Cold Open

It’s February 1704, near Cape Horn, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Pacific at the tip of South America.

28-year-old Sailing Master, Alexander Selkirk, stands on the quarterdeck of the Cinque Ports, an English ship on a dangerous mission.

The Cinque Ports is a privateer—a warship crewed by state-sanctioned pirates. Her crew has permission from the English government to plunder the high seas, attacking ships of enemy nations. And today, the Cinque Ports has a target in its sights: a lone French vessel struggling through the choppy waters off South America. But this enemy ship is armed and isn’t going to yield easily.

And as the Cinque Ports approaches, the French open fire. Their first few cannon shots miss the English and fall harmlessly short into the churning waters...

But the next shot whistles close overhead. Alexander is an experienced officer and doesn’t flinch. He encourages his men to keep their nerves. They just have to get closer.

But a French shot crashes into the side of the Cinque Ports. Rushing to the rail, Alexander leans over to check the damage. The cannonball has penetrated the hull, but thankfully well above the waterline. Alexander is still convinced they can take the French ship if they get in close quickly enough. He’s about to urge the men on again when there’s a call from behind him. Alexander looks across the deck to see the ship’s young captain, Thomas Stradling, shouting to the men at the helm. He’s calling off the attack.

The English ship veers to starboard and breaks off its pursuit. Alexander thumps the rail and curses as the French ship takes the opportunity to escape. The Cinque Ports has been at sea for months without capturing a single enemy ship. And now, they’ve just let a valuable prize slip through their fingers.

Alexander Selkirk rues the missed opportunity - and blames Captain Stradling for losing out on a payday. But soon, treasure will be the last thing on his mind. Alexander’s voyage on the Cinque Ports is about to come to an abrupt end. Marooned on an uninhabited island deep in the Pacific, he will spend more than four years in isolation until he’s finally rescued on February 2nd, 1709.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is February 2nd, 1709: The Real-Life Robinson Crusoe is Rescued.

Act One

It’s September 1704, off a remote island in the Pacific Ocean, seven months after the battle near Cape Horn.

On board the sixteen-gun English privateer, Cinque Ports, Sailing Master Alexander Selkirk has had enough. After months of simmering tension with the captain, Alexander marches across the deck to confront his superior. The crew stares in shock, as the ship’s two most senior officers go toe to toe.

The year-long voyage of the Cinque Ports has not been a pleasant one. The privateer’s mission is to plunder the ships and outposts of England’s enemies in the Pacific but the crew has had little success. First, a French ship escaped attack off Cape Horn, and then a raid on a Spanish colonial gold mine failed when the landing party was ambushed. But that’s not the only reason Alexander is unhappy. The captain of the Cinque Ports is 21-year-old Thomas Stradling. But the young man is arrogant and has clashed with his more experienced officers—especially the hot-headed sailing master, Alexander. As the officers have bickered, discipline on the ship has crumbled, and routine cleaning and maintenance have come to almost a complete stop.

The Cinque Ports has recently anchored at an uninhabited island in the Pacific to collect freshwater and conduct repairs, but Captain Stradling is keen to get away before the work is done—and Alexander’s patience with his superior has finally run out.

Crossing the deck, Alexander bellows at the captain arguing that the Cinque Ports cannot raise anchor until the ship’s hull is repaired. Stradling bristles at Alexander’s insubordination and coldly tells him to do as he’s told. But Alexander is not backing down - he loudly insists that the ship under Stradling’s command is a deathtrap and he’d rather stay behind than sail any further on it.

It’s an open challenge to the Captain’s authority. And after only a moment’s pause, Stradling replies that Alexander’s wish is granted—he can stay behind when the ship leaves. Alexander turns to the crew, hoping the men will back him—but they all avert their eyes, not wanting to be part of Alexander’s mutiny.

