Alexander Selkirk - III

Daniel Defoe was a failed businessman. At the time accounts of Selkirk's adventures came out in 1712 and 1713, he was in his early fifties. Short of money, he was trying to pay off debts, support a wife and children, and maintain a big house by writing books, pamphlets, and newspaper articles. Defoe had a sharp tongue and his political stories annoyed powerful men in the church and government. One of his pamphlets charged some members of Parliament with disrespect for the rights of Englishmen. They did not appreciate his views. A £50 reward was offered for his capture.

He was betrayed by an informer and was charged with sedition. Defoe was fined £135 and spent the next six months in prison. Even though he wrote a lot, by his sixtieth year Defoe was broke, partly because he made unwise investments in business ventures that didn't turn profits. He desperately needed a money-spinner. He remembered the accounts of Selkirk's marooning that he had read. The story of a man surviving alone on an uninhabited island was one that he could use.

In the early eighteenth century almost all books published were nonfiction. Histories, biographies, and travel books were popular subjects. Novels rarely appeared. Defoe spoke with his printer who  agreed that a book about a marooned seaman on a tropical island might sell, but only if it read like nonfiction. In order to achieve this, Defoe decided to write in such a way that it would seem that the hero was writing the book himself, make the story appear as though it had really happened.

In April 1719 the new book appeared in the shops of London booksellers. Defoe's name did not appear as author. The title page read: "The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner. Written by Himself. It became the most famous adventure story ever told, the tale of the shipwrecked mariner who survived twenty-eight years on an island off Brazil. The book is still available today in bookstores and libraries almost three hundred years after it was first published.

Readers believed Crusoe's story was true. In the Preface, Defoe noted that the book was "a just history of fact; neither is there any appearance of fiction in it." The book was so popular that it was reprinted a month after its first print run of 1500 copies and thrice more by the end of the year. The story was serialized in The Original London Post for sixty-five weeks, an astonishing run. Defoe never named Selkirk as the model for his hero. 

But in a new edition of his novel he wrote: "There is a man alive, and well known too, the actions of whose life are [my] subject, and to whom all or most part of the story alludes: this may be depended upon for the truth, and to this I set my name. Defoe's notes for his story, still preserved in the Guildhall Library in London, read in part: "Goats plenty. Fish: abundance, split and salt.... The fat of young seals good as olive oil."

There is also mention of a visit with a Captain Thomas Bowry of the East India Company, a shipping firm who showed Defoe maps of Juan Fernández. Ten years after it was published, Defoe's story appeared in French, and by 1760 in German, Dutch, and Russian. Translations appear today in nearly all the world's languages. After the success of the first Crusoe story, Defoe wrote two more: "Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe in 1719 and "Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe" the next year. 

In his lifetime, Defoe turned out an awesome amount of writing but only Crusoe and Moll Flanders (1722) remains in print today. Although he wrote a lot, Defoe never seemed to earn enough money to support his wife and seven children. In April 1731, he was hiding from people he owed money to in a shabby house in London where he died, some twelve years after his famous novel first appeared in which he created one of the most enduring characters in all fiction.

Did Selkirk ever read the story? Possibly. In April 1719, when the novel appeared, he was on leave from H.M.S. Enterprise and in London. On daily walks about the city he sometimes visited bookstores. At the end of his famous story, Defoe arranged for Crusoe to return to the island on which he had lived for twenty-eight years. But we know that was only fiction. Alexander Selkirk, the real-life Robinson Crusoe, never visited his island home again.

Alexander Selkirk - II

As he grew to know his island, he felt more comfortable. But there were days when the island's quiet grew heavy. He had no living soul to talk to. Moody and dispirited, he wondered what God had in mind, imprisoning him on this remote island. These melancholy periods, however, came about less and less as the weeks passed and his contentment continued to grow. He found his temper moderating. His angry outbursts at trees and sky for the injustice of his lot ceased. By the end of his second year on Juan Fernández, Selkirk was living comfortably. 

His life on Juan Fernández had become a daily joy, his days aboard ship and his home in Largo increasingly remote. The hut was warm, food plentiful. He was never bored. Knowledge of the island had replaced fear and ignorance. He had a sense of complete freedom, of fulfillment, of safe harbor. There was the solitude to endure, of course, and the lack of a mate or two to enjoy a drink and a chat. But in this he had no choice. He came to a decision. If fate decreed, he would be content to spend the rest of his days on his island kingdom, master of his own life and destiny.

(My reactions after becoming locked-in also followed a similar trajectory. When Time has done enough work, you find ways to deal with the new reality and eventually you get used to it. As soon as an imagined experience becomes an actual experience that cannot be changed, the brain looks for ways to analyse and explain it in a way that allows us to appreciate it. This happens even for regular, everyday events rather than just for terrible events like becoming a quadriplegic. Most people don’t realize how quickly the human mind gets adapted to new situations.)

One day he saw two ships heading for Juan Fernández. He saw their flags through his spyglass: English! Eight seamen came ashore and were bewildered by the sight of disheveled man who could only grunt and mutter words that sounded like "marooned ... marooned." One of the officers recognized Selkirk — "the best man on the Cinque Ports," he stated. Learning that Selkirk had been sailing master of the Cinque Ports and a veteran seaman "of great skill and conduct" he was appointed second mate of the ship.

On the way back home he had unexpected news about the crew of the Cinque Ports - it had run onto an underwater shelf, broke apart, and sank. Almost all the crew drowned, but the captain and six seamen made shore in a boat and were captured by waiting Spanish soldiers. Selkirk was stunned. What if he had not gone ashore on Juan Fernández? He might have drowned or still be wasting away in a Spanish prison. By choosing the island, he had escaped a dreadful fate.

