Customer Reviews

Sea Venture: Shipwreck, Survival, and the Salvation of the First English Colony in the New World

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Kieran Doherty writes the most detailed history of Virginia from 1609 to 1622 that I have ever read. I also own "American Slavery, American Freedom" and "Love and Hate in Jamestown," but this one contains all the crucial facts found in those two books and more for its selected time frame. For example, I had never read before that Pocahontas was married before John Rolfe (it appears the marriage failed or her first husband, a Powhatan warrior, was killed in battle with the English; no one knows for certain). The overall argument is similar to that of other recent histories of early Virginia -- the Virginia Company, desperate to turn a profit, was responsible for sending too many people too fast into Virginia to ensure the survival of more than a fifth of them; and Wahunsonacock, also known as Powhatan, missed his chance to annihilate the colony in 1610 just before the passengers of the ship for which the book is named, finally arrived in Virginia.

On top of this, you get to read about the quasi-accidental founding of Bermuda as an English colony, and details about people who were instrumental in the founding of Virginia, such as the Earl of Southampton, who was almost beheaded for treason in 1601 after his friend the Earl of Essex commissioned a performance of "Richard II" as a signal to revolt against Queen Elizabeth! I join my fellow customer reviewers in giving this book five stars.

one of the best histories I've read. Fast paced. Dramatic. Full of fascinating details. If you like adventures of any sort, read this book. If you like sea adventures, run to buy it.

When Jamestown was established 400 years ago, the original English colonists made several mistakes: locating in a swampy area that bred more disease than crops, bringing people who were unsuited for farming, planning to live off the land without farming or hunting or fishing, and expecting that they would soon find fortunes in gold. Those mistakes were compounded when the false assumptions behind them continued to be believed in England.

Sea Venture is a book that picks up the story of Jamestown after the settlement had all but failed, as a relief fleet heads its way to bring more supplies and settlers. One of the unexpected events is that Sea Venture, the leader of the fleet, is lost on a Bermuda reef from which the colonists escape by building their own boats. In the process, they correctly learn that Bermuda was an easier place to plant a new colony than Jamestown. The story branches off to describe the development of English Bermuda as well.

In Virginia, Mr. Doherty does a fine job of capturing the perspectives of various people, including the Native Americans. Although the historical record is bare in many details, he makes reasonable speculations about the details of various events and what the participants might have thought and done.

I don't remember a more candid book about the foolishness and savagery of the English, or one that attempts to describe the Native American thinking and actions in such detail. As a result, it's a more balanced portrayal that probably comes reasonably close to presenting what happened.

I particularly liked the way that Mr. Doherty weaves threads together, like exploring the possible effect that the story of Sea Venture's loss may have had on Shakespeare's writing of The Tempest. The initial connection between Captain John Smith and Pocahontas is carried forward into the eventual marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas . . . and the eventual basis of the colony in tobacco exports developed by Rolfe that were eventually facilitated by slaves who accidentally came to those shores. From such small beginnings, mighty consequences followed that continue to affect us today. It's a marvelous example of the value of studying history.

Those who want a more socially oriented version of the Jamestown history may be a bit disappointed. This book is primarily based on traditional historical writing . . . featuring big events, key figures, and conflicts.

But it's fun and very relevant as the 400th anniversary of these events looms in the next few years.

'Sea Venture' by Kieran Doherty is the story of the Jamestown settlement and the struggles to keep the group of adventurers alive.

Doherty provides a gripping tale of the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia colony. A fleet of supply ships carrying more settlers and much need supplies are sent from England. Unfortunately, the fleet runs into a hurricane in the Atlantic. One ship is lost in the storm, the flag ship, Sea Venture, limps to Bermuda and sink on the coral reef, and the rest of the fleet make it to Jamestown.

The Sea Venture survivors find a parradise in Bermuda. Carrying most of the supplies originally destined for Jamestown, the survivors are able to establish a community that fairs better than Jamestown.

It is amazing to see how unprepared the first people to colonize the Americas were. Not many were skilled a any type of labor, let alone being able to farm. Even the selection of the settlements location is very poor. Add the fact that many of the settlers were unable to trust or remain friendly with the natives and the colonies seem to be doomed.

While I enjoyed the book and found parts of the story fascinating, the book seemed to wander from the story and delve into too much speculation for my taste. Doherty should have stuck with the history and left theings like 'The Tempest' and Pochantas' feelings out of the book.

AWESOME BOOK!!!!

Sorry for the short review. One of the top 3 books I have ever read.

_Sea Venture_ by Kieran Doherty is a book that sheds some interesting light on the establishment of not only the first lasting English colony in the New World (Jamestown), but also on the founding of the first colony in Bermuda. I had no idea that the two were connected nor the interesting if sometimes subtle role played by the titular ship or its crew in early American history.

