Explore the real-world places that appear in The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Portsmouth Harbour, Madeira Island, Cape Horn, Wager Island (Isla Wager), Mount Anson and 8 more.
Portsmouth, England — Departure of Commodore Anson's squadron, 1740
From Portsmouth, Commodore George Anson's squadron of six ships — including HMS Wager — set sail in September 1740 on a secret admiralty mission to raid Spanish possessions in the Pacific during the War of Austrian Succession. The crew of the Wager, commanded by Captain David Cheap, included a motley collection of invalids, pressed men, and marines. Grann describes the chaotic, undermanned departure as an omen of the disasters to come, with the men barely fit for sea and the ships ill-provisioned.
Portsmouth has been England's premier naval base since the 16th century. In the 18th century it was the primary staging point for Royal Navy expeditions, including those of Cook and Anson. The dockyard's historic core dates to 1496.
Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is one of Britain's greatest maritime museums, housing HMS Victory, the Mary Rose Museum, and the National Museum of the Royal Navy. Visitors can walk the very docks from which Anson's squadron departed.
Visit: Portsmouth Historic Dockyard (museum)
Atlantic Ocean, Portuguese territory — First provisioning stop
Anson's squadron called at Madeira early in the voyage to take on wine, water, and provisions. Grann uses these early stops to establish the social hierarchy aboard the Wager — the tensions between Captain Cheap, the aristocratic officers like Lieutenant Robert Baynes, and the common sailors and marines who would later fracture into factions during the survival ordeal on Wager Island.
Madeira became a standard provisioning stop for Atlantic voyages after Portuguese settlement in the 15th century. Its fine wines and strategic mid-Atlantic position made it indispensable to 18th-century naval expeditions.
Madeira remains a popular tourist destination and autonomous Portuguese region. Its capital Funchal retains much historic character, and the island's maritime heritage is preserved in several local museums.
Visit: Museu de História Natural do Funchal (museum)
Isla Hornos, Chile — The squadron's catastrophic passage attempt
Grann devotes some of the book's most harrowing passages to the squadron's attempt to round Cape Horn in the austral winter of 1741. Mountainous seas, hurricane-force winds, and plunging temperatures decimated the crews. Men froze at their posts; scurvy ravaged the invalids. The Wager was separated from the rest of Anson's squadron during this ordeal, her hull leaking, her sails shredded. The Cape Horn passage is the crucible in which the later mutiny is forged — exhausted, sick, and desperate men pushed past endurance.
Cape Horn was first rounded by Willem Schouten in 1616. It became notorious as the most dangerous sailing passage on Earth — ferocious westerly gales, currents, and icebergs claimed hundreds of ships over the centuries.
Cape Horn is now accessible via cruise ships and yacht expeditions. Isla Hornos is a Chilean national park. A small lighthouse, staffed by a Chilean naval family, and a distinctive albatross monument commemorate the mariners lost here.
Visit: Cape Horn National Park (Parque Nacional Cabo de Hornos) (park)
Gulf of Penas, Patagonia, Chile — Site of the shipwreck
On May 14, 1741, HMS Wager ran aground on a desolate island in the Gulf of Penas during a storm. This is the central catastrophe of the book. The hull broke apart on rocks; men drowned, were swept away, or barely made shore. Captain David Cheap shot and killed seaman Henry Cozens in a disputed act of command authority — the act that would ultimately define the mutiny charges. The survivors, numbering about 140 initially, would spend months on this freezing, rain-lashed island, starving and dying, before fracturing into factions led by Cheap and gunner John Bulkeley.
Isla Wager lies in the remote Aysén region of Chilean Patagonia, in the labyrinthine channels south of the Gulf of Penas. It remains one of the most inaccessible and uninhabited places on earth, battered by near-constant storms and blanketed in dense temperate rainforest.
Isla Wager remains essentially uninhabited and largely inaccessible. Archaeological expeditions, including a Chilean Navy project in the 21st century, have located anchors and artifacts from the wreck. The island is part of Chile's protected southern territories.
