The Abandoned Colony by Karen Ordahl Kupperman Essay -- roanoke colony,

Thesis: The Roanoke colony proved to be an unsuccessful venture in the New World for England, since leaders of the expedition held the viewpoint that privateering would prove to be the most profitable aspect of founding the new settlements in the West. However future, still unsuccessful attempts to make a permanent colony at Roanoke, helped England understand how to build a prosperous one; and it became a building block for establishing future colonies for England and helped shape the ideas that would help launch their empire. Summary: This book starts well before Roanoke was founded. It detailed how, at the time, England was not a superpower. Spain and France were the most dominant of the European countries, but internal conflicts in France made it weak, while Spain was getting extremely wealthy off of Indians and the Aztecs. England saw this as an opportunity to expand into the New World, and had Walter Raleigh head the trip. The main goals of the colony were to expanding their efforts of privateering, with a sustainable colony as an after thought. It was initial devised as a way to intercept merchant ships more effectively from other countries (mainly Spain) and be a short-term base of operations. Most if not all of the men brought over had only military experience, so they struggled with building proper housing, getting clean water, and growing crops. Ultimately, conflict erupted when the Indians grew weary of giving such a large amount of supplies to the colonists, and many high ranking officials died on the Indian side. The settlement was abandoned due to lack of supplies. After this unsuccessful attempt, John White lead another group intended to be a permanent settlement to Roanoke, and the prototype of plantations he u... ...ue detailing what Ralegh and White did after the Roanoke colonies. To sum up my opinions, this book was not only an excellent read from a scholarly perspective, but is also great for anyone to read if they are interested in the early colonization efforts of the New World and how it functioned. I would, however, not advise anyone to read this without having some background information on Western European powers and knowledge of Indian tribes in the mid to late 16th century. Works Cited Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony by Karen Ordahl Kupperman; Roanoke Island: The Beginnings of English America by David Stick Review by: Neal Salisbury American Indian Quarterly , Vol. 9, No. 2 (Spring, 1985) , pp. 184-186 Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony by Karen Ordahl Kupperman Review by: Bernard W. Sheehan The American Historical Review , Vol. 90, No. 3 (Jun., 1985) , p. 750