My island was now peopled, and I thought myself very rich…which I frequently made, how like a king I looked.

Answer: These lines have seen quoted from the widely popular masterpiece, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. This is a statement made by Crusoe himself in Chapter 21. Through these lines, Crusoe reveals his colonial mental makeup.

This expression of Crusoe shows us his astonishing ability throughout the novel to claim possession of things. He sells Xury, his liberator, to the Portuguese captain though he has no claim of ownership over the boy. He takes Friday as his servant immediately after meeting him. He treats Friday’s father, the Spaniard, and the captured mutineers as his subjects and expects unflinching obedience from them. Most remarkably, he views the island itself as “my own mere property” over which he has “an undoubted right of dominion.’ We wonder if his faith in his property rights seems absolute. It seems that everything on the island: the land, the arbors, the people- all have become his, He is the absolute lord and lawgiver, ruler and governor of this kingdom. He relishes over the “merry reflection” of looking like a king but it seems more than a merry thought when he refers to “my people being “perfectly subjected’. The idea incorporated is entirely colonial. Kingship is like ownership to Crusoe. He does not mention any duties or obligations towards his people. His subjects are for him lite his possessions. He imagines them as being grateful for being owned, expecting nothing further from Crusoe.

Thus the lines express Crusoe’s self-righteous and colonial way of thinking.