Title Seasons of misery : catastrophe and colonial settlement in Early America / Kathleen Donegan

Edition 1st ed Published Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2014] ©2014

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Description 1 online resource (260 pages) : illustrations Series Early American studies Early American studies. Contents Introduction : unsettlement -- Roanoke : left in Virginia -- Jamestown : things that seemed incredible -- Plymouth : scarce able to bury their dead -- Barbados : wild extravagance -- Afterword : standing half-amazed Summary The stories we tell of American beginnings typically emphasize colonial triumph in the face of adversity. But the early years of English settlement in America were characterized by catastrophe: starvation, disease, extreme violence, ruinous ignorance, and serial abandonment. This book offers a reexamination of the British colonies' chaotic and profoundly unstable beginnings, placing crisis - both experiential and existential - at the center of the story. At the outposts of a fledgling empire and disconnected from the social order of their home society, English settlers were both physically and psychologically estranged from their European identities. They could not control, or often even survive, the world they had intended to possess. According to the author, it was in this cauldron of uncertainty that colonial identity was formed. Studying the English settlements at Roanoke, Jamestown, Plymouth, and Barbados, the author argues that catastrophe marked the threshold between an old European identity and a new colonial identity, a state of instability in which only fragments of Englishness could survive amid the upheavals of the New World. This constant state of crisis also produced the first distinctively colonial literature as settlers attempted to process events that they could neither fully absorb nor understand. Bringing a critical eye to settlers' first-person accounts, the author applies a unique combination of narrative history and literary analysis to trace how settlers used a language of catastrophe to describe unprecedented circumstances, witness unrecognizable selves, and report unaccountable events. This book addresses both the stories that colonists told about themselves and the stories that we have constructed in hindsight about them. In doing so, it offers a new account of the meaning of settlement history and the creation of colonial identity. -- Publisher's description Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-246) and index Notes English Print version record Subject Frontier and pioneer life -- United States -- Sources Frontier and pioneer life -- United States -- Historiography HISTORY -- United States -- Colonial Period (1600-1775) British colonies Colonization Colonization -- Historiography Frontier and pioneer life Frontier and pioneer life -- Historiography Historiography Social conditions Social history -- Historiography SUBJECT United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140131 United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Historiography United States -- Social conditions -- To 1865 -- History -- Sources United States -- Social conditions -- To 1865 -- Historiography United States -- Colonization -- History -- Sources United States -- Colonization -- Historiography Barbados -- Colonization -- History -- Sources Barbados -- Colonization -- Historiography Great Britain -- Colonies -- America -- History -- Sources Great Britain -- Colonies -- America -- Historiography Subject America Barbados United States Genre/Form History Sources Form Electronic book ISBN 0812209141 9780812209143 0812223772 9780812223774

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