Introduction

"Robinson Crusoe" is a fictional, biographical novel authored by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) in 1719 about the sole survivor of a shipwreck who lives on an uninhabited island in the Caribbean for 28 years.

Not often emphasized is that the novel also has a religious theme — the hardships and dangers Crusoe experienced together with reading the Bible led him to faith in God.

The setting is an island, possibly Tobago off the Venezuelan coast at the mouth of the Orinoco River.

Crusoe retrieves tools, building materials, guns and other stuff from the shipwreck, establishes himself on the island and encounters visiting cannibals and mutineers and is finally rescued.

The story became one of the most popular English novels and went to hundreds of editions including abridged, pictorial, foreign, and children's. As an eight-year-old I received an illustrated children's version for Christmas, possibly published 1952, and read it again and again, enthralled every time. One website reports the donation of 669 editions to a library, and there may be more!

Defoe's original full title summarizes the story:



Summary

"Project Gutenberg" has various editions of Defoe's novel, of which I read The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808).

The novel begins with Crusoe's family, home life, and admonitions from his father to stay home and live safely. Instead he departs from Hull (England) in 1651 and the ship is wrecked in a storm.

Crusoe sets out a second time and makes money by trade. On his third voyage he is captured by Moors and made a slave. He escapes after two years by commandeering a fishing vessel. Crusoe lands to get fresh water on the uninhabited coast south of Morocco where there are "prodigious numbers of tigers, lions, leopards, and other furious creatures". (p. 26) Defoe got that wrong — tigers are in India and eastern Asia, not Africa! Crusoe encounters a Portuguese ship (p. 31) and is taken to Brazil where he becomes a plantation owner.

Years pass and Crusoe in 1659 joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa. (pp 39-40)

The story now becomes the one we're familiar with when the ship is wrecked during a storm and the waves carry Crusoe to an island (pp 45-46) followed later by a dog.

As sole human survivor Crusoe retrieves weapons, tools, food, liquor, ropes, canvas and other supplies from the ship. He also climbs a hill and realizes he's on an island with "two small islands...about three leagues to the west". (pp 50-57)

Crusoe builds a fence around a cave and gets established. (59-60) He keeps track of time by making marks on a wooden cross. He hunts, cultivates corn and rice, finds grapes, melons, cocoa-trees and oranges growing naturally, and learns to make pottery, raises goats and makes butter and cheese from their milk, and adopts a parrot.

Crusoe also has Bibles and prayer books. (p. 65) His increasing comforts and good fortunes such as surviving sickness and an earthquake, and finding barley growing without him planting it, makes him think of God's providential care:



Pages 95-96 tell of Crusoe commencing regular Bible reading and prayer.

After one full year on the island:


It's obvious by now that Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe to advocate Christianity. The book is a promotion of Christianity masquerading as a castaway-survival novel. Crusoe says: "I daily read the word of God, and applied all the comforts of it to my present state." (p. 115)

Crusoe becomes very religious, and thanks God that he has everything he needs — except human company. The aloneness is solved when cannibals occasionally visit the island to kill and feast on their prisoners, one of whom Crusoe rescues. (pp 206-208) Crusoe, names him "Friday", teaches him English and converts him to Christianity (p. 221): "The savage was now a good Christian, a much better than I." (p. 225)

Eventually another party of cannibals arrives. Crusoe and Friday kill most of them and rescue two prisoners. One happens to be Friday's father and the other a Spaniard (p. 240) who informs Crusoe that there are other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised for the Spaniard and Friday's father to go to the mainland and bring back the others.

Before they return, an English ship controlled by mutineers appears. Crusoe helps the ship's captain and loyal sailors retake the ship after which they leave the island and arrive in England in June 1687. (pp 284-285)

Crusoe then goes to Portugal to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, and returns to England with Friday.

