HIS 315K Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Nautical Fiction, John Smith (Explorer)
Document Summary
Projectors - guys who came to court with projects to settle colonies and make money for themselves and the crown (columbus was theoretically one) Wrote the principle navigations books; collected hundreds and hundreds of sea stories about english valor, interested in plain ordinary folks like pirates and merchants. From his perspective future of english island was based by sea. Never made it to the new world. Talks about opportunity through violence gaining advantage through navy from a disadvantage in land forces. Virginia was place to send their high english population; huge population growth back home; most were convicts but were actually vagrants. Virginia was extra place to send woolen manufactures. First settlements at roanoke island (north carolina) 1584-1590. Projectors" dreams of utopias turn to nightmares as colonists fail to secure foothold. White people refuse to labor to grow own food; kept taking food from indians. They were soldiers, not settlers; first impulse was to shoot.
