In the autumn of 1704, two ships under the command of the English privateer William Dampier left the Pacific coast of South America on a voyage that was meant to bring its investors fortune. The expedition consisted of two vessels, the St. George and the Cinque Ports, crewed by sailors who had signed on with the promise of plunder and prize money. Among them was a young Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk, who served as a private aboard the Cinque Ports under Captain Thomas Stradling.
The venture was part of a larger war effort against Spanish interests in the region, and the ships were licensed to attack enemy shipping. For a man like Selkirk, born in 1676 in the coastal town of Lower Largo, seafaring had already become a way of life. He had gone to sea as a young man and had developed a reputation for being headstrong, difficult, and willing to challenge authority. The expedition began promisingly enough.
The ships sailed down the South American coast, hunting for Spanish merchant vessels. But as months passed without significant success, conditions aboard the vessels deteriorated. Discipline frayed, supplies ran low, and the relationship between Selkirk and his captain grew increasingly hostile. Selkirk had become convinced that the Cinque Ports was unseaworthy.
The hull was leaking, and he argued that the vessel could not safely continue the voyage. Stradling dismissed the complaint, and the dispute escalated. In September 1704, when the ships reached the uninhabited Juan Fernández archipelago, some 617 kilometers off the coast of Chile, Selkirk made his position clear. He refused to remain aboard a ship he believed was doomed and demanded to be put ashore.
Stradling, apparently expecting that Selkirk would change his mind once faced with the reality of abandonment, accepted the request. Selkirk was landed on one of the islands with little more than his clothing, a musket, some ammunition, a hatchet, a knife, a cooking pot, and a few tools. His bedding consisted of a thin sailor’s blanket. As the boats pulled away and the Cinque Ports prepared to sail, Selkirk saw the finality of what had happened.
He called out, urging the crew to wait, to take him back aboard. But the captain refused to reverse the decision, and the ship departed without him. The island was not the barren rock Selkirk may have expected. He found that it had a reliable source of fresh water, and its coast was populated with sea lions and seals, whose numbers were swelled by the mating season.
There were wild goats on the island, descended from animals introduced by earlier visitors, along with cabbages, wild turnips, and the island’s distinctive native palm. Selkirk was able to hunt the goats for meat, though doing so required genuine skill. His rifle had a limited supply of powder and shot, so he could not afford to waste a single round. When his ammunition eventually ran out, he learned to catch the goats by foot, pursuing them across the rugged terrain until he could seize them by hand.
He wore down his boots until they were barely more than scraps, and after his clothing fell apart he made do as best he could with the materials the island provided. Using nails from his tools, he fashioned a knife from barrel hoops that had washed ashore. He built two huts, one for cooking and food storage and the other for sleeping, and lined his bed with goat skins. When he needed fire, he learned to strike sparks from his musket lock using dried wood as tinder.
Rats, which had come ashore from the ships, gnawed at his feet and ears while he slept. He solved that problem by taming feral cats from the island’s goat population and allowing them to share his hut at night, using them to drive the rats away. The isolation pressed on him far more heavily than the physical dangers. He had no companions, no news, and no way of knowing whether anyone would ever return for him.
He spent much of his time reading aloud from his Bible, which he later said helped keep his mind active and gave him structure during the long years of solitude. He kept himself busy as a way of staying sane, and he remained in relatively good health despite the circumstances. The island’s climate was mild, and the evergreens that covered the highlands kept the ground shaded. He saw ships pass at a distance on at least two occasions, but both passed without seeing his signals, and the possibility of rescue slipped away each time.
The fate of the ship he had abandoned was grim. The Cinque Ports was wrecked shortly after leaving the island, and most of its crew perished. Stradling was among the survivors and eventually made his way back to England, but of the men Selkirk had sailed with, few remained. The island had probably saved his life, whatever it had cost him in loneliness.
Selkirk remained on the island for four years and four months. He was finally rescued on February 2, 1709, when the English privateer Woodes Rogers brought his ship Duke to the Juan Fernández archipelago to resupply. The landing party was led by the English physician Thomas Dover, and when they reached the island they encountered a man in goatskins who had almost lost the ability to speak. Over the following days, Selkirk regained his bearings and his language.
He was taken aboard the Duke, where he served as a privateer and eventually rose to the rank of master aboard one of the expedition’s captured prizes. He took part in the expedition’s further raids along the South American coast before finally returning to England in 1711 after an absence of more than eight years. Back home, Selkirk’s story became well known. His account of his solitary survival was told and retold, and his reputation as a survivor grew.
But his restless nature had not left him. He married in 1720, but the marriage did not last. He returned to sea, serving aboard a royal navy ship sent to patrol the West African coast. He died at sea on December 13, 1721, while serving as an officer aboard the Weymouth.
He was forty-five years old. His story might have faded into the broader history of privateering and shipwreck had it not been for the writer Daniel Defoe, who drew on the account of Selkirk’s time alone on the island as inspiration for his novel The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719. The book became one of the most widely read stories in the English language, shaping the image of the castaway for generations.
Alexander Selkirk’s four years alone on a Pacific island became the foundation of one of the most famous fictional characters in history, even as the real man who endured them died largely forgotten in a naval service far from home.