You may be looking for Fernando Lopes, the portuguese film director.

Fernão Lopez is reputed to have been a Portuguese prisoner, who on his return to Portugal in 1513, marooned himself on Saint Helena, an island in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, thereby becoming its first permanent resident. He is only said to have left the island for Europe to confess his sins to the Pope before returning to spend his final 30 years in isolation on Saint Helena.

In Portuguese service

Lopez accompanied Alfonso de Albuquerque, a Portuguese general and coloniser, on his first voyage to Goa in India in 1503. Albuquerque sailed for Portugal shortly after his arrival, in order to secure reinforcements, but he left a garrison behind to keep the peace and rule over the local population with Lopez as the commander. When Albuquerque returned two years later, he found that discipline at the garrison fell apart. The men mingled with the Indians. Some of them took wives from among the locals, and some converted to Islam. They also sided with the Muslim resistance against Portuguese rule.

Once Albequerque had captured the renegades, he tortured them so savagely that half of them died within three days. Lopez, as the leader of the group, received the harshest punishment. He was bound with ropes to two wooden posts, and Albuquerque's men severed his nose, ears, right arm, and left thumb (according to others, his index and middle fingers as well), and hair and beard were scraped off with clam shells. All of the men were then released, and fled to the jungles where they could hide their deformities and be left alone.

Lopez stayed in India until 1513 he set sail for Portugal. His ship stopped at Saint Helena for food and water. Saint Helena had been discovered by the Portuguese on 21 May 1502, and later became well used by Portuguese ships sailing to the East Indies. When the sailors were making ready to leave, they discovered that Lopez was missing. After a search of the island proved unsuccessful, they sailed without him, but left a barrel of biscuits, some dried meat, a tinderbox and a saucepan. Legend has it that he became its first exile.

Marooned on St. Helena

At the time, Saint Helena was a very fertile place, full of trees, lemon groves and grasses, along with goats and birds, but had many barren plains. Although it did rain very frequently and the wind was biting, the weather was very mild. Lopez acclimatised himself to his new home. Nearly a year passed before another ship docked at Saint Helena.

The following is from a contemporary account of the first ship to encounter Lopez after he had been left on Saint Helena, found in the Hakylut Society journal:

"The crew was amazed when they saw the grotto and the straw bed on which he slept...and when they saw the clothing they agreed it must be a Portuguese man.

So they took in their water and did not meddle with anything, but left biscuits and cheeses and things to eat and a letter telling him not to hide himself the next time a ship came to the island for no one would harm him.

Then the ship set off, and as she was spreading her sails a cockerel fell overboard and the waves carried it to the shore and Lopez caught it and fed it with some rice which they had left behind for him."

The cockerel that Lopez saved from the ship became his only friend on the island. During the night, it roosted above his head and during the day it followed behind him, and would come if he called to it. As time went on, Lopes began to be less and less afraid of people. When a ship would lay anchor in Jamestown Harbour, Lopes would greet the sailors, talking to them as they came ashore. Lopes began to be considered a saint, because of his deformities and the fact that he would not leave Saint Helena for any reason. Many people thought him to be the epitome of human suffering and alienation, and they took pity on him. The travellers who went to Saint Helena gave Lopez many things, animals, livestock, and seeds. Eventually, Lopez became a gardener and a keeper of livestock, working the soil, planting fruit trees, grasses and many other forms of vegetation. In a few years, the island was fully covered in trees where once there had been only a few, all thanks to Lopez.

Eventually it is claimed, Lopez returned to Portugal to see his family and then visited the Pope in Rome, for his final absolution. The Pope was very impressed with Lopez, and decided to grant him a single wish. Lopez had one desire, and that was to return to his home on Saint Helena. Lopez returned there, and died there, after living on the island for 30 years.

Online references

• Saint Helena's official website (http://www.sthelena.se/history/cron.txt)
• Poetry Africa - 2001 biographies (http://www.und.ac.za/und/carts/pa2001bios05.html)

pt:Fernão Lopes