Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America

“Brilliantly framed . . . fascinating . . . a well-told story of discovery, conquest, business, and politics.” — Kirkus Reviews

Four centuries ago, and 14 years before the Mayflower, a group of men—led by a one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat, a reprobate cleric and a government spy—left London aboard a fleet of three ships. Despite their shortcomings, and against the odds, they built Jamestown, a ramshackle outpost that laid the foundations of the British Empire and the United States of America.

Drawing on new discoveries, neglected sources, and manuscript collections scattered across the world, Savage Kingdom challenges the textbook image of Jamestown as a mere money-making venture. It reveals a reckless, daring enterprise led by outcasts of the Old World who found themselves interlopers in a new one. An intimate story in an epic setting, it shows how the land of Pocahontas came to be drawn into a new global order.

Four centuries ago, and fourteen years before the Mayflower, a group of men—led by a one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat, a reprobate cleric and a government spy—left London aboard a fleet of three ships to start a new life in America. They arrived in Virginia in the spring of 1607 and set about trying to create a settlement on a tiny island in the James River. Despite their shortcomings, and against the odds, they built Jamestown, a ramshackle outpost that laid the foundations of the British Empire and the United States of America.

Drawing on new discoveries, neglected sources and manuscript collections scattered across the world, Savage Kingdom challenges the textbook image of Jamestown as a mere money-making venture. It reveals a reckless, daring enterprise led by outcasts of the Old World who found themselves interlopers in a new one. It charts their journey into a beautiful landscape and a sophisticated culture that they found both ravishing and alien, which they yearned to possess but threatened to destroy. They called their new home a "savage kingdom," but it was the savagery they had experienced in Europe that had driven them across the ocean and which they hoped to escape by building in America "one of the most glorious nations under the sun."

An intimate story in an epic setting, Woolley shows how the land of Pocahontas came to be drawn into a new global order, reaching from London to the Orinoco Delta, from the warring kingdoms of Angola to the slave markets of Mexico, from the gates of the Ottoman Empire to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“An engrossing bit of elegant social history.” - Los Angeles Times

“A lucid narrative.” - Financial Times

“This highly readable account of the founding of Jamestown moves from the English throne to the daily struggles of the colony’s first settlers and the experience of Virginia’s Indians as their relations with colonists became increasingly strained….Woolley blends nuanced analysis with fast-paced narrative.” - Publishers Weekly

“To mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, historian and journalist Benjamin Woolley has constructed a far-ranging account of the political machinations and human suffering that went into creating and preserving this tormented English outpost.” - BookPage

“[H]ighly readable . . . Woolley blends nuanced analysis with fast-paced narrative.” - Publishers Weekly

A swashbuckling saga of political maneuvering, storms at sea, hostile indigenes, violence and starvation....his book is sprightly and vivid. - Los Angeles Times

Benjamin Woolley presents an engaging, well-researched take on the basics....Woolley’s prose bounces along, equally cheerful in the face of a comprehensive flaying and the founding of what became Washington, D.C. - Entertainment Weekly

“Brilliantly framed...fascinating.... A well-told story of discovery, conquest, business and politics.” - Kirkus Reviews

“Comprehensive account of the first permanent English colony in North America.... A well-told story of discovery, conquest, business and politics.” - Kirkus Reviews