A Tale Of Two Colonies

In 1609, two years after its English founding, colonists struggled to stay alive in a tiny fort at Jamestown.John Smith fought to keep order, battling both English and Indians. When he left, desperate colonists ate lizards, rats, and human flesh. Surviving accounts of the “Starving Time” differ, as do modern scholars’ theories. Meanwhile, the Virginia-bound Sea Venture was shipwrecked on Bermuda, the dreaded, uninhabited “Isle of Devils.” The castaways’ journals describe the hurricane at sea as well as murders and mutinies on land. Their adventures are said to have inspired Shakespeare’s The Tempest. A year later, in 1610, the Bermuda castaways sailed to Virginia in two small ships they had built. They arrived in Jamestown to find many people in the last stages of starvation; abandoning the colony seemed their only option. Then, in what many people thought was divine providence, three English ships sailed into Chesapeake Bay. Virginia was saved, but the colony’s troubles were far from over. Despite glowing reports from Virginia Company officials, disease, inadequate food, and fear of Indians plagued the colony. The company poured thousands of pounds sterling and hundreds of new settlers into its venture but failed to make a profit, and many of the newcomers died. Bermuda—with plenty of food, no native population, and a balmy climate—looked much more promising, and in fact, it became England’s second New World colony in 1612. In this fascinating tale of England’s first two New World colonies, Bernhard links Virginia and Bermuda in a series of unintended consequences resulting from natural disaster, ignorance of native cultures, diplomatic intrigue, and the fateful arrival of the first Africans in both colonies. Written for general as well as academic audiences, A Tale of Two Colonies examines the existing sources on the colonies, sets them in a transatlantic context, and weighs them against circumstantial evidence. From diplomatic correspondence and maps in the Spanish archives to recent archaeological discoveries at Jamestown, Bernhard creates an intriguing history. To weave together the stories of the two colonies, which are fraught with missing pieces, she leaves nothing unexamined: letters written in code, adventurers’ narratives, lists of Africans in Bermuda, and the minutes of committees in London. Biographical details of mariners, diplomats, spies, Indians, Africans, and English colonists also enrich the narrative. While there are common stories about both colonies, Bernhard shakes myth free from truth and illuminates what is known—as well as what we may never know—about the first English colonies in the New World.

Four hundred years earlier the great spaceships had departed from Terra to colonize distant planets. Few ships reached their destinations; their sporadic signals waned and disappeared. No one knew whether the colonists survived. Now, construction of a new generation of hyperdrive ships was scheduled at one every five years. Planet Delta was selected as the next target for survey because the arrival of a brief signal suggested the descendants of the colonists were alive. Tiger Lily longs for freedom. In her fight to escape the subterranean slums of Terra, Lily competes to join the scout team selected for the next spaceship along with a new set of prospective colonists. Their mission to discover the lost colony faces the challenges posed by the voracious predators of the planet. In the mountains, they encounter Conley, a grim warrior who longs to escape the confines of his isolated valley. Has Tiger Lily met her match in this tortured warrior? But, where is he leading them? Danger lies ahead, and conflicts between humans and aliens. Can they ensure the safety of the new human colonists, or must they retreat to Terra? Other science fiction novels by Aurora Springer are: The Lady is Blue, and Dragons of Vkani, in the series called Atrapako on Eden.

Research on the nature of cultural change in the Roman Empire has traditionally been divided between the Western and Eastern provinces. Papers in this volume aim to reunite the provinces by approaching the question of cultural change across the Empire through a range of material culture and historical sources focusing on the first 100 years of the foundation of a colony.

