A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke
The fate of the settlers, who were left on Roanoke Island in the fateful 1587, the current North Carolina, has been a mystery deluding the historians for a long time. Due to the lack of facts as regards what happened to the colonists, theories and guesswork have flourished abundantly. Historian James Horn in his book ‘A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke’ makes an attempt to give a plausible explanation to the disappearance of the colonists by piecing together disparate information from various corners. Two central characters of the book are Sir Walter Raleigh and John White. Sir Walter Raleigh was a writer and a great adventurer who was one of the favorite …show more content…
After the first attempt of Raleigh to establish a colony on Roanoke Island went kaput, he sent a group of 118 men, women and children under the care of John White to the New World with the same mission. Though the settlers aspired to go to the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia, their troubled journey landed them on Roanoke Island instead. Falling short of supplies, John White returned to England to mobilize a rescue mission, but due to the ongoing war of England with Spanish Armada, it took White three years to return to Roanoke Island. He found the settlement abandoned and never came to know of what happened to his family. Though Horn gives a descriptive historical account of the undertaking of the expeditions, he failed to provide a credible explanation for the disappearance of the colonists. Therefore, though ‘A Kingdom Strange’ is engaging and intriguing to readers who do not mind historical credibility, the book, however, does not provide any logical explanation to the disappearance of the
The fate of the settlers, who were left on Roanoke Island in the fateful 1587, the current North Carolina, has been a mystery deluding the historians for a long time. Due to the lack of facts as regards what happened to the colonists, theories and guesswork have flourished abundantly. Historian James Horn in his book ‘A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke’ makes an attempt to give a plausible explanation to the disappearance of the colonists by piecing together disparate information from various corners. Two central characters of the book are Sir Walter Raleigh and John White. Sir Walter Raleigh was a writer and a great adventurer who was one of the favorite …show more content…
After the first attempt of Raleigh to establish a colony on Roanoke Island went kaput, he sent a group of 118 men, women and children under the care of John White to the New World with the same mission. Though the settlers aspired to go to the Chesapeake Bay area of Virginia, their troubled journey landed them on Roanoke Island instead. Falling short of supplies, John White returned to England to mobilize a rescue mission, but due to the ongoing war of England with Spanish Armada, it took White three years to return to Roanoke Island. He found the settlement abandoned and never came to know of what happened to his family. Though Horn gives a descriptive historical account of the undertaking of the expeditions, he failed to provide a credible explanation for the disappearance of the colonists. Therefore, though ‘A Kingdom Strange’ is engaging and intriguing to readers who do not mind historical credibility, the book, however, does not provide any logical explanation to the disappearance of the