On April 11, 1875, a pearling schooner namedJohn Bellanchored off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
The captain, Joseph Frazer, sent some of his men ashore to find water.
Upon landing, they encountered a group of Aborigines and noticed a white man among them.
Believing the man was being held against his will, they reported the situation to the captain.
Captain Frazer quickly organized a rescue.
The natives accepted the trade and released the man.
Portrait of Narcisse Pelletier published in L’Univers illustre, 14 August 1875.
Pelletier stayed at Somerset for about two weeks before boarding the steamerBrisbaneto Sydney.
During this time, he spoke little.
Using his limited schoolboy French, Ottley persuaded Pelletier to share his remarkable story.
Narcisse Pelletier, the son of a shoemaker, was born in 1844 in Saint Gilles, near Bordeaux.
This route was shorter but fraught with peril, as it was filled with dangerous reefs.
The situation worsened with bad weather and heavy mist, making the journey even more treacherous.
While threading through the reef-laden waters, theSaint-Paulstruck a coral reef near Rossel Island and was completely wrecked.
The crew and passengers managed to reach a small, waterless island about a kilometer from the wreck.
Pelletier himself narrowly escaped death after receiving a violent blow to the head from a stone.
Photo of Narcisse Pelletier taken in 1875 after his rescue.
Pelletier and the men faced severe hardship as they drifted in their open boat.
About three or four days before reaching land, they also ran out of fresh water.
The men promised to return for him after searching for fruit.
They took him in, fed him, and nursed him back to health.
A man named Maademan adopted him as his son and gave him a new name, ‘Amglo’.
For a long time, Pelletier missed his family and longed to return to France.
By the time he was 15, Amglo was fluent in the language and customs of the Ohantaala.
They did not farm or grow food, nor did they keep livestock.
Amglo became skilled in using spears to catch fish.
Fearing that Pelletier might venture to escape, the natives initially kept him hidden whenever European vessels came ashore.
Photograph of Narcisse Pelletier showing his initiation scars and piercings.
He married a local woman and fathered several children.
Instead, he found work as a lighthouse keeper near Saint-Nazaire and married a few years later.
Pelletier never returned to Australia and passed away on September 28, 1894, at the age of 50.
