Savage Kingdom

February 19, 2007
This highly readable account of the founding of Jamestown moves from the English throne to the daily struggles of the colony's first settlers and the experience of Virginia's Indians as their relations with colonists became increasingly strained. Here are the famous tales from early Virginia, like Pocahontas's marriage to John Rolfe. But well-known explorers sit cheek by jowl with fascinating, lesser-known people, such as the colonists' wives, who consulted an astrologer to reassure themselves about their husbands' fate on the open seas. Woolley emphasizes both the financial and religious aims of colonization: English backers expected to get rich on the bounty the settlers would uncover and produce (though the first ships of wood and iron ore sent back disappointed the London Company). But Englishmen also saw Virginia as a "religious mission," an opportunity to spread Protestantism abroad. Woolley persuasively argues that the settlers' aggressive response to a 1623 Indian attack became the "defining moment" in the history of English settlement of Virginia—it was through this event, more than any other, that the colonists articulated their connection to their new land and "crafted and honed their American identity." Woolley blends nuanced analysis with fast-paced narrative. 16 pages of color illus.