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Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of Americas Origin
MP3 CD Format We all know the great American origin It begins with an exodus. Fleeing religious persecution, the hardworking, pious Pilgrims thrived in the wilds of New England, where they built their fabled "shining city on a hill." Legend goes that the colony in Jamestown was a false start, offering a cautionary tale of lazy louts who hunted gold till they starved and shiftless settlers who had to be rescued by English food and the hard discipline of martial law.
Neither story is true. In Marooned , Joseph Kelly re-examines the history of Jamestown and comes to a radically different and decidedly American interpretation of these first Virginians.
In this gripping account of shipwrecks and mutiny in America's earliest settlements, Kelly argues that the colonists at Jamestown were literally and figuratively marooned, cut loose from civilization, and cast into the wilderness. The epic origin of America was not an exodus and a fledgling theocracy. It is a tale of shipwrecked castaways of all classes marooned in the wilderness fending for themselves in any way they could—a story that illuminates who we are as a nation today.
Neither story is true. In Marooned , Joseph Kelly re-examines the history of Jamestown and comes to a radically different and decidedly American interpretation of these first Virginians.
In this gripping account of shipwrecks and mutiny in America's earliest settlements, Kelly argues that the colonists at Jamestown were literally and figuratively marooned, cut loose from civilization, and cast into the wilderness. The epic origin of America was not an exodus and a fledgling theocracy. It is a tale of shipwrecked castaways of all classes marooned in the wilderness fending for themselves in any way they could—a story that illuminates who we are as a nation today.
1 pages, Audio CD
First published October 30, 2018
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December 26, 2025
There are three types of books you blitz through: the ones you enjoy so much that you can't put them down, the ones you just want to be done with, and the ones you just want to be done with so you can write a long, tortured review about them on Goodreads. Marooned is the third type of book.
Where to even start? Marooned is, ostensibly, about Jamestown and why it should replace Plymouth as the founding site of the United States of America. It's also about how working men were the true "first Americans" and not the elites. Only not the ordinary laborers who actually lived in Jamestown and helped sustain the colony, but "the marooned" who deserted to either go off on their own or join a local tribe, whom we know almost nothing about. Except for failed-mutineer Stephen Hopkins (whom Joseph Kelly dubs the first true American) that is, who is much more closely identified with the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the place Kelly insists isn't the location of the USA's founding. There's also some stuff about the Nazis, and Korea, and Francis Drake, and The Peanuts.
I've recently been on a big Jamestown/Sea Venture/Pocahontas reading kick, and have been loving most of what I've found so far. One aspect that I feel has been understudied, however, is the cultural element, including the disintegration of the aristocracy in the colonies and the ways that Native Americans influenced the settlers, not just the other way around. Naturally, Marooned seemed to be just what I was looking for. What happened then?
First and foremost is the book's structure. If the summary above sounds confusing, that's because it is. This is an incredibly jumbled, disorganized book that frequently goes off on side-tangents. But even when you sift through all the details, there's still a lot that doesn't quite add up. I listened to the audiobook, so I don't know what Kelly's sourcing looks like, but I did notice that among the reviews I found for this book, the more critical ones tended to come from historians. I can see why. Kelly's premise is built on the claim that the malcontents of colonial America planted the seeds of defiance in our culture, and that they were wrongfully smeared as lazy and unreasonable by the elites who wrote the first-hand accounts of Jamestown's early days. The problem is, we know virtually nothing about these malcontents—particularly the one's Kelly holds in highest esteem, who abandoned the fort to join the Indians—not even their names. The argument for their importance is therefore built almost entirely on conjecture. That ordinary colonists were smeared for sluggishness is also quite a bit of revisionist history. The consensus around Jamestown has typically been that the aristocrats who came looking for gold were not cut out for frontier life, and the colony was instead rescued by importing laborers and craftsmen who were made of sterner stuff. Kelly even acknowledges this at one point. So where's the argument then?
Kelly tries again with the Sea Venture, the shipwreck that crashed on Bermuda enroute to Jamestown. He argues that the people who signed on to join the Virginia Company had no way of knowing just how harsh their living conditions would be, having been sold false propaganda. This is a completely valid point. As is Kelly's emphasis of the incompetence and cruelty of many of Jamestown's aristocratic leaders. What's less fair is how any act of leadership is tarred as tyrannical, regardless of the circumstances. Having now read several books about Jamestown and the Sea Venture, it is almost shocking just how merciful Thomas Gates was compared to his contemporaries, to the point where it's a little surprising that the machine didn't chew him up and spit him out the way it did so many others. Despite facing four separate acts of conspiracy or subordination while on the island, only one man, who refused to recant, was executed. Yet in Kelly's telling, Gates is an iron-fisted tyrant who forced his men to follow a strict work schedule and did not permit desertions. But what was the alternative? This was a man tasked with getting more than one-hundred shipwrecked people off of a remote island, which necessitated building a new ship from the broken remains of the old one (a job he assisted with, Kelly admits grudgingly). Without that discipline, it would have taken years to get back to sea, if ever.
Hopkins and other mutineers who wanted to stay on the island argued that Gates no longer had authority over them since they were neither at sea nor in Jamestown, and that they should not be forced to follow a man they didn't choose. This, Kelly argues, is the genesis of the American conception of self-determination. He even goes so far as to claim that Henry Paine, the one man executed by Gates, was the first man to die for democracy. Whatever validity one finds in the men's argument, what makes it any different from the thousands of other mutinies predating the Sea Venture? Mutinies are, above all else, a rejection by the ruled (the crew) of the ruler (the captain). Where those mutinies succeeded, they were not followed by democracy, but by either the same system under a new leader or, more often, complete anarchy.
