Envisioning America English Plans for the Colonization of North America, 1580-1640

by Mancall, Peter C.

• ISBN13: 9780312096700
• ISBN10: 0312096704
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-03-15
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

This collection of documents gives twenty-first century readers a glimpse of the time when the possibility of colonizing North America was anything but certain. Pamphlets, accounts, and engravings from the late sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century capture the process of English colonization from its origins in promotional propaganda to its realization on the shores of North America.

Author Biography

Peter C. Mancall is a professor of history and anthropology at the University of Southern California.  He is also Associate Vice Provost for Research Advancement at the university, and the director of the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute. His scholarly work examines early American history with a particular focus on American Indians, the environment, and economic development. He has been a fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University and a Mellon Resident Research Fellow at the American Philosophical Society Library. He is the author of Valley of Opportunity: Economic Culture along the Upper Susquehanna, 1700-1800 (1991) and the forthcoming Deadly Medicine: Indians and Alcohol in Early America.

Table of Contents

  Foreword
  Preface
    
PART I. INTRODUCTION: ENGLISH PROMOTION AND SETTLEMENT OF THE AMERICAS
    
PART II. THE DOCUMENTS
    
    1. Richard Hakluyt (the elder), "Inducements to the Liking of the Voyage Intended towards Virginia in 40. and 42. Degrees" (1585)
    2. Richard Hakluyt (the younger), "Discourse of Western Planting" (1584)
    3. George Peckham, A True Reporte of the Late Discoveries . . . by . . . Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1583)
    4. Thomas Harriot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1590)
    Illustration section: Selections from Theodor de Bry's engravings of John White's True Pictures and Fashions of the People in That Parte of America Now Called Virginia (1585)
    5. Sir Walter Ralegh, "Of the Voyage for Guiana" (1596?)
    6. George Percy, "A Discourse of the Plantation of the Southern Colonie in Virginia" (1606-1607)
    7. Anonymous, A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia (Issued by the Virginia Company) (1610)
    8. John Winthrop, "Reasons to Be Considered for Justifying the Undertakers of the Intended Plantation in New England and for Encouraging Such Whose Hearts God Shall Move to Join with Them in It" (1629)
    9. John Smith, A Description of New England (1616) and Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New England, or Any Where (1631)
    10. William Wood, New England's Prospect (1635)
    
APPENDICES
    
    Chronology of Exploration and Colonization in the Americas
    Suggestions for Further Reading
    
  Index