Robert Drury's Journal

Robert Drury
Born	1687 Tower Hamlets, London, England
Died	unknown
Nationality	English
Occupation	Sailor, Slave Merchant, Slave

Robert Drury (born 1687; died between 1743 and 1750) was an English sailor on the Degrave who was shipwrecked at the age of 17 on the island of Madagascar. He would be trapped there for fifteen years. Upon returning to England, a book allegedly recounting his memoirs would be published in his name in 1729. Though it was an instant success, the credibility of the details in the book would be put into question by later historians. Modern scholars have proven though that many details in the book are authentic and that the story itself is one of the oldest written historical accounts of life in southern Madagascar during the 18th century.

Robert was born at Crutched Friars in the Tower Hamlets area of London, and later moved to the Old Jewry near Cheapside, where his father ran an Inn called The King's Head. At the age of thirteen his father secured passage for him on the ship Degrave headed for India.

The Degrave left port in February 1701 reaching India safely four months later. On the return voyage it ran aground near Mauritius, and the crew was forced to abandon ship in Madagascar on the southernmost tip of the island, having not reached the Cape of Good Hope. The local Antandroy king Andriankirindra gave the sailors a fine welcome, but intended on keeping them captive to increase his standing among the other Antandroy kings.

The now captive sailors attempted to escape Anriankririndra to the east where Abraham Samuel, a black native of Martinique, reigned over the Antanosy tribes near what is now Fort-Dauphin. This failed attempt saw most of the surviving crew cut to pieces and only a couple of youths, Drury included, spared. He was then given to the king Andriamivaro as his slave.

A reluctant slave at first, Robert eventually moved his way up from agricultural work to become a cow herd and eventually the royal butcher. He stayed there for what seems to have been 10 years. In the following years war broke out with the neighbouring ethnicity to the west, the Mahafaly. This was followed by a fratricidal civil war between Andriamivaro, and his uncles and cousins which included the High King of the Androy. An emissary from the Sakalava king of Fiherenana (part of the Menabe kingdom) broke the civil war by proposing a joint attack against the Mahafaly. This emissary also spoke to Drury, convincing him that if he fled to Fiherenana they would help him on to the first British ship they found.

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Wikipedia