn’t teach their kids their letters before preschool, children had to wait until they enrolled in school to become literate.  I didn’t attend preschool or kindergarten but went directly into the first grade at the age of five, and quickly learned to read…and I loved it.

Despite being too young to explore the town library I begged my sisters to check out books for me.  When I was old enough I’d regularly check out the maximum number of books allowed.  Then I discovered that I could save the meager amount I made mowing lawns until I had enough to buy a book now and then.  One the first books I owned all to myself was “Robinson Crusoe”.

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The story of a castaway’s adventures appealed to me.  Here was a man who answered to no one.  He had no parents looming over him telling him to make his bed or wash behind his ears.  No school teacher insisted that he work quietly all day and not wiggle in his seat.  There was no curfew, no bedtime, no boundaries.  He spent his day doing a little gardening before going fishing, hunting, or swimming.   He even built a fort and a house that seemed a lot like a clubhouse to a young boy.

Yes, Robinson Crusoe was a hero to me, so you can imagine how I felt when I found out he was based on a real life castaway.

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Alexander Selkirk was born in Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland in 1676, the son of a shoemaker and tanner.  The unruly youth was frequently in trouble.  He was summoned to appear before the Kirk Session in August 1693 for his “indecent conduct in church”, but he snuck off to sea instead.  Eight years later he was back in Largo, and back in trouble, this time for fighting with his brothers.

It was once more to sea for Selkirk.

True to form the troubled young man took part in buccaneering.  He eventually formed an association with English privateer and explorer William Dampier.  The troublesome Selkirk managed to play well with others long enough to be appointed sailing master of the ship Cinque Portis under Captain Thomas Stradling.

When Stradling parted company with Dampier, Selkirk remained with Stradling aboard the Cinque Ports.  Alexander came to realize that the ship had dangerous problems of its own.  When they stopped on the uninhabited island, Más a Tierra in the Juan Fernández archipelago, Alexander’s growing concern about the seaworthiness of the vessel bubbled over.  He told Stradling that he would rather stay on Juan Fernández than sail on an unsafe ship.   The captain called his bluff and left Selkirk on the island with a musket, a hatchet, a knife, a cooking pot, a Bible, some bedding, and clothes.

Selkirk immediately regretted his rashness, but it was too late.  Stradling refused to let him back on board.  Alexander didn’t realize how lucky he was.  The ship did indeed later founder off the coast of present day Colombia.  The captain and crew were taken prisoner by the Spanish, and endured harsh treatment during their imprisonment.

Alexander Selkirk’s island adventure had begun.

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Selkirk spent quite a bit of time along the shoreline of the island hoping he would be rescued.  He lived on spiny lobster while watching for a ship.  Eventually sea lions’ loud barking during their mating season drove him inland.  There he found feral goats and cats left behind by earlier sailors, as well as turnips, cabbages, and pepper berries.  But the goats and cats weren’t all the sailors had left.  There were also rats…lots of rats.

Our hero tamed some of the cats which then controlled the rodent population in the home he built for himself in a cave.

At first Selkirk hunted the goats for meat but as his gunpowder dwindled he tamed some of them and kept them to provide him with milk, meat, and skins.  He used the knowledge gained from his father to tan the goats’ skins for clothing.

He thought a couple times that he was rescued but then discovered that the ships at anchor were Spanish, the deadly enemies of every Scotsman.  Rather than welcoming them with open arms, Selkirk was forced to hide from them.

Despite some near-misses, he was able to remain free.

Then William Dampier sailed back into his life.

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Dampier piloted the Duke, a privateering ship which sailed into the anchorage on February 2, 1709, four years and four months after Selkirk was stranded.

He might have been found, but Selkirk wasn’t rescued yet.  Dampier’s crew was sick with scurvy, so Alexander went to work, providing as many as three goats a day to help restore the men’s health.

The captain of the ship, Thomas Dover, was impressed with how vigorous Selkirk was, mentally as well as physically.  He wrote, “One may see that solitude and retirement from the world is not such an insufferable state of life as most men imagine, especially when people are fairly called or thrown into it unavoidably, as this man was.”

Selkirk returned to civilization.

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Getting rescued didn’t mean that the rapscallion would live a better life though.  He returned to privateering, working for Dover.  In present day Ecuador he robbed from wealthy Spanish women.  Later he hunted for treasure galleons along the coast of Mexico.  Eventually, he did make it home, eight years after he had left.

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Selkirk didn’t convert to a law-abiding citizen once he got back home either.  The ne’r-do-well was charged with assaulting a shipwright and may have been locked up for as much as two years.  Records are unclear.

He married a widowed innkeeper named Frances Candis and seems to have finally realized the error of his ways…just in time.  Selkirk enlisted in the Royal Navy and served as master’s mate on board HMS Weymouth, engaged in an anti-piracy patrol off the west coast of Africa, when he died on 13 December 1721, falling victim to the yellow fever that plagued the voyage. He was buried at sea.

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Daniel Defoe may have heard of other castaways but it’s hard to miss the similarities between his fictional Robinson Crusoe and the real-life Alexander Selkirk.

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Here’s to you Daniel Defoe, for creating Robinson Crusoe and keeping the adventures of Alexander Selkirk alive.  Published 299 years ago this year, your book continues to capture the minds of young readers to this day.

Young readers like I was, oh so long ago.

 

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(above) Mas a Tierra, the island where Alexander Selkirk spent four years and four months of his life, which most likely served as the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

 

(below) The cave where Selkirk is believed to have lived for most of his time on the island is now set up as a tourist attraction.