Jamestown Brides. The Untold Story Of England's 'Maids For Virginia'

Cover Type: Hardcover
Book Condition: Fine
Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Publisher: Atlantic
Publisher Place: Uk
Publisher Year: 2018
Edition: First Edition

Description: 372 pages. Book appears to have hardly been read and is in Fine condition throughout.

Publishers Description: In 1621, fifty-six English women crossed the Atlantic in response to the Virginia Company of Londons call for maids young and uncorrupt to make wives for the planters of its new colony in Virginia. The English had settled there just fourteen years previously and the company hoped to root its unruly menfolk to the land with ties of family and children. While the women travelled of their own accord, the company was in effect selling them at a profit for a bride price of 150 lbs of tobacco for each woman sold. The rewards would flow to investors in the near-bankrupt company. But what did the women want from the enterprise Why did they agree to make the dangerous crossing to a wild and dangerous land, where six out of seven European settlers died within their first few years - from dysentery, typhoid, salt water poisoning and periodic skirmishes with the native population And what happened to them in the endDelving into company records and original sources on both sides of the Atlantic, Jennifer Potter tracks the womens footsteps from their homes in England to their new lives in Virginia. Giving voice to these forgotten women of Americas early history, she triumphantly invites the reader to journey alongside the brides as they travel into a perilous and uncertain future.

ISBN: 9781782399131