Alexander Selkirk

Alexander Selkirk

Bronze statue of Selkirk located in a stone alcove

Clad in goatskins, Selkirk awaits rescue in a sculpture by Thomas Stuart Burnett (1885)
Born 1676
Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland
Died 13 December 1721 (aged 45)
Cape Coast, Ghana
Nationality Scottish and British (after 1707)
Occupation Sailor
Known for Inspiring Robinson Crusoe

Alexander Selkirk (1676 – 13 December 1721), also known as Alexander Selcraig, was a Scottish sailor who spent more than four years as a castaway after being marooned on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean (also known as the South Sea).

An unruly youth, Selkirk joined buccaneering expeditions to the South Sea, including one commanded by William Dampier, which called in for provisions at the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile. Selkirk judged correctly that his craft, the Cinque Ports, was unseaworthy, and asked to be left there.

By the time he was rescued, he had become adept at hunting and making use of the resources he found on the island. His story of survival was widely publicised when he returned home and became a likely source of inspiration for the writer Daniel Defoe's fictional character Robinson Crusoe.[1]

Early life and privateering

The son of a shoemaker and tanner in Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland, Alexander Selkirk was born in 1676.[2] In his youth he displayed a quarrelsome and unruly disposition. Summoned in August 1693[3] before the Kirk Session for his "indecent conduct in church", he "did not appear, being gone to sea." He was back at Largo in 1701, when he again came to the attention of church authorities for beating up his brothers.[4]

Early on he was engaged in buccaneering. In 1703, he joined an expedition of the English privateer and explorer William Dampier to the South Sea,[5] setting sail from Kinsale in Ireland on 11 September.[6] They carried letters of marque from the Lord High Admiral authorising their armed merchant ships to attack foreign enemies, as the War of the Spanish Succession was then going on between England and France.[7] While Dampier was captain of the St George, Selkirk served on the Cinque Ports, St George‍ '​s companion, as sailing master under Captain Thomas Stradling.[8] By this time Selkirk must have had considerable experience at sea.[4]

In February 1704, following a stormy passage round Cape Horn,[9] the privateers fought a long battle with a well-armed French vessel, the St Joseph, only to have it escape to warn the Spanish of the buccaneers' arrival in the Pacific.[10] A raid on the Panamanian gold mining town, Santa María, failed when the buccaneers' landing party was ambushed.[11] The easy capture of the Asunción, a heavily-laden merchantman, revived the men's hopes of plunder, and Selkirk was put in charge of the prize ship. After taking off some much needed provisions of wine, brandy, sugar, and flour, Dampier abruptly set the ship free, believing the gain was not worth the effort. In May 1704, Stradling decided to abandon Dampier and strike out on his own.[12]

Castaway

Shaded relief map of the Juan Fernández Islands with blue ocean he died on the island background
Map of the Juan Fernández Islands, where Selkirk lived as a castaway

In September 1704, after parting ways with Dampier,[13] Captain Stradling brought the Cinque Ports to an island known to the Spanish as Más a Tierra, located in the uninhabited Juan Fernández archipelago, 670 km (420 mi) off the coast of Chile, for a mid-expedition restocking of fresh water and supplies.[14]

Selkirk had grave concerns about the seaworthiness of their vessel and probably wanted to make the needed repairs before going any further. Selkirk declared that he would rather be left on Juan Fernández than continue in a dangerously leaky ship. Stradling granted his request and landed Selkirk and his personal effects on the island. Selkirk regretted his rashness, but Stradling refused to let him back on board.[15]

Cinque Ports did indeed later founder off the coast of what is now Colombia. Stradling and some of his crew survived the loss of their ship but were forced to surrender to the Spanish. The survivors were taken to Lima, Peru, where they endured a harsh imprisonment.[16]

Life on the island

At first, Selkirk remained along the shoreline of Juan Fernández. During this time he ate jasus (shellfish) and scanned the ocean daily for rescue, suffering all the while from loneliness, misery, and remorse. Hordes of raucous sea lions, gathering on the beach for the mating season, eventually drove him to the island's interior.[17] Once inland, his way of life took a turn for the better. More foods were available there: feral goats—introduced by earlier sailors—provided him with meat and milk, while wild turnips, cabbage leaves, and dried pepper berries offered him variety and spice. Although rats would attack him at night, he was able, by domesticating and living near feral cats, to sleep soundly and in safety.[18]

