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Alexander Selkirk, the Real Robinson Crusoe

© Cindy Vallar

Watching the Cinque Ports sail away, the Scottish navigator knew his shipmates would be lucky to survive their journey. The ship, its hull infested with worms devouring the oak planks, was no longer seaworthy. It would eventually sink off Peru and the Spanish would imprison the survivors. This man should have rejoiced at his salvation. He was free and well rid of an incompetent captain and would never have to endure the tortures the Spaniards inflicted on their prisoners. Instead, he "grew dejected, languid, scarce able to act." (Souhami, Diana. Selkirk's Island, page 91)

Alexander Selkirk, the seventh son of a Scottish shoemaker, possessed a keen mind and a nasty temper, which eventually resulted in a summons before church elders in Fife for indecent behavior. Rather than face imprisonment or censure, he fled and became a seaman in 1695. His mathematical skills resulted in quick promotion to navigator, a position that also garnered him respect. He didn't return home for eight years, and by then, his temper had worsened. An argument with his family turned violent, and once again the church elders summoned Selkirk before them. Unlike before, however, he appeared contrite and promised to mend his ways.

Little else of his life is known until a privateering venture to prey on the Spanish treasure fleet in the Pacific Ocean sailed from England in September 1703. William Dampier, who had already circumnavigated the globe, commanded the expedition from the Saint George. Selkirk served as navigator aboard the companion ship, the Cinque Ports, which Charles Pickering captained.

Born in 1652, Dampier went to sea in 1668. He joined the navy, but illness forced him to retire. He managed a Jamaican estate for a time, then returned to England where he married a woman named Judith, whom he saw little of as he almost immediately returned to the sea. He was both pirate and privateer, but became better known for his scientific explorations and detailed journals noting everything he encountered - natives, weather, geography, winds, currents, exotic plant and animal life. During an eight-year span beginning in 1680, he joined pirates who plundered ships in the South Pacific and Asia. A decade later, he commanded a government-sponsored expedition to Australia, which ended in failure when the HMS Roebuck sank off Ascension Island in 1701. He published several accounts of his adventures. A New Voyage Round the World, which became a bestseller in 1697, recounted his pirating adventures. Voyages and Descriptions (1699) told of his journeys to Campeche, Indonesia, and India. A Voyage to New Holland (1709) detailed his ill-fated voyage aboard the HMS Roebuck.