It all began in 1704 with a bloodbath on the deck of a tired privateer sailing ship, somewhere in the Juan Fernández archipelago off the coast of Chile. Alexander Selkirk, a seasoned navigator, chose exile rather than a perilous return across Cape Horn aboard a ship battered by battle and the tropics. Little did this Scottish sailor know that he would spend more than 4 years alone, with no other craft than his imagination, no other compass than his will... and that this forced sojourn would make him one of the most emblematic figures of survival at sea. This is his story.
A temperament forged by the sea
The son of a shoemaker raised in a fishing village on the North Sea, Selkirk was by no means a model of discipline. From an early age, he frequented the docks more than the pews. His name was entered in the records for "indecent" conduct at church, but the young man took to the sea before appearing in court. The sea became his terrain of expression.
From 1695 onwards, he sailed relentlessly, before embarking in 1703 aboard the Cinq Ports, a privateer sailing ship engaged in a Pacific campaign against the Spanish Empire, under the flag of Captain Stradling. On this war-rigged ship, Selkirk took on the role of "navigator", a pivotal position between officers and sailors. He knows every planking and bolster on board, inspects the living works and judges the condition of sails and hulls. Yet his professional conscience stands in the way of command decisions.
Voluntary exile
In October 1704, as the Cinq Ports dropped anchor in the Juan Fernández Islands, some 400 miles off the Chilean coast, to replenish her supplies of fresh water and wood before setting sail again for the Kingdom of England, Selkirk sounded the alarm: the yacht was in too poor a condition to continue to the South Atlantic. Her captain refused to accept any repairs.
Selkirk, convinced that the ship is doomed, would rather be put ashore than risk shipwreck. He demands to be landed on the island of Más a Tierra, a volcanic, surf-beaten land far from any busy road. He imagined he would soon be picked up by another ship. The captain granted his request and left him alone on the island, only too happy to get rid of an officer who had been involved in every mutiny attempt since leaving England. No comrades follow him.
Alone on the shore, with his seaman's belongings (a musket, powder, tools, linen and a Bible) Selkirk watched the ship disappear over the horizon. The sailor's instinct proved right, as a few weeks later, the Cinq Ports was wrecked near the island of Malpelo, taking half the crew with it.
Living with the elements
Deprived of compass, chronometer and boat, Selkirk had to adapt to the land. The steep coastline, bristling with coves and cliffs, offered no natural shelter. Sea lions roar in mating season, rats swarm at dusk. At first, he camps out along the shore to watch for any boats that might come to his rescue. Then, driven away by the tumult of the sea lions, he heads up into the wooded interior of the island. There, he organizes himself as a true survivor.
He erected two huts from pepperwood, tamed cats to keep the rats away, and raised goats for their milk, leather and meat. He hunted with bow and arrow or by hand, perfecting his fishing techniques by exploiting coastal currents. Deprived of gunpowder, he became a tracker, discreetly stalking his prey. He also survives by spontaneously growing turnips, cabbages and peppery berries from previous freebooter passages. The only book he owns, a Bible, becomes his moral as well as linguistic support: he reads it aloud to preserve his English, eroded by silence.
Lonely watch and enemy ships
Twice, sails appear on the horizon. Twice, Selkirk tries to attract attention. Twice, it's Spanish ships. He knows that English privateers captured by the Spanish end up hanged.
He hides in the heights to escape the exposed beaches. The island became his lookout. 4 years and 4 months pass, punctuated by lunar cycles and Pacific gusts. His body hardened, his mind sharpened. In February 1709, the sound of a canoe breaking free from a longboat changed the course of his life. An English ship, the Duke, commanded by Woodes Rogers, had anchored nearby. On board, he found a familiar face: the privateer William Dampier, an old squadron mate.
Saved at last, Selkirk immediately made himself useful by treating Rogers' men for scurvy and hunting two or three goats a day to supply the crew.
A return to the world, but not to the earth
Selkirk did not return to Scotland immediately. He joined the raids against the Spanish colonies, demonstrating an admirable dexterity in maneuvering. Rogers, recognizing his talents, entrusted him with the command of an auxiliary vessel. The solitary sailor became a man of trust, a strategist and a supply ship. By the time he returned to London in 1711, he was a forgotten hero. However, he crossed paths with journalist Richard Steele, who published his story. The echo reached the ears of a certain Daniel Defoe. A few years later, Robinson Crusoe became a literary legend.
But Selkirk was unable to drop anchor. Despite a brief return to Lower Largo in Scotland, he remained unsuited to sedentary life. He set sail again on a slave ship. He died in 1721 off the coast of Ghana, carried off by yellow fever. In 1966, the Chilean island of Más a Tierra was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in homage to Selkirk and the novel that recounts his adventure. In the same year, the neighboring island of Más Afuera became Alejandro Selkirk Island, although it was never visited by the castaway.
The reality behind the myth
The story of Selkirk is largely romanticized in Defoe's book. While the shipwreck and abandonment on the island are true, Defoe transforms this reality into an epic, symbolic adventure tale. In the novel, Robinson Crusoe, an English businessman and intrepid traveler, is shipwrecked on a deserted Caribbean island on a voyage to New Guinea. He lived there for 28 years, not "merely" surviving like his counterpart Selkirk: he became a more complex character, inventing for himself a structured daily life and a central role on the island he occupied. The character of Friday, Robinson Crusoe's fictional companion, is also an invention of Defoe's, with no basis in Selkirk's actual story.
In fact, the origins of his character lie in an event that took place on the island of Más a Tierra long before Selkirk's arrival. In 1681, the buccaneer Captain Watling abandoned a Mosquito Indian named William who had been left on the island during a meat hunt. 3 years later, in 1684, Captain John Cooke, accompanied by crew member William Dampier, returned to the island and discovered that William was still alive. Although Selkirk never met the man, Defoe drew on William's story to create the character of Vendredi, whom he initially imagined as a cannibalistic native, educated and transformed into Robinson Crusoe's faithful companion.
Friday symbolizes exoticism and the power relations between colonizer and colonized, important themes at the time the novel was written, during the era of the great explorations. This character is therefore a literary and ideological construct, far removed from the reality of Selkirk, who never had a human companion during his isolation. Be that as it may, through this moral tale, Robinson Crusoe, like Selkirk who inspired his character, discovers a providential order: benevolent nature provides man with everything he needs, provided he learns to observe, understand and use his hands.
