“Went to build castles in the aire:” colonial failure in the Anglo-North Atlantic World, 1570-1640

• Main Authors: Findley, James Walter, NC DOCKS at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: North America $x History $y Colonial period; ca. 1600-1775; North America $x Discovery and exploration $x British; Great Britain $x Colonies $z America $x History $y 16th century; Great Britain $x Colonies $z America $x History $y 17th century; Colonists $z North America $x Attitudes; Geographical perception $z North America; Sassafras albidum; Unicorns; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/FindleyJr_uncg_0154D_11618.pdf

This study examines the early phases of Anglo-North American colonization from 1570 to 1640 by employing the lenses of imagination and failure. I argue that English colonial projectors envisioned a North America that existed primarily in their minds – a place filled with marketable and profitable commodities waiting to be extracted. I historicize the imagined profitability of commodities like fish and sassafras, and use the extreme example of the unicorn to highlight and contextualize the unlimited potential that America held in the minds of early-modern projectors. My research on colonial failure encompasses the failure of not just physical colonies, but also the failure to pursue profitable commodities, and the failure to develop successful theories of colonization. After roughly seventy years of experience in America, Anglo projectors reevaluated their modus operandi by studying and drawing lessons from past colonial failure. Projectors learned slowly and marginally, and in some cases, did not seem to learn anything at all. However, the lack of learning the right lessons did not diminish the importance of this early phase of colonization. By exploring the variety, impracticability, and failure of plans for early settlement, this study investigates the persistent search for usefulness of America by Anglo colonial projectors in the face of high rate of colonial failures, and how the autoptic evidence gained from failure shaped their evolving theories of colonization.