Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America (6 page)

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Authors: Giles Milton

BOOK: Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America
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In the spring of 1584, Ralegh was at last presented with the queen’s patent that transferred Sir Humfrey’s American rights into his own name. They were every bit as extensive as those of his half-brother and gave him absolute authority over all “cittyes, castles, townes, villages and places.” With his team of enthusiasts now hard at work in Durham House, he knew the time was right to send his first expedition.
Two of the regulars at Harriot’s navigation classes had been
Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, both of whom were members of Ralegh’s household. They had acquitted themselves well in his study group and, when Ralegh began selecting men for his reconnaissance mission, he chose them as expedition leaders.
 
Ralegh believed his ships would only reach America if “the aid of the mathematical sciences were enlisted.” He employed Harriot to instruct his captains
Plymouth-born Amadas was tiny—his nickname was “little Amadas”—and fiery in temperament. On one occasion, he was rowing up the Thames when his double-wherry ploughed into another river boat. He immediately attacked the master of the other boat, but was forced to beat a hasty retreat when one of his oarsmen was struck with such violence “that his heade was grevouslye broken and blede abundantlye.”
Arthur Barlowe, captain of the second ship, was a more inspired choice. A colleague of Ralegh’s since their days together in Ireland, he was calm, well-travelled, and quick-witted. What particularly impressed Ralegh was his observant eye, for which he was given the important task of recording his impressions of America and its native population. He was ordered to keep his account as upbeat as possible. There was little widespread interest in America and nothing, so far, to encourage prospective colonists. The land across the sea was widely believed to be barren and inhospitable, and Ralegh knew that positive propaganda would do his cause no end of good.
Barlowe excelled himself from the outset, scoring the remarkable achievement of making the always dreadful ocean crossing sound more pleasurable than a day’s boating on the Thames. There was none of the usual griping about putrid victuals and atrocious weather. The ships were “wel furnished,” their orders were “perfect,” and no sooner had the prevailing trade winds wafted them to a Caribbean landfall—the quickest, but by no means the shortest route to America—than they found “sweete water” gushing out of the ground.
After a brief rest the men pointed their vessels due north—towards Florida—and picked their way through notoriously treacherous waters until they sighted the sandy banks of Cape Hatteras in what is now North Carolina.
Barlowe did not panic when he discovered they were in “shole water”: he was far too busy sniffing the air, “which smelt so sweetly, and was so strong a smell, as if we had bene in the midst of some delicate garden, abounding with all kind of odoriferous flowers.”
It was not long before the men sighted the long, low sand dunes
of the Outer Banks. They had now entered the region which Ralegh had thought might be suitable for the colony: far enough away from the prying eyes of the Spaniards yet close enough to launch privateering raids against their treasure ships. Barlowe liked what he found. He rightly assumed that the sand banks enclosed a vast lagoon and thought that this could be a perfect location for a colony, offering a safe anchorage yet hidden from the sea. He sailed along the Outer Banks for 120 miles before finding an entry into the shallow waters of Pamlico Sound. “After thankes given to God for our safe arrival thither, we manned our boates and went to viewe the lande.”
Barlowe was enraptured by the landscape. The shores of the lagoon were lined with lofty cedars and grapevines and the abundant wildlife obligingly frolicked in his line of fire. He waxed lyrical in his journal, pausing only to pluck juicy grapes from trailing vines: “I think in all the world,” he declared, “the like aboundance is not to be founde: and myselfe, having scene those partes of Europe that most abound, find such difference as were incredible to be written.”
The men landed at the island of Hatarask and took possession “in the right of the Queene’s most excellent majestie”; they then set off to explore more fully. Barlowe was convinced that he had arrived in paradise. As he crashed through the undergrowth, he was amazed at the “incredible aboundance” of deer, hares, and game birds, all of which sought shade under the “highest and reddest cedars of the world.” When he blasted his musket into the undergrowth, the result was little short of spectacular: “such a flocke of cranes—for the most part white—arose under us, with such a crye redoubled by many ecchoes as if an armie of men had showted all together.”
It was not until the men had been on the island for several days that they realised they were being watched. At first they saw no one, but they slowly became aware of shadowy figures lurking in the undergrowth. The men kept their muskets loaded in case of trouble, but the Indians kept their distance. On the third day Barlowe and his men made contact. “We espied one small boate rowing towards
us,” he wrote, “having in it three persons.” The Indians appeared unfazed by the English ships and headed directly for the shore, where one of them leaped gaily onto the beach and “walked up and downe uppon the point of the lande next unto us.”
Barlowe and his men cautiously approached the Indian, who made no “shewe of feare or doubt.” Conversation proved impossible since neither side could understand the other, but by using a mixture of sign language and pictures, Barlowe managed to coax the tribesman on board ship. The captain then had to consider what to offer as a token of friendship. Sir George Peckham had suggested gifts of clothing for the Indians, recommending caps and cassocks. Barlowe had absentmindedly forgotten to pack any of these, but he did have other items of clothing. “[We] gave him a shirt, a hatte, and some other things, and made him taste of our wine and our meate, which he liked very well.” The Indian left after thanking his hosts, and the Englishmen congratulated themselves on their skill in handling their first meeting with a savage.
