Book Review

"The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture"

by Helen C. Rountree

 

If your intention is to write a novel about the settlement of Jamestown, Helen C. Rountree’s The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture would be an essential resource.

 

If your intention is to write a novel about the Algonquian natives that lived at and near Roanoke Island (North Carolina) in 1583 and 1584, Rountree’s book would be an important resource.  Being that the cultural ways of the Powhatans and the coastal Algonquians of North Carolina are believed to be similar and being that historians are more knowledge about Powhatan culture than about the culture of the coastal Carolinians, reading about the Powhatan culture would be beneficial.

 

If you are a reader with a special interest in early colonial history and have read about Pocahontas and John Smith, you might appreciate this book’s factual content.  If you are none of the above, you should probably read something else.  This book does not entertain.  It is a slow read the primary purpose of which is to inform. 

 

The author divides her book into eight subject-matter chapters.  Here is a little bit of what you learn from each of the first seven chapters.

 

“Subsistence.”  Cutting utensils were sharpened reeds, spurs from wild turkeys, bills from sharp-billed birds, beaver teeth attached to sticks, the sharp edges of mussel shells, and quartz, quartzite, and flint west of the fall line of Virginia’s rivers acquired by trade and honed into cutting tools.

 

“Towns and Their Inhabitants.”  The right side of a man’s head was shaved to prevent his hair from interfering with his bow string while he hunted.  Women, using the edges of two shells -- like tweezers -- did the shaving.  The left side of a man’s head was grown long, up to 45 inches and was usually combed.  It was oiled into sleekness with hickory oil.  It was done up into a knot and stuck through with ornaments: deer antlers, a dried hand of an enemy warrior, wings of a bird, copper crescents, the skin of a stuffed hawk, long feathers, and shells that tinkled.  The hair at the top of the head was cut into a moderate-sized roach, which on special occasions might be augmented with deer hair dyed red.  Facial hair was rare, Native Americans having light beard growth.  What growth occurred was plucked.

 

“Manliness.”  Boys were continuously trained and socialized to fulfill the roles of provider and warrior.  They were trained by both parents to become hunters.  Mothers would refuse them breakfast until they passed archery tests.  Moss was thrown into the air for them to hit with arrows.  They were taken on hunting and fishing expeditions at an early age.  Their names were changed periodically to induce them to strive harder to fulfill tribal expectations.  The name given to a boy at birth would be changed to reflect how much or how little he had progressed.  The weroance (ruler) of a village would bestow on him a befitting name if he performed a great exploit.

 

“Sex Roles and Family Life.”  A man could not acquire a wife until he had proved himself to be a provider.  He sought to attain female interest by providing the subject of his interest gifts of food.  A feast followed her agreement.  He was required to provide bride-wealth – material possessions: mortar and pestle, mats, pots, bedding, beads -- to her parents.  The bride was brought to the groom’s dwelling.  Her father – or father substitute – brought the couple’s hands together.  The groom’s father broke a long string of shell beads over their heads.  They were now married.  A feast followed.

 

“Social Distinctions.”  Important visitors were accorded lavish hospitality.  Upon their arrival, townspeople prostrated themselves, faces to the ground, fingers clawing the earth.  The villagers then formed two parallel lines.  As the visitors passed between the lines, the villagers, gesturing joyously, sang loud tunes.  The visitors were seated on mats opposite the town weroance.  They were accorded high praise by village orators.  They partook in a great feast.  They were privileged to smoke with the village’s personages.  Townspeople danced to entertain and honor them.  The celebration ended with each visitor being escorted to a sleeping accommodation that included a young woman companion painted red and oiled.

 

“Law, Politics, and War.”  Weroances had life and death power over their subjects.  Capital crimes were stealing from one’s own people, murder of a fellow Powhatan, infanticide, and being an accessory to these crimes.  The perpetrator was brought to the weroance’s house.  A great fire was built.  The executioner cut off the long hair on the left side of the criminal’s head to signify that he had been deprived of his manhood.  The criminal’s bones were then broken by beating.  While he was still alive, he was thrown into the fire.  Or, instead, he might be clubbed to death and then thrown into the fire. 