Within hours, Alexander is taken off the ship and ferried across to the uninhabited island. Then as the rowboat that carried him ashore returns to the Cinque Ports, Alexander realizes that Captain Stradling wasn’t bluffing, and he does intend to leave him here. Alexander wades into the surf, shouting to the retreating sailors that he’s sorry for running his mouth and that he will follow orders in the future. But it’s too late. He receives no answer from the ship. And soon, the Cinque Ports raises anchor and disappears over the horizon.

Alexander is marooned. But he’s not been left entirely helpless. He’s been given a musket, a hatchet, and a knife, as well as a cooking pot, some clothes, a little food, and, of course, a Bible.

Alexander knows that he must act quickly if he is to survive. He sets up camp on the beach and builds a rudimentary shelter from driftwood. He finds fresh water from a stream and collects spiny lobsters and turtles to eat. All the while, he watches the sea for passing ships that might come to his rescue. But there’s no sign of a vessel, his own or any other. His only visitors in these early days are a troop of bad-tempered sea lions, who gather on the beach for mating season and force Alexander to retreat to the island’s interior.

But the arrival of the sea lions proves a blessing in disguise. Alexander realizes that there are more resources to be found on the island away from the beach. He cuts down trees and uses the wood to build two huts: one for cooking, and one for sleeping. Alexander has a proper camp now, but soon every day on the island becomes the same endless battle of finding enough food to survive. Alexander gathers fruits and wild turnips, and sometimes even manages to capture goats for meat and milk. The biggest nuisance is the rats - they raid his food stores and bite him as he sleeps, but over the months, Alexander domesticates some feral cats and trains them as rat catchers.

Though it's day after day of monotony, Alexander never gives up. Even as the months become years, he continues to hope for a return to civilization, praying for another ship to stop at his island to resupply. He fervently believes Sails will eventually reappear on the horizon. But when they do, Alexander will find that they don’t belong to a rescue party. Instead, they’ll herald the return of an old enemy.

Act Two

It’s 1707, deep in the Pacific Ocean, three years after Captain Thomas Stradling marooned one of his officers on a remote island.

At his camp in the jungle, Alexander Selkirk allows himself a handful of berries and fruit to eat as he goes through the monotonous list of morning tasks he’s devised during his years of isolation. First, he stokes up the fire, then he collects more wood, checks the traps he’s made to catch wild animals. And as he works, he sings - psalms mostly, songs he remembers from his childhood in Scotland. Though Alexander hasn’t spoken to another person in years, he likes to keep using his voice to ensure that he can still speak when his longed-for rescue arrives.

After eating breakfast and completing his chores, Alexander goes to his lookout point on the tallest hill on the island. There, he spends his days, scanning the horizon for a passing ship. Normally, all he sees is the endless blue of the Pacific Ocean. But today is different. Alexander’s heart begins to pound when he spots two ships anchored off the beach where Alexander was first marooned.

Alexander runs down the hillside and onto the beach, waving and shouting as he goes. Tears roll down his face, blurring his view of the rowboat in the water. Alexander doesn’t stop to think about the strange sight he must be to the sailors on board: a half-naked man dancing joyfully on the sand.

But as the rowboat approaches, the sailors call out a greeting—and what Alexander hears makes him suddenly stop celebrating. The sailors are speaking Spanish. They won’t care that he’s been marooned here for three years—to them, he’ll still be a sailor from an English ship and their enemy. If they capture him, Alexander knows he’ll be put in irons and taken to a Spanish colony, where he’ll face imprisonment or even execution.

Alexander would rather take his chances on the island. So, he turns and runs back up the beach. The Spanish pursue and, as Alexander reaches the tree line, a gunshot cracks through the air. Alexander dashes on, darting this way and that, trying to draw the Spanish sailors away from his camp. Then, when he thinks he’s given them the slip, Alexander climbs a tree.

He spends the rest of the day hiding in the branches, trying to keep silent. He’s almost discovered when one of the Spanish sailors urinates against the same tree where Alexander has hidden himself, but the man never looks up, and Alexander stays undiscovered.

