Title: The Jamestown adventure : accounts of the Virginia colony, 1605-1614 /
Authors: Southern, Ed, 1972-
Publisher: John F. Blair,
Year: 2004
Subjects: Jamestown (Va.) History.; Jamestown (Va.) History Sources.
Abstract: "This volume collects contemporary accounts of the first successful colony in the first thirteen United States. The earliest text dates from 1605, two years before the first landing; the last describes events up to 1614, when the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe secured a brief measure of peace for the beleaguered colony. Most of the accounts were written by the colonists themselves; others reflect the perceptions and expectations of investors and observers back in England, while two reveal the keen and hostile interest taken in the colony by England's chief rival, Spain. Several of them were written for widespread publication; others were either private letters or reports meant only for certain audiences. These narratives take the reader from the London stage to Powhatan's lodge, from the halls of royal power to the derelict hovels of the Starving Time. They show the modern reader what an adventure the founding of English America was - the desperate battles and fraught negotiations with Powhatan, the political intrigues in Europe and Virginia, the shipwreck that inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest, the discoveries that thrilled the colonists, the discoveries that broke their hearts."--Jacket.
Contents: pt. I. "Come, boys, Virginia longs," 1605-1606. A colonial con job -- Instructions for the first colonists -- pt. II. "This new discovered Virginia, " 1607-1608. The arrival -- "Never were Englishmen in more misery" -- Politics on the edge of the world -- Captain Smith saves the day -- Pocahontas saves Captain Smith -- Captain Smith's voyage to Pamunkey -- pt. III. The starving time, 1609-1610. "Unnecessary inmates" -- Nova Britannia -- A spy in the palace -- "He sold me to him for a town" -- "That sharp prick of hunger" -- pt. IV. Beyond the Palisades, 1610-1613. Tempest and redemption -- Laws divine, moral and martial -- Sir Thomas Dale and the first four towns -- A spy in Virginia -- pt. V. The peace of Pocahontas, 1614. The capture of Pocahontas -- The love letter of John Rolfe -- The last mission to Powhatan.