Gates isn't the only person viewed through a particularly harsh lens. Kelly has a very narrow view of what makes someone American, and he argues that neither John Smith nor John Rolfe fit the bill. He makes a fair point about how Smith is the man largely responsible for running Jamestown like a penal colony (a tradition that his successors eagerly continued for at least a decade), practically setting himself up as a rival chieftain to Chief Powhatan. After years of working his ass off (including when he was briefly enslaved), Smith technically joined the ranks of the gentlemen, or the 2%, as Kelly puts it. This supposedly precludes him from being "the first American." (Never mind that many of our Founding Fathers, Washington and Jefferson among them, were also considered gentlemen in their time.) Rolfe, it is admitted, was a commoner who managed to build a fortune through farming and was the first Englishman to enter a recognized marriage with an Indian woman. He, however, lacked a rebellious spirit (aside from the whole marrying an Indian part) and was supportive of Gates and his decision to continue the journey to Jamestown, so he doesn't count either. (Hilariously, Kelly criticizes both men for accusing other settlers of being lazy, attributing this to monarchical thinking, even though judging other people for not working more is a time-honored American tradition.)
The portrayal of Native Americans is reminiscent of the noble savage trope: a people who are far more enlightened and wiser than the white brutes intent on destroying them. This is particularly noticeable where Indian women are concerned, with their depiction veering uncomfortably close to fetishization. The women are discussed almost exclusively in the context of sex. Most historians acknowledge that Algonquin women had more sexual freedom than European women did when discussing the Powhatans and Jamestown, but Kelly brings it up repeatedly, and goes so far as to claim that a willingness to have casual sex with Indian women was a sign that ordinary colonial men were more evolved than their prudish aristocratic overlords (because no rich man has ever had a one-night stand, right?)
One of the big cultural shifts of the last ten years or so, however, has been the acknowledgement that while libertine societies may be preferable to more repressive ones, they are not free from exploitation. (This is assuming the Powhatans even had a sexually libertine culture to begin with—many other historians remain unconvinced.) Kelly praises French fur traders who formed relationships with local Indian women, but what about all the women who were left destitute with little mouths to feed when the men high-tailed it back to their families in France? (This isn't just speculation; it's something that can be found on Wikipedia.) Would the Powhatan women who acted as bedwarmers for guests really have chosen to sleep with whichever drunk stranger they were paired with if given the option? Mormons traditionally practiced polygamy, and no one thought they were empowered for it; why is this any different? How much sexual freedom could unwed pubescent teenage girls really have if they were married off at age twelve or thirteen? And what about the women who were taken as prisoners of war and sold as slaves for a thousand years before the colonists ever stepped on shore? In fact, the high prevalence of slavery throughout the Americas is not mentioned once throughout the entire book. If Marooned were the only book about colonial America you ever picked up, you would never know that it was practiced long before the first slave ship from Africa arrived in 1619.
But the book gets particularly squicky whenever Pocahontas shows up. It took a while, but I finally found a book written by someone who believes that the preteen girl and John Smith were attracted to each other (and who doesn't question any of Smith's recollections of events, surprisingly). Kelly suggests that Pocahontas may have taken part in the fertility dance where women lured guests to bed afterwards, and that she may have sought out Smith afterwards if she did. Then, several chapters later, he claims that Pocahontas had "danced provocatively" for Smith that night "and had tried to lure him to bed." Even without a copy of the book in front of me, this is pretty clearly a fabrication, given that it directly contradicts something written by the same person in the very same book. Camilla Townsend and David Price have both written about how Pocahontas has frequently been pornified in the media, but this is the first time I've come across it. And the crazy part? This book was published in 2018, not 1970.
So what did I like about Marooned? When Kelly steps away from cultural analysis and just focuses on the history, he's a pretty good storyteller. He offers fair points about the way many colonists were conned into signing up for something far more brutal and dangerous than they were led to believe and, aside from the parts about his relationship with Pocahontas, Kelly presents arguably the most nuanced take on John Smith that I've read thus far—a necessary tyrant who was getting too big for his breeches but did a better job of protecting and providing for the colony than any of the men looking to oust him from power. I enjoyed the shout-out to Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis, given how influential I found it when studying cultural history myself. And I appreciate that someone, however much I disagree with his takes, has tried to approach this topic from a cultural standpoint, particularly in regards to how Indians and colonists influenced each other. Hopefully he isn't the last.
Where to even start? Marooned is, ostensibly, about Jamestown and why it should replace Plymouth as the founding site of the United States of America. It's also about how working men were the true "first Americans" and not the elites. Only not the ordinary laborers who actually lived in Jamestown and helped sustain the colony, but "the marooned" who deserted to either go off on their own or join a local tribe, whom we know almost nothing about. Except for failed-mutineer Stephen Hopkins (whom Joseph Kelly dubs the first true American) that is, who is much more closely identified with the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the place Kelly insists isn't the location of the USA's founding. There's also some stuff about the Nazis, and Korea, and Francis Drake, and The Peanuts.
I've recently been on a big Jamestown/Sea Venture/Pocahontas reading kick, and have been loving most of what I've found so far. One aspect that I feel has been understudied, however, is the cultural element, including the disintegration of the aristocracy in the colonies and the ways that Native Americans influenced the settlers, not just the other way around. Naturally, Marooned seemed to be just what I was looking for. What happened then?
