And the reason is that the seas travel uninterrupted, unblocked by any land around the globe, and so they travel about 13,000 miles without having anything to slow them down. GRANN: Oh, it is the worst - it is among the worst, if not the worst, seas in the world. And so this war was sparked by imperialists who were hoping to break that Spanish hold over this region.īRIGER: And as I said in the introduction, even today, rounding Cape Horn is considered very dangerous. So Great Britain was seeking - this was the kind of terrible age of empires, and Great Britain was seeking to expand its empire into Latin America and break its rival Spain's hold over that region. So, yes, it - there really was a piratical element to this secret mission.īRIGER: And can you set this conflict in the larger context? Like, what were Britain and Spain fighting about? But in that period, seamen were offered a tantalizing prospect, which was a share of the prize money. It was actually part - you know, it was the end of a certain era of buccaneering. But, like, isn't this piracy? Isn't this almost illegal during that time? Believe it or not, that was part of the mission, and there was a real whiff of piracy to it all.īRIGER: Yeah. And so they were going to sail across the Atlantic around the violent seas at Cape Horn into the Pacific and then try to intercept this ship somewhere off the coast of the Philippines. So they were given a secret mission to try to intercept and capture a Spanish galleon filled with so much treasure it was known as the prize of all the oceans. Tell us about that mission and where they were going. But there was a secret mission that a squadron of five British warships took. And the war was called the War of Jenkins' Ear, and we can leave that to readers to find out why it had that name. Well, David Grann, welcome back to FRESH AIR.ĭAVID GRANN: Oh, it's so great to be back on the program.īRIGER: So your book takes place in the 1740s when the British Empire went to war against its rival, imperial Spain. David Grann writes about this harrowing journey in his new book, "The Wager: A Tale Of Shipwreck, Mutiny, And Murder." The leaders of the mutineers and the captain were reunited in England at a court martial hearing to decide whether they were guilty of the crimes of mutiny and murder. Miraculously, the captain survived as well. They sailed nearly 3,000 miles to rescue in Brazil, but only 29 of the 81 survived the journey. Eventually, the majority of the men mutinied and sailed away on a makeshift craft, leaving behind their captain and a small band loyal to him. And the captain lost the respect of his crew, especially after killing one of the sailors by shooting him. But that unraveled under the hardships they endured, including poor shelter, punishing weather and starvation. One man-of-war called the Wager went missing and wrecked upon the rocks of a desolate island off Patagonia.Īt first, the castaways maintained the naval laws and discipline of the British Empire under their captain. In the mid-18th century, a squadron of British warships made the journey through the passage in the worst weather imaginable, suffering terrible damage to their ships. SAM BRIGER, BYLINE: At the bottom of the world, below the tip of South America, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans converge to form one of the most dangerous places to find yourself in a boat - the Drake Passage. Our producer Sam Briger spoke with David Grann yesterday. An earlier Grann book, "The Lost City Of Z," was also adapted into a film. Scorsese already adapted Grann's book "Killers Of The Flower Moon" into a film that will be released later this year. Martin Scorsese already has plans to adapt it into a film. It's about a shipwreck and mutiny in the 1700s.
Grann has a knack for finding little known stories from history and turning them into books that are page turners. Our guest today is bestselling author and New Yorker magazine staff writer David Grann.
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