The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown

The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America

By: Lorri Glover, Daniel Smith

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

The English had long dreamed of colonizing America, especially after Sir Francis Drake brought home Spanish treasure and dramatic tales from his raids in the Caribbean. Ambitions of finding gold and planting a New World colony seemed within reach when, in 1606, Thomas Smythe extended overseas trade with the launch of the Virginia Company. But from the beginning the American enterprise was a disaster. Within two years, warfare with Indians and dissent among the settlers threatened to destroy Smythe's Jamestown just as it had Raleigh's Roanoke a generation earlier.

To rescue the doomed colonists and restore order, the company chose a new leader, Thomas Gates. Nine ships left Plymouth in the summer of 1609---the largest fleet England had ever assembled---and sailed into the teeth of a storm so violent that "it beat all light from Heaven." The inspiration for Shakespeare's The Tempest, the hurricane separated the flagship from the fleet, driving it onto reefs off the coast of Bermuda - a lucky shipwreck (all hands survived) that proved to be the turning point in the colony's fortune.

©2008 Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith (P)2008 Tantor

A more complete history of Jamestown

Most of what history has remembered about Jamestown comes to us from John Smith whose writings about Jamestown were assumed to be the best narrative of the settlement. However, what Smith wrote was intended to exalt himself as the savior of Jamestown. He was guilty of self-aggandizement. There is a lot more to the history of Jamestown that this book presents.

Broad perspective of the colonization of America

My English ancestors were founders in both the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies (on which I have thus far focused my research & learning of colonial history). This was the first time I explored the foundation of the Virginia colonies. I was very pleased that this book went into the perspective of the contemporary English thinking of that age. I gained insight into the foundation of all American colonies that I had not gleaned from any other source heretofore.

History

Great book helped me understand the early Jamestown (1607-1620) story!!] I also enjoyed the reader.

Great !

Loved it- couldn't put it down !

The background for Shakespeare's The Tempest

The actual story of the storm and the shipwreck on Bermuda was fascinating. The beginning and end of the book seemed to lose me because of all the names, dates and facts and shifting between groups of people. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in that time period in history. I am glad that I listened to it. The narrator was good but perhaps could be a bit more animated.