First and foremost is the book's structure. If the summary above sounds confusing, that's because it is. This is an incredibly jumbled, disorganized book that frequently goes off on side-tangents. But even when you sift through all the details, there's still a lot that doesn't quite add up. I listened to the audiobook, so I don't know what Kelly's sourcing looks like, but I did notice that among the reviews I found for this book, the more critical ones tended to come from historians. I can see why. Kelly's premise is built on the claim that the malcontents of colonial America planted the seeds of defiance in our culture, and that they were wrongfully smeared as lazy and unreasonable by the elites who wrote the first-hand accounts of Jamestown's early days. The problem is, we know virtually nothing about these malcontents—particularly the one's Kelly holds in highest esteem, who abandoned the fort to join the Indians—not even their names. The argument for their importance is therefore built almost entirely on conjecture. That ordinary colonists were smeared for sluggishness is also quite a bit of revisionist history. The consensus around Jamestown has typically been that the aristocrats who came looking for gold were not cut out for frontier life, and the colony was instead rescued by importing laborers and craftsmen who were made of sterner stuff. Kelly even acknowledges this at one point. So where's the argument then?
Kelly tries again with the Sea Venture, the shipwreck that crashed on Bermuda enroute to Jamestown. He argues that the people who signed on to join the Virginia Company had no way of knowing just how harsh their living conditions would be, having been sold false propaganda. This is a completely valid point. As is Kelly's emphasis of the incompetence and cruelty of many of Jamestown's aristocratic leaders. What's less fair is how any act of leadership is tarred as tyrannical, regardless of the circumstances. Having now read several books about Jamestown and the Sea Venture, it is almost shocking just how merciful Thomas Gates was compared to his contemporaries, to the point where it's a little surprising that the machine didn't chew him up and spit him out the way it did so many others. Despite facing four separate acts of conspiracy or subordination while on the island, only one man, who refused to recant, was executed. Yet in Kelly's telling, Gates is an iron-fisted tyrant who forced his men to follow a strict work schedule and did not permit desertions. But what was the alternative? This was a man tasked with getting more than one-hundred shipwrecked people off of a remote island, which necessitated building a new ship from the broken remains of the old one (a job he assisted with, Kelly admits grudgingly). Without that discipline, it would have taken years to get back to sea, if ever.
Hopkins and other mutineers who wanted to stay on the island argued that Gates no longer had authority over them since they were neither at sea nor in Jamestown, and that they should not be forced to follow a man they didn't choose. This, Kelly argues, is the genesis of the American conception of self-determination. He even goes so far as to claim that Henry Paine, the one man executed by Gates, was the first man to die for democracy. Whatever validity one finds in the men's argument, what makes it any different from the thousands of other mutinies predating the Sea Venture? Mutinies are, above all else, a rejection by the ruled (the crew) of the ruler (the captain). Where those mutinies succeeded, they were not followed by democracy, but by either the same system under a new leader or, more often, complete anarchy.
Gates isn't the only person viewed through a particularly harsh lens. Kelly has a very narrow view of what makes someone American, and he argues that neither John Smith nor John Rolfe fit the bill. He makes a fair point about how Smith is the man largely responsible for running Jamestown like a penal colony (a tradition that his successors eagerly continued for at least a decade), practically setting himself up as a rival chieftain to Chief Powhatan. After years of working his ass off (including when he was briefly enslaved), Smith technically joined the ranks of the gentlemen, or the 2%, as Kelly puts it. This supposedly precludes him from being "the first American." (Never mind that many of our Founding Fathers, Washington and Jefferson among them, were also considered gentlemen in their time.) Rolfe, it is admitted, was a commoner who managed to build a fortune through farming and was the first Englishman to enter a recognized marriage with an Indian woman. He, however, lacked a rebellious spirit (aside from the whole marrying an Indian part) and was supportive of Gates and his decision to continue the journey to Jamestown, so he doesn't count either. (Hilariously, Kelly criticizes both men for accusing other settlers of being lazy, attributing this to monarchical thinking, even though judging other people for not working more is a time-honored American tradition.)
The portrayal of Native Americans is reminiscent of the noble savage trope: a people who are far more enlightened and wiser than the white brutes intent on destroying them. This is particularly noticeable where Indian women are concerned, with their depiction veering uncomfortably close to fetishization. The women are discussed almost exclusively in the context of sex. Most historians acknowledge that Algonquin women had more sexual freedom than European women did when discussing the Powhatans and Jamestown, but Kelly brings it up repeatedly, and goes so far as to claim that a willingness to have casual sex with Indian women was a sign that ordinary colonial men were more evolved than their prudish aristocratic overlords (because no rich man has ever had a one-night stand, right?)
One of the big cultural shifts of the last ten years or so, however, has been the acknowledgement that while libertine societies may be preferable to more repressive ones, they are not free from exploitation. (This is assuming the Powhatans even had a sexually libertine culture to begin with—many other historians remain unconvinced.) Kelly praises French fur traders who formed relationships with local Indian women, but what about all the women who were left destitute with little mouths to feed when the men high-tailed it back to their families in France? (This isn't just speculation; it's something that can be found on Wikipedia.) Would the Powhatan women who acted as bedwarmers for guests really have chosen to sleep with whichever drunk stranger they were paired with if given the option? Mormons traditionally practiced polygamy, and no one thought they were empowered for it; why is this any different? How much sexual freedom could unwed pubescent teenage girls really have if they were married off at age twelve or thirteen? And what about the women who were taken as prisoners of war and sold as slaves for a thousand years before the colonists ever stepped on shore? In fact, the high prevalence of slavery throughout the Americas is not mentioned once throughout the entire book. If Marooned were the only book about colonial America you ever picked up, you would never know that it was practiced long before the first slave ship from Africa arrived in 1619.
