“Sometime in the summer of 1801, a small Portuguese brig, the Sto Antonio, departed Timor bound for Macao. The ship’s primary cargo appears to have been people- passengers and slaves of various nationalities. It is unclear what sparked the violence, but while out at sea the passengers and slaves suddenly attacked and killed the ship’s ten-man crew. The mutiny was obviously poorly thought-out as none of the mutineers knew how to navigate. With no crew the ship was at the mercy of the elements and drifted north.”
Obviously the ship drifted north to Jeju Island (why else would this story have been printed in Jeju Weekly?) where some of the crew found themselves marooned upon the island. As many of you are aware, Korea had the ill-deserved reputation for being hostile towards foreigners; this is another one of those stories that proves Koreans often treated castaways better than their neighbors (China and Japan) did. In fact, the survivors who made it to Japan were forced to walk upon a crucifix (not sure why the editor cut this out) in order to prove that they were not Catholics. Once satisfied that they were not, the Japanese released the survivors to the Dutch at Nagasaki. Their eventual fates were less than ideal.
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