The chief character in this novel is a certain S. van Doelevelt, who has connections with the Dutch East India Company. He is washed ashore on an island in the seas of north-eastern Asia and welcomed in a most friendly manner at the Hotel des Etrangers: “You may stay as long as you want. We will feed you, house you like we do our own citizens, and provide all kinds of comfort.”
The retirement age on Ajao is 75. Each man has two wives.
Bigamy has a twofold aim: the household chores can be divided between the two women, so that each of them has the energy and appetite to have sex with their husband at the end of the day. This will result in a flood of babies, ensuring that their number surpasses the number of children born to the slaves on the island.
These slaves are in fact the indigenous inhabitants of the island, a rather indolent tribe that had been enslaved by the colonizers.
Slaves are entitled to marry at the age of thirty-three and have children.
If a slave woman gives birth to a child before she is thirty-three, she and the baby will be killed. Male infants are suffocated immediately after birth if the maximum number of male slaves permitted on the island is exceeded.
Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, La république des philosophes, ou Histoire des Ajaoiens was written around 1682 but not published until 1768, in Amsterdam (reprint 1970, call no. 78/336).