But the book gets particularly squicky whenever Pocahontas shows up. It took a while, but I finally found a book written by someone who believes that the preteen girl and John Smith were attracted to each other (and who doesn't question any of Smith's recollections of events, surprisingly). Kelly suggests that Pocahontas may have taken part in the fertility dance where women lured guests to bed afterwards, and that she may have sought out Smith afterwards if she did. Then, several chapters later, he claims that Pocahontas had "danced provocatively" for Smith that night "and had tried to lure him to bed." Even without a copy of the book in front of me, this is pretty clearly a fabrication, given that it directly contradicts something written by the same person in the very same book. Camilla Townsend and David Price have both written about how Pocahontas has frequently been pornified in the media, but this is the first time I've come across it. And the crazy part? This book was published in 2018, not 1970.
So what did I like about Marooned? When Kelly steps away from cultural analysis and just focuses on the history, he's a pretty good storyteller. He offers fair points about the way many colonists were conned into signing up for something far more brutal and dangerous than they were led to believe and, aside from the parts about his relationship with Pocahontas, Kelly presents arguably the most nuanced take on John Smith that I've read thus far—a necessary tyrant who was getting too big for his breeches but did a better job of protecting and providing for the colony than any of the men looking to oust him from power. I enjoyed the shout-out to Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis, given how influential I found it when studying cultural history myself. And I appreciate that someone, however much I disagree with his takes, has tried to approach this topic from a cultural standpoint, particularly in regards to how Indians and colonists influenced each other. Hopefully he isn't the last.
November 15, 2018
Marooned is a fascinating read full of the basic information about what really happened in the First American Colony. One of the more dramatic things I learned in passing from this book was that Powhattan’s real name was Wahunsonacock and that he was the paramount chief of Tsenacomoco, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia at the time English settlers landed in the Jamestown Colony. Also, I had no idea that John Smith led such an adventurous life before becoming the odd man out and eventually the leader of the Colony. It is astonishing that he survived as well as he did since he put himself in harm’s way on numerous occasions. In the long run he needed more than a Pocahontas, but unlike many others, he did survive to tell his story. The general impression we are left with after reading Marooned is that Smith really was a natural born leader. He also comes across as the most sensible and industrious of the lot. After seeing how well and with such verve he ruled the Colony until the arrival of the Third Supply, we regret that he was not allowed to lead the Colony from the beginning, instead we see the mishmash made of it by the gentlemen managers sent out from England. Ill equipped to serve as pioneers, we also are witness to the sad effects of micromanagement from a distance, as the hapless early colonists are decimated by disease, hunger, and death, which comes from an assortment of means at the hands of the Native Americans, called “naturals” by the English They were quite handy with arrows, hatchets, clubs and flaying knives. Also a surprisingly large number of colonists simply left the settlement and lived with the Indians. As Kelly explains this was a natural progression given the awful conditions inside the fort, a place they had to share with their dead because of their practice of burial in place. They did this in order to disguise the fact that their force was rapidly diminishing.
Included in the “backstory” of the book is the story of Pocahontas, the life and times of the paramount chief Wahunsonacock, the adventures of Sir Francis Drake, the shipwreck and survival of the good ship Sea Venture and a great deal about Native American culture of the times. The most interesting part in this book for me was the moment the settlers began to explore the extraordinary region beyond their immediate settlement. As they wandered further throughout Tidewater Virginia they uncovered an extensive native culture and a established life style based on corn agriculture supplemented with all sorts of wild provender, game and seafood.
Following the tyrannical rule of Lord De La Warr, the Great Charter of 1619 freed the settlers of martial law. Economic relief followed of a sorts in the form of tobacco and slaves. In 1616 John Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas, discovered a strain of tobacco that flourished in the Virginia climate and soil. And in 1619 the governor purchased the first African captives in English America: twenty Angolans sold by the captain of a privateer. The axis of the future American Colony was extended in 1620 with the arrival of the Mayflower and the settlement in Plymouth, a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. From there on the American North and South were truly established, the rest, of course, is history.
Included in the “backstory” of the book is the story of Pocahontas, the life and times of the paramount chief Wahunsonacock, the adventures of Sir Francis Drake, the shipwreck and survival of the good ship Sea Venture and a great deal about Native American culture of the times. The most interesting part in this book for me was the moment the settlers began to explore the extraordinary region beyond their immediate settlement. As they wandered further throughout Tidewater Virginia they uncovered an extensive native culture and a established life style based on corn agriculture supplemented with all sorts of wild provender, game and seafood.
Following the tyrannical rule of Lord De La Warr, the Great Charter of 1619 freed the settlers of martial law. Economic relief followed of a sorts in the form of tobacco and slaves. In 1616 John Rolfe, the husband of Pocahontas, discovered a strain of tobacco that flourished in the Virginia climate and soil. And in 1619 the governor purchased the first African captives in English America: twenty Angolans sold by the captain of a privateer. The axis of the future American Colony was extended in 1620 with the arrival of the Mayflower and the settlement in Plymouth, a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. From there on the American North and South were truly established, the rest, of course, is history.
December 24, 2020
More accurately a 4.4 than a 4... overall a very good read.
April 30, 2022
This is a tale of two books. One is good, the other not so much.
When Kelly is focused on the history of Jamestown, this book really shines. He has a great handle on the characters, of which there are many, and I found he was able to put a lot of things in perspective. John Smith was an egomaniac who ruled with an iron fist. Kelly doesn’t shy away from also pointing out that without John Smith, everyone would definitely had died. Kelly also does a pretty good job of putting the English mentality (read: superiority complex) on trial as they slowly realize the Spanish might have the right idea. The right idea (in their minds) kill everyone and then they should be sufficiently afraid of us.