Defoe authored two sequels in 1720 that were often included in new editions of the original story. The first sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, deals with Crusoe's marriage, children and life in England followed by travels to Madagascar and the Far East. The second sequel, Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe, consists of moral and religious essays.


Alexander Selkirk

Many Robinson Crusoe editions were padded with one or both sequels; also with a biography of Defoe; a bibliography of Defoe's other writings; the story of Alexander Selkirk; and a poem titled "The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk".

Selkirk was a real-life castaway from Scotland whose experience may have influenced Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe.

Selkirk lived for four years on the Pacific island Más a Tierra which is the largest of three islands known as the Juan Fernández archipelago situated 670 kilometres west of South America in the South Pacific.

In 1704 Selkirk was navigator on the English galley Cinque Ports which stopped at Mas a Tierra for supplies.

After an altercation with the captain concerning the ship's seaworthiness Selkirk stayed behind alone with his clothing, bedding, a musket, gunpowder, carpenter's tools, a knife, and a Bible. He found water, plums, goats and seals, built a house, and became self-sufficient.

In February 1709 Captain Woodes Rogers of the Duke, an English ship searching for pirates, took Selkirk on board and he arrived back in Scotland in 1717.

Captain Rogers authored Cruising Voyage (1712) which gave a basic description of Selkirk's ordeal. The essayist Richard Steele also told Selkirk's story in The Englishman of Dec. 3, 1713. These accounts may have given Defoe the idea for Robinson Crusoe.

However, there were in Defoe's time already many stories about castaways and Defoe would have known about some of them.

One inspiration may have been the philosophical novel Hayy ibn Yagdhan by Muslim scholar Ibn Tufail (1105-1185) about a child raised on an island by a gazelle who discovers ultimate truth. It was translated into Latin in 1671 and English in 1708.

National Geographic mentions a "Miskito Indian named Will, who was marooned and rescued on Más a Tierra two decades before Selkirk."

Tim Severin in Seeking Robinson Crusoe (2002) identifies surgeon Henry Pitman as Defoe's inspiration. Pitman escaped from a Caribbean penal colony and was subsequently shipwrecked on an island. His adventures were published by J. Taylor of London whose son William Taylor later published Defoe's novel. Pitman lived in lodgings above the publishing house and therefore Defoe may have met him.

Probably the truth is that Defoe drew on many castaway survival stories.

I am monarch of all I survey; My right there is none to dispute; From the centre all round to the sea I am lord of the fowl and the brute. O Solitude! where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place. I am out of humanity’s reach, I must finish my journey alone, Never hear the sweet music of speech; I start at the sound of my own. The beasts that roam over the plain My form with indifference see; They are so unacquainted with man, Their tameness is shocking to me Society, Friendship, and Love Divinely bestow’d upon man, O, had I the wings of a dove How soon would I taste you again! My sorrows I then might assuage In the ways of religion and truth; Might learn from the wisdom of age, And be cheer’d by the sallies of youth. Religion! what treasure untold Resides in that heavenly word! More precious than silver or gold, Or all that this earth can afford

But the sound of the church-going bell These valleys and rocks never heard, Nor sighed at the sound of a knell, Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared. Ye winds that have made me your sport, Convey to this desolate shore Some cordial endearing report Of a land I shall visit no more: My friends,—do they now and then send A wish or a thought after me? O tell me I yet have a friend, Though a friend I am never to see. How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light. When I think of my own native land In a moment I seem to be there; But alas! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair. But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest, The beast is laid down in his lair; Even here is a season of rest, And I to my cabin repair. There’s mercy in every place, And mercy, encouraging thought! Gives even affliction a grace And reconciles man to his lot.

Island History

Mas a Tierra, area 93 km², was discovered by Juan Fernández, a Spanish captain and explorer who landed there in 1574.

It was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.

Luc Voyenne (1974) writes: “The islands habitants are divided into two distinct classes…” These are employees and retirees from the Chilean mainland, and families who have lived on the island for several generations. The latter group includes an “aristocracy” descended from Baron Alfred de Rodt of Switzerland who stayed ten years from 1877 to harvest timber, and the Green family who are descended from a Scotsman who settled on the island in 1914.