Wager Island, Patagonia — Observation point above the wreck site
Grann describes how survivors climbed the heights above the wreck site to take stock of their appalling situation — a tiny island, dense with thorn-scrub and bog, surrounded by icy channels, with no means of escape. Captain Cheap, clinging to his authority despite a dislocated shoulder suffered in the wreck, insisted that the men must sail north to rendezvous with Anson. The landscape itself became a character in the survival drama, its hostility shaping every decision.
The mountains and channels of the Gulf of Penas region were largely unmapped by Europeans in 1741. The Chono people had long navigated these waterways in their dalcas (bark canoes), knowledge the castaways desperately needed.
The region remains part of one of the most pristine wilderness areas in the Southern Hemisphere, protected within Chile's network of southern parks and reserves. No permanent habitation exists on or near Wager Island.
Wager Island shoreline — Where the longboat Speedwell was rebuilt
Gunner John Bulkeley, the book's most fascinating antagonist-hero, masterminded the rebuilding of the ship's longboat into a larger vessel he renamed Speedwell. Grann vividly depicts the factions that formed around this project — Bulkeley's men, who wanted to sail south around Cape Horn to Brazil, versus Captain Cheap's loyalists, who insisted on sailing north to find Anson. The labor of construction was performed by starving, scurvy-ridden men in freezing rain. When the Speedwell finally launched in October 1741, Cheap was deliberately left behind with a small group of loyalists.
The practice of rebuilding ship's boats for survival voyages had precedent in naval history, but Bulkeley's achievement in transforming a longboat into an ocean-worthy vessel under such conditions was extraordinary. His meticulous log-keeping during the voyage home would become his legal defense.
No structures remain on Wager Island. The site of the improvised boatyard exists only as wilderness shoreline, occasionally visited by Chilean naval research expeditions.
Patagonia, Chile — Bulkeley's southward escape route
Bulkeley and his approximately 80 survivors navigated the Speedwell south through the terrifying Patagonian channels and into the Strait of Magellan, then east toward the Atlantic. Grann follows their desperate, storm-battered passage with the same granular detail he applies to the wreck itself. Men died of exposure, starvation, and exhaustion throughout the voyage. Bulkeley documented everything in his journal — a document he knew might save him from the gallows.
Ferdinand Magellan first transited the strait bearing his name in 1520. By the 18th century it was a known but dreaded alternative to rounding Cape Horn. The strait's calmer waters were nonetheless treacherous for small vessels.
The Strait of Magellan is a major shipping lane today and the site of the city of Punta Arenas, Chile's southernmost large city. Tour operators run expeditions through the strait, and it is a highlight of Antarctic cruise itineraries.
Visit: Punta Arenas Maritime & Regional Museum (Museo Naval y Maritimo) (museum)
Brazil — Bulkeley's survivors arrive, 1742
After an agonizing voyage north from the Strait of Magellan along the South American coast, Bulkeley and the surviving Speedwell crew arrived at the Portuguese colony of Rio de Janeiro in early 1742. Fewer than 30 of the original 80 who left Wager Island had survived the journey. Grann describes the disbelief of colonial officials at the apparitions who staggered ashore — emaciated, raving, dressed in rags. Bulkeley carefully preserved his journal through the entire ordeal, knowing it was his only defense against mutiny charges.
Rio de Janeiro was founded by the Portuguese in 1565 and served as the capital of Portuguese Brazil and later the Portuguese Empire in exile. In 1742 it was a significant colonial port and naval station.
Rio de Janeiro is Brazil's second-largest city and a global tourism destination. The historic colonial waterfront district has been partially preserved, though heavily redeveloped. The city's maritime history is explored at the Museu Histórico Nacional.
Visit: Museu Histórico Nacional (museum)
Los Lagos Region, Chile — Where Captain Cheap found refuge
After being abandoned on Wager Island by Bulkeley's mutineers, Captain David Cheap led a tiny band of loyalists — including midshipman John Byron (grandfather of the poet Lord Byron) — north through the Patagonian channels with the aid of indigenous Chono guides. They eventually reached Chiloé, then a Spanish colonial outpost. Cheap and Byron were held there as prisoners of war before being eventually repatriated to England. Byron's own memoir of the ordeal would later inspire his grandson's poem 'Don Juan.'
Chiloé was one of the last Spanish colonial strongholds in South America, not fully incorporated into Chile until after independence. Its isolation bred a distinctive culture mixing Spanish and indigenous Huilliche traditions.
