The story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived for years on the deserted island of Más Afuera in the Juan Fernández archipelago (Chile) in the Pacific Ocean, became world famous under the name Robinson Crusoe. Since 1966, the island has even officially changed its name to Alejandro Selkirk Island. The real Robinson Crusoe was called Alexander Selkirk and was only taken from the island again on February 2, 1709. Selkirk was a navigator (also called a sailing master) on ships with seafarers looking for gold. Ships were often lost at sea in those days. A good navigator was therefore important. In 1703 he traveled on the galley Cinque Ports. Diseases broke out on board the ship and many died of scurvy, due to a lack of healthy food and a shortage of fresh drinking water. They looked for islands to stock up on food and drinks. Alexander Selkirk, who was known as a difficult man with whom it was easy to quarrel, regularly argued on the ship with the captain, including about the correct course and the seaworthiness of the ship. The arguments increasingly got out of hand. Crew on ships did not have an easy time at the time. They lived on a ship with up to 100 people, slept together in small rooms, missed their families, and it would undoubtedly have been a real macho culture in which you often had to struggle to survive as an individual. A lot of alcohol was also consumed, which could cause both fun and arguments. It was also common for crew members to die from diseases or quarrels. The unfortunate were given a seaman’s grave.
Abandoned on a desert island
Selkirk and the captain are not the best of friends. When the ship finally finds the Fernandes Islands, due to mutiny and disease, only 42 of the 90 crew are left. They reach one of the islands in a sloop. Alexander Selkirk is one of the first to step out of the sloop onto land. He thinks the other men will go with him, but they have other plans for him. They deliberately leave him on the island on the captain’s orders. They leave him with a rifle, a pound of gunpowder, a chest of some supplies, and food for only 2 days. The sloop with the men leaves the island again and they row back to the galley Cinque Ports. Selkirk realizes that they will really leave him alone on the island. He runs into the water and begs the men to take him back to the mother ship. They refuse and row away. Selkirk is now at his own mercy and doesn’t know how long he will have to survive on the island alone. During the first few days he hopes that the crew will return, but that does not happen. He hopes that a new ship will soon appear on the horizon, but that doesn’t happen either. He is close to despair.
Information about Robinson Crusoe’s island
Selkirk was abandoned on the island of Más Afuera in the South Pacific Ocean. (Since 1966 the island was called Alejando Selkirk Island). Más Afuera means ‘far away in the sea.’ The island where Selkirk was abandoned is located in the Juan Fernández Archipelago, 800 km from South America. The Alejandor Selkirk Island is the largest island in the archipelago, and also the westernmost island. The island was discovered in 1574 by the Spaniard Juan Fernández. He was also the one who gave the island a name, then: Más Afuera. The island remained uninhabited after that, except for Selkirk’s adventure. Selkirk lived on the island against his will from 1705 to 1709. Even after that, the island remained uninhabited. It was not turned into a penal colony until 1909. This was maintained until 1930 to, among other things, detain political prisoners. Since 2012, researchers have been staying on the island to research aquatic animals and native plants and animal species. Since 1977, the Alejando Selkirk Island has been part of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve because of its special animal and plant species.
Unique animal species that occur on Alejando Selkirk Island
- the Juan Fernandez fur seal (Arctocephalus philippii). This seal has lived on and around the island since the 17th century
- the masafuera rayadito (Aphrastura masafuerae). This songbird is critically endangered and very rare. It is a bird from the ovenbird family. Only 70 to 400 copies still exist
The island also has special vegetation.
The real Robinson Crusoe
Every day he looks out for ships on the horizon, but his fate seems to have doomed him to loneliness. The first 8 months he has a lot of trouble surviving and the loneliness sometimes drives him crazy, but eventually he learns to live with the island and his lonely existence. There are many goats and cats on the island, but he initially does not hunt them. The island is also teeming with rats, and at night he often hears the cries of seals. During the first months he is tormented by fears, especially at night. The sounds of seals scare him and rats also torment him in his sleep. He weakens quickly. The first months on the island he feels deeply depressed and anxious, but then he decides to make the best of it with his will to survive. He eats turtles and plants, but they often make him sick. He makes a fire with the gunpowder, and makes the fire smoke well, and continually hopes that he will be found by the crew of a ship at sea. He builds a hut from palm leaves, a kind of cooking place made of stones, and a place in the hut to sleep on.
