"Crusoe and the Planters" for Daniel Defoe's "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1863-64)

Crusoe and the Planters (p. 25) — the volume's ninth composite wood-block engraving for Defoe's The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin), 1863-64. Chapter 3, "Wrecked on a Desert Island." The illustrator now presents a very different image of Crusoe, bearded and ably dealing with foreign planters in their own language in the Brazils. Half-page, framed with leaves (in accordance with "plantations"): 12.8 cm high x 14.1 cm wide, including frame. Running head: "Crusoe becomes a Planter" (p. 24). [Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

The Passage Illustrated

To come, then, by the just degrees to the particulars of this part of my story. You may suppose, that having now lived almost four years in the Brazils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my plantation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted acquaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among the merchants at St. Salvador, which was our port; and that, in my discourses among them, I had frequently given them an account of my two voyages to the coast of Guinea: the manner of trading with the negroes there, and how easy it was to purchase upon the coast for trifles — such as beads, toys, knives, scissors, hatchets, bits of glass, and the like — not only gold-dust, Guinea grains, elephants’ teeth, &c., but negroes, for the service of the Brazils, in great numbers.

They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads, but especially to that part which related to the buying of negroes, which was a trade at that time, not only not far entered into, but, as far as it was, had been carried on by assientos, or permission of the kings of Spain and Portugal, and engrossed in the public stock: so that few negroes were bought, and these excessively dear.

It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them came to me next morning, and told me they had been musing very much upon what I had discoursed with them of the last night, and they came to make a secret proposal to me; and, after enjoining me to secrecy, they told me that they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea; that they had all plantations as well as I, and were straitened for nothing so much as servants; that as it was a trade that could not be carried on, because they could not publicly sell the negroes when they came home, so they desired to make but one voyage, to bring the negroes on shore privately, and divide them among their own plantations; and, in a word, the question was whether I would go their supercargo in the ship, to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea; and they offered me that I should have my equal share of the negroes, without providing any part of the stock. [Chapter III,"Wrecked on a Desert Island," pp. 26-27]

Commentary

Although women of any race are barely depicted in the 104 illustrations (six in total), Crusoe, as one would expect, dominates the program: he occurs in fifty-five of the illustrations, and is prominent (in cameos and closeups) in thirty-five. He appears in some twenty-three capacities: as a son, a slave, a businessman and planter, a salvager, a builder, a diarist, a hunter-gatherer, an explorer, a patient, a basket-weaver, a goat-herd, a sower, a teacher, a boat-builder, a sailor, a tailor, a goat-milker, a woodsman, a soldier, a military strategist, a diplomat, a religionist, as a destroyer of idols, and as Friday's companion. Necessarily, given his age and the story's shift in setting and action in part two, Crusoe is less present in The Farther Adventures. This illustration, indeed, may mark Crusoe at his lowest moral state, for, having himself been a slave and yearned for freedom, he now avidly engages in the West African slave-trade, oblivious to the immorality of the endeavour. Everything about him here suggests that he is a young man of substance, from the fashionable Portuguese clothing to the solid table and large flagon.

Related Material

Bibliography

De Foe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.

Last modified 9 March 2018