A Kingdom Strange

Starred review from February 22, 2010
A leading historian of early Virginia, Horn (A Land as God Made It
) relates the convoluted, fascinating story of the failed 1598 venture on Roanoke Island: a British settlement whose 100 men, women, and children disappeared without a trace. Horn teases from the record as no one before the “Lost Colony of 1587,” which had not even been intended to settle on the island. Horn recounts its travails, hostilities with the Indians, requests to England for support that failed to arrive for three years, by which time the settlers were gone. Based on the available evidence, Horn finds that the colonists did not die but intermarried with local Indians. Over a century later, a North Carolina settler, venturing to Roanoke Island, found Indians who claimed Englishmen among their ancestors (and some gray-eyed tribesmen seemed to support the claim). He places it all in the context of the political and economic tumult of the time for an outstanding historical mystery/adventure tale with an ending perhaps less tragic than historians have long believed. Illus.

March 1, 2010
Horn (director, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Lib., Colonial Williamsburg Fndn.) follows his well-received account of the Jamestown colony ("A Land as God Made It") with the tragic story of Roanoke, founded two decades before Jamestown. Roanoke was England's first attempt to establish a foothold in North America, but, unlike Jamestown, it failed, and the colonists mysteriously abandoned their settlement. Horn focuses his lucid and accessible narrative on Walter Raleigh and John White, two key players in the tragedy. Raleigh financed and organized the colony but never journeyed to America himself, whereas White was a leading settler whose maps and descriptions of his journeys encouraged Queen Elizabeth's interest in establishing a British America that would cripple Spain's commercial and military power. Horn discusses Britain's sundry motivations for colonizing America, touches on the Roanoke colonists' mercurial relations with various Native tribes, and theorizes on what may have happened to the settlers after they abandoned their colony. But Horn fails to thoroughly dissect any particular aspect of, or shed new light on, this important and intriguing chapter in early American history. VERDICT This will appeal to lay readers interested in a brief overview of the Roanoke story, but it is insufficient for academic readers despite its endnotes.Douglas King Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2010
The story of the mysterious disappearance of the colonists who attempted to set up the first permanent British colony in the Americas.

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation vice president Horn (A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America, 2005, etc.) uses new archival material to piece together the history of more than 100 British colonists who landed on Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina in 1587. The venture, sponsored by Sir Walter Ralegh, encountered trouble from the start. The colonists found the new land entirely inhospitable; they contended with fast-dwindling supplies as well as aggressive Native Americans, who brutally killed one colonist days after their arrival. Just one month after their initial landing, the settlers' leader, John White, sailed back to England to obtain a relief force and to replenish supplies. When he finally returned in 1590 after many delays, the colony had disappeared, seemingly deserted. What happened to the colonists has been a mystery for centuries, with a number of different ideas advanced by historians over the years. Horn constructs a detailed theory of what he believes happened to many of the colonists—that they lived on elsewhere for years afterward, only to meet a tragic end. The author creates an engaging, you-are-there feel to the narrative, with rich descriptions of European politics, colonists' daily struggles and the vagaries of relations between Native American tribes. Horn also provides helpful drawings and maps—many by John White—throughout this relatively brief but comprehensive book.

A satisfying recounting of some of the earliest American history.

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