Recovering Robinson Crusoe:
Professor Andrew Lambert
(War Studies)
In December 2010 I joined a German
documentary/academic expedition to
Robinson Crusoe Island one of the
Juan Fernandez Islands, 400 miles
west of the coast of Chile. The
expedition focused on the relationship
between the fictional character of
Crusoe, one of the best known of all
literary inventions, the story of Scots
sailor Alexander Selkirk, who was
marooned on the island for four years
in the early eighteenth century, and
the development of British global
strategy that culminated in the arrival
of Commodore George Anson’s naval expedition in 1741.
While Selkirk actually lived on the island, unlike the fictional Crusoe, who Daniel
Defoe located on a non-existent tropical island off Orinoco River, the two stories formed
only part of a far larger body of literature, largely factual, but containing elements of selfdeception and fiction that focussed on the South Pacific, the Juan Fernandez islands and
the alluring prospect of trade and plunder in Spanish America. These writings coincided
with a popular genre of survivor narratives, amongst which Selkirk’s story was mainly
noteworthy for not being his own composition. Defoe had a long interest in the two
literary genres, and used elements drawn from his extensive library of history, geography,
memoir and fiction to create his character, the setting and the lessons of redemption,
colonial profit, and religious tolerance that inform the text. So successful was Defoe’s
text that once the association with Selkirk was made the island on which Selkirk had
lived between 1704 and 1708 was immediately, if erroneously associated with the literary
character. By the late eighteenth century the two stories had become intertwined to the
point where Selkik’s only role was to locate Crusoe on Juan Fernandez. In this way
Crusoe, by far the more memorable figure, became real.
By the 1830s a variety of suitably
romantic sites on the island had
become associated with Selkirk, in
order to make him more like Crusoe.
These became must see items for early
tourists and were soon validated by
the failure of the few people who
managed to reach the islands to
challenge long held assumptions. By
the 1860s the key sites had been
thickly encrusted with graffito proclaiming their connection with Selkirk. Standing on
one such location, ‘Selkirk’s Mirador’ I was struck by the irony that we had come all this
way to climb a mountain, and take in a glorious, romantic view. The value of the exercise
only became obvious when I realised that the prospects it offered were utterly useless: the
mountains blocked the view in the only direction that mattered; the one from English
ships might come. Even so the Miradaor has many Selirkian graffito dominated by a
large cast iron plaque, installed by a British warship in the 1860s to commemorate the
real Selkirk, who died at sea off the West coast of Africa while serving in the Navy.
Research in London and the opportunity to inspect the sites along with academic experts
on the natural history of the island it became clear that while these sites had many
qualities, they were highly unlikely to have been used by Selkirk. They belonged to
Robinson Crusoe. To add another layer of confusion Selkirk’s island, previously known
by the prosaic descriptive name of Mas a Tierra (nearer the land), was re-named
Robinson Crusoe in 1967 by a Chilean President seeking to promote tourism. At the same
time the other large island in the group, Mas Afuera, (further away) was named for
Selkirk, who never visited it!
Selkirk’s arrival on Mas a Tierra and his recovery can only be explained in the context
of a sustained effort by the English to master the navigation of the South Pacific. From
1680 Royal and commercial sponsorship propelled voyages of discovery and plunder into
a hitherto closed Spanish ocean. The cartographic records of these expeditions were
carefully drawn, while the presence of navigator William Dampier on both Selkirk
voyages and in the literary resources Defoe exploited in his novel, emphasised the
continuity of the English effort that culminated in the ill-fated South Seas Company,
another project that linked Defoe to Selkirk and Juan Fernandez. The island provided the
only safe anchorage in the South Pacific where British ships could anchor without
meeting Spanish forces, find fresh food and water, and refit after the demanding voyage
around Cape Horn. The Juan Fernandez Islands were essential: without them it would
have been impossible for English ships to operate in the South Pacific, for profit, or war.
When Britain declared war on Spain in 1739 the results of this sustained intelligence
gathering exercise was translated into strategy. A naval task force would sail round Cape
Horn, stop at Juan Fernandez to recover from scurvy, capture a base in southern Chile,
plunder its way along the coast of Peru and Mexico, and finally capture the fabulous
Manila treasure Galleon. Some of Commodore George Anson’s ships reached the island
in 1741 and refitted there for three months, before capturing the treasure ship and
circumnavigating the globe. While it is well known that Anson anchored in Cumberland
Bay, the precise location of his two camps, his landing place, the stream he used to water
the ships and the location of key facilities used to bake bread, mend equipment and heal
the sick were never fixed on contemporary charts. Anson was far more concerned to
locate the island in the ocean, and establish where to anchor. Archaeologists have begun
to locate the early history of the island, and this expedition provided an opportunity to
examine the landscape in the light of evidence drawn from several disciplines, and
discussions with local people.
Much of that early history can be read in the devastation of a unique and astonishingly
rich ecosystem. Uninhabited until the 1570s the Juan Fernandez Islands developed a
unique range of plants that reflected the absence of mammals. When man arrived the
devastation began. The low crowned trees were initially savaged by the Pyrenean goats
introduced by early Spanish settlers to provide meat, and then clear felled for charcoal in
the late nineteenth century. Few specimens survived, most trees in the island today are
invasive, highly aggressive species like eucalyptus that out grow and shade indigenous
types. Local experts are re-introducing many of these plants where possible, making it
possible to imagine how the island looked and worked in Selkirk’s time. However, the
situation has been greatly complicated by massive levels of erosion across large parts of
the island, where the goats, and in the 20th century rabbits, destroyed the vegetation,
allowing annual heavy rainfall events to strip away the topsoil. Fully half the island is
little more than a desert. Here the charts produced by early English navigators proved
very useful in dating the ecological catastrophe, demonstrating that the western half of
the island was largely desertified by the 1680s.
Finally the only settled part of the
island, the small town of San Juan
Bautista (pictured) has been devastated
by tsunami on three occasions. In 1751
a brand new Spanish settlement and
fort, built the previous year to prevent
the British returning, was wrecked. A
second wave in 1835 devastated the
small Chilean settlement, and in
February 2010 the town was hit again,
killing 18 people and devastating the
tourist and commercial section of the
town.
This expedition provided a unique research opportunity, to spend three weeks working
on an island that occupied a remarkable place in British naval history and imaginative
literature between 1680 and 1748. Defoe’s novel and Lord Anson Narrative were the best
selling publications in their respective genres in this period, achieving striking
international success, widely translated and extensively emulated they helped drive home
British dominance of the oceans, in an easily accessible and highly structured way. The
relationship between the two texts, the island and the ocean will form the basis of a
chapter in a book dealing with the British response to the sea across the ages. Eighteenth
century Britons had the confidence to project themselves onto an island on the other side
of the world, and these two works, and the genres they effectively created, were
essentially British cultural productions, although they quickly would be translated,
copied, emulated and developed into truly international possessions.
I am deeply indebted to Caligari Films for opportunity to visit this unique place, and
debate the island with scholars from other disciplines.
Professor Andrew Lambert, January 2011