The Jamestown Brides: The Bartered Wives of the New World

by Jennifer Potter

' Compelling... A real pleasure to read.' - BBC History Magazine
In 1621, fifty-six English women crossed the Atlantic in response to the Virginia Company of London's call for maids 'young and uncorrupt' to make wives for the planters of its new colony in Virginia.While the women travelled of their own accord, the company was in effect selling them at a profit for a bride price of 150 lbs of tobacco for each woman sold. The rewards would flow to investors in the near-bankrupt company. But what did the women want from the enterprise? Why did they agree to make the perilous crossing to a wild and dangerous land, where six out of seven European settlers died within their first few years? And what happened to them in the end?

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Audiobook, Historical, 17th Century, Biography

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2018

About the author

Jennifer Potter, born in 1949, writes about the history and culture of plants, plantsmen and gardens. She reviews regularly for the Times Literary Supplement, and has been variously a Royal Literary Fund Fellow, a Hawthornden Fellow and an Honorary Teaching Fellow on the Warwick Writing Programme.

Reviews

[Sammi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll just start by saying I really enjoyed Jennifer Potter's writing style, so I was quite torn by rating this a 2/5. However I just felt I didn't learn anything new about this topic. Basically a summary of this book is: lists all the names of the Jamestown Brides, then describes London with MASSIVE detail. Then just describes Jamestown and we hear a LOT about John Smith and what he thinks of everything. She admits half the time that for 75% of women there's no record of them after the ship/crossing and then the remaining 3 (!) she gives about 50 pages, and 3 chapters but then the chapters themselves go off on a tangent about the lives of somebody else! Usually this is the husband or in the case of the last chapter we hear a lot about Mary Rowlandson. I feel as if this would have made a better article or even would have benefitted from a change in title to be more ambiguous. Looks as if these 'untold' stories of the 'Maids for Virginia' are still untold, sorry.

[Amy H. Sturgis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm glad I read this work, although I could have wished for more clarity -- Potter's generic use of "Indians," for example, often obscures which nation/group acted when and why -- and continuity in the individual women's stories. Potter works with incomplete and vague sources at times, and this is not her fault. While the book did not add as much as I had hoped to my understanding of the early settlement, I am still very glad I read it.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of a group of women who were sent to the Jamestown colony in 1621 to become brides of the planters was quite interesting. (This was read from a pre publication eARC from Edelweiss). As the first English colony in the new world Jamestown has always been researched. But as a colony that really did not do well for quite a few years the records are not always available to explain what actually happened during the first 20+ years. As the author is drawn into researching this topic she has had to extrapolate her information and make many guesses but she explains her methodology well as she also draws us into a compelling story about women who were enticed to move to the wilderness and start a new life.
Most of these women did not survive to live a long life but it turns out that was true of most of the men who went to Virginia as well. Started by a group of Englishmen in hopes of course of making a profit, the Virginia Company of London was a history of schemes to make money and sending out brides was one of them. These women were expected to marry planters — or at least men who could pay a bride price of 150 lbs of tobacco (a substantial sum). They were not forced to marry but the company that sent them definitely expected it. As usual things did not go as well as expected. The women were probably not informed that they were being purchased and the Company also did not sent provisions to sustain them when they arrived.
As someone who has visited Jamestown it was easy to imagine what a shock it was to move to the New World for these women and this was an entrancing history.

[chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

didn't like: do not like the narrator. jumps around a lot which is confusing as all and actually lessens the drama of the pacing and its scenes.
liked: the history, the facts, it painted probably a more accurate oil portrait of the reality of early life in Jamestown, how the brutality of both europeans and indians wasn't downplayed.

[Sage · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating deep dive into the "maids" (aka single women) recruited by the Virginia Company to be sold to tobacco planters in the Jamestown Colony, c. 1613. I wish Potter had mentioned in the text something about being unable to trace the "Africans" -- whether they were enslaved or free. In the end notes, it's sort of implied that there's no way to know, but I would have liked some clarification.

That said, the book is ostensibly about the brides, and Potter does a meticulous job of tracing the ones she can, despite massacre, disease, loss of records, etc. The Pocahontas section was interesting -- I learned some things about her that I hadn't known. The on-the-ground details, walking the historical sites, were most interesting to me and I wish there had been more information there, though I suppose that would have been a different book. The bibliography seems pretty great for that.