Chiloé is famous for its distinctive wooden stilt churches (palafitos), several of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The island is a popular ecotourism destination and the birthplace of Chile's distinctive island culture.
Visit: Chiloé National Park (Parque Nacional Chiloé) (park)
City of London, England — Court martial proceedings
The court martial of the Wager survivors — one of the Royal Navy's most legally complex proceedings of the 18th century — is the book's climactic reckoning. Bulkeley's meticulous journal was entered into evidence. Captain Cheap, who had killed seaman Henry Cozens on Wager Island, faced potential murder charges. Grann brilliantly dissects how the proceedings became a contest of competing narratives: Bulkeley's written log versus Cheap's oral account of command authority under impossible circumstances. The outcome — effectively acquitting both men — astonished contemporaries.
Naval courts martial in the 18th century were conducted under the Naval Discipline Act. The most famous such proceeding — the execution of Admiral Byng in 1757 — demonstrated how high the stakes could be. The current Old Bailey building dates to 1907 but sits on the site of the medieval Newgate Prison.
The Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) remains England's most senior criminal court and hears major trials. The public galleries are open to visitors on weekdays when courts are in session. The building is topped by its famous gilded statue of Justice.
Visit: Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) (historic site)
Romney Road, Greenwich, London — Repository of Wager documents
Grann conducted extensive archival research at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where Bulkeley's journal, Admiralty dispatches, and court martial records related to the Wager are held. The museum holds the primary documentary evidence through which Grann reconstructs competing accounts of the mutiny — Bulkeley's self-serving but precise log versus the testimonies of Cheap and Byron. Grann describes the act of holding these 280-year-old documents as collapsing the distance between historian and subject.
The National Maritime Museum was founded in 1937 in the Queen's House complex at Greenwich, designed by Inigo Jones. Greenwich had been the center of British naval power and navigation science since the 17th century, home to the Royal Observatory and the Royal Naval College.
The National Maritime Museum is the world's largest maritime museum and holds extraordinary collections including Nelson's coat from Trafalgar. It is part of the Royal Museums Greenwich complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is free to enter.
Visit: National Maritime Museum (museum)
Off Portsmouth, Hampshire — Anson's triumphant return, 1744
While the Wager survivors were being court-martialed, Commodore George Anson completed his extraordinary circumnavigation and returned to Spithead in 1744 with his single surviving ship, HMS Centurion, and a captured Spanish treasure galleon laden with silver. Grann places this triumph in ironic juxtaposition with the Wager catastrophe — Anson became a national hero, feted by the king, while the Wager men faced ruin and disgrace. Anson's voyage is the larger frame within which the Wager's tragedy unfolds.
Spithead is the roadstead between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight where the Royal Navy traditionally anchored its fleet. Anson's return with the Nuestra Señora de Covadonga was one of the great naval spectacles of the 18th century, generating enormous public excitement.
Spithead remains an active naval anchorage and is used for major fleet reviews. The area is visible from Portsmouth's seafront and from ferries crossing to the Isle of Wight. Regular boat tours of Portsmouth Harbour pass through the anchorage.
Visit: Portsmouth Harbour Boat Tour (tour)
Magallanes Region, Chile — Gateway to the Wager's world
Grann traveled to Punta Arenas as part of his research for the book, using it as a base to understand the geography and climate that shaped the Wager survivors' ordeal. The city sits at the opening of the Strait of Magellan, the same waters Bulkeley's Speedwell navigated in 1741–42. Grann describes the ferocious Patagonian winds and the crushing sense of remoteness that still characterize the region, helping readers viscerally understand why so many men died.
Punta Arenas was founded in 1848 as a Chilean penal colony and grew into a major port during the age of sail before the Panama Canal opened. It was the southernmost city in the world for much of the 19th century.
Punta Arenas is a city of about 130,000 people and the capital of Chile's Magallanes Region. It serves as the primary gateway for expeditions to Patagonia, Antarctica, and Tierra del Fuego. The Nao Victoria Museum features a replica of Magellan's flagship.
Visit: Nao Victoria Museum (Museo Nao Victoria) (museum)
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