The fascinating companion title to the award-winning historical novel Blood on the River: James Town 1607. After the colony of James Town is founded in 1607. After Captain John Smith establishes trade with the Native Americans. After Pocahontas befriends the colonists. After early settlers both thrive and die in this new world . . . a girl is born. Virginia. Virginia Laydon, an infant at the end of Blood on the River, has now grown up in a colony that is teetering dangerously on the precipice of conflict with the native Algonquins. Virginia has the gift, or the curse, of the knowing-an ability that could help save the colony, and is equally likely to land her at the burning stake as an accused witch. Virginia struggles to make sense of her own inner world against the backdrop of pivotal years in the Jamestown colony. The first representative government is established, the first enslaved Africans arrive, and the self-righteousness of the colony's leaders angers the Algonquin. When Virginia's mother first learns of her gift, she is terrified. Kill it, her mother says, or they will kill you. When accusations and danger threaten, Virginia learns that she is on her own; her mother must protect her young sisters rather than stand up for her. So begins a journey of self-realization and increasing strength, as Virginia goes from being a self-protective young girl to someone who knows she must live her own truth even if it will be the end of her.

In the series debut The Testing, sixteen-year-old Cia Vale was chosen by the United Commonwealth government as one of the best and brightest graduates of all the colonies . . . a promising leader in the effort to revitalize postwar civilization. In Independent Study, Cia is a freshman at the University in Tosu City with her hometown sweetheart, Tomas--and though the government has tried to erase her memory of the brutal horrors of The Testing, Cia remembers. Her attempts to expose the ugly truth behind the government's murderous programs put her--and her loved ones--in a world of danger. But the future of the Commonwealth depends on her.

The Courts and the Colonies offers a detailed account of a protracted dispute arising within a Hutterite colony in Manitoba, when the Schmiedeleut leaders attempted to force the departure of a group that had been excommunicated but would not leave. This resulted in about a dozen lawsuits in both Canada and the United States between various Hutterite factions and colonies, and placed the issues of shunning, excommunication, legitimacy of leadership, and communal property rights before the secular courts. What is the story behind this extraordinary development in Hutterite history? How did the courts respond, and how did that outside (state) law relate to the traditional inside law of the Hutterites? Utilizing voluminous court records, Esau provides a detailed and fascinating narrative of the prolonged disputes and litigation history of Hutterite colonies at Lakeside, Oak Bluff, Rock Lake, and Huron. He considers whether the legal action was consistent with the historic non-resistance of Hutterites or whether it signaled a fundamental change in norms of Anabaptist perspectives on litigation. He examines the past history of Hutterite litigation, and how the roots of the schism related to controversy over the Schmiedeleut leadership and its alliance with the Bruderhof, a group of Christian communalists, living mainly in the Eastern United States. At stake is the nature of freedom of religion in Canada and the extent to which our pluralistic society is prepared to accommodate the existence of groups that have an illiberal legal system that may not cohere with the outside legal system of the host society. While this book will be of particular interest to scholars of law and religion, it will also appeal to anyone in Anabaptist studies, sociology, anthropology, political theory, and conflict resolution.

In 1803 in the colonial South American city of La Plata, Doña Martina Vilvado y Balverde presented herself to church and crown officials to denounce her husband of more than four years, Don Antonio Yta, as a “woman in disguise.” Forced to submit to a medical inspection that revealed a woman’s body, Don Antonio confessed to having been María Yta, but continued to assert his maleness and claimed to have a functional “member” that appeared, he said, when necessary. Passing to América is at once a historical biography and an in-depth examination of the sex/gender complex in an era before “gender” had been divorced from “sex.” The book presents readers with the original court docket, including Don Antonio’s extended confession, in which he tells his life story, and the equally extraordinary biographical sketch offered by Felipa Ybañez of her “son María,” both in English translation and the original Spanish. Thomas A. Abercrombie’s analysis not only grapples with how to understand the sex/gender system within the Spanish Atlantic empire at the turn of the nineteenth century but also explores what Antonio/María and contemporaries can teach us about the complexities of the relationship between sex and gender today. Passing to América brings to light a previously obscure case of gender transgression and puts Don Antonio’s life into its social and historical context in order to explore the meaning of “trans” identity in Spain and its American colonies. This accessible and intriguing study provides new insight into historical and contemporary gender construction that will interest students and scholars of gender studies and colonial Spanish literature and history. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses and the Association of Research Libraries—and the generous support of New York University. Learn more at the TOME website: openmonographs.org.