[Heidi (MinxyD14) · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent resource book for what may have happened to the women in the women in the Jamestown colony. It is meticulously pieced together using historical records and a great deal of documented research. Charlotte Strevens could read a phone book out loud and I would pay for it.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggle between a few things here. I loved the walk through local James River historic settings, Jennifer did a great job putting characters and events together.

What I struggle with is the sheer lack of material from which to write such a book. Don't get me wrong here, I'm very happy that Jennifer wrote this much needed book. There's simply very little written about these Jamestown Brides, but at the same time, there's just not much to write a 300+ page book. So Jennifer had to include so much of the other material in order to have enough content. As such, at times Jennifer becomes repetitive, such as in the case with Alice Boys, who gets mentioned a few times.

Again, I'm glad the book was written, especially since there is so very little work done specifically on the Jamestown Brides. Further, a book like this had to be done, because much of what has been said about those brides is often wrong. Potter does a wonderful job setting the record straight with the little information available.

So, overall, this is a nice addition to the 17th Century Virginia Library, and it's certainly a much needed improvement on most of what has been previously written to this point, even if it is too long.

[Jesseca Moreda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ll say first that I listened to the audiobook, so anything that might have been a reference or direct quote from document was often lost on me. That being said, this book was imbalanced. The author delved into the colonial side of history, which is fine, but she neglected her research on the indigenous side. Native Americans are referred to as savages several times in what doesn’t seem to be a quote, but the author’s words. She refers to a large massacre as a random act, when in actuality it was retaliation for several raids and mistreatment by John Smith and other colonial parties. I could have appreciated this book as a quirky collection of random information if it weren’t so biased and neglectful of the Native Americans. How can you know the names of everyone in the Flowerdew family, but you can’t be bothered to try to pinpoint which tribes you’re talking about through half of the book. It was just bizarre and felt like the book had come out 100 years ago instead of four. All of that aside, except for a few chapters, the subjects just lacked any depth, and it just left me wanting more of the complete picture that we can’t have because the women couldn’t write.

[Jessica - How Jessica Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the history of the maids' personal lives (as much as is known), and the theorizing about why they would've left safety in England for unknown marriages in Virginia. Potter also does an excellent job showing what life was like for Englishwoman in the 17th century, and this would've been a solid 4 star read, until I got to the chapter about the "Indian Massacre". Not only does she use Indian instead of Native American throughout the book... but she also used words like "devilish" and "savages" in this chapter, and it made me very uncomfortable.

It's possible that she was just quoting primary sources (I was listening to the audiobook and have no idea if there are footnotes or such). But when using such racist terms, I would have preferred a note at the beginning of the chapter explaining why she chose to use the language of that era.

[Mike Shoop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some excellent information gathered here, but it's not a very entertaining sort of read, even though I am greatly interested in the subject matter. More scholarly than popularly written, which is fine, but I wish it had had more of a narrative story flow to it, rather than just presenting the facts. Would have made it far more compelling and interesting. I'll give it 3 stars just for the information alone.

[Amy Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've long been fascinated by the women that came across the Atlantic to marry early settlers at Jamestown. The author of this book dug details about their lives from archives. It turns out that many of them died unmarried of Indian attacks and disease. (The early colonies had a very high mortality rate.) Since the details from the archives are sketchy, the book can't give a clear picture of any of the individuals, but it is certainly impressive research.

[Joshua K. Moser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written, expansive & well researched book. I’m a historian specializing in the American Revolution, but one of my hobbies is studying Jamestown and Plimoth Colonies. While I was well versed in Jamestown up through about 1612, aside from the Uprising of 1622, I knew little about the day to day of the later colony. I also knew little about the female experience at Jamestown, especially since there wasn’t one for the first couple of years. The discovery of “Jane” had made me curious about that experience, and I think that Jamestown Brides both fulfills and expands my curiosity. Ms Potter writes a strong narrative that presents a well researched foundation and a more humanizing personal experience. I’m not always a fan of this type of writing, but here, given the lack of information, I think it was essential for the process to be described. I just really, really enjoyed this book. It expanded my knowledge base and has inspired me to research more on the topic. My one criticism isn’t really a criticism, it’s a statement of reality. Because there’s so little information available about these women, particularly once they hit the new world, there is a bit of logical supposition to the writing. While it’s obviously necessary given the circumstances, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least point it out. All in all this was a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

My biggest disappointment in this book is my own error ... I thought this was a novel, but it is a historical treatise. I do enjoy the history of early colonial America, though, so forged ahead.