The other book within the book is much less successful. Kelly too often sidetracks to start philosophizing on the thoughts and feelings of the “lesser” sort of settlers. These sections completely break up the flow of the book and, quite frankly, usually aren’t very convincing. Kelly meant to make Jamestown the true jumping off point of American thought. He didn’t convince me.
(Tangent: Rhode Island is the true jumping off point of American thought. Fight me.)
When Kelly is focused on the history of Jamestown, this book really shines. He has a great handle on the characters, of which there are many, and I found he was able to put a lot of things in perspective. John Smith was an egomaniac who ruled with an iron fist. Kelly doesn’t shy away from also pointing out that without John Smith, everyone would definitely had died. Kelly also does a pretty good job of putting the English mentality (read: superiority complex) on trial as they slowly realize the Spanish might have the right idea. The right idea (in their minds) kill everyone and then they should be sufficiently afraid of us.
The other book within the book is much less successful. Kelly too often sidetracks to start philosophizing on the thoughts and feelings of the “lesser” sort of settlers. These sections completely break up the flow of the book and, quite frankly, usually aren’t very convincing. Kelly meant to make Jamestown the true jumping off point of American thought. He didn’t convince me.
(Tangent: Rhode Island is the true jumping off point of American thought. Fight me.)
June 8, 2023
OK, I was hooked when Kelly made the argument in the first chapter that my ancestor Stephen Hopkins, who usually gets treated like little more than a malcontent in most histories, was philosophically, the first American. (He was the only person involved directly in both the Jamestown colony and the Mayflower, and on the shipwreck that inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest, but that's not why Kelly makes the argument.
The author's basic position is that the lower class immigrants have more in common with the values that we view as American than the upper class folks whose writings survive. They clashed with their leaders in the Jamestown colony, and sometimes chose to "maroon" themselves with the indigenous people who could help them adapt to their harsh new surroundings better than the upper class twits who would work or starve them to death. The upper class wrote the ensuing histories, but modern historians are reading between the lines and reaching the conclusion that many of those histories were very self serving, sometimes dishonest accounts.
No matter what you think of Kelly's arguments (I think he makes a good case), you can't read this and think that the version of all of this we got in school (at least what my generation got in school) was dumbed down, sanitized, and really dull compared to the reality. The natives here in Virginia were much more complex than many have portrayed them, the infighting among the Virginia Company was really interesting, and that shipwreck off Bermuda deserves a film to tell its story that goes beyond The Tempest or Terrence Malick's pictures of waving grass in The New World. There are many ideas here, so it isn't a fast read, but there are a lot of interesting stories in this broader narrative, and much that will leave you thinking. Put this with David Price's Love and Hate in Jamestown as great reads on this subject.
The author's basic position is that the lower class immigrants have more in common with the values that we view as American than the upper class folks whose writings survive. They clashed with their leaders in the Jamestown colony, and sometimes chose to "maroon" themselves with the indigenous people who could help them adapt to their harsh new surroundings better than the upper class twits who would work or starve them to death. The upper class wrote the ensuing histories, but modern historians are reading between the lines and reaching the conclusion that many of those histories were very self serving, sometimes dishonest accounts.
No matter what you think of Kelly's arguments (I think he makes a good case), you can't read this and think that the version of all of this we got in school (at least what my generation got in school) was dumbed down, sanitized, and really dull compared to the reality. The natives here in Virginia were much more complex than many have portrayed them, the infighting among the Virginia Company was really interesting, and that shipwreck off Bermuda deserves a film to tell its story that goes beyond The Tempest or Terrence Malick's pictures of waving grass in The New World. There are many ideas here, so it isn't a fast read, but there are a lot of interesting stories in this broader narrative, and much that will leave you thinking. Put this with David Price's Love and Hate in Jamestown as great reads on this subject.
January 26, 2019
A well researched, engrossing account of the early attempts at American colonization in Jamestown. Removing the usual mythology, author Joseph Kelly, brings the settlement, the surrounding areas and it's various occupants to life in clear, sometimes gruesome detail. For everyone interested in early colonial history.
"As in Jamestown, the truly American story is the lives of the discontents. We need to discard that image of a city shining on a hill, because it is populated by a pure and uncontaminated chosen people cleaving to a doctrine. Our city does not shine. It is messy. It is the nature of a free society." Joseph Kelly. Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America's Origin.
"As in Jamestown, the truly American story is the lives of the discontents. We need to discard that image of a city shining on a hill, because it is populated by a pure and uncontaminated chosen people cleaving to a doctrine. Our city does not shine. It is messy. It is the nature of a free society." Joseph Kelly. Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America's Origin.
April 27, 2021
More like 3.5 stars, but I'll round up because it's overall very readable. I've read many books on Jamestown, which is one of my favorite historical topics. I've always preferred the story of Jamestown to that of Plymouth, a bit of a mess and all too human, instead of the stick in the mud, dour, kind of awful Puritans, so was really looking forward to this new analysis. It's not bad, but not great. I do really liked that someone finally called John Smith a tyrant.
