Big Chief Elizabeth by Milton Giles

Author:Milton, Giles [Milton, Giles]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-03-30T23:00:00+00:00

“A wyfe ought to be chaste, pacyent and sober,” reads one Elizabethan guide for housewives. She also needed to be hardworking, for her daily routine included baking, brewing, harvesting, spinning, and bookkeeping. Women were to be the life-blood of the colony

Other colonists made the mistake of drinking from “a standing ponde, the water whereof was so evill that many of our companie fell sicke with drinking thereof … their faces did so burne and swell that their eies were shut up and could not see in five or sixe daies or longer.”

White was growing increasingly worried at the lack of food, water, and salt, especially since there was still no sign of his flyboat. He knew that if he did not acquire these in considerable quantity, his colonists would starve to death soon after arriving at Chesapeake Bay. Fernandez had sailed through the Caribbean on numerous occasions and knew the islands well. His failure to steer the Lion towards livestock and saltponds confirmed White’s suspicions that he was deliberately trying to sabotage the colonial project. The tone of his diary becomes increasingly irritable as he records a litany of real or imaginary grievances, claiming that Fernandez had “assured” him that sheep could be found on St. John Island when in fact there was nothing more nourishing than old droppings.

It was now the first of July—late in the year to be planting a colony, and still the settlers were nowhere near their destination. Two of the company had jumped ship—though White does not explain why—and relations between the governor and Fernandez had broken down completely. On the rare occasions that he did address his pilot, he always found his requests rebuffed. When he demanded that the vessel stop again to “gather yong plants,” he was overruled. And when he begged Fernandez to pause at Hispaniola to buy cows, he was brusquely informed that there were no cattle on the island. Having failed to find any supplies, the Lion headed for Virginia in the hope that the flyboat would have already arrived.

White’s first port of call was Roanoke Island, where he hoped to find Master Coffin and his men in rude health. He was looking forward to meeting Coffin, “with whome he meant to have conference concerning the state of the countrey and savages,” and particularly keen to hear how the Indians had reacted to the hurried departure in 1586. He also hoped to persuade the fifteen English soldiers to remain on the island to protect Lord Manteo. Then, once he had overseen the baptism of Manteo, White intended to “passe along the coast to the Baye of Chesepiok where we intended to make our seate and forte, according to the charge given us … under the hande of Sir Walter Ralegh.”

The Lion dropped anchor some two miles off the Outer Banks, and the governor began preparations to take the large pinnace across Pamlico Sound to Roanoke, “accompanied by fortie of his best men.” Many of these were anxious to step ashore

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