Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America
The follow up to his best-sellingNathaniel's Nutmeg, Giles Milton'sBig Chief Elizabethis a sprawling, ambitious tale of how the aristocrats and privateers of Elizabethan England reached and colonized the "wild and barbarous shores" of the New World. Milton's story ranges from John Cabot's voyage to America in 1497 to the painful but ultimately successful foundation of the English colony at Jamestown by 1611. However, the main focus of the book is Sir Walter Raleigh's elaborate and tortuous attempts to establish an English settlement on Roanoke Island, in present-day North Carolina, following the first English voyage there in 1584. Scouring contemporary travel accounts of the period, Milton creates a colorful and entertaining account of the greed, confusion, and misunderstanding that characterized English relations with the Native Americans, and the violent and tragic conflict that often ensued.Milton has a good eye for a surreal or comical story, such as the colony's first encounter with Big Chief--orWeroanzaWingina, whose exotic title "quickly captured the imagination of the English colonists, and they began referring to their own queen asWeroanzaElizabeth." The Elizabethan cast is also dazzling: the flamboyant and ambitious Walter Raleigh, who provided the money behind the Roanoke ventures; the "sober" ascetic scholar Thomas Hariot, who provided the brains; and hardened adventurers, like Arthur Barlowe and Ralph Lane, who provided the muscle. The myths and stories also come thick and fast, from John Smith and Pocahontas, to the importation of the fashion of "drinking tobacco," but the problem withBig Chief Elizabethis that it lacks a central driving story. In the end, it reads like an entertaining, but rather labored jog through early Anglo-American history, something that has been done with greater skill and originality by, for one, Charles Nicholl in his fascinating bookThe Creature in the Map. Those who enjoyedNathaniel's Nutmegwill probably likeBig Chief Elizabeth, but with some reservations.--Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.