 

“Medicine and Religion.”  Eliminating large accumulations of water in the body involved sweating.  Several methods were used to release the water.  One involved sitting in a sauna-like sweathouse.  An attendant heated three or four stones until they were red-hot.  The rocks were placed on the house’s hearth.  The inner bark of white oak, mashed in a mortar, was placed over the rocks.  People suffering from edema, swellings, aches, fever, and chills were brought into the house and seated.  The attendant exited, closing the door behind him.  Minutes later the attendant returned, threw water on the rocks to create steam, and sprinkled water on the people to forestall fainting.  The people stayed in the house for about 15 minutes, then dashed outside and plunged into the nearby stream.  Afterward, they anointed their bodies with a mixture of bear’s oil and pulverized angelica and puccoon (a medicinal root) to close their pores even more and to keep away flies and lice.

 

I am very appreciative of the author’s scholarship and contribution.                   



Book Review

"Grenville & The Lost Colony of Roanoke"

by Andrew Thomas Powell

 

Andrew Thomas Powell’s "Grenville & the Lost Colony of Roanoke" was the fifth secondary source that I read to prepare myself to write a historical novel about the Algonquian natives and English colonizers of Roanoke Island (coastal North Carolina) during the 1580s. Mr. Powell is a former mayor of Bideford, a port city in West Country of England. He is not a professional historian. He is rather disdainful of the historians that have written books about Roanoke. I have read most of those books and believe he is off base. I do give him credit, however, for striving to achieve his purposes. His motives are sincere. He is conscientious. What he presents misses little that is known.  His book is quite readable.

I compliment Mr. Powell, also, for the biographical information he provides about Sir Richard Grenville, a long-time resident of Bideford and important participant in the Roanoke colonial endeavors. I fault him, however, for touching briefly on Grenville’s hot-temper, down-playing it, in my judgment, in his introduction – “I found him to be a complex man who no doubt had a temper if matters did not go his way.” Powell gives one brief example of Grenville’s temper in his biographical chapter. When he was twenty, Grenville killed an antagonist in a duel, in the words of the yeoman of the deceased, “running him throughe wit his sworde.” Two other examples appear in Grenville’s official report of his 1585 voyage. Mr. Powell makes no comment about Grenville’s exhibited temper.

On the Island of St. John in the West Indies Grenville and a band of soldiers met Spanish soldiers on a swampy plain to parlay. Grenville wanted the Spaniards to provide his fleet food and water. Intimidated, the Spaniards agreed to provide Grenville what he requested. On the day appointed for that to happen, the Spaniards did not appear. Grenville had the nearby woods set on fire.

A silver cup belonging to Grenville’s scouting party was stolen by an Algonquian native of the village of Aquascogooc on the mainland off Pamlico Sound. Grenville had a subordinate officer and several soldiers return to the village to demand the cup’s return. The inhabitants of the village fled. The subordinate, acting on Grenville’s orders – I am presuming -- had the village and its corn fields burned.

The bulk of Mr. Powell’s book consists of chapters of official reports written by the leaders of the several stages of attempted colonization and the relief of such. He transcribed the reports into modern English. This is helpful. That these sources are grouped together and easily accessible is also helpful. The author provides footnoted comments here and there to add collateral information and occasional perspective, much of it useful. The reports, however, leave out (heedlessly or intentionally) certain information that historians desperately need to narrate a fuller account of what transpired. For instance, who of Governor Lane’s colony actually participated in the voyage to the Chesapeake Bay during the winter of 1585-1586? John White? Thomas Harriot? Knowing this absolutely matters. Not provided important details in original sources forces historians to search those sources for clues to that information. Thus, we have interpretation and speculation.

Powell interprets and speculates somewhat in his last two chapters. Yet he criticizes historians for doing just that. This annoyed me. Near the end of his book (pages 221-222) he writes: “for all the documentation that exists, there remains a whole raft of debates, not only about what happened to the planters’ colony of 1587, but also about exactly what interpretations should be applied to the original accounts describing the whole series of events that took place during this period in English history. One of the great problems with this is the reliance of so many modern writers on the work of David Beers Quinn in his one-time authoritative book 'Set Fair for Roanoke,' first published more than fifty years ago. [See my August 1, 2014 , Blogs about English Settlements at Roanoke 1584-1590 entry] That reliance has led to a plethora of hypothesizing which, as time has passed by, appears to have become wilder and more fanciful; so much so that it could be argued it is difficult to unearth the original story.”