Más a Tierra, although a possession of neutral Chile, got involved in World War I.

In March 1915 the German cruiser Dresden stopped for repairs after fleeing the Battle of the Falkland Islands, and three British ships arrived. Outgunned and outnumbered the German crew soon fled in life-boats to the island and the Dresden exploded. Three Germans were killed, 15 were wounded, 315 interned in Chile.

The Island was hit by a 5-meter high tsunami in February 2010 after a major earthquake in Chile. Five people were killed in the main village, San Juan Batista.

The Island's population in 2011 was 859. They have television sets, a few vehicles, and satellite internet connection. The economy depends on lobster trade and tourism. 


Religion

Aside from cannibals, pirates and struggles for survival Defoe's novel describes how Robinson Crusoe found God. It was not in church or by listening to sermons but by living alone with nature and reading the Bible.

The name "Crusoe" may come from Timothy Cruso (d.1611) [Correct is 1697] who was a schoolmate of Defoe's and had authored religious guidance books such as God the Guide of Youth (1695).

Defoe was a Puritan and wrote books on how to be a good Christian such as The New Family Instructor (1727) and Religious Courtship (1722). Defoe's biography says, "He had always discovered a great inclination to engage in religious controversy ... his favourite passion."

Puritanism was a Protestant reform movement that sought to "purify" the Church of England from remnants of Catholicism, claiming that England's religious transformation had not gone far enough. The Encyclopedia Britannica says:


Robinson Crusoe echoes Puritanism's theology and moral perspectives. Take the notion of Divine Providence. By surviving through hopeless situations and experiencing fortunate outcomes Crusoe, as quoted above, feels guided by divine fate. He accepts "predestination" which Puritans adopted from Calvinism:


Puritan scholar John Milton (1608-1674) wanted educational reform and authored Of Education (1644):


Making education "subordinate to the Bible" is seen in Defoe's novel in that Crusoe salvaged three Bibles which comforted and instructed him. Crusoe's hard-earned, increasing prosperity reflects the Bible's emphasis on honest work, and the Protestant Work Ethic that Puritans believed in, including "sober, practical behaviour":


Although believing in Christian standards Crusoe has no moral problem with slavery which at the time was legal. He does not hold cannibals morally responsible for their cannibalism because it's part of their culture. (p. 174) However, he still considers cannibalism a crime and stops Friday from practicing it. (p. 211)


Literature

The success of Robinson Crusoe inspired many imitators, and castaway novels became popular. Most of these fell into obscurity, but some became established including:
 

A real-life castaway adventure occurred in 1965-1966. Six Tongan school boys aged 13 to 16 attempted to sail 500 miles from Tonga northwest to Figi, but their boat was destroyed in a storm. They survived on the uninhabited island of Ata, 104 miles southwest of Tonga, for 15 months until rescued in September 1966.


Crusoe's Religion

Daniel Defoe doesn't mention the Church of England or Puritanism in the novel by name. The religion he assigns to Crusoe and Friday is direct reliance on the Bible:



REFERENCES

Education (2009) & Puritanism (2009) & Selkirk, Alexander (2009). Encyclopædia Britannica 2009 Deluxe Edition.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

Little, B.
https://nationalgeographic.com.au/history/debunking-the-myth-of-the-real-robinson-crusoe.aspx

Maloney, A.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11597967/real-lord-flies-shipwreck-rutger-bregman-humankind/

Severen, T. 2002 In Search of Robinson Crusoe, Basic Books

Tapper, J. Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2002
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-aug-11-bk-tapper11-story.html

Voyenne, L. with photos by Serraillier, M. Robinson Crusoe’s Real Island, The Australian Women’s Weekly, April 24, 1974, pp 17-19

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Tufail

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe