An extraordinary tale set in an extraordinary land.
The archives of one the oldest Spanish cities in the Americas, Cumaná, in today’s Venezuela, record a strange case: of a European renegade named Yan/John/Juan: who in the early eighteenth century “went native” and rose to prominence as a military commander among the Orinoco Indians.
His name was John Bober. He was a third-generation Polish-American from Virginia. And his adventure began here: as a castaway on an uninhabited island off the Spanish Main. This is his story.