Engraving of Selkirk sitting in the doorway of a hut reading a Bible
Selkirk reading his Bible in one of two huts he built on a mountainside

Selkirk proved resourceful in using materials he found on the island: he forged a new knife out of barrel hoops left on the beach, he built two huts out of pepper trees (one of which he used for cooking and the other for sleeping), and he employed his musket to hunt goats and his knife to clean their carcasses. As his gunpowder dwindled, he had to chase prey on foot. During one such chase he was badly injured when he tumbled from a cliff, lying helpless and unable to move for about a day. His prey had cushioned his fall, likely sparing him a broken back.[19]

The lessons he had learned as a child from his father, a tanner, now served him well. For example, when his clothes wore out, he made new ones from hair-covered goatskins using a nail for sewing.[20]

As his shoes became unusable, he had no need to replace them, since his toughened, callused feet made protection unnecessary.[20] He sang psalms and read from the Bible, finding it a comfort in his situation and a prop for his English.[21]

During his sojourn on the island, two vessels came to anchor. Unfortunately for Selkirk, both were Spanish. As a Scotsman and a privateer, he risked a grim fate if captured and, therefore, tried to hide himself. On one occasion he was spotted and chased by a group of sailors from one of the ships. His pursuers urinated beneath the tree in which he was hiding, but failed to discover him. Frustrated, his would-be captors gave up and sailed away.[15]

Rescue

Selkirk, seated in a ship's boat, being taken aboard the Duke.
The rescued Selkirk, seated at right, being taken aboard the Duke.

Selkirk's long-awaited deliverance came on 2 February 1709 by way of the Duke,[22] a privateering ship piloted by William Dampier, and its sailing companion, the Duchess.[23] Thomas Dover led the landing party that met Selkirk.[24] After four years and four months without human company, Selkirk was almost incoherent with joy.[25] The Duke‍‍ '​‍s captain and leader of the expedition, Woodes Rogers, mischievously referred to him as the governor of the island. The agile castaway, catching two or three goats a day, helped restore the health of Rogers' men, who were suffering from scurvy.[26]

Captain Rogers was impressed not only by Selkirk's physical vigour, but by the peace of mind he had attained while living on the island, as well, observing: "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."[27] He made Selkirk the Duke‍ '​s second mate, later giving him command of one of their prize ships, the Increase,[28] before it was ransomed by the Spanish.[29]

Selkirk returned to privateering with a vengeance. At Guayaquil, in present-day Ecuador, he led a boat crew up the Guayas River, where a number of wealthy Spanish ladies had fled, and relieved them of the gold and jewels they had hidden inside their clothing.[30] His part in the hunt for treasure galleons along the coast of Mexico resulted in the capture of the Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación y Desengaño,[31] renamed Batchelor, on which he served as sailing master under Captain Dover to the Dutch East Indies.[32] Selkirk completed the round-the-world voyage by the Cape of Good Hope as the sailing master of the Duke,[33] arriving at the Downs off the English coast on 1 October 1711.[34] He had been away for eight years.

Later life and influence

Engraving of Robinson Crusoe standing on the shore of an island, dressed in hair-covered goatskin clothing
A furry Crusoe shows the influence of Selkirk

Selkirk's experience as a castaway aroused a great deal of attention in England. Rogers included an account of Selkirk's ordeal in a book chronicling their privateering expedition, entitled A Cruising Voyage Round the World (1712). The following year, the prominent essayist Richard Steele wrote an article about him for The Englishman newspaper. Claiming his share of the Duke‍‍ '​‍s plundered wealth—about £800[35] (equivalent to £103,900 today)[36]—Selkirk appeared set to enjoy a life of ease and celebrity. However, legal disputes made the amount of any payment uncertain.[37]

After a few months in London, he began to seem more like his former self again.[35] In September 1713, he was charged with assaulting a shipwright in Bristol and may have been kept in confinement for two years.[38] He returned to Lower Largo, where he met Sophia Bruce, a young dairymaid. They eloped to London early in 1717 but apparently did not marry. He was soon off to sea again, having enlisted in the Royal Navy.[39] While on a visit to Plymouth in 1720, he married a widowed innkeeper named Frances Candis.[40] He was serving 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, succumbing to the yellow fever that plagued the voyage. He was buried at sea.[41]

When Daniel Defoe published The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), few readers could have missed the resemblance to Selkirk. An illustration on the first page of the novel shows, in the words of modern explorer Tim Severin, "a rather melancholy-looking man standing on the shore of an island, gazing inland." He is dressed in the familiar hirsute goatskins, his feet and shins bare.[42] Yet Crusoe's island is located not in the mid-latitudes of the South Pacific but 4,300 km (2,700 mi) away in the Caribbean,[43] where the furry attire would hardly be comfortable in the tropical heat. This incongruity supports the popular belief that Selkirk was a model for the fictional character.