I have 3.5 complaints, though. One - Kelly has many multi-page digressions. Sometimes, these digressions are at least tangentially relevant to the story of Jamestown. Often, not so much. The reader is treated to a mini-biography or history lesson of a irrelevant character or historical incident that adds nothing to the understanding of Jamestown. Instead, these episodes seem to function as a way for Kelly to lecture on a pet topic. Second - Kelly overstretched himself considerably, suggesting incidents related to Jamestown that he does not have the evidence to support. For the vast majority of individuals who were in Jamestown during that time, we simply have no documented evidence for how people felt or what they said. Kelly doesn't let that stop him, often stating that specific individuals did something, said something, or felt something that he has no way of knowing this, or if he does, he does not document it. I find this very disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. If an author wants to speculate, that's fine but the author should be clear in the text about what the evidence says and what the author extrapolates from the evidence. Third - Kelly's "New History" is an analysis of Jamestown with a focus on politics and government, which I personally find as interesting as watching paint dry. He goes to some length to suggest that Jamestown, and the incidents in Bermuda related to Jamestown, represent a political awakening in the colonists. He uses many unnecessary digressions (see point one above) and outruns his evidence (see point two above) on a topic that some may find interesting but I did not.
My half a complaint is about Kelly's lack of critical analysis regarding John Smith's narrative accounts, all of which were written after the fact, and at least one many years after the fact. Some of the other first had accounts are evaluated for accuracy and confounding influences, but Smith's is not. Which is surprising as other histories of Jamestown go to some lengths to evaluate the discrepancies in Smith's recollections. I found this a curious omission.
I have 3.5 complaints, though. One - Kelly has many multi-page digressions. Sometimes, these digressions are at least tangentially relevant to the story of Jamestown. Often, not so much. The reader is treated to a mini-biography or history lesson of a irrelevant character or historical incident that adds nothing to the understanding of Jamestown. Instead, these episodes seem to function as a way for Kelly to lecture on a pet topic. Second - Kelly overstretched himself considerably, suggesting incidents related to Jamestown that he does not have the evidence to support. For the vast majority of individuals who were in Jamestown during that time, we simply have no documented evidence for how people felt or what they said. Kelly doesn't let that stop him, often stating that specific individuals did something, said something, or felt something that he has no way of knowing this, or if he does, he does not document it. I find this very disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. If an author wants to speculate, that's fine but the author should be clear in the text about what the evidence says and what the author extrapolates from the evidence. Third - Kelly's "New History" is an analysis of Jamestown with a focus on politics and government, which I personally find as interesting as watching paint dry. He goes to some length to suggest that Jamestown, and the incidents in Bermuda related to Jamestown, represent a political awakening in the colonists. He uses many unnecessary digressions (see point one above) and outruns his evidence (see point two above) on a topic that some may find interesting but I did not.
My half a complaint is about Kelly's lack of critical analysis regarding John Smith's narrative accounts, all of which were written after the fact, and at least one many years after the fact. Some of the other first had accounts are evaluated for accuracy and confounding influences, but Smith's is not. Which is surprising as other histories of Jamestown go to some lengths to evaluate the discrepancies in Smith's recollections. I found this a curious omission.
February 21, 2020
The grumpus23 (23-word commentary) Doomed from the start due to the English caste system. Cross between prison and Donner party. Worried if aliens ever come to earth.
May 25, 2025
From the little that is documented about the first English settlement in America, Kelly has stretched an entire book. His overall verdict is that the incredibly inept leadership, strong class divisions, and total ignorance of the locale all contributed to a disaster waiting to happen.
The first Jamestown expedition was completely unprepared for the situation. John Smith, although far from the hero we learned about in school, was at least a strong military commander and was willing to learn from the local Native Americans. The subsequent leaders had twisted views of society and their own importance, typical of the gentleman Englishman at that time.
It was very sad to read about the working-class volunteers who ended up virtual slaves, literally starving to death while their "betters" had enough food and shelter to stay healthy. The most interesting part of that topic was how starvation affects victims psychologically.
The story isn't all so brutal. The shipwreck of the Sea Venture and the time on Bermuda was actually a walk in the park compared to fellow travelers who made it to Jamestown. And the later years at the settlement were somewhat kinder and gentler.
As you can imagine, there is plenty of time allocated to related topics to give the reader more background. The audiobook was deftly narrated by Bob Souer. I do wish I had access to the bibliography that I assume followed the narrative, so I will borrow the ebook in the near future for that.
The first Jamestown expedition was completely unprepared for the situation. John Smith, although far from the hero we learned about in school, was at least a strong military commander and was willing to learn from the local Native Americans. The subsequent leaders had twisted views of society and their own importance, typical of the gentleman Englishman at that time.
It was very sad to read about the working-class volunteers who ended up virtual slaves, literally starving to death while their "betters" had enough food and shelter to stay healthy. The most interesting part of that topic was how starvation affects victims psychologically.
The story isn't all so brutal. The shipwreck of the Sea Venture and the time on Bermuda was actually a walk in the park compared to fellow travelers who made it to Jamestown. And the later years at the settlement were somewhat kinder and gentler.
As you can imagine, there is plenty of time allocated to related topics to give the reader more background. The audiobook was deftly narrated by Bob Souer. I do wish I had access to the bibliography that I assume followed the narrative, so I will borrow the ebook in the near future for that.
June 24, 2020
Kelly's book includes so many messy wonderful and horrible details and narratives that do not make it into our school textbooks. Did we learn that the 'commoners' who signed up for the voyage to the Virginia thought they would be landowners with some autonomy, at least as much as they would have enjoyed in England, but were treated like slaves by The Company and its aristocratic elites? No, we did not. And did we learn that with John Smith out of the way, said elites made a kakistocracy of the settlement? That they began the Anglo genocide that commenced and gathered horrible speed? That the colonists who were wisest escaped, to become the 'marooned' who lived with Native Americans? No. No one taught us any of that, let alone how despicably our founding English 'fathers' behaved. Kelly writes in support of democracy, and people choosing their own destiny as much as possible. He takes the traditional blame off the settlers' laziness and puts it where it squarely belongs. He speaks up for democracy and against theocratic oppression. Though set in the origins of U.S. history, 'Marooned' is very timely, because democracy is once again threatened in 2020 by proponents of kakistocracy and theocracy.
