by Daniel Defoe
valley, yet they found out my plantation at the bower, and pulled
it all to pieces, and all the fences and planting about it; trod
all the corn under foot, tore up the vines and grapes, being just
then almost ripe, and did our men inestimable damage, though to
themselves not one farthing's worth of service.
Though our men were able to fight them upon all occasions, yet they
were in no condition to pursue them, or hunt them up and down; for
as they were too nimble of foot for our people when they found them
single, so our men durst not go abroad single, for fear of being
surrounded with their numbers. The best was they had no weapons;
for though they had bows, they had no arrows left, nor any
materials to make any; nor had they any edge-tool among them. The
extremity and distress they were reduced to was great, and indeed
deplorable; but, at the same time, our men were also brought to
very bad circumstances by them, for though their retreats were
preserved, yet their provision was destroyed, and their harvest
spoiled, and what to do, or which way to turn themselves, they knew
not. The only refuge they had now was the stock of cattle they had
in the valley by the cave, and some little corn which grew there,
and the plantation of the three Englishmen. Will Atkins and his
comrades were now reduced to two; one of them being killed by an
arrow, which struck him on the side of his head, just under the
temple, so that he never spoke more; and it was very remarkable
that this was the same barbarous fellow that cut the poor savage
slave with his hatchet, and who afterwards intended to have
murdered the Spaniards.
I looked upon their case to have been worse at this time than mine
was at any time, after I first discovered the grains of barley and
rice, and got into the manner of planting and raising my corn, and
my tame cattle; for now they had, as I may say, a hundred wolves
upon the island, which would devour everything they could come at,
yet could be hardly come at themselves.
When they saw what their circumstances were, the first thing they
concluded was, that they would, if possible, drive the savages up
to the farther part of the island, south-west, that if any more
came on shore they might not find one another; then, that they
would daily hunt and harass them, and kill as many of them as they
could come at, till they had reduced their number; and if they
could at last tame them, and bring them to anything, they would
give them corn, and teach them how to plant, and live upon their
daily labour. In order to do this, they so followed them, and so
terrified them with their guns, that in a few days, if any of them
fired a gun at an Indian, if he did not hit him, yet he would fall
down for fear. So dreadfully frightened were they that they kept
out of sight farther and farther; till at last our men followed
them, and almost every day killing or wounding some of them, they
kept up in the woods or hollow places so much, that it reduced them
to the utmost misery for want of food; and many were afterwards
found dead in the woods, without any hurt, absolutely starved to
death.
When our men found this, it made their hearts relent, and pity
moved them, especially the generous-minded Spaniard governor; and
he proposed, if possible, to take one of them alive and bring him
to understand what they meant, so far as to be able to act as
interpreter, and go among them and see if they might be brought to
some conditions that might be depended upon, to save their lives
and do us no harm.
It was some while before any of them could be taken; but being weak
and half-starved, one of them was at last surprised and made a
prisoner. He was sullen at first, and would neither eat nor drink;
but finding himself kindly used, and victuals given to him, and no
violence offered him, he at last grew tractable, and came to
himself. They often brought old Friday to talk to him, who always
told him how kind the others would be to them all; that they would
not only save their lives, but give them part of the island to live
in, provided they would give satisfaction that they would keep in
their own bounds, and not come beyond it to injure or prejudice
others; and that they should have corn given them to plant and make
it grow for their bread, and some bread given them for their
present subsistence; and old Friday bade the fellow go and talk
with the rest of his countrymen, and see what they said to it;
assuring them that, if they did not agree immediately, they should
be all destroyed.
The poor wretches, thoroughly humbled, and reduced in number to
about thirty-seven, closed with the proposal at the first offer,
and begged to have some food given them; upon which twelve
Spaniards and two Englishmen, well armed, with three Indian slaves
and old Friday, marched to the place where they were. The three
Indian slaves carried them a large quantity of bread, some rice
boiled up to cakes and dried in the sun, and three live goats; and
they were ordered to go to the side of a hill, where they sat down,
ate their provisions very thankfully, and were the most faithful
fellows to their words that could be thought of; for, except when
they came to beg victuals and directions, they never came out of
their bounds; and there they lived when I came to the island and I
went to see them. They had taught them both to plant corn, make
bread, breed tame goats, and milk them: they wanted nothing but
wives in order for them soon to become a nation. They were
confined to a neck of land, surrounded with high rocks behind them,
and lying plain towards the sea before them, on the south-east
corner of the island. They had land enough, and it was very good
and fruitful; about a mile and a half broad, and three or four
miles in length. Our men taught them to make wooden spades, such
as I made for myself, and gave among them twelve hatchets and three
or four knives; and there they lived, the most subjected, innocent
creatures that ever were heard of.