Is he saying that he believes these historians are presenting interpretations as fact? I have read four of their works; they haven’t. Without exception they delineate which is what. That Mr. Thomas does not like certain interpretations should not exclude them from being presented. I welcome them. The story of Roanoke needs a more complete accounting. Their interpretations stretch my imagination. They offer me possibilities that I may choose to utilize when I write my novel.

Book Review

"Thomas Hariot, Science Pioneer"

by Ralph C. Staiger

 





Ralph C. Staiger’s “Thomas Harriot Science Pioneer” was written primarily for middle school and high school students. I read it hoping to glean some information about Harriot that is missing from the various secondary sources that I have read about English settlement attempts in the 1580s at Roanoke Island (inside North Carolina’s Outer Banks). I have a better understanding now of how and why this young man of common birth became such a trusted associate of Walter Raleigh. I appreciate more Harriot’s uniqueness. A lifelong bachelor, he cared little for social conventions. He had an extraordinary need to discover the why of things. He was a problem solver. What he achieved was the end product of imagination, disciplined observation, and precise data collecting. His range of inquiry encompassed mathematics, navigation, alchemy, linguistics, shipbuilding, ballistics, ciphers and codes, and astronomy.

Walter Raleigh had need of such a person in 1584 as he was putting together an exploratory voyage to the New World. I found it interesting how Harriot became known to Raleigh. Raleigh wanted to find a suitable location to establish a colony and a permanent way-station for English privateers before or after they raided Spanish treasure ships sailing past the West Indies from Mexico and Central and South America. He sent Harriot on this first voyage mostly because of the young man’s advanced theories about navigation but also, probably, to have a pair of very inquisitive eyes to assess the location explored and the native population encountered.

Harriot was a vital member of the 1585 voyage, which established a military colony on Roanoke Island. Almost all of what we know today about the Pamlico and Albemarle Sound areas and the native people then comes from Harriot’s detailed report to Raleigh written after his return to England in 1586. Ralph Staiger summarizes adequately what Harriot detailed in his report. He provides nothing beyond what historians in greater detail provide.

The remainder of the book tells us about Harriot’s activities from 1587 to his death in 1621. He assisted Raleigh by helping to organize his patron’s Irish estates and by keeping accurate Raleigh’s extensive and complex financial records. He visited Raleigh during the years of Raleigh’s imprisonment in the Tower of London. Harriot profited greatly from the patronage of Raleigh’s friend, Henry Percy, the ninth Earl of Northumberland. In 1597 the Earl provided Harriot a house on his estate adjacent to his residence, Syon House, three hours by boat from London. This permitted Harriot to conduct his observations and research in total privacy. Additionally, it removed him physically from his and Raleigh’s enemies, who were accusing Harriot of being a “conjuror” and atheist, charges that eventually put Northumberland in the Tower. Staiger presents additionally several chapters about Harriot’s scientific achievements. Not being too technical in his explanations, Staiger succeeds in portraying Harriot as a remarkable, today unrecognized scientist.

This book added a bit more to my knowledge of Harriot. It did not provide as much information about the two voyages and the 1585-1586 settlement as professional historians do. There is much I would like to know about certain events and activities at and about Roanoke of which Harriot probably was a participant. No book offers this information because no original source apparently exists that provides it.

I did not like Staiger’s reference to and occasional use of what historians consider a bogus journal, supposedly written by Harriot’s Latin grammar school friend, Thomas Buckner, who may have been Harriot”s companion in America in 1585 and 1586. Such a journal could have provided much of the missing information I seek. The fact that historians give no credence to this “journal” leads me to believe that it is a hoax and Staiger has been irresponsible for using it as a source.          

Book Review

 

"Sir Walter Raleigh: Being a True and Vivid Account of the Life and Times of the Explorer, Soldier, Scholar, Poet, and Courtier -- The Controversial Hero of the Elizabethian Age"

 

by Raleigh Trevelyan

 



What struck me most about the contents of Sir Walter Raleigh, a lengthy biography by Raleigh Trevelyan, was why a man so talented and so proactive in defending his country against all her enemies would have had his head chopped off for treason.

