Everyone knows from childhood about the adventures of Robinson Crusoe on a desert island. Have you heard that the hero had a real prototype? LAREINA decided to figure out what he was - the real Robinson Crusoe.
Everyone knows the story of Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe. But few people know that this hero had a real prototype. Reality is always more cruel than literary fiction. What was he like - the real Robinson Crusoe?
According to the generally accepted theory, the material for the novel was the description of the Scottish boatswain Selkirk's stay on a desert island. But there is another version.
Daniel Defoe's contemporaries believed for a time that he had invented a story about Robinson Crusoe and his life on a desert island. The British considered the same fiction to be published in 1729 with a long, as it was then accepted, title: "The Diary of Robert Drouery about fifteen years of captivity on the island of Madagascar." The books are very similar and at the same time different from each other. If the story of Crusoe is pink, then the story of Dru (e) ri is filled with many bloody details.
In 1703, Robert Drewery, a young midshipman, sailed from London to India aboard the Degrave, a ship of the East India Trading Company. Near Madagascar, the ship was caught in a very severe storm and sank. Droueri, along with 180 comrades, was captured by the warlike tribe Tandra, whose representatives still inhabit most of the island. The Tandroi included white sailors in their army and forced them to fight with other tribes. The escape attempt was unsuccessful. Taking the Tandroi leader hostage, the British set off eastward, but were soon overtaken by two thousand angry natives. The fugitives were put to painful execution. Tandroy decided to spare the lives of only four young men, including Robert Drouery.
The next eight years Robert spent in slavery with the leader of the tandroi, then fled again. This time he moved westward, but was again captured. Only now to the neighboring tribe - Sakalava. It is not known how the further fate of Robert Drewery would have developed if a British ship had not come to the island. On it Drouery returned to his homeland. After some time, he again returned to Madagascar and for several years traded on the island … in slaves. Robert spent the last days of his life in London. He often came to Old Tom's in Beavis Lane and talked about his exciting adventures to everyone who was not too lazy to listen.
Already in our time, Mike Parker Pearson, professor of archeology and history at the University of Sheffield, accidentally read Drouery's diary. The story of the adventures of the midshipman was very interested in the curious professor. In the mid-90s, scientists found evidence that Robert Drewery was not a fictional person. The fact that he really lived at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries was evidenced by the records found about his birth, death and service as a midshipman.
Of course, the fact that Drouery existed did not mean that his exciting adventures were taking place. Encouraged by the discovery of documents confirming the existence of the midshipman, Pearson went to Madagascar. He described the results of his expeditions to the island in the recently published book "In Search of the Red Slave."
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The professor's stay in Madagascar was very similar to what happened to Robert Drouerie. Tandroy … captured Mike Pearson and his comrades. The natives living on the island are sure that whites come to hunt for their heads, from which they make a cure for AIDS. They released the scientists only after they had succeeded in convincing them that they had come not for their heads, but completely differently.
In his search, Pearson was greatly helped by the numerous details contained in Drewery's diary. He described in detail the local customs, in particular the tandroys' favorite food - the tuberous plant they called foundage - and how the natives made giant hives in hollow tree trunks. But the geographic information about Madagascar, including the names and locations of settlements, was especially helpful to archaeologists. First, Pearson and his comrades found the area about which Robert Drewery wrote, then they found the remains of the villages mentioned in the book: the capitals of Fennoarevo and Mionjona, where the midshipman had been a slave to the chief's grandson for 8 years.
Pearson also managed to find the Degrave crash site. There are still two copper cannons from the ship lying on the reefs, and local lobster divers saw several more anchors at the bottom. Now Mike Pearson wants to republish the book about the adventures of Drewery, which was last published in the 90s of the XIX century.
The professor decided that he had discovered the secret of the book itself, or rather its authorship. Obviously, an illiterate sailor could not write a novel; most likely, he only provided the author with facts. The preface states that an anonymous editor did the literary treatment of Robert Drouery's story. He further describes himself as a "dissident, political commentator and scammer." According to Pearson, without much risk of being mistaken, one can say that he was Daniel Defoe himself!
Every literary character always has a real prototype, but reality, as a rule, is more terrible than fiction - it is quite possible that the story that became known to Defoe served as the basis for his famous novel.
Have you read all three novels by Daniel Defoe about Robinson Crusoe? Or just watched numerous films based on the first novel?