Noted Florida shipwreck and Indian captivity narrative; this is the fifth edition and all early editions are extremely rare. Dickenson was a Quaker merchant; he departed from Port Royal (Jamaica) in August 1696 with his family, a noted Quaker missionary named Robert Barrow, and more than 20 other passengers bound for Philadelphia; during the voyage, the party met with a storm and shipwrecked their bark near present-day Jupiter Island Florida, where they were captured by Native Americans who stripped them of their remaining possessions. The survivors endured an arduous journey by foot and canoe some 200 miles north to St. Augustine, where they arrived in starving and wretched condition. Taken in by the Spaniards, once recovered the group were sent on to Charleston, South Carolina, before eventually reaching Philadelphia.
“Dickenson’s text, penned from Robert Barrow’s deathbed account, is amazingly detailed in its description of the Indians, their hostility, and the survival instincts of the captives” (Siebert).
The rarity "is explained by the gripping readability of the remarkable narrative which must have resulted in copies being literally read to pieces. The almost incredible adventures of these men, women and children in the hands of their Indian captors and their hardships and hunger endured on a march from South-east Fla. to St. Augustine and along the wild coast of Ga. and Carolina to Charleston can not be equaled either in fiction or history" (Wright Howes cat 50).
Mary Hinde carried on the printing business her husband Luke Hinde founded and printed this fifth edition in 1772. "Florida Historical Quarterly, Oct. 1942.”
Howes D317; ESTC T138150; Sabin 20015.
