#40 Set Fair For Roanoke Part 2
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2021
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sir Walter Ralegh’s first attempt to settle the Outer Banks of North Carolina — the first Roanoke colony, under the command of Sir Richard Grenville — got off to a rough start. A storm off Portugal had scattered the fleet, and only Grenville’s Tiger and Thomas Cavendish’s Elizabeth made it to the agreed interim rendezvous on the southwestern coast of Puerto Rico. Grenville and Cavendish replenished the fleet with Spanish prizes, and eventually got to Cape Hatteras only to lose most of the colony’s supplies when the Tiger ran aground trying to enter Pamlico Sound. We also discuss the “Black Legend” debate, the revisionist view that anti-Spanish propaganda by English and Dutch Protestants unfairly influenced much of the image of the Spanish empire, and how two things can be true at once.
The featured image for this episode is Sir Richard Grenville at age 29.
Selected references for this episode
James Horn, A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke
David Beers Quinn, Set Fair for Roanoke: Voyages and Colonies, 1584-1606
Alan Sherman, “Good Advice”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, Episode 40. |
| 0:10.8 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on October 2, 2021 in Austin, Texas. |
| 0:19.1 | We're a bit late this week, as reported on the Facebook page for the podcast. |
| 0:25.2 | To borrow from Jackson Brown, we're caught between the longing for love of our devoted listeners |
| 0:31.2 | and the struggle for the legal tender. We'll get back on schedule during October. Pace of work's going to go down a lot. |
| 0:40.6 | Before we get to the history fun, a bit of a request. If you guys think of movie or television |
| 0:45.9 | clips that would be funny to cut into the history of the Americans podcast, somehow, some way, |
| 0:52.1 | by all means, send me your ideas. You can do that via the contact page on the |
| 0:57.5 | website, the history of the Americans.com, or by sending me an email at the History of the |
| 1:03.4 | Americans and gmail.com. I'll give the winning clip submitters a shout out on the podcast, unless you say |
| 1:10.5 | you prefer anonymity. |
| 1:13.7 | This episode is Set Fair for Roanoke, part to do. Okay, part two. Last week, we looked at the |
| 1:22.2 | geopolitical and political situation in 1583, 84. Sir Walter Raleigh had become England's leading organizer and |
| 1:30.8 | promoter of North American colonization, assembled a team of luminaries around him, and dispatched |
| 1:37.6 | a reconnaissance mission under Arthur Barlow and Philip Amadus to the outer banks of today's North Carolina. |
| 1:46.5 | Amada's ship was too big to sail the inland waterway, so he explored the ocean side, |
| 1:51.4 | entered the Chesapeake, probably got in a tussle with a Pauhattans who guarded the entrance |
| 1:56.7 | to that bay, and then set out for the Azores on a failed quest for Spanish prizes to plunder. |
| 2:04.6 | Arthur Barlow's Pinnis, however, arrived home in September 1584 with important information |
| 2:10.4 | that would catalyze further exploration. |
| 2:14.9 | Barlow's eloquent journal described Roanoke Island in the Outer Banks as a land of great opportunity, |
| 2:21.9 | with lots of food and timber and supportive or at least quiescent Indians. |
... |
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