From Giles Milton, the highly acclaimed author of Nathaniel's
Nutmeg, Big Chief Elizabeth is a riveting historical mystery of
colonial America.
In April 1586, Queen Elizabeth I acquired a new and exotic title. A
tribe of Native Americans had made her their weroanza--a word that meant
big chief. The news was received with great joy, both by the Queen and
her favorite, Sir Walter Raleigh. His first American expedition had
brought back a captive, Manteo, who caused a sensation in Elizabethan
London. In 1587, Manteo was returned to his homeland as Lord and
Governor, with more than one hundred English men, women, and children.
In 1590, a supply ship arrived at the colony to discover that the
settlers had vanished.
For almost twenty years the fate of Raleigh's colonists was to remain a
mystery. When a new wave of settlers sailed to America to found
Jamestown, their efforts to locate the lost colony were frustrated by
the mighty chieftain, Powhatan, who vowed to drive the English out of
America. Only when it was too late did the settlers discover the
incredible news that Raleigh's colonists had survived in the forests for
almost two decades before being slaughtered in cold blood by henchmen.
While Sir Walter Raleigh's savage had played a pivotal role in
establishing the first English settlement in America, he had also
unwittingly contributed to one of the earliest chapters in the
decimation of the Native American population. The mystery of what
happened to these colonists who seemed to vanish without a trace lies at
the heart of this well-researched work of narrative history.
