The journal of John Beck (1940-2012), award winning historian and New York University (NYU) history professor, was found in a pile of books and papers in one of the offices at NYU. The title of the journal read "Africa's History 1990". The first page read "June 30, 1990- Setting Sail to Explore Africa". The pages after that spoke of his journey and discoveries.
Based on his journal, on August 21, 1990 as he was nearing the western coast of Africa he saw a small island that. “For heavens sake, I don’t see it on the map. Could it be, that it has been left undiscovered? I must go and see.”
He described seeing "cavemen” like people. “ Their hair was long and shaggy, they had no shoes and wore clothes made of straw or animal skin” John wrote
The next few pages John described his encounter with the people on the island. Here wrote:
“As I walked further into the island, I suddenly had an arena of people around me. I fell scared and said 'I'm not here to hurt you’. Suddenly, they all bowed in front of me, as if I was some God. I tried explaining I am like them but language was a barrier. It suddenly occurred to me, that I could take this opportunity and discover who they are and how they live.
They lived a rather simplistic life. It was a hunter-gatherer society. No knowledge of the world beyond, these people, had created a world of their own. They had plenty of everything, and no one in the tribe had unfulfilled wants. As the night came along, I decided two things; one I would leave when all was asleep and two, I would never tell anyone of the island I discovered, the island I called ‘Autonomous’“.