Robinson
Crusoe is one of the world's
most popular adventure novels. Daniel Defoe based his classic tale of shipwreck
and survival on an uninhabited island is based on a true story. The real
Robinson Crusoe was a Scotsman named Alexander Selkirk (or
Selcraig).
Born in 1676, when
Selkirk was 19 years old he was cited for indecent conduct in church, but before
he could be reprimanded, he ran off to sea. That was in 1695. By 1703 he was the
sailing master of a galley. The following year he joined a pirate expedition to
the Pacific Ocean that was led by Capt. William
Dampier. Selkirk's ship had Thomas Stradling as it's captain.
After spending some time
in the Pacific and numerous raids on the Spanish towns and shipping, they were
preparing to return to England with their booty. Their ship
had suffered considerable damage in battle and Selkirk felt they needed to
repair her before setting off around the Horn. The captain disagreed. After a
heated argument and in a fit of anger, Selkirk refused to go any farther and
demanded he be set ashore on the Island of
Juan Fernandez, which was about 400
miles off the coast of Chile. This, the captain was glad to
do.
Once ashore, Selkirk
realized the enormity of what he had done. He thought others in the crew would
join him, but none did. He changed his mind and tried to convince the captain to
take him back. The captain refused and Selkirk found he had marooned himself
alone on an uninhabited island. Actually this was the smart thing to do since
the ship later sank killing most of those aboard, but at the time he didn't know
this.
After about two years on
the island he finally saw a ship and ran down to the shore to greet it. He
realized almost too late that it was a Spanish ship and the Spaniards opened
fire on him as he ran for cover. They were unable to find him and eventually
left. He was much more cautious after that.
Selkirk was able to
domesticate some goats and cats he found on the island and these were his only
companions though out his stay of almost 4 1/2 years. He was
finally found in February 1709 by William Dampier, who
was then pilot on a privateering expedition headed by Captain Woodes
Rogers.
Rogers appointed
Selkirk as ship's mate and later gave him command of captured ship. For the next
two years they conducted raids on the coast of Peru and Chile. They even captured a Spanish
galleon. Selkirk was very well-off when they returned to London in 1711, as his
share of the booty came to £800--a sizable fortune in those days. Selkirk soon
met essayist Richard Steele, who wrote up Selkirk's story and published it as
"The Englishman" in 1711.
Selkirk eventually
returned to his home in Scotland, where he became quite a
celebrity. Though he did get married, he never quite recovered from his stay on
the island. Spending much of his time alone, he didn't feel comfortable living
indoors and built a sort of cave or bower behind his father's house that he
stayed in. He also trained two cats to perform little feats, like he did on the
island. Eventually he returned to sea and he died of fever off the coast of
Africa in 1721 at the age of 45.
While some biographers
say Defoe never met Selkirk, others say the two met at the house of Mrs. Demaris
Daniel in Bristol, where Selkirk told Defoe firsthand of
his adventures and even gave Defoe his personal papers. Either way, there's
little doubt Crusoe is largely inspired by Selkirk. He may have also been in
Robert Louis Stephenson's mind when he wrote of the marooned pirate Ben Gunn in
Treasure
Island.
In the novel, Defoe
extended Selkirk's 4 1/2 years on the island to Robinson Crusoe's 28 years. He
also moved the island from off the coast of Chile far out in the Pacific Ocean to just off
the coast of Venezuela. In relation to our main
interest--which is pirates and piracy--before Crusoe is shipwrecked on the
island he is captured by Moorish pirates from Sallee on the coast of Africa, but soon escapes. And while his rescuers are not
exactly pirates, they are in the midst of a mutiny that Crusoe helps put down
and brings them back to the straight and narrow.
Even though Robinson
Crusoe is a fictional character, like Sherlock Holmes he has crossed over from
fiction to fact in the minds of some people. There are even people on the
Island of
Tobago who claim to be
descended from Robinson Crusoe.