Friday, August 09, 2002
Book Review: Big Chief Elizabeth: How England's Adventurers Gambled and Won the New World, by Giles Milton
Just catching up with book reviews of things I’ve recently read... I finished this one off last week during my vacation.
How could one not like this book? It is about the earliest attempts by the English (and more specifically, Sir Walter Raleigh) to settle the New World. The generally sorry tale includes accounts of starvation, lost colonists, piracy, cannibalism, strutting royalty and terrible tortures. So of course it's a fun read. ;-)
This book looks at how Sir Walter Raleigh pushed for establishing a colony in the New World, in present-day Virginia. The primary reason: as a base in which to launch raids against the Spanish treasure fleets sailing from the Caribbean. The book covers the political machinations of the Elizabethan court, including the occasional panic-sounding missives from Spanish spies.
Then there's the various settlements in the New World. Derived from accounts from the survivors we get the sad story of how a handful of ill-equipped settlers landed on Roanoke, and how they struggled against increasingly hostile Indians, themselves and starvation. Throw in all of the political intrigue and just plain bad luck that plagued the often delayed relief flotillas and you have a disaster waiting to happen.
The two stories that are best known from this era are well covered: the lost colonists of Roanoke and Pocahontas. Gilbert makes a good case that the lost colonists of Roanoke survived for many years, and the landing of new colonists to the north (in what would become Raleigh) is what sparked the local Chief Powhatan into massacring the last of them. This idea -- derived wholly from an account by John Smith sent to then-King James I -- plausibly fits in with known events. There are two problems with this though: the archeological evidence does not seem to support it, and the fact that nobody else who has studied this subject even seems to reference this document -- perhaps with good reason. It wraps things up neatly -- perhaps too neatly under the circumstances. (Though it would help explain the frosty reception Chief Powhatan's brother got when he was presented to the court of James I).
The story of Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan is a curious one. True, she did save John Smith's life, was effectively kidnapped by the settlers of Raleigh and married (by force?) one of the settlers, which paved the way for better relations between the settlers and the Indians. These isolated stories are interesting, but the whole picture is neatly illustrated: how Raleigh sought to gain prestige in the court with his settlement, the way Elizabethan science was brought to bear on learning the Indian language and improved ship navigation, the politics and tribes of the local Indians and the Spanish attempts to quell the colony. All fascinating stuff, providing a very clear and largely believable story as to events unfolded.
The author is best known for Nathaniel's Nutmeg, a book about the emerging Renaissance-era spice trade -- and given the strength of this book, one I'll have to track down. Made for a good read while up on Schengri-la, read largely in a hammock beside our cabin while Annie was taking a nap. I passed it on to Erika's sister Jennifer, touting the piracy, cannibalism and general mayhem angle. ;-)
Through what seems to be a growing informal network of Frantics (the 80s Canadian radio/TV comedy troupe, not the Christian rock band) fans, I found out that there's going to be a re-release of their long-out-of-print debut album, Frantic Times. Apparently it is going to be released via the small State-side label Deep Shag Records (though as yet there’s nothing about it on their Web site). It is set to come out sometime in the Fall. And that's the sum total of what I know about it.
There's one other interesting tid bit of info: things are apparently moving along for an official Frantics Web site. I know that Paul C. has had the .com domain registered for years (which is why mine is a .net site).
The other weekend I listened to Al Rae's Summer Comedy Summary on CBC, a summer replacement comedy show for Madly Off in All Directions. He led off what a couple of Frantics skits and segued neatly into an interview and skit by The Vestibules, who are arguably the successor to The Frantic's style of comedy. Nice to see that they both still get airplay every now and then. Both brands of their comedy hold up well.
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