After this the colony enjoyed a perfect tranquillity with respect
to the savages, till I came to revisit them, which was about two
years after; not but that, now and then, some canoes of savages
came on shore for their triumphal, unnatural feasts; but as they
were of several nations, and perhaps had never heard of those that
came before, or the reason of it, they did not make any search or
inquiry after their countrymen; and if they had, it would have been
very hard to have found them out.
Thus, I think, I have given a full account of all that happened to
them till my return, at least that was worth notice. The Indians
were wonderfully civilised by them, and they frequently went among
them; but they forbid, on pain of death, any one of the Indians
coming to them, because they would not have their settlement
betrayed again. One thing was very remarkable, viz. that they
taught the savages to mak
e wicker-work, or baskets, but they soon
outdid their masters: for they made abundance of ingenious things
in wicker-work, particularly baskets, sieves, bird-cages,
cupboards, &c.; as also chairs, stools, beds, couches, being very
ingenious at such work when they were once put in the way of it.
My coming was a particular relief to these people, because we
furnished them with knives, scissors, spades, shovels, pick-axes,
and all things of that kind which they could want. With the help
of those tools they were so very handy that they came at last to
build up their huts or houses very handsomely, raddling or working
it up like basket-work all the way round. This piece of ingenuity,
although it looked very odd, was an exceeding good fence, as well
against heat as against all sorts of vermin; and our men were so
taken with it that they got the Indians to come and do the like for
them; so that when I came to see the two Englishmen's colonies,
they looked at a distance as if they all lived like bees in a hive.
As for Will Atkins, who was now become a very industrious, useful,
and sober fellow, he had made himself such a tent of basket-work as
I believe was never seen; it was one hundred and twenty paces round
on the outside, as I measured by my steps; the walls were as close
worked as a basket, in panels or squares of thirty-two in number,
and very strong, standing about seven feet high; in the middle was
another not above twenty-two paces round, but built stronger, being
octagon in its form, and in the eight corners stood eight very
strong posts; round the top of which he laid strong pieces, knit
together with wooden pins, from which he raised a pyramid for a
handsome roof of eight rafters, joined together very well, though
he had no nails, and only a few iron spikes, which he made himself,
too, out of the old iron that I had left there. Indeed, this
fellow showed abundance of ingenuity in several things which he had
no knowledge of: he made him a forge, with a pair of wooden
bellows to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work;
and he formed out of the iron crows a middling good anvil to hammer
upon: in this manner he made many things, but especially hooks,
staples, and spikes, bolts and hinges. But to return to the house:
after he had pitched the roof of his innermost tent, he worked it
up between the rafters with basket-work, so firm, and thatched that
over again so ingeniously with rice-straw, and over that a large
leaf of a tree, which covered the top, that his house was as dry as
if it had been tiled or slated. He owned, indeed, that the savages
had made the basket-work for him. The outer circuit was covered as
a lean-to all round this inner apartment, and long rafters lay from
the thirty-two angles to the top posts of the inner house, being
about twenty feet distant, so that there was a space like a walk
within the outer wicker-wall, and without the inner, near twenty
feet wide.
The inner place he partitioned off with the same wickerwork, but
much fairer, and divided into six apartments, so that he had six
rooms on a floor, and out of every one of these there was a door:
first into the entry, or coming into the main tent, another door
into the main tent, and another door into the space or walk that
was round it; so that walk was also divided into six equal parts,
which served not only for a retreat, but to store up any
necessaries which the family had occasion for. These six spaces
not taking up the whole circumference, what other apartments the
outer circle had were thus ordered: As soon as you were in at the
door of the outer circle you had a short passage straight before
you to the door of the inner house; but on either side was a wicker
partition and a door in it, by which you went first into a large
room or storehouse, twenty feet wide and about thirty feet long,
and through that into another not quite so long; so that in the
outer circle were ten handsome rooms, six of which were only to be
come at through the apartments of the inner tent, and served as
closets or retiring rooms to the respective chambers of the inner
circle; and four large warehouses, or barns, or what you please to
call them, which went through one another, two on either hand of
the passage, that led through the outer door to the inner tent.
Such a piece of basket-work, I believe, was never seen in the
world, nor a house or tent so neatly contrived, much less so built.
In this great bee-hive lived the three families, that is to say,
Will Atkins and his companion; the third was killed, but his wife
remained with three children, and the other two were not at all
backward to give the widow her full share of everything, I mean as
to their corn, milk, grapes, &c., and when they killed a kid, or
found a turtle on the shore; so that they all lived well enough;
though it was true they were not so industrious as the other two,
as has been observed already.
