Excepting college, history class has a way of making history dry and boring. In school we are taught that Sir Walter Raleigh established the Roanoke Colony in 1585 and upon returning in 1590, the colony was found deserted with the only clue of what happened being the word Croatoan carved into a post. While this story is essentially correct, that is not the entire story.
In an age of treasure laden Spanish ships being hunted by privateers sailing under letters of marque from Queen Elizabeth I, Aleck Loker's Walter Ralegh's Virginia: Roanoke Island and the Lost Colony reminds us that nothing happens in a vacuum. Loker outlines the events of the Age of Exploration leading up to Ralegh's (Loker sticks to the historical spelling of Ralegh and not the modern one of Raleigh) colonization attempt and also outlines the social, economic, political, and even religious climate of the time before telling the story of the doomed colony.
Hindsight always being 20/20, it is clear that the colony was doomed from the start. Loker shows how an imminent war with Spain, privateers running amuck, Ireland being pacified and settled by the British, and of course, royal court politics all conspired to seal the fate of the Roanoke colony.
I give this book 4/5.
In an age of treasure laden Spanish ships being hunted by privateers sailing under letters of marque from Queen Elizabeth I, Aleck Loker's Walter Ralegh's Virginia: Roanoke Island and the Lost Colony reminds us that nothing happens in a vacuum. Loker outlines the events of the Age of Exploration leading up to Ralegh's (Loker sticks to the historical spelling of Ralegh and not the modern one of Raleigh) colonization attempt and also outlines the social, economic, political, and even religious climate of the time before telling the story of the doomed colony.
Hindsight always being 20/20, it is clear that the colony was doomed from the start. Loker shows how an imminent war with Spain, privateers running amuck, Ireland being pacified and settled by the British, and of course, royal court politics all conspired to seal the fate of the Roanoke colony.
I give this book 4/5.