First observation: don’t make powerful enemies. Raleigh was a brilliant, exciting, unique individual. He was very literate, knowledgeable in many subjects, quick-witted, courageous, and virile: simply put, superior to most men. His great mistake was that he flaunted his talents, was exceedingly ostentatious in his attire, and strived always to sway people to his way of thinking. Raleigh rose rapidly in Queen Elizabeth’s court after the Queen became acquainted with him. Rarely allowing him to leave her sight, she bestowed upon him special economic privileges, heeded his advice as much as she did any councilor, and permitted him to select subordinates to implement his plan to establish an English outpost in North America. His enemies resented that he was not of noble birth. His disdain for them, exhibited especially by his dismissal of their malice, infuriated them. They circulated vicious stories about him. He was a liar, an opportunist, a thief, an atheist, a traitor.

Second observation: don’t underestimate the scorn of a woman. Elizabeth bestowed her favoritism on several virile young men during her lengthy reign: Robert Dudley (the Earl of Leicester), during the early years; Sir Christopher Dutton during the late 1570s and early 1580s; Raleigh; and, finally, Robert Devereux (the Second Earl of Essex). Raleigh’s downfall occurred after the Queen discovered that he had secretly married one of her maids of honor, whom he had impregnated. Elizabeth did not give her favorite courtiers permission to marry. Rarely did she permit a maid of honor to marry. Dudley had done so and been punished. Raleigh’s punishment was worse: several months in the Tower of London in 1592 and, after his release, banishment from the Court for nearly five years, although Elizabeth did permit him to lead an expedition to Guiana in 1595 to search for gold. It wasn’t until Raleigh’s worst enemy, Essex, had fallen substantially out of favor that Elizabeth allowed Raleigh back to Court, in June 1597; and he remained more or less in the Queen’s good graces up to her death March 24, 1603.

Third observation: a monarch’s will trumps justice. As Elizabeth’s death neared, Raleigh’s enemies filled the ears of their future king with incessant lies. Raleigh was selfish, disloyal, an atheist, dangerous. Everything about Raleigh, James I disliked. Raleigh fell instantly out of favor. The economic privileges that he had received from Elizabeth were withdrawn. Raleigh’s worst enemies were appointed to the Privy Council. James wanted above anything else a peace treaty with Spain. Because Spain hated Raleigh, he had to be eliminated. He was tried and conviction of treason before the end of 1603 for having consented to spy for Spain. He had been offered an annual pension of 1,500 pounds. (Unbeknownst to James at least two of his Privy Council advisors were receiving such pensions) Raleigh had refused the offer. The confederates of this treasonous act lied at Raleigh’s trial. It didn’t matter. He was sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered. James, fearing a public outcry, stayed the execution. He imprisoned Raleigh in the Tower, where he stayed for nearly 15 years.

Raleigh was released in 1617 on his promise to find and mine gold in Guiana. James, in serious debt, needed his treasury replenished. He warned Raleigh that he would execute him should Raleigh attack Spanish forces. (The desired peace treaty with Spain had been signed in 1604) Raleigh tried his best to avoid confrontation during his journey to Trinidad. An old man, he was too sick to journey up Guiana’s Orinoco River. That task fell to a subordinate, who lacked good judgment. Raleigh warned the subordinate not to engage the one Spanish village on the river. Attacked by a small Spanish reconnaissance party, he and his ill-disciplined men retaliated, took the village, and burned it. Various false accusations were made against Raleigh at his trial. None carried sufficient weight to convict him, Raleigh’s prosecutors concluded. But Raleigh had to be executed. The Spanish ambassador (James’s very close friend) and King Philip III demanded it. And James wanted it. He needed the 500,000 pound dowry that Philip had promised him should his son Charles marry Spanish royalty. Consequently, James lifted his stay of execution. For the trumped up verdict of Raleigh having committed treason by agreeing in 1603 to receive a pension from Spain for spying, Raleigh was beheaded October 29, 1618.

Although tedious at times due mostly to the book’s wealth of detail (which included many excerpts of Raleigh’s poetry), I found this biography well worth reading. 

 

Book Review

 

"Elizabeth the Queen"

 

by Alison Weir

 

 

"Elizabeth the Queen" is a lengthy biography meticulously written by Alison Weir. It is a detailed portrayal of a remarkable queen whose reign spanned nearly 45 years (1558 to 1603). The author succeeds in conveying the uniqueness of the monarch, the dangers -- foreign and domestic -- that she consistently confronted, the grandeur and extravagance of the royal court, the connivances of courtiers, the jealousies of competing counselors, Elizabeth’s unwavering affection for her subjects, and her people’s reciprocal devotion.

