Epic history of the first Virginia Colony and the true story of Pocahontas, to coincide with the colony’s 400th anniversary in 2007.Four centuries ago, and fourteen years before the Mayflower, a group of men-led by a one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat, a reprobate cleric and a government spy-left London aboard a fleet of three ships to start a new life in America. They arrived in Virginia in the spring of 1607, and set about trying to create a settlement on a tiny island in the James River. Despite their shortcomings and against the odds, they built Jamestown, a ramshackle outpost which laid the foundations of the British Empire and the United States of America.Drawing on new discoveries, neglected sources and manuscript collections scattered across the world, Savage Kingdom challenges the textbook image of Jamestown as a mere money-making venture. It reveals a reckless, daring enterprise led by outcasts of the old world who found themselves interlopers in a new one. It charts their journey into a beautiful landscape and sophisticated culture that they found both ravishing and alien, which they yearned to possess, but threatened to destroy.It shows them trying to escape the 'Savage Kingdom' that their homeland had become, and endeavoring to build 'one of the most glorious nations under the sun'.An intimate story in an epic setting, Woolley shows how the land of Pocahontas came to be drawn into a new global order, reaching from London to the Orinoco Delta, from the warring kingdoms of Angola to the slave markets of Mexico, from the gates of the Ottoman Empire to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
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Benjamin Woolley. Savage Kingdom: Virginia and The Founding of English America
SAVAGE KINGDOM
BENJAMIN WOOLLEY
CONTENTS
ONE A Feast of Flowers and Blood
TWO Machiavelli
THREE The Adventurers
FOUR Departure
FIVE Tsenacomoco
SIX Soundings
SEVEN The Spanish Ambassador
EIGHT Bloody Flux
NINE True Relations
TEN The Virginian Sea
ELEVEN El Dorado
TWELVE The Mermaid
THIRTEEN Promised Land
FOURTEEN The Astrologer
FIFTEEN Devil’s Island
SIXTEEN Deliverance
SEVENTEEN A Pallid Anonymous Creature
EIGHTEEN Strange Fish
NINETEEN The Good Husband
TWENTY Twelfth Night
TWENTY-ONE Imbangala
TWENTY-TWO The Treasurer
TWENTY-THREE The ‘Viperous Brood’
TWENTY-FOUR The Unmasked Face
NOTES
PART ONE. 1 A Feast of Flowers and Blood
2 Machiavelli
3 The Adventurers
4 Departure
PART TWO. 5 Tsenacomoco
6 Soundings
7 The Spanish Ambassador
8 Bloody Flux
9 True Relations
10 The Virginian Sea
PART THREE. 11 El Dorado
12 The Mermaid
13 Promised Land
14 The Astrologer
15 Devil’s Island
PART FOUR. 16 Deliverance
17 A Pallid Anonymous Creature
18 Strange Fish
19 The Good Husband
PART FIVE. 20 Twelfth Night
21 Imbangala
22 The Treasurer
23 The ‘Viperous Brood’
24 The Unmasked Face
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Отрывок из книги
Virginia and the Founding
of English America
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Meanwhile, Cecil considered the fate of the Virginia venture in the light of the Richard’s capture. Having discussed the matter with the King, he consulted the journal of the Somerset House Treaty negotiations, to see if it might cast any light on the diplomatic ramifications. His conclusion was that, although Virginia was ‘a place formerly discovered by us, and never possessed by Spain’, the Spanish commissioners had denied that this gave England the right to ‘trade’ there. With respect to the captured crew of the Richard, he advised the King that ‘it might be better to leave these prisoners to their inconveniences’, though steps should be taken to recover their ship, as it had been captured in international waters. As for those currently on their way ‘to a discovery of Virginia’, Cecil suggested that they ‘should be left unto the peril which they incur thereby’.32
Good relations apparently restored, the Powhatan weroance sat down to the feast, ‘and we fed familiarly’, Archer reported, ‘without sitting in his state as before’. The relaxed atmosphere was helped by quantities of beer, aqua vitae (spirits) and sack (Spanish white wine). Alcoholic drinks were not part of the local diet, and this first exposure to some potent European brews had an unusually strong effect on Newport’s guest. This might explain why the chief fell into such an uninhibited mood, talking about the copper, iron and other rich and rare commodities to be found in the mountains beyond the waterfalls.
