The Shipwrecked Sailor Who Became King

An epic tale of majestic proportions.

Background

Carl Emil Pettersson, a Swedish sailor, was born on the 4th or 23rd of October, in 1875, one of six children to Carl Wilhelm and Johanna Pettersson. At one point, Pettersson’s father left the family and later on at the age of 17, around 1892, he went to sea.

Around 1898, Pettersson wound up in the Bismarck Archipelago of German New Guinea; while there, he worked for the German trading house, Neuguinea-Compagnie, headquartered in Kokopo.

On Christmas Day in 1904, at 29-years-old, during a recruiting trip in the Pacific, Pettersson’s vessel, the Herzog Johan Albrecht (Duke Johan Albrecht) sank off Tabar Island in New Ireland Province. After washing ashore near a village, and landing in a hibiscus hedge, he found himself immediately surrounded by native islanders. Although described as remarkably strong, Pettersson would still not have been a match for them. Even worse, cannibalism was not uncommon during this period, so his survival looked more unlikely than not. However, just when it seemed like it was over for him, the Islanders instead took him back to their king, Lamy, where the king’s daughter, Princess Sindu, ultimately fell in love with this outsider before them.