This is not a well-documented period, and the author has apparently researched as much material as available and physically explored the area. i cannot disparage her efforts; they are thorough.

My biggest complaint, however, is the book's apparent lack of organization. She swings wildly backwards and forward in time, repeats snippets of information concerning particular women, resulting in my being unable to follow the life of any one of them. i would have preferred a much more chronological approach.

it is worth mentioning that the author quite expertly handles the sensitive relationship between the settlers and the native americans, not taking a positionon one side or the other. It is so popular now to paint a one-sided peo-native american position. Her treatment does not shy away from fault and brutality on both sides.

[Jessie Tanner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have little idea what drew me to this. It’s a history, but not written by a historian? The cover is decidedly chick lit-y, and I almost never read non-fiction for fun. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to read it.

There are some really interesting passages, but I think little about what I enjoyed in this book is actually about the women the book purports to be about. That the women could probably not write and thus basically left no record of who they were except in terms of their fathers’ and husbands’ occupations, and occasionally their children’s names, is disappointing, if not the author’s fault. Still, the result is a book in which the titular characters are sort of the negative space that the text carves out with letters from men to other men and records kept by men about men.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rate this 1.5 out of 5.

I listened to this book with Audible.

Brief Summary: Using the historical records the lives of women who were sent to Jamestown as prospective brides for male colonizers are examined. These women are also placed into the larger context of the period with the development of the Jamestown colony and the Virginia Company examined in detail.

Thoughts: I learned about this book because Potter was on the podcast Not Just the Tudors and I found her discussion of the topic interesting. However, I was torn about the information presented in this book.

The women she discusses as being sent to Jamestown to find husbands were interesting at the start of the book. There were clear descriptions of most of these women and enough information about some of their backgrounds to obtain an understanding of who they were and why they decided to leave they knew behind everything. However, as the book went on I felt the original plot of the book was lost.

There was a great deal of information about the prominent men who were the leading colonizers of Jamestown. Everyone from the mayor to the preacher to the disgraced ex-officials were all discussed. John Smith and John Rolfe even make several appearances throughout the book. While I understand the main motivation for this was to explain the world these women were living in it felt weighed down and in some instances did not provide a broad lense at all. For instance, the conflict between the Indigenous population and the Jamestown settlers felt very one-sided. I think Potter was trying to view events from how the women living them would have thought and felt, but I think that just made the description read as too one-sided and lacking enough context for a full historical picture. Potter does discuss the irony of Jamestown officials saying that women and children were slaughtered when they were doing the same thing, but even that did not feel like it included enough focus on the fact that the goal of those at Jamestown was to irradicate Indigenous populations.

I also did not quite understand Potter's argument for including a whole chapter on Pocahontas. I think that it was billed as we are discussing the cultural shock of going from London to Virginia so we can examine that journey from the reverse perspective. I did find this chapter to be one of the more interesting chapters (simply because the subject of the chapter was interesting), but I do not think that the experiences at their core are the same. The Jamestown Brides did leave their homes, but they were arriving in a Colony with shared language, religion, etcetera. Also, some of the women had friends or family with them onboard the ships or in the Colony. However, Pocahontas was forced to assimilate, changing everything about herself including her name, her religion, and her cultural practices. She also had no familial support or friends waiting for her.

Overall, I was not a fan of this book. Not simply because of its lack of perspective on the colonizer versus indigenous populations, but because once the ones who were the focus of this book reach the colony they are lost to history and a lot of conjectures have to be made from the sources.

Content Warnings

Graphically described: Genocide, Gun violence, Murder, Adult/minor relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Racism, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Death, Violence, Child death, Colonisation, Classism, and Medical Trauma

[Sarah Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jennifer Potter chases after the history of the 56 English women who traveled from London to Jamestown in 1621 to become wives of planters in the new Virginia colony. In this work of non-fiction Potter attempts to answer the question of motivations behind the journey as well as discerning what their lives might have been like and what happened to them in their new life.

Potter's book begins by detailing what was recorded about each of the women that traveled to Jamestown including their names, ages, birthplace, parents' occupations, and any known living relatives. Most were from London, and most had lost at least one parent. Potter also gives background on the Jamestown settlement and what it would have looked like and what life was likely like for the new arrivals. This included a description of their diets, homes, lifestyles, and current occupants. Life was hard and mortality was high. Men far outnumbered women, which of course explains the desire for more women to make it their home.

