A Tale of Two Colonies: What Really Happened in Virginia and Bermuda?In 1609, two years after its English founding, colonists struggled to stay alive in a tiny fort at Jamestown.John Smith fought to keep order, battling both English and Indians. When he left, desperate colonists ate lizards, rats, and human flesh. Surviving accounts of the “Starving Time” differ, as do modern scholars’ theories. Meanwhile, the Virginia-bound Sea Venture was shipwrecked on Bermuda, the dreaded, uninhabited “Isle of Devils.” The castaways’ journals describe the hurricane at sea as well as murders and mutinies on land. Their adventures are said to have inspired Shakespeare’s The Tempest. A year later, in 1610, the Bermuda castaways sailed to Virginia in two small ships they had built. They arrived in Jamestown to find many people in the last stages of starvation; abandoning the colony seemed their only option. Then, in what many people thought was divine providence, three English ships sailed into Chesapeake Bay. Virginia was saved, but the colony’s troubles were far from over. Despite glowing reports from Virginia Company officials, disease, inadequate food, and fear of Indians plagued the colony. The company poured thousands of pounds sterling and hundreds of new settlers into its venture but failed to make a profit, and many of the newcomers died. Bermuda—with plenty of food, no native population, and a balmy climate—looked much more promising, and in fact, it became England’s second New World colony in 1612. In this fascinating tale of England’s first two New World colonies, Bernhard links Virginia and Bermuda in a series of unintended consequences resulting from natural disaster, ignorance of native cultures, diplomatic intrigue, and the fateful arrival of the first Africans in both colonies. Written for general as well as academic audiences, A Tale of Two Colonies examines the existing sources on the colonies, sets them in a transatlantic context, and weighs them against circumstantial evidence. From diplomatic correspondence and maps in the Spanish archives to recent archaeological discoveries at Jamestown, Bernhard creates an intriguing history. To weave together the stories of the two colonies, which are fraught with missing pieces, she leaves nothing unexamined: letters written in code, adventurers’ narratives, lists of Africans in Bermuda, and the minutes of committees in London. Biographical details of mariners, diplomats, spies, Indians, Africans, and English colonists also enrich the narrative. While there are common stories about both colonies, Bernhard shakes myth free from truth and illuminates what is known—as well as what we may never know—about the first English colonies in the New World. |
Other editions - View all
A Tale of Two Colonies: What Really Happened in Virginia and Bermuda? Virginia Bernhard Limited preview - 2011 |
A Tale of Two Colonies: What Really Happened in Virginia and Bermuda? Virginia Bernhard No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
aboard Africans Algernon ambassador arrived ashore August Barbour Bermuda and Virginia boat brought Buried Truth Capt Captain castaways chap Chesapeake Bay Christopher Newport colonists colony’s Company’s corn death downriver Earl Elfrith England English Colonie fish fleet Francis West Gabriel Archer Gates’s Generall Historie Genesis George Percy George Yeardley governor Henry hogs hundred Ibid Indians James Jamestown Narratives Jamestown Voyages John Rolfe John Smith Jourdain King Philip knew land later letter Lieutenant-General Gates live London longboat named Namontack Nathaniel Butler Nathaniel Rich ofthe Opechancanough Philip III pinnace Pocahontas Point Comfort Powhatan Ratcliffe Richard Buck river Robert Rich sailors Samuel Argall Sea Venture sent set sail ship’s ships Sir George Somers Sir Thomas Gates Somers’s Spain Spanish Starving Stephen Hopkins Strachey wrote Strachey’s Treasurer Trewe Relacyon true reportory upriver Velasco Venture’s vessel Virginia Company Virginia Company Council Warr Warr’s wife William Strachey women Yeardley Zuñiga