"Jonathan Dickinson's Journal" A true story of shipwreck and torture on the Florida coast in 1696. In the fall of 1696 the barkentine Reformation, sailing from Jamaica to Philadelphia, was wrecked off Jupiter Island on the Florida coast. Jonathan Dickinson, a young Quaker merchant, with his wife and infant son, and a party of about twenty managed to reach the mainland, only to fall into the hands of a band of hostile Indians. Held captive at a wigwam village for several weeks, Dickinson observed at first hand and later recorded in his journal a fascinating account of Indian life, rituals, and customs. First published by the Quakers in 1699, this American epic became so popular that it was reprinted sixteen times during the next 170 years.