As many others have noted, while an absolutely fascinating topic, this book was hindered by the lack of knowledge about most of these women's fates. After four hundred years, there is just scant record of these women's lives. As a result, Potter provides a more general overview of Jamestown history itself to convey what the women's lives might have been like. In many ways it felt unsatisfactory, although this is no fault of the author, who clearly went to great lengths to scrounge up what material does exist.

Due to the way Potter leans on providing just more general history and context by talking about the Jamestown settlement itself, in many ways this just felt like another history of what can be known about the early community. In other words, it did not feel like Potter had enough source material to write a full book on the Jamestown brides and would have been better off making that a chapter in a more general book about Jamestown life.

Potter obviously worked hard to research for this book, including traveling on site to numerous locations and even talking to descendants of Jamestown residents. She uncovered what there was to share. But ultimately the huge gaps in the available knowledge left me feeling unsatisfied.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The founding of America is a topic that is often romanticized so I'm not typically interested in the excusing of the behavior of the colonists in favor of placing them on pedestals. However, I've enjoyed the Jamestown series from PBS Masterpiece (and am now continuing watching season two after being reminded of its existence), so decided to give this a listen when I saw it included in my Audible membership. If you've also enjoyed that series or anything else on Jamestown, you'll probably enjoy this. Potter dives deep into the lives of the women who left Europe behind to set sail to Jonestown, becoming wives to previously unknown men. There is not much known about the fates of many of these women, as the author admits within the text, but what was included was fascinating. I could very much put myself in their shoes while listening to their stories, and also included the information about their time in England prior to their new lives; albeit this was not really relevant to the theme of the book, but I enjoy stories of those in service throughout history. I do wish the content was shorter, as it suffered from becoming extremely dry and monotonous- and I typically actually enjoy dry non-fiction if the topic is of interest.

I am very much the person that gets interested in a topic and then consumes as much information about it as I can find. I'm for sure now going to be seeking out more about Jamestown, specifically the factual story of the woman who came to be known as Pocahontas. This is objectively a three star book, but I'm rounding up to four stars because of the interest it has sparked in future reading and learning.

[Rusty · Rating 3 out of 5]

If we need any more proof that life sucked for those that came before us, this book can be used as evidence in the trial.

The book is about the horrific experience of the women that left their lives in in the UK to travel to America in order to marry the mostly male settlers already there. They were mostly young women and girls who were sold by their families for extra spending cash.

Upon arrival, they found life was short, brutal, and shitty. Those that didn’t die of disease or exposure were probably slaughtered by the natives, if not taken captive.

So, it sucked. This book was depressing and made me realize how fragile my modern life of mostly comfort has been.*

Not much more I can say about it, really. If you’re interested in page after page of news about how awful life was, this is for you. Enjoy.

* Note to self: If I ever decide to time travel, think twice. Whenever I end up, it will suck.

[Kate Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been verified a few years ago by the Jamestowne Society as a descendant of William Cox, who settled there at age 12 in 1610, I had a particular interest in reading this: might one of these brides have become his wife, and thus my ancestor? The brides' ages would have been just right when they arrived in 1621 for one of them to marry William, who would have been 23 that year. But alas, that question may never be answered; Jamestown genealogists have never found any records giving the name of William's wife (I checked), nor did this book have anything to add to that mystery.
But no matter, this heartfelt and meticulously researched account of not only the brides' experience, but also the politics, economics, gender issues, and interactions between natives and colonists at that time and place more than kept my interest. I appreciate how much time, skill and empathy the author brought to her exploration of this subject.

[Cherie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned something new. Prior to this book I knew nothing about Jamestown. Life for the early Jamestown Europeans was brutal; very few survived.

I feel like the book should have a different title. With a different title I would have given the book a higher rating. It was clear there is very little information available about the Jamestown brides. The book's plot would swirl on the colonization of Jamestown, then circle back trying to say something about the brides. If the book was truly about the brides, it would have been much shorter.

As we move into the future and contemplate colonizing Mars we should take some lessons learned from Jamestown. It sounds like for successful colonization, frequent cargo deliveries are needed to sustain life. I guess if we colonize Mars at least we won't be taking land and resources from it's native people which can aid in a successful outcome.