Then as night falls, Alexander climbs down and returns to his camp. It’s obvious that the Spanish sailors have searched there because objects have been moved from their usual places, but there is no sign of them now. Still, Alexander plays it safe and spends a nervous night hiding among the trees before warily returning to his lookout point at first light.

There, he heaves a sigh of relief. The Spanish ships have departed.

Left alone again, Alexander’s days resume their repetitive routine. The end of his ordeal won’t come for another year when finally, on February 2nd, 1709, Alexander spots another two ships at anchor. This time, he approaches the beach with more care and only reveals himself when he hears the sailors talking in English.

The sailors are shocked when a man dressed in animal furs and sporting a long beard emerges from the undergrowth—and they’re even more surprised when Alexander starts speaking English. The sailors tell him that they belong to two British ships, the Duke and Duchess, and they’ve stopped at the island to resupply.

Alexander is taken aboard the Duke and interrogated by its captain, Woodes Rogers. That’s when Alexander gets another stroke of luck. His unlikely story of being abandoned is corroborated by one of the men on board the Duke. The ship’s pilot, William Dampier, once sailed on a ship which accompanied the Cinque Ports and its arrogant young captain. William reveals that Alexander was right that the Cinque Ports’ needed repairs. Because within weeks of abandoning Alexander on the island, the Cinque Ports sank off the coast of Colombia and its entire crew was either drowned or captured by the Spanish.

With Alexander’s story verified, Captain Rogers invites him to join the crew for their voyage back to England. Alexander gratefully accepts and signs up as the Duke’s new second mate. He helps the two British ships resupply with fresh fruit and wild animals, and then he bids farewell to his island home.

Alexander Selkirk will finally make it back to Britain in 1711, eight years after he left. And once home, his remarkable story of survival will quickly spread, catching the attention of a man who will propel both Alexander and himself to lasting fame.

Act Three

It’s December 1713, in a tavern in London, England; four years after Alexander Selkirk was rescued.

53-year-old Daniel Defoe smooths the pages of a magazine as he chews his breakfast. As he does every day, Daniel is on the lookout for interesting stories that he can write about.

Over the past few decades, Daniel has penned many political pamphlets and non-fiction books, but it’s a hard way to make a living. He struggles to stay out of debt, and even as he approaches old age, he's forced to continue working.

Now, between bites, Daniel reads about Alexander Selkirk—a sailor who was stranded on a Pacific island for more than four years. Daniel is intrigued by Alexander’s story of survival, but decides at first that there’s nothing more he can add to what’s already been written. The previous year, one of Alexander’s crewmates from the Duke wrote a book about the ship’s voyage and included Alexander’s story - a tale of unlikely survival that has since become the talk of London.

So, Daniel sets the story to one side. But in the days that follow, he can’t get it out of his head. Eventually, Daniel decides that he is going to write about Alexander’s experiences as a castaway—but Daniel’s going to fictionalize it.

Over the next few years, Daniel writes The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe—an imaginary tale of a castaway on a tropical island. Daniel alters the real-life experiences of Alexander Selkirk to suit his story. Daniel’s protagonist survives a shipwreck rather than being deliberately marooned, and he makes friends with a native companion who lives on the island.

The entire work takes five years to write, but on April 25th, 1719, Robinson Crusoe is released. The book proves enormously popular, but despite that success, Daniel can’t stay out of debt. He eventually dies in 1731, at the age of seventy, probably while in hiding from his creditors. And by that time, the sailor who Daniel based his most famous work on was also already dead.

Alexander Selkirk returned home and found fame - but happiness was harder to come by. He went back to sea but in 1721 he contracted yellow fever as his ship sailed down the coast of West Africa. He died and was buried at sea, a fitting end for a sailor, one who was marooned in the Pacific Ocean and rescued five years later on February 2nd, 1709.

Outro

Next on History Daily. February 5th, 1994. Byron De La Beckwith is found guilty of murder, 31 years after he killed civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammed Shahzaib.

Sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.