Jonathan Dickinson

Jonathan Dickinson (1663–1722) was a Quaker merchant from Port Royal, Jamaica who was shipwrecked on the southeast coast of Florida in 1696, along with his family and the other passengers and crew members of the ship.

The party was held captive by Jobe ("Hoe-bay") Indians for several days, and then was allowed to travel by small boat and on foot the 230 miles up the coast to Saint Augustine. The party was subjected to harassment and physical abuse at almost every step of the journey to Saint Augustine. Five members of the party died from exposure and starvation on the way.

The Spanish authorities in Saint Augustine treated the surviving members of the party well, and sent them by canoe to Charles Town (now Charleston, South Carolina), where they were able to find passage to their original destination, Philadelphia.

Dickinson wrote a journal of the ordeal, which was published by the Society of Friends in 1699 as

God's Protecting Providence Man's Surest Help and Defence in the times of the greatest difficulty and most Imminent danger Evidenced in the Remarkable Deliverance of divers Persons, from the devouring Waves of the Sea, amongst which they Suffered Shipwrack. And also from the more cruelly devouring jawes of the inhumane Canibals of Florida. Faithfully related by one of the persons concerned therein, Jonathan Dickenson (sic).

This book was reprinted sixteen times in English, and three times each in Dutch and German translations, between 1700 and 1869. Today it is more commonly known as Jonathan Dickinson's Journal. Dickinson's Journal has been described by the Cambridge History of English and American Literature as, "in many respects the best of all the captivity tracts".

Jonathan Dickinson was born in 1663 in Jamaica. His father Francis had raised a troop of horse for Oliver Cromwell's Western Design expedition to capture Spanish possessions in the Caribbean, and had taken part in the English seizure of Jamaica in 1655, for which he had been rewarded with two plantations. Jonathan's brother Caleb stayed on the plantations while Jonathan became a merchant in the then chief port city of Jamaica, Port Royal. The earthquake of 1692, which nearly destroyed Port Royal, caused the Dickinson family great financial losses.

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