1493_ Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Charles C. Mann [242]
46 Colonies in New France: Charlesbourg-Royal (founded 1542, on the St. Lawrence River), Charlesfort (1562), Fort Caroline (1564), Sable Island (1598), and Port-Royal (1605). Quebec was founded in 1608, a year after Jamestown.
47 Hakluyt: Hakluyt 1584:chap. 4 (“daily piracies”), chap. 1 (all other quotes).
48 Closeness of Americas and China: See below.
49 Joint-stock companies: A standard history is Scott 1912. Succinct explanations of the companies’ origins as a means for spreading risk include Kohn forthcoming:chap. 14; Brouwer 2005. Importantly, joint-stock companies let investors negotiate with the crown as a group when seeking the necessary royal permission for foreign trade. As individuals, single investors had little leverage; banded together, they were less vulnerable to royal whim. I thank Mark Plummer for many useful conversations.
50 Landes and North: Landes 1999 (“patience, tenacity,” 523); North and Thomas 1973 (arrangements, “phenomenon,” 1). Other works in this sometimes polemical tradition include Gress 1998, Lal 1998, and Jones 2003.
51 Ten joint-stock companies before Jamestown: The count is the companies discussed in Scott 1912:vol. 2. I do not include mining partnerships but do include Ralegh’s colonial ventures (see below). Most large-scale European trade then was controlled by merchant families and royal monopolies; an example is the Merchant Guild, the state-affiliated association of Seville merchant families that long dominated Spain’s America trade. A partial exception was the Dutch East India Company, a consortium of six merchant firms supervised by a board of overseers chosen by the governments of the Netherlands’ five provinces. For brief accounts of the Merchant Guild and the rivalrous English and Dutch East India Companies see, respectively, Smith 1940:chap. 6 and Bernstein 2008:chap. 9.
52 Four previous colonies: Humphrey Gilbert’s venture (canceled by Gilbert’s ship sinking during a reconnaissance mission in 1583); the Popham colony in Maine (1607–08); and the two efforts at Roanoke (1586–1587; 1587–?). For Roanoke, Ralegh did not create a joint-stock company but raised the money through an informal but similar arrangement (Trevelyan 2004:54, 81, 114, 138). The Popham colony began soon after Jamestown, but I include it as its prime mover was also an organizer of the Virginia Company.
53 Roanoke colony: Horn 2010; Kupperman 2007b; Oberg 2008; Donegan 2002:chap. 1; Fausz 1985:231–35; Quinn and Quinn eds. 1982. Quinn 1985 remains the history on which all others are built. Popular accounts include the enjoyable Horwitz 2008:chap. 11.
54 Roanoke introduces tobacco to England (footnote): Laufer 1924b:9–11 (“smoak,” 10).
55 Virginia Company view of Spain, Tsenacomoco: Billings ed. 1975:19–22 (quotes, 19–20).
56 Tassantassas: Rountree 2005:6. See its usage in, e.g., Hamor 1615:811.
57 Jamestown peninsula, problems with site: Author’s visit; author’s interviews, William Kelso, Greg Garman; Smith 2007b:389 (well); Barlow 2003:22–25 (crater) Rountree 1996:18–29 (Indians occupied best land); Earle 1979:98–103 (“salt poisoning,” 99); Strachey 1625:430–31; Percy, G. 1607(?). Observations Gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southern Colony in Virginia by the English, 1606. In Haile ed. 1998:85–100 (“filth,” 100). The reputation for picking the best land lasted. “Wherever we meet an Indian old field or place where they have lived,” the clergyman Hugh Jones wrote of Virginia in 1724, “we are sure of the best ground” (quoted in Maxwell 1910:81).
58 Droughts: Stahle et al. 1998. A team of archaeologists and dendrochronologists (scientists who study tree rings) examined long-lived Virginia cypress trees. Because rainy years create wider tree rings than do dry years, the scientists could show that the 1606–12 drought was the worst in centuries.
59 Thirty-eight left alive: Smith 2007b:323, 406; Bernhard 1992:603; Earle 1979:96–97; Kupperman 1979:24.
60 Powhatan’s attitude: Rountree 2005:143–47; Fausz 1985:235–54; Fausz 1990:12 (“ignorance