[Kimberlee Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love history, we're going to visit this area soon, and i wanted some interesting stories to tell the kids during our visit. Unfortunately, this was not the book to help in that endeavor. I think it could have been laid out in a more interesting and clear manner. It seemed a jumble of information, much of it repetitive, without any "story" to grab the reader. Did anyone actually edit this book? I mean no offense, because the author clearly dug in and found more information than i would have thought possible of these women (and men), but it's just another thing entirely to get the information out there in a concise way that can also be interesting. I found it confusing, repetitive, and even boring much of the time. I had to read another book while i was reading this one...

[Vanessa Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of the Jamestown Brides is SO interesting. The author writes like a reporter and does a great job staying away from reconstructed dialogue and stating opinions as fact. She is for sure a talented nonfiction writer. The book was well researched and she's clearly passionate about this story.

Having said that, I'm just not sure it worked. It was compelling to think about why the women may have left England, how the trip may have gone and so on. We only really know for sure what happened to a few of the women, so unfortunately, there are more questions than answers. To make up for the lack of content, the author follows some rabbit trails like Pocahontas, Roanoke, John Smith, etc. that are related to the story but also don't necessarily add anything.

[Sally · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've seldom been so bored by a book. There is simply not enough information available to justify it. As a consequence we learn a lot about the men involved and their quest to add to their own coffers, but almost nothing but conjecture about the women.

One fact that did interest me was that the women who had been captured by the Native Americans were better off in captivity as the "savages" treat women much more humanely than English men who literally owned them!

How dare those natives resent these incomers who distributed their land with no regard whatsoever for those who had lived there for generations? How much harder would they have resisted if they'd known what was coming? I'm resentful of those who regard this as an early history of Virginia with no regard for the history that already existed there

[Pete Missingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book is nominally about the Jamestown brides, it is more of a literary recreation of early 17th century England and Virginia as lived by women of the period. As most people were illiterate, and especially the women, this is a monumentally difficult task and occasionally the author has to admit to imagining what the conditions were like, or the precise order of events. That said, the book largely succeeds in reproducing the zeitgeist of the roughly 10 to 20 years covered. However, there is a blizzard of names of often unintroduced people that frequently make events difficult to follow. A simple timeline with names would have helped enormously.

[Sheree Van Vreede]

I picked this up on a trip in Oxford last summer at the famous Blackwell's bookstore. It is an interesting examination of American colonial history. For a fictional account of these brides, you can read the 1899 bestseller To Have and to Hold: A Tale of Providence and Perseverance in Colonial Jamestown.

[Deb Gunnarsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some excellent information gathered here, but it's not a very entertaining read. More scholarly than popularly written; I wish it had had more of a narrative story flow to it, rather than just presenting the facts. I felt like I was reading a textbook. Ms. Potter completed extensive research into the topic and did her best to fill in the numerous holes in the lives of the women who bravely came to this new country. I'll give it 3 stars just for the information alone. If you are looking for a nice beach read, this isn’t it.

[Cory · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook and tuned out quite a bit. There was a lot of information about the company and the men. The native tribes are either Indians or Savages. No, really, savages. There is a discussion of a massacre of the settlers but no narrative around why, or what the settlers did to the tribal people. I know it's hard to write about women from this time, but I've read other books that do a much better job of this. This book is really about the Virginia Company and the men who were involved in it.

[Laura McGaha · Rating 4 out of 5]

An earlier review mentions that because most of these women weren't taught to read or write "the result is a book in which the titular characters are sort of the negative space that the text carves out with letters from men to other men and records kept by men about men."

That assessment is true and I was left wanting to know more of the stories of the women. However, the history of the Virginia Company, the background of Pocahantas, the condition of the ship voyages, and even the details of wills and ship logs bring the Jamestown of 1622 alive. Now I'm ready to visit again.

[Ivy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This… was not at all what I wanted from this book lol. It was very informative but not about what I wanted to learn about when I chose this book. I wanted much more of a focus on the women. I recognize the point is that these women were basically erased from history, but I felt like I spent so much time learning about men that I didn’t care about along with ship manifests. I don’t know. I feel like I have already dumped all of the information that I learned. I can’t even remember a single one of these women’s names and that is sad.

[Kerry Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a selection for a book club I am part of. I really struggled with it. I think the author did a lot of research, but didn't find enough to support the story she was trying to tell so there were often tangents or filler facts to take up space. It was dry and not engaging to read, and unfocused. I love history, and couldn't bring myself to finish it. Well researched, but given the lack of findings the subject matter may have been better served as a fiction story versus this non-fiction monograph. I was really disappointed.