In other literary works

Wikisource has the original text of William Cowper's:

I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight
Of being king and government and nation.
A road, a mile of kingdom, I am king
Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.

These passengers, by reason of their clinging to a mast,
Upon a desert island were eventually cast.
They hunted for their meals, as Alexander Selkirk used,
But they couldn’t chat together—they had not been introduced.

In film

Selkirk, the Real Robinson Crusoe is a stop motion film by Walter Tournier, based on Selkirk's life. It premièred simultaneously in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay on 2 February 2012.[44] Distributed by The Walt Disney Company, it was the first full-length animated feature to be produced in Uruguay.[45]

Commemoration

Bronze plaque in memory of Selkirk affixed to a building
Plaque for Selkirk in Lower Largo, Scotland, which reads:
"In memory of Alexander Selkirk, mariner, the original of Robinson Crusoe who lived on the island of Juan Fernández in complete solitude for four years and four months. He died 1723 [sic], lieutenant of HMS Weymouth, aged 47 years [sic]. This statue is erected by David Gillies, net manufacturer, on the site of the cottage in which Selkirk was born."

The Scotsman is remembered in his former island home. In 1863, the crew of HMS Topaze placed a bronze tablet at a spot called Selkirk's Lookout on a hill of Más a Tierra, Juan Fernández Islands, to mark his stay.[46]

Selkirk has also been memorialised in his Scottish birthplace. On 11 December 1885, after a speech by Lord Aberdeen, the Lord's wife, Lady Aberdeen, unveiled a bronze statue and plaque in memory of Selkirk outside a house on the site of his original home on the Main Street of Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland. David Gillies of Cardy House, Lower Largo, a descendant of the Selkirks, donated the statue created by Thomas Stuart Burnett ARSA.[47]

On 1 January 1966, Chilean president Eduardo Frei Montalva renamed Más a Tierra Robinson Crusoe Island after Defoe's fictional character, in order to attract tourists. At the same time, the largest of the Juan Fernández Islands, known as Más Afuera, became Alejandro Selkirk Island, although Selkirk probably never saw that island, since it is located 180 kilometres (110 miles; 100 nautical miles) to the west.[48]

Archaeological findings

An archaeological expedition to the Juan Fernández Islands in February 2005 found part of a nautical instrument that could have belonged to Selkirk. It was "a fragment of copper alloy identified as being from a pair of navigational dividers"[49] dating from the early 18th (or late 17th) century. Selkirk is the only person known to have been on the island at that time who is likely to have had dividers[50] and was even said by Rogers to have had such instruments in his possession.[21] The artefact was discovered while excavating a site not far from Selkirk's Lookout, where the famous castaway is believed to have lived.[51]

