A Kingdom Strange : The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke
ISBN: 9780465021154
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Basic Books
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: History;

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. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

James Horn is the president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation. He is author and editor of eight books on colonial American history, including A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America and A Brave and Cunning Prince: The Great Chief Opechancanough and the War for America. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.

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