Elizabeth was remarkably strong-willed. She had to be. Men of noble birth believed that queens, being women, were inferior decision-makers. Her advisors thought initially that they knew better how the country should be administered and protected. Exceedingly knowledgeable about her foreign adversaries (and just about everything scientific, cultural, religious, and historical), Elizabeth rarely acquiesced. She would delay taking any action she had misgivings about. Much of this biography chronicles how her equivocation about marrying foreign princes postponed King Philip II of Spain’s attempt to dethrone her with a Catholic monarch. Two tenets guided Elizabeth’s decision-making: her trust that God directed her and her desire to benefit her people.

I was amazed at how forgiving Elizabeth was of certain individuals she favored. Although she could be very abusive verbally -- her displays of temper were legendary – her nature was not to be cruel. Virile courtiers took advantage of her. She loved masculine attention and flattery and reveled in the rituals of courtship. Two men stand out: Robert Dudley (eventually the Earl of Leicester) and Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex. Dudley had known Elizabeth before she became queen and was closer than any male to have been a lover. Well into the 1580s his ambition had been to marry her and become king. This motivation led him to take policy positions in the Privy Council more favorable to himself than to the welfare of the realm. Essex was much more dangerous. He was an egomaniac. Placed in government and, later, military positions of authority, obdurate and paranoid, he disobeyed repeatedly Elizabeth’s orders; yet, after her fits of rage, she succumbed always to his exhibitions of counterfeit remorse and devotion. Ultimately, she recognized the serious danger he posed to her sovereignty and stripped him of his powers. Determined to have his way, he staged a coup, failed, was convicted of treason, and was executed.

Elizabeth’s tolerance of Mary Stuart’s machinations to become Queen of England impressed me. For years the former Scottish queen had been complicit in Spain’s, the Pope’s, and Catholic subjects’ plans to elevate her. Elizabeth knew about Mary’s participation, but resisted repeatedly her councilors’ admonitions to have Mary tried, convicted, and executed. Elizabeth believed absolutely that legitimately ascended monarchs should not be interfered with. Mary had been deposed. Executing such a monarch, however treacherous thereafter she had become, violated her sensibilities. Only when her life was seriously threatened and King Philip’s anticipated invasion of England seemed imminent did Elizabeth authorize Mary’s trial and execution.

I was touched by Elizabeth’s emotional responses to her declining health during the last year of her reign. Most all of her friends and all of her old councilors had died. She felt alone amongst a younger generation of self-seekers that were weary and dismissive of her and eager for a male successor. She had struggled mightily to ward off the encroachments of old age and had failed. The onset of what was probably tonsillitis became either bronchitis or pneumonia. During her last hours she took comfort in the prayers delivered over her, she unable to speak, with each reference to God raising her eyes skyward.             


Book Review

 

"Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony"

 

by Lee Miller

 

Of the four major secondary sources that I have read that narrate Walter Raleigh’s attempts to establish an English settlement on the coast of North America in the 1580s, Lee Miller’s Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony is probably the most informative and definitely the most entertaining. 

 

Miller’s research is extensive.  (Even her footnotes give useful information)  Not content just to tell the conventional story of Raleigh’s attempts, she provides valuable context.

 

We learn about the misery of life in England and, more particularly, London.  Miller writes that fish markets and butchers shops at London’s waterfront abound.  The stench is overwhelming.  Offal is channeled down to waiting dung boats on the Thames.  Streets are twisted and narrow, with constant congestion of carts and coaches.  Around the base of St. Paul’s Cathedral booksellers’ stalls and printers’ shops swarm.  Skulking around them are knaves, pickpockets, and thieves.  Rudeness “is in keeping with an overall atmosphere of self-indulgence.  A shirking of personal responsibility.  …  Anger is allowed free rein; street brawls are common.  Couples easily separate when tired of marriage.  …  the swelling army of pursy and corpulent citizens indicates an absence of self-denial” (Miller 35).  Bear-baiting is a favorite public entertainment.  Crowds of idlers sit in stands to watch specially trained dogs, one by one, attack a bear who is tethered to a post and whose teeth have been broken short.

