The Guy Who Shipwrecked On A Cannibal Island Then Took It Over

Part of our mission at Cracked is to scour history for the single Weirdest Life Anyone Has Ever Lived. But I can say now that any future contestants whose bio does not feature the words, "washed up on an island of cannibals and then became their king," is going to have a tough time beating Carl Emil Pettersson.

1906 may have been long after the Age of Exploration, but there was still land waiting to be discovered scooped up and colonized, and the ocean was always a place that could eat you up without warning. The German New Guinea Company was looking to administer the lands off the coast of Australia currently owned by Germany, and aboard one of their ships was Carl Emil Pettersson, just an average Swedish sailor.

Carl was on a freighter that set out for Sydney traveling through a group of islands called the Bismarck Archipelago. On December 25, Poseidon gave them the gift of a shipwreck, which, even by 1906 standards, makes for a pretty lousy Christmas. But like Green Arrow and Tom Hanks, Carl did survive. He and some other survivors washed ashore and later made it to a different island called Tabar -- today part of New Guinea's New Ireland Province -- where they were immediately met by a group of hostile cannibals.

Wait, Really, Cannibals?

Yes, cannibals. It's easy today to think cannibal natives are boogeymen made up by people ignorant of how tribes operate (try making a period piece adventure film in 2020 featuring a cannibal tribe, and see how Twitter reacts). But they're very much a real thing. We already told you about one alleged case featuring a Rockefeller heir getting crunched up and eaten, and other incidents of explorers getting eaten are undisputed.

Fiji was known as the Cannibal Isles for a reason, as missionaries would find out every so often after mistakenly insulting the chief and then ending up dinner. Papua New Guinea also had a bunch of islands populated by cannibals, and descendants of those cannibals keep records of the old murders and now ask forgiveness for their ancestors' table manners. Even parts of Papua New Guinea still eat human flesh today, though they insist they aren't technically eating people, since these humans have been possessed by demons.

But Then They Made Him King

In a cartoon, or possibly even in real life, Carl's story would end with him tied to a stake over a cooking pot and awaiting a last-minute rescue. What really happened was even more absurd.

They took him to meet the ruler of the island, King Lamry, and when Carl was asked to justify his existence, he said that he had plenty to offer. He could bring Tabar great wealth, he said, if they just gave him a chance. He had some knowledge from his education in Sweden that could be of use to them. Carl wasn't able to, say, wire a working phone network for the island, or build a steam engine from scratch. But he did know a thing or two about orchards. So he dug up and moved some palm trees in a way that produced a lovely bunch of coconuts.

Promise delivered! This went a long way toward pleasing King Lamry, and also toward earning the favor of the king's daughter, Princess Singdo. She and Carl fell in love. A few years after he'd arrived on the island as a Grubhub delivery, Carl and Princess Singdo got married and had nine children. When Lamry died, Carl Pettersson became King Carl. His subjects gave him the nickname "Strong Charley," and he made good on his promise to bring wealth to Tabar again, after discovering a gold deposit on the nearby island of Simberi.

Though, Being King Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be

King Carl was certainly living out some kind of dream on that island. But modern conveniences were missing from his life. Like condoms, and medical care in general. Singdo caught a fever after birth number nine and died. Carl traveled back to Sweden searching for a new wife, and his basic pitch ("I'll make you a real Dancing Queen!") worked. Bride two, Jessica Simpson (no relation), came to Tabar and became Queen Jessica. But both Carl and Jessie became ill repeatedly and had to keep leaving Tabar for treatment. Jessica died of malaria, and Carl finally abandoned Tabar and moved to Sydney.

He left the island in the hands of his son, Frederick, who'd actually been studying medicine in New Zealand but was willing to set that aside to be king. Well, until he really got a taste of what island life was like. Then he offered to turn the entire island over to his dad's home country of Sweden. They apparently didn't want it -- even when Fredrick offered them money to take it off his hands -- because Japan wound up taking over the place instead, and then Australia grabbed it after that.

And This Guy Was The Inspiration For Pippi Longstocking

If you're thinking, "Hey, this was the inspiration for a famous pop culture story! The time C-3PO got captured by the Ewoks and convinced them he was their god!" Well, that may be true, but preceding it was the tale of a Swedish explorer who became king of a South Seas island and found gold there: Ephraim Longstocking, father of Pippi. Carl was clearly the inspiration behind Ephraim, but Pippi also had superhuman strength, which might have been inspired by Karl's "Strong Charley" title.

So, if you're stuck in a dead-end job and can't imagine how your situation is ever going to change, let Carl's story serve as a stark reminder that life comes at you fast.

Oh wait, that's cannibals. Cannibals come at you fast. Always be ready.

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