Kupperman's Roanoke Chapter Summary

To begin, I will say that I agree with many of Kupperman’s deductions in regards to the conflicting aims of investments in colonial interests. The drive to tangibly and quickly profit the mother country, England in this case, above all other concerns is something that would transfer from Privateering to trade regulations and embargoes in later history and is consistent with the attitudes of the time. It is no great leap in logic to say that the interest of Roanoke where not well served by its need to self fund its creation through state sponsored piracy.
Relatedly, this interest in privateer base building necessitated inclusion of military men in the original Roanoke colonization attempt, particularly veterans of England’s scorched earth Irish colonization campaigns. Kupperman posits that the ingrained methods of the England’s Irish conquest, including everything from destruction of resources to mass execution of certain townships, undermined the stated rhetoric of peaceful relations with the Native American population from the start. The attitude that the use of force was at the very least an acceptable way …show more content…
Kupperman calls Roanoke an example of interdependence of the races, asserting it as a lynchpin in that theme of American history. Countless written examples of resentment by the colonists towards there would be neighbors and the eventual theft of the Native Americans territory is mentioned by Kupperman herself. Interdependence was not desired by any party involved in the endeavor; instead the days of the colony where marked by cautious maneuvering to gain the upper hand against the opposite side, eventually giving way to open hostilities. The idea that this dynamic was not present from the beginning of Roanoke’s founding and only came later as the English increased in number is not supported in any of the careful sourcing Kupperman did previously. If anything, she contradicts herself