 

Additionally, Miller explains the history of Queen Elizabeth’s difficulties with Spain beginning with King Phillip II’s ascension to the throne in 1556.  She writes about the intrigues against Elizabeth’s life that involve Mary Stuart, the one-time queen of Scotland.  We read about Mary’s duplicity, arrest, trial, and execution. 

 

Miller provides a character sketch of Walter Raleigh, relates his beginnings and his rise to power, portrays his enemies, and narrates his downfall.

 

She offers reasons to explain why ordinary men and several of their wives and children leave England in 1587 to settle in the New World.

 

Miller’s book is excellent for its range of historical information.  That she attempts to answer two lingering questions about the Roanoke settlements makes her book even better.  Why was Walter Raleigh’s 1587 attempt – led by the artist John White -- to establish a permanent settlement doomed to fail?  What really happened to the “lost” settlers that White could not locate upon his return to Roanoke in 1590? 

 

Lee Miller is the only historian to theorize that the 1587 attempt was deliberately sabotaged.  She reviews each of Queen Elizabeth’s four primary councilors and presents compelling evidence that the saboteur was her secretary of state Francis Walsingham. 

 

The conventional wisdom of most historians about the “disappearance” of a major portion of White’s settlers is two-fold.  One, they relocated either on the south shore of Chesapeake Bay or 50 miles inland from Roanoke Island somewhere up the Chowan River and, two, they were slaughtered years later by the Powhatan Indian nation.  Miller speculates that they settled somewhere along the Chowan River but were almost immediately destroyed by a vicious interior tribe that coastal Algonquian tribes called Mandoag.  She lays out arguments as to why Jamestown officials declared that John White’s “lost colony” had been killed by the Powhatans and why the few rumored survivors of White’s colony were spread across North Carolina’s interior.

 

A third reason why I valued this book is Miller’s skillful use of descriptive language.  In certain places she writes like a novelist.  Here are two examples.

 

John White and Thomas Hariot approach Paquype Lake – “They follow a wooded trail, damp and spongy underfoot, around knotty cypress knees jutting out of stagnant water the color of weak tea, tainted with tannic acid.  Scarlet-headed parakeets tumble wildly into the air, frightened…  The path skirts trees the girth of five men, primordial giants draped in skeins of green vine.  Tendrils curl, cascading downward, twisting over the ground below.  Then, without warning, incongruous amid the tangle, a ring of blue water” (Miller 89).

 

Evening scene at Aquascogoc – “Offshore, Indian dugouts ride a crimson tide as the sun tumbles into the sound.  Shimmering fire across the water.  Fishermen, in grand silhouette, lay their nets, rhythmically casting and hauling in.   Butterflies unfolding glistening wings of nettle fiber.  A graceful dance.  Eventually the boats, lit up by torches, will twinkle toward land.  Drawn by the fires of Aquascogoc.  The domed houses gleam with muted light, illuminating woven wall patterns like stained glass, spilling warm shapes across the tamped ground outside.  Each design different.  Stars and geometrics; kaleidoscopic forms, birds and fish” (Miller 90).

 

Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony is a special book.  



Book Review

 

"Set Fair for Roanoke"

by David Beers Quinn

 

"Set Fair for Roanoke" by David Beers Quinn is not a book that would appeal to the general reading public. There are other secondary source books about the attempted English settlements at Roanoke (inside the Outer Banks of North Carolina) that are faster-moving and more entertaining reads. What the reader gets from Quinn’s book that elevates it is detailed, insightful speculation.

Primary sources do not explain sufficiently what happened at Roanoke. Historians have available to them five reports sent to Walter Raleigh that narrate the 1584 expedition and the settlements of 1585-1586 and 1587. The reports inadvertently and intentionally omit needed information. They are also biased. Our knowledge of the local Algonquians is limited to what those who wrote the reports chose to declare. Given these limitations, what can a credible historian do? Narrate what was reported, question its objectivity, seize upon bits and pieces of information made available, and speculate. Of the four Roanoke historians that I have read, David Quinn does this best.

Here is much of what Quinn addresses.

Just how much influence did the Roanoke chief Wingina have over native villages along the banks of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds? Not very much? A lot? Historians don’t know. Identifying the native warriors that wounded him in early 1584 is important, given Governor Lane’s assertion that Wingina was plotting to have warriors from distant villages assist him in destroying the 1585-1586 colony.