Selkirk finally reached London on October 14,1711 eight years after he left. There had been days on a faraway island when he had expected never to see England again. Life must have seemed very good. Sometime in 1712, the captain of the ship published a book. Sections told about the rescue of Selkirk. The book became the most popular travel book of the year and was reprinted in French, Dutch, and German. Selkirk, the man who had survived four years alone on an island, became a celebrity. He was introduced to rich friends and invited to dinner parties. 

But he could never get used to this luxurious lifestyle. An article said, "[He] frequently bewailed his return to the world which could not ... with all its enjoyments, restore him to the tranquility of his solitude" on his island. He is quoted as saying, "I am now worth 800 pounds but shall never be so happy as when I was not worth a farthing." In late 1716 or early 1717 he enlisted in the Royal Navy. 

Sometime in November or December 1721, when in Africa, Selkirk became ill. Medicine at the time knew little about treating tropical diseases. He died a few days later. At a spot called Selkirk's Lookout on Juan Fernández today stands a bronze tablet placed in 1863. It reads:

In memory of Alexander Selkirk, mariner, a native of Largo, in the county of Fife, Scotland, who lived on this island in complete solitude for four years and four months. He was landed from the Cinque Ports galley, 96 tons, A.D. 1704, was taken off in the Duke, privateer, 12th Feb., 1709. He died Lieutenant of H.M.S. Weymouth A.D. 1728, aged 47 years.

The last date was incorrect. The Weymouth's logbook in the Public Records Office in London gives 1721 as the year of his passing. He was 41. Still, the tablet, erected nearly a century and a half after Selkirk's death, recognized the Scottish mariner's magnificent adventure — a salute to a fellow seaman who had survived four years alone on a remote island.

And by the time he died, he had become the role model for one of the most famous characters in fiction - Robinson Crusoe. 

Alexander Selkirk - I

Selkirk was a veteran seaman. At fifteen years of age, he had run away from home, the seaside village of Largo, Scotland. He sailed on merchant ships between the West Indies and England and learned navigation, which enabled him to become a ship's officer. He joined an English ship called the Cinque Ports. As sailing master in 1703, he had piloted the Cinque Ports from England south through the Atlantic Ocean, around stormy Cape Horn. 

The Cinque Ports reached the remote Spanish island of Juan Fernández off the West coast of South America. The island lies 360 miles due west of Valparaiso, Chile. Because England and Spain were at war, the island was not a safe place for an English ship. He knew from charts that the island was about twelve miles long and four miles wide. He was twenty-seven years old and strongly built. He also possessed a quick temper.

The island was the only anchorage and watering place that could be chanced along the Spanish-held South American coast. While water casks were being refilled from freshwater streams on shore and trees cut for the woodbin, Selkirk inspected the ship. After its long passage from England to Juan Fernández, many repairs were needed.

The captain, though, would hear none of it. Repairs could take days. Spanish warships could appear any time. He was determined that as soon as water and wood came aboard, they would leave. Selkirk argued that the captain was being overly cautious but the latter refused to yield. Selkirk stubbornly refused to accept the decision. Now his well-known temper began to rise. The captain decided to call Selkirk's bluff. He left Selkirk alone on the island and left. 

As the night came on, it's unlikely that he was deeply distressed. He believed that the whole episode had been an unfortunate fit of temper on both their parts. His marooning on the island would be temporary — maybe a day, a week, and the Cinque Ports would come back. He was navigator, the one man able to sail the poorly charted ocean and find the way back to England. He would just have to make the best of it until the ship returned.

He considered building a fire but decided against it. Savages might see the flames. He had heard of flesh eaters on South Pacific islands. His sea chest held a few linen shirts and wool stockings, flint and steel for making fire, cooking pot, brass spyglass, hatchet, knife, and his books on navigation and geometry. As the days went by, his hopes of the ship returning diminished. He found crabs, mussels, and clams for food. He managed to build a fire and used water from a stream. 

After weeks on the beach, Selkirk shifted to a cave whose hollow entrance offered an advantage: a high lookout over the bay, a place to watch for a ship. He slept whole days away. Sleep was his only escape. Awake, he whistled Scottish folk tunes, a human sound in the island's stillness. Sometime in May or June of 1705, after eight or nine months on the beach and in the cave, Selkirk admitted a hard truth - the Cinque Ports would not be returning to the island. It was possible that he would stay here for years, perhaps for the rest of his days.

He discovered waterfalls and streams and marveled at the island birds—hawks, owls, petrels, puffins, blackbirds, and hummingbirds. In one valley he came upon a field of turnips and stands of fig trees. He found patches of oats, pumpkins, radishes, parsnips, and parsley growing wild. Selkirk gathered the crops gratefully, but how they came to grow there he didn't know. (In 1591 Spanish settlers from the South American mainland had planted crops and grazed goats during a brief but unsuccessful attempt to farm and build homes on the island.)

He stacked dry grass and branches, ready to set on fire. The smoke would signal a passing ship. But a signal fire also meant taking a fearful risk. The waters between Juan Fernández and the coast of South America were patrolled by Spanish and French warships. A smoke signal might bring one or the other.  "[The Spanish] would murder him," he feared, "or make a slave of him in the [silver] mines." Despite his daily watch, no ship arrived to rescue him. He was alone, both master of the island and its prisoner.

Selkirk's days followed a regular routine. After a reading in the Bible, he prepared a light breakfast — fruit, a cabbage leaf, a drink of fresh water. Next a bath in the nearby stream, scrubbing himself with pumice, a soft volcanic stone. He mashed charcoal from the fire pit into powder, placed a line on a finger, scrubbed his teeth, then rinsed his mouth in the stream. A walk on the beach might reward him with the capture of a sea turtle. Sometimes he fished for snapper, bonito, sea bass, and yellowtails.