Encyclopedic and entertaining, this is a very fine history by the celebrated writer of such historical and philosophical works as The Discovery of America; The Beginnings of New England; Darwinism, and Other Essays; The Destiny of Man; and others. “Here the story of Virginia, starting with Sir Walter Raleigh and Rev. Richard Hakluyt, is pursued until the year 1753, when the youthful George Washington sets forth upon his expedition to warn the approaching Frenchmen from any further encroachment upon English soil… The aim is to follow the main stream of causation from the time of Raleigh to the time of Dinwiddie, from its sources down to its absorption into a mightier stream. At first our attention is fixed upon Raleigh’s Virginia, which extends from Florida to Canada, England thrusting herself in between Spain and France…”
The author analyzes the interaction of hundreds of factors and their effect on the development of “Old Virginia.” A sample of topics covered includes: Spanish colonization; the voyages of Francis Drake; Raleigh’s plan to found a colony; the mystery of Roanoke Island; the founding of Jamestown; slaves first introduced in Virginia (1619); the great Indian massacre of 1622; Tidewater Virginia; the plantations; boroughs and burgesses; higher education; William Claiborne and the Kent Island controversy; land grants; Jefferson; Bacon’s Rebellion; Williamsburg; Quakers; William Penn; the anti-Catholic panic of 1689; James Madison; John Mason; the Carolina frontier; Indian tribes; pirates; Scotch-Irish and German migration; and more. This work is enhanced by facsimile reprints of ancient maps of Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas; and a comprehensive subject index which contains names, places and events.
John Fiske
(1899), 2011, 5½x8½, paper, index, 2 vols., 802 pp.
ISBN: 9780788407192
101-F0719
