Juan Fernández Islands
Just over seven hundred kilometres off the coast of Chile, the volcanic Juan Fernández Islands take their name from the Spanish navigator who discovered them in November 1574.
Apart from occasional visits from pirates and buccaneers, the islands remained uninhabited; an assortment of buccaneers found themselves shipwrecked or cast away on the islands after 1680.
Two separate maroonings involving a Nicaraguan Miskito Indian named William or Will, and Alexander Selkirk provided much of the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.
The survivors of Commodore George Anson's passage around Cape Horn recuperated there (June — September 1741) before the Spanish authorities established the settlement that prevented Philip Carteret from refreshing there in May 1767.
Earlier, the Spanish authorities had tried a low-cost 'scorched earth' policy, releasing savage dogs to prey on the island's goat population, which had done much to sustain the visitors.