The two Englishmen who provided the best information about the native population were the scientist Thomas Harriot and the artist John White. They may have been members of the first voyage to Roanoke in 1584, but historians are not certain. Both were indispensable members of the 1585-1586 settlement. One of their important achievements was their survey of the waterways and villages of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds. Yet we don’t know all of the villages they visited. Near the end of 1585 Governor Lane sent a party of about 20 men to the Chesapeake Bay to scout suitable land for a possible future settlement. We have no report of their experiences. All we know is what Lane scarcely mentions. It is assumed that Harriot, who had some knowledge of the Algonquian language, participated. Nobody knows whether White accompanied him. He may very well have returned to England several months earlier. Reasonable arguments can be made to support or refute each conclusion. How much White knew about the Chesapeake land and the local natives residing there is germane to what in 1587 he must have advised his settlers to do if, feeling threatened, they decided to relocate.

Most historians agree that Governor Lane’s account of the events of 1586 that culminated with Wingina’s murder is suspect. Lane was convinced that Wingina had plotted to annihilate his settlers using friendly warriors from villages fifty miles or farther away. It had been Wingina, Lane reported, that in the early spring had caused distant villages to deny his men food during their exploration of the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers. We have Lane’s point of view only. Was he paranoid?

Why did Simon Fernandes, the pilot of John White’s 1587 voyage to Roanoke, force White’s settlers to disembark on the Island? Why didn’t he take them to the Chesapeake Bay as White and Sir Walter Raleigh had planned? Was it to provide himself enough time to privateer? Was he following the orders of Walter Raleigh’s enemies in England that White’s venture must fail, a theory proposed by one imaginative historian? White believed that Fernandes did intend to privateer. The pilot’s actions during the Atlantic crossing and passage through the Caribbean suggest another motive.

Finally, what happened to White’s settlers after they forced White to return to England to try to persuade investors to send ships to Roanoke to take them to the Chesapeake? When White returned to Roanoke in 1590, he found not one Algonquian or settler to question. Historians give us theories of where they believe the settlers might have settled and what afterward might have happened to them – speculation based on sketchy information provided by descendants of Croatoan natives, John Smith of Jamestown, and an exploratory party sent south from Jamestown.

I appreciated the extent to which David Beers Quinn analyzed source information and the alternative theories he imparted to expand our understanding of England’s failed attempt in the 1580s to establish a North American colony.             

Book Review

"The Head in Edward Nugent's Hand,"

by Michael Leroy Oberg

 



Michael Leroy Oberg’s book accomplishes two objectives. It tells the story of Sir Walter Raleigh’s failed attempts to establish an English outpost/settlement on the North Carolina coast between the years 1584 and 1587. It examines the native population’s culture and way of life and emphasizes how that culture determined native responses to English interference.

Raleigh wanted to use the outpost as a base for privateers to attack Spanish treasure ships; utilize the natural resources of the land to benefit Queen Elizabeth, his financial backers, and himself; and discover a water passage to the Pacific Ocean. Accomplishing these objectives assumed that the Carolina coastal natives could be civilized and converted to Christianity. Treated patiently and kindly, exposed to the benefits of a far more advanced culture, the natives would surely adapt.

Oberg demonstrates that the Algonquian culture -- based on religious concepts, ritual and a harmonious, balanced way of living influenced by natural resources unique to the environment, a culture established centuries ago -- was too strong to be altered. Friction, not assimilation, resulted.

Unforeseen events contributed greatly, as well, to Raleigh’s failure. The newcomers in 1585 brought disease that killed 50 to 70 percent of the inhabitants of native communities with whom they made contact. A severe drought limited considerably the corn crop upon which the natives greatly depended. The 1585 expedition brought to Roanoke Island over a hundred aggressive men most of whom were soldiers trained solely to wage war. Most of the colony’s food supply for the remainder of the year was ruined by sea water when the ship containing the food, upon its arrival, ran aground. This caused the settlement’s leader to pressure the Roanoke natives continuously for assistance. Ultimately, the Roanoke weroance Wingina withdrew his community to the mainland, having come to the conclusion that the English brought to his people not advantages but hardship and death.