The _Sea Venture_ was the flagship of a fleet of nine vessels that departed England in 1609, a fleet containing several hundred settlers and much needed supplies for the struggling colony in Virginia. The largest vessel, called the "admiral" because she would carry the commander Sir George Somers, she was sometimes referred to as the _Sea Adventure_ and was believed to have been a three-masted vessel about a hundred feet long built in East Anglia in about 1603.

After nearly four weeks at sea, a hurricane hit and scattered the fleet. When the storm ended, two ships were lost, the fleet's smallest vessel (which apparently no one thought would survive the storm in any event) and the _Sea Venture_ itself. The _Sea Venture_ was not lost with all hands however; it wrecked on some coral reefs surrounding Bermuda - then uninhabited - and everyone on board managed to make it to shore along with a fair number of supplies.

A good portion of the book can be read as an engaging story of survival, with Doherty providing vivid descriptions of the crew and passengers of the _Sea Venture_ trying to keep the ship afloat during the storm, the shipwreck itself, struggling to shore, and their ten months or so on the islands of Bermuda along with their eventual decision to leave the Bermuda islands, built two makeshift craft, and then sail to Virginia. Even when they got to Virginia their trials and tribulations were hardly over as the _Sea Venture_ survivors found instead of the five hundred or so settlers that they expected to greet them a mere fifty starving, wretched, desperate people remaining alive.

A good bit of the book reads like an action-adventure story of sorts, much of the narrative based on the writings of one of the _Sea Venture_ passengers, William Strachey, who would publish upon his return to England in 1616 his _True Reportory_ of the Sea Venture wreck and later his history of the Virginia colony, _The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia_. There were aspects of history not recorded, such as what certain people thought at certain times or the final fates of individuals lost to history, and in these events the author does admits he does speculate as to the answer. In any event, as I knew nothing of the early days of the English on Bermuda nor the eventual fates of any of the _Sea Venture_ passengers and crew, it made for engaging reading.

When the survivors reach Virginia the narrative expands a great deal to include the history of the Jamestown settlement and its satellite colonies as well as additional events in Bermuda when the Virginia Company of London (a.k.a. the London Company) decided to settle Bermuda as well, the common threads in both histories the role of various _Sea Venture_ survivors. The book ends with a brief description of the first meetings of the House of Burgesses on Virginia soil (in 1619), an event attended by several _Sea Venture_ survivors, notably John Rolfe, an individual described by the author as "the man most responsible for the first Virginia colony's ultimate survival," and the end game with the conflict between the Tidewater native peoples (notably the Powhatan) and the English settlers (referred to by the locals as the Tassantassas).

I was surprised just how important the role of the _Sea Venture_ was in the history of Jamestown. I will admit I thought the book jacket's description of "the remarkable true story of the ship that rescued the struggling Jamestown settlement in 1610 and single-handedly ensured England's place in the New World" was a bit of an exaggeration, but in truth the crew of the ship did play a pivotal role. Even after having wrecked in the Bermudas, the eventual arrival of the _Sea Venture_ survivors and their much needed supplies accumulated in Bermuda were absolutely essential to the continued existence of Jamestown. The author argued that had they not arrived when they did, the few remaining inhabitants of Jamestown would have either perished due to illness, starvation, or native attack or fled, possibly burning the settlement to the ground, something that would have been devastating to the arrival of Thomas West, Lord De La Warre who arrived after the _Sea Venture_ people did with many settlers and still more supplies. Though the _Sea Venture_ did not possess enough people or material to save Jamestown single-handedly indefinitely, their arrival was crucial as it bridged the time between the "starving time" before they got there and the arrival of De La Warre.

In addition to ensuring the continued survival of Jamestown, it was the _Sea Venture_ survivor's experiences in Bermuda that were to transform the islands "in the English imagination from a dangerous and frightening place to an Edenic spot, ripe and ready for profitable English settlement." Their experiences in the place once known as the Isle of Devils so captivated William Shakespeare that by 1611 he was writing _The Tempest_. The author showed now only how the experience inspired Shakespeare but that many of the descriptions in _The Tempest_ very closely parallel what Strachey had written in his account.

Towards the end of the book we learn that the _Sea Venture_ survivor John Rolfe, who married Pocahontas, a marriage that arguably produced the vital Peace of Pocahontas that lasted for a vital period of time between the Powhatan Confederacy and the English, was also important in another way to the colony; his early experiments with cultivating tobacco went a very long way into establishing the economic underpinnings of Virginia.

I spent five years in Newfoundland, which was the first English colony in the New World. You can still see a monument to its founding in the city of St. John's, which was at least 80 years old when the Jamestown expedition sailed. If the author thinks that it was the first English colony in the New World, when actually it was the third (after Newfoundland and Virginia), I'm not motivated to spend money to buy the book.