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What Happened in Roanoke: Ralph Lane’s Narrative Incursion

What Happened in Roanoke: Ralph Lane’s Narrative Incursion Kathleen Donegan University of California, Berkeley What Happened in Roanoke Ralph Lane’s Narrative Incursion Writing from the “new Fort in Virginia” in September 1585, co-lo nial governor Ralph Lane proclaimed he was on “the goodliest soile under the cope of heaven” (Quinn 210, 207). If it were to be fully possessed by Englishmen, he projected, “no realme in Christendome were comparable to it” (208). But the following June, he and his company frantically pulled up stakes and returned to England, trailing a wake of violence behind them. Shoreside, their onetime hosts were shocked, incensed, and deeply set on reprisal. What drove the colony out so precipitously? To answer tha - t ques tion, we might look to the three primary sources produced in that s - ettle ment. Thomas Harriot’s A Briefe and True Report from the New- Found Land of Virginia tells us a great deal about the land, its potential co - mmodi ties, and its inhabitants, but it does not tell us what happened. John White’s watercolors provide detailed portraits of individuals, material culture, and social organization in the area, but they do not tell us what happened. The text that comes closest to doing so is http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Early American Literature University of North Carolina Press

What Happened in Roanoke: Ralph Lane’s Narrative Incursion

Early American Literature , Volume 48 (2) – Jul 19, 2013

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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1534-147X

Abstract

Kathleen Donegan University of California, Berkeley What Happened in Roanoke Ralph Lane’s Narrative Incursion Writing from the “new Fort in Virginia” in September 1585, co-lo nial governor Ralph Lane proclaimed he was on “the goodliest soile under the cope of heaven” (Quinn 210, 207). If it were to be fully possessed by Englishmen, he projected, “no realme in Christendome were comparable to it” (208). But the following June, he and his company frantically pulled up stakes and returned to England, trailing a wake of violence behind them. Shoreside, their onetime hosts were shocked, incensed, and deeply set on reprisal. What drove the colony out so precipitously? To answer tha - t ques tion, we might look to the three primary sources produced in that s - ettle ment. Thomas Harriot’s A Briefe and True Report from the New- Found Land of Virginia tells us a great deal about the land, its potential co - mmodi ties, and its inhabitants, but it does not tell us what happened. John White’s watercolors provide detailed portraits of individuals, material culture, and social organization in the area, but they do not tell us what happened. The text that comes closest to doing so is

Journal

Early American LiteratureUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Jul 19, 2013

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