Believing mistakenly that the Roanoke weroance had conspired with other Indian settlements to attack him, the colony’s governor, Ralph Lane, had his soldiers slaughter most of the natives in Wingina’s mainland village. One of his soldiers, Edward Nugent, cut off Wingina’s head. Two weeks later, the entire colony sailed back to England.

The third attempt (1587) to establish a settlement was led by the artist and idealist John White, who had participated in the previous two expeditions. His settlers were mostly civilians, lower middleclass people of London seeking an independent, improved existence. White was forced by the fleet’s pilot to disembark on Roanoke Island instead of continuing on to locate a settlement on the south bank of Chesapeake Bay, as had been intended. Misunderstanding and miscommunication caused White and his settlers to attack the one remaining native people friendly to Englishmen. White was forced to return to England soon afterward to arrange for ships and supplies to transport his colony to the Chesapeake Bay. War with Spain prevented him from returning until 1590. He found Roanoke Island deserted. A message carved in wood suggested that the colony had moved south to the Indian village Croatoan on the Outer Bank. The next day a severe storm deprived White of the chance to investigate. His ship, driven well out into the Atlantic, returned to England. He never returned.

Other books about the Roanoke settlements provide this information. What is unique about Oberg’s book is his detailed explanation of why the native coastal populations were resistant to English encroachment. In his epilogue, he writes: “We know that many factors contributed to the failure of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Roanoke ventures. … All these explanations … overlook an important and fundamental truth: Raleigh’s Roanoke ventures failed because those native people in Ossomocomuck who initially had welcomed the newcomers decided to withdraw their support and assistance from strange people whom they now viewed as a mortal threat to their way of life.”

I especially appreciated Oberg’s laying out of most all of the explanations that historians have offered of why and where White’s “lost” settlers “disappeared.” He also explains how the coastal Carolina natives lost their land, culture, and identity over the succeeding two centuries. I recommend this book to anybody having a genuine interest in early English attempts to establish colonies in North America.    

Book Review

 

"A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke" by James Horn

 

"A Kingdom Strange: the Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke" is a well-researched account of Sir Walter Raleigh’s failed attempts to establish an English settlement in North America. Raleigh wished to found a thriving colony to accomplish four purposes: to attack more effectively Spanish treasure ships returning to Spain from Central and South America; to keep Spanish settlement out of North America; to obtain great wealth by harvesting the land’s natural resources, in particular gold and silver; and to discover an easy passage to the Pacific Ocean and the trade-rich orient.

Historian James Horn takes us methodically through the separate voyages to North Carolina’s Outer Banks and Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds beginning with the exploratory voyage of Arthur Barlowe and Philip Amadas in 1584 and ending with John White’s tragic attempt in 1590 to re-connect with the settlement he as governor had been forced to leave three years earlier to address in London the settlement’s need for relocation and its shortage of food and supplies.

Horn introduces us to the local Native American culture. He narrates effectively the arrogance and brutality of Captain Richard Grenville and Governor Ralph Lane and the eventual recognition by tribal leaders that these foreigners and their men are not gods nor allies but avaricious enemies. We see the measures taken by the Secotan Indians to rid themselves of these Englishmen, and we witness Governor Lane’s vicious retaliation. We feel artist-turned-idealistic governor John White’s frustration and anguish as he attempts to plant a new colony after Lane and his soldiers return to England. We recognize White’s need to return to London to arrange for additional settlers and supplies to be transported to Roanoke to enable the settlement to move to a safer geographic location. We learn why three years elapse before he is able to return. We see the little evidence he finds that leads him to believe where the people of his abandoned village have relocated. We feel his despair as he is prevented the opportunity to verify his supposition. We then judge the validity of the author’s theory of the fate of White’s “lost” colony.

Immediately after I retired from teaching, I researched this subject matter and wrote a brief YA manuscript that if copied future Orinda, CA eighth grade students could have read. Horn’s narration, published years afterward (2010), has provided me tidbits of information I didn’t known. (Example: Walter Raleigh’s promotional efforts, planning, and preparatory actions that preceded each voyage) Horn’s footnotes offered me additional information. His timeline of events that affected discovery and colonization in America from 1492 to 1701 is also useful.

If I choose to write a full-length novel about the clash of English explorers and settlers and Native Americans at Roanoke, James Horn’s book will serve as an important secondary source. Concise yet detailed, quite readable, it would benefit any reader seeking to learn about the origins of our country’s past.