That, at any rate, was the official account. Thomas Harriot gave an altogether different story in his record of the voyage, suggesting that the first meeting with the Indians was altogether more dramatic. “As soone as they saw us, [they] began to make a great and horrible crye, as people which never befoer had seene men apparelled like us, and camme away makinge out crys like wild-beasts or men out of their wyts. But, beeinge gentlye called backe, wee offred them of our wares, as glasses, knives, babies [dolls] and other trifles which wee thougt they delighted in.” Harriot adds that once the men had overcome their fear, they invited the Englishmen to their village and “entertained us with reasonable curtesie,” although they continued to be “amased at the first sight of us.”
Whatever the truth about their first encounter, the English did manage to behave with uncharacteristic courtesy. Even the hotheaded Amadas kept his cool, and the Indians were encouraged to return the following morning. This time they were accompanied by a tribal elder—the brother of the “king”—along with forty retainers.
Barlowe was impressed by this merry band. He found them “very handsome and goodly people,” “their behaviour as mannerly and civill as any of Europe.” Their grinning leader cut an extraordinary figure. His skin was a startling “colour yellowish” and his hair was shaved at the sides, leaving a floppy cock’s comb on top. He had a sheet of beaten metal tied to his head and in each ear he wore six copper rings. Even more disconcerting to the starched and buttoned Barlowe was the fact that, apart from a skimpy loincloth, he was completely naked.
The English had great difficulty in communicating with the Indians: Barlowe managed to discover that this tribal elder was called Granganimeo and was more than a little proud of himself when he learned the name of the surrounding countryside, Wingandacoa. This was put into all the official paperwork; it was some months before the English realised that this unpronounceable word—which the Indians kept repeating to Barlowe—actually meant “you’ve got nice clothes.”
The English had initially feared that the elder’s arrival heralded an attack, but such fears were soon proved to be misplaced and they laid down their muskets and culverins. The Indian elder, a jolly fellow, proposed a picnic on the beach. After issuing a command in his native tongue, “his servants spread a long matte upon the grounde, on which he sate down.” Barlowe and Amadas joined him, gingerly seating themselves next to this seminaked warrior.
Davy Ingrams had recommended kissing the Indians to show friendship. Barlowe baulked at such a suggestion, preferring to wear a continuous smile in order to make his pleasure known. All was going well when suddenly, and quite without warning, Granganimeo began “striking on his head and his breast, and afterwards on ours.” He rained down blows on his guests, and the two men might have fought back had they not surmised—in the nick of time—that this one-sided boxing match was a traditional Indian greeting “to shewe we were all one, smiling, and making shewe the best hee could, of all love and familiaritie.”
Amadas and Barlowe decided it was time to distribute presents. They had brought with them numerous trinkets, but the tribal elder was most taken by a hand-crafted serving platter made of “bright tinne.” He eagerly grabbed it from Amadas and shouted something to his men, but any hopes that he was about to fill it with food were quickly dashed. “[He] clapt it before his breast and after made a hole in the brimme thereof and hung it about his necke, making signes that it would defende him against his enemies’ arrows.”
The English were astonished by this primitive yet intelligent people who had no knowledge of the wheel and still lit their fires by laboriously rubbing together two sticks. They looked every inch the “devill,” yet they were generous and amiable and showed no signs of hostility.
To the Indians, the arrival of the English was a cause of great wonder. “[They] wondred mervelously when we were amongest them,” wrote Barlowe, “at the whitenes of our skinnes, ever coveting to touch our breastes and to view the same.” They were no less impressed by the two English vessels which towered over their dugout canoes. “They had our shippes in marvelous admiration, and all things els was so strange unto them as it appeared that none had ever seene the like before.”
But what really took their breath away was the English weaponry. They fought with bows and arrows, clubs, and wooden swords, and were terrified by the noise and power of the guns carried by Barlowe and his men. “When we discharged any peece, were it but a harquebush, they would tremble thereat for very feare and for the strangenes of the same.”
Soon the English sailors were bartering for animal skins. They could scarcely believe how little the Indians valued their merchandise. A cheap tin dish bought twenty skins, a copper kettle bought fifty, and when they produced hatchets and knives the Indians were willing to offer almost anything. “The king’s brother had a great liking of our armour, a sworde, and divers other things,” wrote Barlowe, “and offered to lay a great boxe of pearl in gage of them.” Barlowe
was tempted but refused. He wanted to be absolutely sure that he could rely upon these tribesmen before he set about arming them.
The hospitality had so far been one-sided. Every day the Indians brought a wicker hamper filled with “fatte buckes, conies, hares, fishe, the best of the worlde.” When Barlowe hinted at their need for vegetables, he found himself inundated with “divers kindes of fruites, melons, walnuts, cucumbers, gourdes, pease and divers rootes, and fruites very excellent good.”
The English realised it would be diplomatic to return the hospitality. This was no easy matter, for they had few provisions on board, and those they did have were scarcely appetizing: rancid pork, salted herring, and dried peas so alive with weevils that they were in danger of jumping out of the cooking pot. But they did still have wine—lots of it—and they hoped that this would help to jolly along the meal.
“The king’s brother came aboord the shippes,” wrote Barlowe, “and dranke wine and ate of oure meate and of our bread, and liked exceedingly thereof.” To their surprise, he seemed to relish the rancid meat and asked if he could return within a few days, together with his family. This he duly did. “[He] brought his wife with him to the shippes, his daughter, and two or three little children.”
Barlowe took an instant fancy to Granganimeo’s wife. “[She] was very well favoured, of meane stature, and very bashfull.” Unlike most of the women, who left much of their breasts exposed, she had covered herself with “a long cloke of leather”; to Barlowe’s immense disappointment, she left it on throughout the meal. She was adorned with little clusters of pearls. The Englishmen, knowing of Ralegh’s penchant for jewellery, bought a bracelet to present to him on their return.

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