February 27, 2020
This thorough study of the first English settlements on the James River is vivid and enlightening. Kelley's thesis that we must look beyond the few leaders identified in the firsthand accounts to see the impact of the larger population of unknown commoners is fascinating and leads to a richer and deeper understanding of the origins of American society. The mostly nameless commoners, or 'maroons' as Kelley dubs them, form the bedrock of his narrative even though the voices belong to men of 'higher' station who wrote the primary sources that provide our information about the colony. The founding chronicles of James Fort and its 'cousin' settlement, the accidental colony on St. George's Island, Bermuda, are desperately horrifying tales to us. Simply recounting events would convince any rational reader of the cruelty and prejudices of the settlers, but Kelley drums it into your head with a fervor that would make the odious Governor Percy proud. I suspect he felt compelled to do so to avoid falling afoul of a PC editor, and the repetition does no real harm. In spite of this minor flaw, this book is an important contribution to general history on the subject that provides a fresh interpretation of events. As Kelley notes, it is unfortunate that so few of the common settlers left any trace in the records. One who did, Stephen Hopkins, serves as the perfect marker and symbol of Kelley's thesis. Born in Hampshire c. 1581, he survived shipwreck and deprivation in two colonies to return to England only to embark again and settle at Plymouth. By the time he died a modestly successful innkeeper in 1644, Hopkins was living in one of the new societies created by Kelley's 'maroons' - not a democracy, but not the rigid patriarchy of the Old World either. Plymouth, like Jamestown, was a hybrid evolving in ways its founders never envisioned. How the tyranny of James Fort gave way to George Yeardley's 'new instructions,' then the Great Charter of 1619 and the Mayflower Compact is a fascinating story that reminds us freedom is difficult, dangerous and messy. How fortunate we are to live in the nation built by those 'maroons' and not in some mythical City on the Hill - highly recommended.
July 19, 2024
Those five stars of this review don't often total that high in my judgement. But Kelly's thesis, that the "Symarones' or "cimarron" maroons marooned in the Americans, whites and blacks, indigenous and mixed, all constitute a founding better suited than a Puritan city on a hill convinces.
I happen to be one of the many descendants of Stephen Hopkins, my 10th g-grandfather, who plays a role one of many mutinies alleged by their "betters" of the common folk in this narrative. Kelly reminds us of wealth disparity, as 2% owned most, and that the "gentlemen" were not welcoming of upstarts however nouveau-riche, into their ranks. He diminishes the supposedly proto-egalitarian cant in such as Shakespeare's "The Tempest" as instead an indication of the disdain heaped on the ordinary folk who sought to overturn the system. Kelly shows that anyone seeking then to climb a social ladder had to do so with, rather than against, the connivance of the "betters."
His analysis of Jamestown's modelling of this attempt to provide, in its flailing, failing state, a semblance of rights granted the individual out of human rather than regal identity does dive deep into the details. But he reads the many extant accounts, inevitably by the elite victors, with care to support his argument. He carefully notes where they differ, where they betray class bias, and how they engender prejudice, as well as how much of the arrangements were attempted on quasi-military rather than "commonwealth" models, as the "gentlemen" tended not to share all with those who'd wind up indentured upon landing in the New World. He's also keen on opening up Robert White's notion of a "middle ground" where much more intercourse in many senses of the term happened between natives and colonists. This also weakens the attempts of the 1619 Project types who strive to draw firmer lines between races and ethnicities and classes than the truth shows. I found finally that Kelly's skillful at apt metaphors and examples to make his points clear.
I happen to be one of the many descendants of Stephen Hopkins, my 10th g-grandfather, who plays a role one of many mutinies alleged by their "betters" of the common folk in this narrative. Kelly reminds us of wealth disparity, as 2% owned most, and that the "gentlemen" were not welcoming of upstarts however nouveau-riche, into their ranks. He diminishes the supposedly proto-egalitarian cant in such as Shakespeare's "The Tempest" as instead an indication of the disdain heaped on the ordinary folk who sought to overturn the system. Kelly shows that anyone seeking then to climb a social ladder had to do so with, rather than against, the connivance of the "betters."
His analysis of Jamestown's modelling of this attempt to provide, in its flailing, failing state, a semblance of rights granted the individual out of human rather than regal identity does dive deep into the details. But he reads the many extant accounts, inevitably by the elite victors, with care to support his argument. He carefully notes where they differ, where they betray class bias, and how they engender prejudice, as well as how much of the arrangements were attempted on quasi-military rather than "commonwealth" models, as the "gentlemen" tended not to share all with those who'd wind up indentured upon landing in the New World. He's also keen on opening up Robert White's notion of a "middle ground" where much more intercourse in many senses of the term happened between natives and colonists. This also weakens the attempts of the 1619 Project types who strive to draw firmer lines between races and ethnicities and classes than the truth shows. I found finally that Kelly's skillful at apt metaphors and examples to make his points clear.
December 6, 2019
Fascinating description of what a 1600s shipwreck was like, and the founding of the United States from the point of view of the common man. "The real origin of America is not embodied in the myth we cherish of the Pilgrims. It resides in the lives of innkeepers, the servants who drank and the inns, and the diggers-up-of roots, the card players, the fornicators, those who trucked with Indians, the defiers of tyranny, the idlers, the disobedient, the victims of witch hunters, the deserters and exiles and escapees and all the great variety of the maroons who demanded the world of the right of self determination.