References

  1. ↑ Severin, Tim (2002). In Search of Robinson Crusoe. New York: Basic Books. pp. 17–19. ISBN 978-046-50-7698-7.
  2. ↑ Howell (1829), pp. 18–19.
  3. ↑ Takahashi et al. (2007), n. 11, "Date of 1693, verified from the original Kirk Session Records (CH2/960/2, pp. 29, 30), is erroneously given in other printed sources as 1695."
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Howell (1829), pp. 24–25.
  5. ↑ Funnell (1707), pp. 1–2.
  6. ↑ Funnell (1707), p. 3.
  7. ↑ "Letters of Marque and Reprisal for the St George, Declaration of William Dampier". The National Archives. October 13, 1702.
  8. ↑ Howell (1829), pp. 33, 37–38.
  9. ↑ Funnell (1707), pp. 14–15.
  10. ↑ Funnell (1707), p. 26.
  11. ↑ Funnell (1707), pp. 44–45.
  12. ↑ Funnell (1707), pp. 45–47.
  13. ↑ Funnell (1707), pp. 46–47.
  14. ↑ Lee (1987), pp. 394–395.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Rogers (1712), p. 125.
  16. ↑ Rogers (1712), pp. 145, 333.
  17. ↑ Steele (1713), p. 169–171.
  18. ↑ Rogers (1712), pp. 127–128.
  19. ↑ Rogers (1712), pp. 126–128.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Rogers (1712), p. 128.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Rogers (1712), p. 126.
  22. ↑ Rogers (1712), pp. 124–125.
  23. ↑ Rogers (1712), p. 6.
  24. ↑ Rogers (1712), p. 124.
  25. ↑ Rogers (1712), p. 129.
  26. ↑ Rogers (1712), pp. 131–132.
  27. ↑ Rogers (1712), p. 130.
  28. ↑ Rogers (1712), p. 147.
  29. ↑ Rogers (1712), p. 220.
  30. ↑ Rogers (1712), pp. 178–179.
  31. ↑ Rogers (1712), p. 294.
  32. ↑ Rogers (1712), p. 312.
  33. ↑ Cooke (1712), p. 61.
  34. ↑ Rogers (1712), p. 427.
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 Steele (1713), p. 173.
  36. ↑ UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Gregory Clark (2014), "What Were the British Earnings and Prices Then? (New Series)" MeasuringWorth.
  37. ↑ Souhami (2001), pp. 180–181.
  38. ↑ Lee (1987), p. 399; cf. Souhami (2001), p. 186, "He did not show up for the hearing. He moved to the obscurity of London for some months, then went home to Largo."
  39. ↑ Souhami (2001), pp. 190–192.
  40. ↑ Souhami (2001), pp. 201–202.
  41. ↑ Souhami (2001), pp. 203–205.
  42. ↑ Severin (2002), p. 11.
  43. ↑ Severin (2002), p. 17.
  44. ↑ "Selkirk, el verdadero Robinson Crusoe". Cine Nacional. 2011.
  45. ↑ "Selkirk llega al DVD con algunas novedades". El País. April 8, 2012.
  46. ↑ Severin (2002), p. 59.
  47. ↑ "Notable Dates in History". Scots Independent. 2006.
  48. ↑ Severin (2002), pp. 23–24.
  49. ↑ Takahashi et al. (2007), p. 270.
  50. ↑ Takahashi et al. (2007), pp. 294–295.
  51. ↑ Takahashi et al. (2007), pp. 274–275.

Sources

  • Cooke, Edward (1712). A Voyage to the South Sea and Round the World, Performed in the Years 1708, 1709, 1710 and 1711 2. London: B. Lintot & R. Gossling.
  • Funnell, William (1707). A Voyage Round the World, Containing an Account of Captain Dampier's Expedition into the South Seas in the Ship St George in the Years 1703 and 1704. London: W. Botham.
  • Howell, John (1829). The Life and Adventures of Alexander Selkirk. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd.
  • Lee, C. D. (1987). "Alexander Selkirk and the Last Voyage of the Cinque Ports Galley". Mariner's Mirror 73 (4): 385–399. doi:10.1080/00253359.1987.10656168.
  • Rogers, Woodes (1712). A Cruising Voyage Round the World: First to the South-Sea, Thence to the East-Indies, and Homewards by the Cape of Good Hope. London: A. Bell.
  • Severin, Tim (2002). In Search of Robinson Crusoe. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-046-50-7698-7.
  • Souhami, Diana (2001). Selkirk's Island: The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe. New York: Harcourt Books. ISBN 978-015-60-2717-5.
  • Steele, Richard (3 December 1713). "Alexander Selkirk, an Account of His Living Alone Above Four Years in a Desolate Island". The Englishman 1 (26): 168–173.
  • Takahashi, Daisuke; Caldwell, David H.; Cáceres, Iván; Calderón, Mauricio; Morrison-Low, A. D.; Saavedra, Miguel A. & Tate, Jim (2007). "Excavation at Aguas Buenas, Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile, of a Gunpowder Magazine and the Supposed Campsite of Alexander Selkirk, Together with an Account of Early Navigational Dividers". Post-Medieval Archaeology 41 (2): 270–304. doi:10.1179/174581307X236157.

Further reading

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1885–1900 Dictionary of National Biography's article about Alexander Selkirk.