Captain Kidd's Anchorage

Captain Kidd's Anchorage is the principal harbor of Treasure Island, a land-locked basin on the island's southern coast where the schooner Hispaniola comes to rest after its long voyage. It is the first piece of the island that the crew sees up close, and its appearance sets the tone for everything that follows: a place of stagnant water, rotting vegetation, and oppressive heat, where the discipline of the voyage begins to dissolve almost as soon as the anchor is dropped. The anchorage is the geographic and symbolic center of the mutiny, the point from which the loyal party and the mutineers alike launch their schemes, and the scene of some of the book's most decisive and violent events.

Geography and First Impressions

The anchorage is formed by the mainland of Treasure Island on one side and the small islet called Skeleton Island on the other, with the two shores about a third of a mile apart. The bottom is clean sand, and the whole place is entirely land-locked, buried in woods that come right down to the high-water mark. Two little rivers, or rather two swamps, empty into this pond, and the foliage around that part of the shore has a kind of poisonous brightness. The air is heavy with a peculiar stagnant smell of sodden leaves and rotting tree trunks, which Dr. Livesey immediately recognizes as a sign of fever. The hills stand round at a distance in a sort of amphitheatre, and the anchorage is so enclosed that, without the chart, the crew might have been the first to anchor there since the island arose out of the seas. The name itself comes from the chart found in Billy Bones's sea-chest, which marks the spot as "Capt. Kidd's Anchorage," a name that Long John Silver recognizes from his own piratical past.

The Anchorage as the Stage for Mutiny

The anchorage is where the mutiny that has been brewing throughout the voyage finally breaks into the open. The very sight of the island relaxes the cords of discipline, and the men grow sullen and threatening as they work to warp the ship into the harbor. Long John Silver, who knows the passage like the palm of his hand, conns the ship through the narrow entrance, and once anchored, the crew's discontent becomes unmistakable. It is here that Captain Smollett, recognizing the danger, allows the men an afternoon ashore in the hope that Silver can talk them out of their rebellious mood. This decision leads directly to Jim Hawkins's decision to slip ashore with the mutineers, and to his witnessing of the first blow of the conflict: the murder of the honest sailor Tom by Silver's own hand in a dell beside the marsh. The anchorage thus becomes the place where the pretense of loyalty is finally stripped away and the true nature of the crew is revealed.

The Stockade and the Battle

On a knoll overlooking the anchorage stands the stockade, an old log-house built years before by Captain Flint himself, with a spring of clear water and a palisade six feet high. After the mutiny breaks out, the loyal party—Captain Smollett, Dr. Livesey, Squire Trelawney, and their servants—abandon the ship and take refuge in this stockade, which commands a view of the anchorage below. The anchorage becomes the backdrop for the Battle of the Stockade, as the mutineers, camped in the swamp by the shore, launch their attack on the fortified position. The cannonade from the Hispaniola, which the mutineers have seized, sends round-shot whistling over the stockade, and the fighting culminates in a desperate assault that leaves several men dead on both sides. The anchorage itself, with its feverish air and its proximity to the mutineers' camp, is as much an enemy to the loyal party as the pirates themselves, and Dr. Livesey's warning that the place breeds malaria proves all too accurate.

The Abandonment and the Aftermath

After the battle, the anchorage is gradually abandoned by both sides. The mutineers, having lost their ship and their leader's confidence, remain camped in the swamp, while the loyal party, having learned from Ben Gunn that the treasure has already been moved, slips away to the two-pointed hill. The anchorage is left to the three surviving mutineers, who are eventually deserted on the island when the Hispaniola sails away. The anchorage, which had been the center of so much hope and so much bloodshed, is reduced to a memory, its stagnant waters and rotting trees a fitting monument to the greed and violence that the treasure hunt unleashed. The island itself, with its accursed anchorage, becomes a place that Jim Hawkins never wishes to see again, and the sound of its surf haunts his dreams long after he has returned to England.