Survival in nature
Once abandoned by ships, the island’s many feral ship cats are used to catching rats. In those days, cats traveled on ships to chase mice and rats from the holds. This also made it easy for cats to be left on islands. The story goes that Alexander Selkirk tamed the feral cats to keep the rats away from him at night, which indeed made him less bothered by the rodents. Cats are also good company, so they took away some of his loneliness as well. Selkirk had taken a number of items from the ship, a chest with a pan in it, an axe, a rifle with 1 pound of gunpowder and a knife. Once settled on the island he began actively hunting goats. He ate their flesh and used their skin to make clothes and blankets. As a child he grew up in Largo, in the town of Fife, eastern Scotland. His father was a leather worker, which now came in handy for him. He knew that he had to scrape the skin of a goat completely clean, and that he could use the brains to rub the inside of the skin. The substances in the brain made the leather supple like a chamois cloth.
Accident
As time passed, Selkirk turned into a feral man dressed in goat skin clothing. He had a long beard and long hair. He used the gunpowder to make fire, but the gunpowder ran out. However, he managed to keep the fire burning. It is also claimed by psychologists that he also used the goats for sex, as he marked some goats with his knife. In July 1709 he suffered a serious fall on the island. He has been on the island for two years. While hunting a goat, he falls off a wall and crashes into a ravine. There he lies seriously injured, without hope of help. He then realizes that after all the effort he has made to survive, he can still die. He has been in the abyss for about 24 hours, with bruises and possibly broken bones, and a severe concussion. Despite a difficult period, he eventually manages to reach his hut again, where he slowly recovers. To avoid having to hunt again and again to catch goats, he keeps goats in captivity and lets them mate and have young. As a result, after a while he no longer has to hunt. During his lonely stay on the island he spends a lot of time on a rock from where he looks out for ships at sea. He fervently hopes to be saved and so he makes sure he has a fire burning on top of the rock, which also produces smoke. His biggest fear was that he would miss a ship, for example while he was sleeping.
Almost killed
It was not until the year 1707 that a ship actually sailed to the island. Selkirk waves to them and calls for help. Part of the crew then sails towards the island in a sloop. Delirious with joy, he runs towards them. But to his horror, the crew, who jumps out of the boat a little later, does not try to save him but shoots him. They turn out to be Spaniards, and at that time they considered every English speaker an enemy. He manages to escape them by climbing high into a tree. The Spaniards ‘amuse themselves’ for some time on the island by killing some goats and burning down Alexander’s camp, but they are unable to find and kill him. After the Spaniards left the island, Selkirk quickly rebuilds his camp. He is now so experienced in surviving that this takes him little effort. He lives for years on goat meat, fruit, fish and herbs that he finds on the island.
Saved
On January 31 of the year 1709, two ships finally appeared on the horizon for years. Selkirk has been on the uninhabited island for 4 years and 4 months. He does not know whether they are enemy ships and is initially on his guard after the incident with the Spaniards. However, he has to take the risk and starts a big fire on the beach. The ship’s crew approaches the fire and finds the haggard Alexander Selkirk. They turn out to be English. Selkirk can hardly get his words out as he has hardly had to speak for over 4 years. It will be several years before he returns to England. There he becomes a rich man, but at one point he also expresses that he longs for his life on the island because he experienced the happiest moments of his life there.
Passing away
Captain Daniel Defoe, who rescued Alexander from the island, writes the book ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ which becomes a great success. The story is based on the experiences that Selkirk tells Defoe after his rescue on board, and the contents of the book are largely truthful, apart from the ‘slave’ named Friday, who is introduced by Defoe as an extra character in the book . Alexander is rich, but goes to sea again and remains a sailor until his death in 1723. He dies on board a ship of yellow fever. He was 41 years old.