FINDLEY JR, JAMES WALTER, Ph.D. “Went to Build Castles in the Aire:” Colonial Failure in the Anglo-North Atlantic World, 1570-1640 (2015). Directed by Dr. Phyllis Whitman Hunter. 266pp. 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. “WENT TO BUILD CASTLES IN THE AIRE:” COLONIAL FAILURE IN THE ANGLO-NORTH ATLANTIC WORLD, 1570 - 1640 by James Walter Findley Jr A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2015 Approved by ________________ Committee Chair © 2015 James Walter Findley Jr APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation written by JAMES WALTER FINDLEY JR has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair._____________________________ Committee Members. _____________________________ _____________________________ ______________________________ ____________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee _________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. iv LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................v CHAPTER I. “MY-NEW-FOUND-LAND” ................................................................................1 II. “SUPPLY THE WANTES OF ALL OUR DECAYED TRADES” ....................35 III. “THE SAVAGES SAY THERE BE UNICORNS” ............................................84 IV. “A TREE OF HIGH PRICE AND PROFIT” ....................................................119 V. “THIS PARTICULAR ADVICE WE THOUGHT NECESSARY TO GIVE YOU” ....................................................................175 VI. “WENT TO BUILD CASTLES IN THE AIRE” ..............................................218 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................230 iii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1. List of Failed Colonies on North American Mainland, 1517-1640 .......................................................................................19 Table 2. List of Successful Colonies on North American Mainland, 1517-1640 .......................................................................................19 Table 3. Comparison of Monardes and Gerard ................................................................131 Table 4. Comparison of Mason and Vaughan .................................................................200 iv LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. Print of a Unicorn from Edward Topsell’s The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents (London, 1658).........................................86 Figure 2. Sea Unicorns from The History of Barados, St. Christophers, Mevis, St Vincents, Antego, Martinico, Monserrat, and the rest of the Caribby-Islands (London, 1666) ...................................................94 Figure 3. Mark Catesby, The Tyrant Bird on a Sprig of Sassafras, Natural History of Carolina vol. 1 (London, 1731), plate 55 .....................124 Figure 4. Sassafras Tree from Nicolás Monardes, Ioyfull Nevves out of the Newe Founde Worlde (London, 1580), fol. 45r .....................................129 Figure 5. Hieronymus Fracastorius (Girolamo Fracastoro) shows the shepherd Syphilus and the hunter Ilceus being warned against yielding to temptation with the danger of infection with syphilis (1588/1595) ..................................................................................................148 Figure 6. Map of Newfoundland created by John Mason, this version published in William Vaughan’s The Golden Fleece (1626) ......................202 v CHAPTER I “MY NEW-FOUND-LAND” License my roving hands, and let them goe Behind, before, above, between, belowe. Only my Americka! my New-found-Land! The Kingdom’s safest, when by one man man’d: My Mine of precious stones! My Emperie! How blest am I in this discovering thee.1 John Donne (1572-1631), “To His Mistress Going to Bed,” 1654. This dissertation employs the lenses of imagination and failure to examine the early phases of Anglo-North American colonization, from 1570 to 1640. My research on colonial failure encompasses the failure of physical colonies, the failure to pursue profitable commodities, and the failure to develop successful theories of colonization. I argue that colonial projectors envisioned a North America that primarily existed in their minds – a place filled with marketable and profitable commodities waiting to be extracted. I historicize the imagined profitability of fish and sassafras, and use the extreme example of the unicorn to highlight the unlimited potential of America in the 1 R. C., The Harmony of the Muses, Or, The Gentlemans and Ladies Choisest Recreation Full of Various, Pure and Transcendent Wit : Containing Severall Excellent Poems, Some Fancies of Love, Some of Disdain, and All the Subjects Incident to the Passionate Affections Either of Men or Women / Heretofore Written by Those Unimitable Masters of Learning and Invention, Dr. Joh. Donn, Dr. Hen. King, Dr. W. Stroad [et Al]., ed. Henry King (London : Printed by T.W. for William Gilbertson, 1654), 2-3. 1 minds early modern projectors. After 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 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, and impracticality, and failure of plans for early colonial settlement, this study investigates the persistent search for “usefulness” in the face of the high rate of colonial failure, and what these endeavors reveal about the motivation and aspiration of colonial projectors and colonists during the early decades of English settlement in the New World. The relationship between imagination and experience is integral to explain why early Anglo-American ventures failed. I treat geographic spaces touched by colonial activity as subjective locales molded by human desires. Using their imaginations and feeding their desires, colonial projectors created illusory and deceptive conceptions about the ease and possibility of colonization in North America through a process of promotional imagining.2 I argue that there were two stages in the development of colonial theory put forth by colonial projectors. During the first stage, projectors imagined North America as a panacea to Britain’s trade woes, and I trace the links between the pursuit of gold, unicorns, and sassafras to early colonization efforts. The 2 I use the term “projector” in the same fashion as Joan Thirsk and Karen Ordahl Kupperman. Thirsk identified projects as “schemes to manufacture, or produce on the farm, goods for consumption at home” in Economic Policy and Projects: The Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 3. Kupperman built on Thirsk’s notion by developing the term projector, a “class of people...who constantly appealed to the court or wealthy backers for support for one or another pet scheme that would, ostensibly, enhance the nation’s economy or security or both while enriching the projector,” in The Jamestown Project (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 2007), 43-44. The term promotional imagining was created by John K. Wright, “Terrae Incgonitae: The Place of the Imagination in Geography,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 37, no. 1 (Mar., 1947). 2 second stage was marked by roughly seventy decades of colonial failure, during which projectors reimagined North America to be filled with fewer eclectic and exotic products. However, colonial projectors’ rationale behind both stages was flawed. *** This project fits within the traditional narrative of American history, but the topic of colonial