One thing, however, cannot be omitted, viz. that as for religion, I
do not know that there was anything of that kind among them; they
often, indeed, put one another in mind that there was a God, by the
very common method of seamen, swearing by His name: nor were their
poor ignorant savage wives much better for having been married to
Christians, as we must call them; for as they knew very little of
God themselves, so they were utterly incapable of entering into any
discourse with their wives about a God, or to talk anything to them
concerning religion.
The utmost of all the improvement which I can say the wives had
made from them was, that they had taught them to speak English
pretty well; and most of their children, who were near twenty in
all, were taught to speak English too, from their first learning to
speak, though they at first spoke it in a very broken manner, like
their mothers. None of these children were above six years old
when I came thither, for it was not much above seven years since
they had fetched these five savage ladies over; they had all
children, more or less: the mothers were all a good sort of well-
governed, quiet, laborious women, modest and decent, helpful to one
another, mighty observant, and subject to their masters (I cannot
call them husbands), and lacked nothing but to be well instructed
in the Christian religion, and to be legally married; both of which
were happily brought about afterwards by my means, or at least in
consequence of my coming among them.
CHAPTER VI--THE FRENCH CLERGYMAN'S COUNSEL
Having thus given an account of the colony in general, and pretty
much of my runagate Englishmen, I must say something of the
Spaniards, who were the main body of the family, and in whose story
there are some incidents also remarkable enough.
I had a great many discourses with them about their circumstances
when they were among the savages. They told me readily that they
had no instances to give of their application or ingenuity in that
country; that they were a poor, miserable, dejected handful of
people; that even if means had been put into their hands, yet they
had so abandoned themselves to despair, and were so sunk under the
weight of their misfortune, that they thought of nothing but
starving. One of them, a grave and sensible man, told me he was
convinced they were in the wrong; that it was not the part of wise
men to give themselves up to their misery, but always to take hold
of the helps which reason offered, as well for present support as
for future deliverance: he told me that grief was the most
senseless, insignificant passion in the world, for that it regarded
only things past, which were generally impossible to be recalled or
to be remedied, but had no views of things to come, and had no
share in anything that looked like deliverance, but rather added to
the affliction than proposed a remedy; and upon this he repeated a
Spanish proverb, which, though I cannot repeat in the same words
that he spoke it in, yet I remember I made it into an English
proverb of my own, thus:-
"In trouble to be troubled,
Is to have your trouble doubled."
He then ran on in remarks upon all the little improvements I had
made in my solitude: my unwearied application, as he called it;
and how I had made a condition, which in its circumstances was at
first much worse than theirs, a thousand times more happy than
theirs was, even now when they were all together. He told me it
was remarkable that Englishmen had a greater presence of mind in
their distress than any people that ever he met with; that their
unhappy nation and the Portuguese were the worst men in the world
to struggle with misfortunes; for that their first step in dangers,
after the common efforts were over, was to despair, lie down under
it, and die, without rousing their thoughts up to proper remedies
for escape.
I told him their case and mine differed exceedingly; that they were
cast upon the shore without necessaries, without supply of food, or
present sustenance till they could provide for it; that, it was
true, I had this further disadvantage and discomfort, that I was
alone; but then the supplies I had providentially thrown into my
hands, by the unexpected driving of the ship on the shore, was such
a help as would have encouraged any creature in the world to have
applied himself as I had done. "Seignior," says the Spaniard, "had
we poor Spaniards been in your case, we should never have got half
those things out of the ship, as you did: nay," says he, "we
should never have found means to have got a raft to carry them, or
to have got the raft on shore without boat or sail: and how much
less should we have done if any of us had been alone!" Well, I
desired him to abate his compliments, and go on with the history of
their coming on shore, where they landed. He told me they
unhappily landed at a place where there were people without
provisions; whereas, had they had the common sense to put off to
sea again, and gone to another island a little further, they had
found provisions, though without people: there being an island
that way, as they had been told, where there were provisions,
though no people--that is to say, that the Spaniards of Trinidad
had frequently been there, and had filled the island with goats and
hogs at several times, where they had bred in such multitudes, and
where turtle and sea-fowls were in such plenty, that they could
have been in no want of flesh, though they had found no bread;
whereas, here they were only sustained with a few roots and herbs,
which they understood not, and which had no substance in them, and
which the inhabitants gave them sparingly enough; and they could
treat them no better, unless they would turn cannibals and eat
men's flesh.
They gave me an account how many ways they strove to civilise the
savages they were with, and to teach them rational customs in the
ordinary way of living, but in vain; and how they retorted upon
