I'm a sucker for old-fashioned adventures, particularly in the New World and knowing what it grew into (the ending of this book gave me excited chills). Big Chief Elizabeth was perfect for me. It chronicles – in a roaming narrative that is the epitome of popular history – the first tentative English footsteps in America, from the raids on Spanish treasure ships and the pretty-damn-cool mystery of the Roanoke settlement, through the naming of the land of Virginia and the efforts of Sir Walter Raleigh, to Jamestown and the legendary Pocahontas.

It has a wealth of research and anecdote, a keen eye for rip-roaring adventure ("[he] had the two qualities that were deemed essential: a yearning for adventure and a hatred of Spain" (pg. 86)), and does not shy from the many hardships that come with colonisation: starvation and settlement, cannibalism and brutality, weevils and loneliness and hostile natives. The Elizabethan age has some indescribable richness and vitality to it, despite the hardships, even if some of the Tudor spelling and phrasings quoted by author Giles Milton can sometimes make things unintentionally funny ("his heade was grevouslye broken and blede abundantlye" (pg. 55)).

If you're looking for a deeply-sourced, sober academic history of Elizabethan colonization, this isn't it. Milton's book is enjoying itself far too much to get bogged down in that. But if you want a swift and yet comprehensive overview of the subject, focusing only on the really interesting, crowd-pleasing stuff, Big Chief Elizabeth is highly recommended. ( )

The story of the lost colony of Roanoke looms large in this book, and I appreciated the author going into a lot more detail than my middle school history textbook. The story of all the voyages, attempted settlements, and struggles of early colonization are compelling and left me with a lot of respect for the bravery and persistence of early colonists. A good story and one I would now like to read more about. ( )

A highly readable account of the early attempts by Englishmen to colonise the North Eastern part of what is now the United States in the 16th and early 17th centuries. It starts from unfamiliar ground - an attempt by one Richard Hore as early as 1536 to capture a native American and bring him back to England. The attempt at capture failed but Hore did get there, so the first Englishman achieved that distinction a few decades earlier than is perhaps generally realised. The book retraces the landings of the various groups of adventurers and colonists in the Roanoke and Chesapeake Bay areas in the 1570s and 80s, and their often (but not always) bloody history of conflict with the native Americans. The fortunes and fate of the lost colony of 1587 are well covered and the epilogue arrives at a plausible conclusion as to their fate. The instrumental role of Pocahontas in finally achieving peace between the main tribes and the settlers is well covered. A great read, marred only slightly by a lack of reference notes (though the bibliography is fine) and the fact that the provenance of some of the illustrations is not clear and/or they are not positioned at the logical place in the text. ( )

Almost conversational history of the early attempts at colonization of America. Fun read for those who like history but have a hard time reading a history book. ( )

I've just read this on the back of reading another book on American history, 'Savage Kingdom' by Benjamin Woolley. In contrast to that book, Big Chief Elizabeth is more of a popular history. It's ultimately a true story, told as a story. It mentions historical sources and has a fairly comprehensive bibliography at the back but doesn't have the many pages of accompanying notes that some other history books I've read do. It was less concerned with the politics and detail than the general overview of what went on, and the characters that were a part of it. The part on the Jamestown colony was quite rushed, the main part of the book being about Walter Raleigh's attempts at founding an English colony in Virgina, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was also in part a biography of Sir Walter Raleigh, at least so far as his involvement with America went (which was his major life's work).

Overall a great history book, entertaining, easy to read and I learned a lot from it. Leaves me wanting more. ( )