Most people have heard of Robinson Crusoe, the Englishman who was shipwrecked on an uninhabited island somewhere off the coast of Venezuela and lived alone, stranded on the island, for years.
The original book was written by Daniel Defoe and published in 1719. Its title was The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River Oroonoque; having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but Himself. With an Account how he was at last strangely delivered by Pirates. Written by Himself.
The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe has been in print pretty much continuously ever since its initial publication and has spawned a variety of imitators, including the Swiss Family Robinson and Space Family Robinson.
The basic gist of the story is well known: how Robinson Crusoe is stranded on the island, how he builds himself a home there, how he comes by his “man Friday” (an indigenous Carib Indian he liberates from cannibals who land on the island to hold a feast of human flesh), and how he is eventually rescued and returns to England.
What is less well known, however, is that before he has his adventure on the uninhabited island, he had a previous adventure—in Africa.
The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe begins when Crusoe is a young man. Against his parents’—especially his father’s—wishes, he takes passage aboard a ship to London. From there he boards another ship headed for the Guinea coast—that is, the west coast of Africa—where the ship intends to pick up, among other things, a cargo of African slaves.
This is highly ironic, for though this first voyage to west Africa is successful, on the second one the ship is captured by corsairs from Salé and the whole crew enslaved—including Robinson Crusoe.
For the next few weeks here in this blog, I’ll be posting the text of this lesser-known part of Robinson Crusoe’s adventures.
Since this book is three hundred years old, there are occasionally terms that need explaining. I have put these explanations in footnotes.
We start here with Robinson Crusoe in London as a young man, looking for a ship to board so he can go out and see the world…
That evil influence which carried me first away from my father’s house—which hurried me into the wild and indigested notion of raising my fortune, and that impressed those conceits so forcibly upon me as to make me deaf to all good advice, and to the entreaties and even the commands of my father—I say, the same influence, whatever it was, presented the most unfortunate of all enterprises to my view; and I went on board a vessel bound to the coast of Africa; or, as our sailors vulgarly called it, a voyage to Guinea.
It was my great misfortune that in all these adventures I did not ship myself as a sailor; when, though I might indeed have worked a little harder than ordinary, yet at the same time I should have learnt the duty and office of a fore-mast man, and in time might have qualified myself for a mate or lieutenant, if not for a master. But as it was always my fate to choose for the worse, so I did here; for having money in my pocket and good clothes upon my back, I would always go on board in the habit of a gentleman; and so I neither had any business in the ship, nor learned to do any.
It was my lot first of all to fall into pretty good company in London, which does not always happen to such loose and misguided young fellows as I then was; the devil generally not omitting to lay some snare for them very early; but it was not so with me. I first got acquainted with the master of a ship who had been on the coast of Guinea; and who, having had very good success there, was resolved to go again.
This captain taking a fancy to my conversation, which was not at all disagreeable at that time, hearing me say I had a mind to see the world, told me if I would go the voyage with him I should be at no expense; I should be his messmate and his companion; and if I could carry anything with me, I should have all the advantage of it that the trade would admit; and perhaps I might meet with some encouragement.
I embraced the offer; and entering into a strict friendship with this captain, who was an honest, plain-dealing man, I went the voyage with him, and carried a small adventure[1] with me, which, by the disinterested honesty of my friend the captain, I increased very considerably; for I carried about £40 in such toys and trifles as the captain directed me to buy. These £40 I had mustered together by the assistance of some of my relations whom I corresponded with; and who, I believe, got my father, or at least my mother, to contribute so much as that to my first adventure.
This was the only voyage which I may say was successful in all my adventures, which I owe to the integrity and honesty of my friend the captain; under whom also I got a competent knowledge of the mathematics and the rules of navigation, learned how to keep an account of the ship’s course, take an observation, and, in short, to understand some things that were needful to be understood by a sailor; for, as he took delight to instruct me, I took delight to learn; and, in a word, this voyage made me both a sailor and a merchant; for I brought home five pounds nine ounces of gold-dust for my adventure, which yielded me in London, at my return, almost £300; and this filled me with those aspiring thoughts which have since so completed my ruin.
Yet even in this voyage I had my misfortunes too; particularly, that I was continually sick, being thrown into a violent calenture by the excessive heat of the climate; our principal trading being upon the coast, from latitude of 15 degrees north even to the line[2] itself.
I was now set up for a Guinea trader; and my friend, to my great misfortune, dying soon after his arrival, I resolved to go the same voyage again, and I embarked in the same vessel with one who was his mate in the former voyage, and had now got the command of the ship.
This was the unhappiest voyage that ever man made; for though I did not carry quite £100 of my new-gained wealth, so that I had £200 left, which I had lodged with my friend’s widow, who was very just to me, yet I fell into terrible misfortunes.
For the further adventures of Robinson Crusoe, see the next post here in this blog.
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[1] The term “a small adventure” here refers to money that Crusoe has cobbled together (£40) in hopes of reaping a profit by trading in Guinea. In those days (the action in this part of the novel takes place in the early 1650s) £40 was fairly serious money—four or five times the annual wage of a skilled laborer.
[2] The “line” here refers to the equator.
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