April 14, 2019
A very enjoyable and educational book. Kelly points to Jamestown as a key component of American national identity as it is a place where settlers were forced to reconsider their previously accepted feudal relationships with their lords and leaders. Some found ways to create new societies with the local Native Americans, others disappeared into the woods. The new reality provided means to create evolved political units. While the powers that be eventually curtailed these early experiments, the imprint on the culture held firm.
August 18, 2019
"Marooned" turns most of the myths surrounding our founding on their heads. The cruelty of the early 17th Century is hard to bear at times, but hard truths make good lessons. Every serious student of American history should read this book.
December 2, 2019
One of the most interesting and well crafted books I've read this year. Will definitely use to reshape my early American history lecture.
February 17, 2021
This book is essentially a combination of Philbrick's Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War and Hobson Woodward's A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Kelly traces the history of the exploration and colonization of Jamestown, and, to a larger degree, all of the Americas. He makes the argument that early American colonial history is filled with groups of maroons... people who are either cast off from mainstream society, or make the decision to opt out. He provides examples of slave communities in Central and South America, Jamestown colonists leaving to join Native tribes when things got bad, and stranded shipwreck survivors in Bermuda resisting the colonial leadership.
He further argues that by intentionally marooning themselves, these early discontents were demonstrating their desire to make an America that was different, and more democratic, than the old world.
Some of his ideas are thought provoking, but he also recycles some old scholarship, like the Turner thesis on the frontier.
A couple of things that cause a slight score reduction. 1) The pictures are appropriate, but small in size and of poor quality, so they aren't very effective. This is likely a publisher's decision in order to reduce costs, but it does kind of defeat the purpose of having some of these pictures. 2) The book is about 50 pages longer than it should be to effectively argue its points. In some places he meanders off into unrelated points of trivia like a literary study of Shakespeare's Tempest. Granted, the story is likely inspired by the shipwreck on Bermuda, but the literary study elements are not necessary here and don't add anything to his argument about maroons and their impact on the new world.
Overall, this was an easy reading book. It's clear that the author spent a lot of time researching a variety of sources, but there are a few things that need to be cleaned up in order for the book to be truly great.
Kelly traces the history of the exploration and colonization of Jamestown, and, to a larger degree, all of the Americas. He makes the argument that early American colonial history is filled with groups of maroons... people who are either cast off from mainstream society, or make the decision to opt out. He provides examples of slave communities in Central and South America, Jamestown colonists leaving to join Native tribes when things got bad, and stranded shipwreck survivors in Bermuda resisting the colonial leadership.
He further argues that by intentionally marooning themselves, these early discontents were demonstrating their desire to make an America that was different, and more democratic, than the old world.
Some of his ideas are thought provoking, but he also recycles some old scholarship, like the Turner thesis on the frontier.
A couple of things that cause a slight score reduction. 1) The pictures are appropriate, but small in size and of poor quality, so they aren't very effective. This is likely a publisher's decision in order to reduce costs, but it does kind of defeat the purpose of having some of these pictures. 2) The book is about 50 pages longer than it should be to effectively argue its points. In some places he meanders off into unrelated points of trivia like a literary study of Shakespeare's Tempest. Granted, the story is likely inspired by the shipwreck on Bermuda, but the literary study elements are not necessary here and don't add anything to his argument about maroons and their impact on the new world.
Overall, this was an easy reading book. It's clear that the author spent a lot of time researching a variety of sources, but there are a few things that need to be cleaned up in order for the book to be truly great.
November 15, 2019
Author Joseph Kelly tells a unique story about the origin of our country. In school, we learn about Jamestown and Plymouth, but it's pretty much always the story of the quest for religious freedom. Mr. Kelly widens the lens to bring into focus the idea of the "marooned" -- those who made it to shore, but whose overriding desire was for freedom of commerce and freedom of destiny, even freedom from the prevailing religion. The "maroons," he calls them.
The early colonies were funded by corporations that were conglomerates of stockholders who backed the venture in return for profit. The colonists, then, were essentially company men and women who were supposed to break their backs to enrich the pockets of the stockholders. When they got to Jamestown -- and Bermuda! oops! of all places -- some of the marooned decided they wanted to strike out on their own rather than be slaves of their remote overlords. And maybe free themselves from the tyranny of the Puritanical leadership of the new country in the process. The radical ideas of America's Declaration of Independence, Mr. Kelly says, were evident in the early days of the Jamestown colony.
Historical records of the time generally came from those in power -- the men in charge of the colonies and tasked with working the colonists on behalf of the corporations -- so those who rebelled have largely been depicted as lazy and deserving of the privations and starvation they suffered. Mr. Kelly has dug deeper, to get to accounts of the colonies that come from commoners. "The true story of what happened at Jamestown has been buried deep," he says. "The history of Jamestown was recorded by upper-class gentlemen who... looked at the common settler, the Company's low-level employees, ... as a resource to be manipulated."
This is a highly readable book, not the kind of textbook you remember from school. The anecdotes are fresh and revealing, and the author's research deep and thoughtfully analyzed. I would recommend that you read this book along with another new title, Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught between Cultures in Early Virginia, by Karen Ordahl Kupperman. It examines the colonies' exchange of young people between Native Americans and the colonists for cultural and strategic purposes.
The early colonies were funded by corporations that were conglomerates of stockholders who backed the venture in return for profit. The colonists, then, were essentially company men and women who were supposed to break their backs to enrich the pockets of the stockholders. When they got to Jamestown -- and Bermuda! oops! of all places -- some of the marooned decided they wanted to strike out on their own rather than be slaves of their remote overlords. And maybe free themselves from the tyranny of the Puritanical leadership of the new country in the process. The radical ideas of America's Declaration of Independence, Mr. Kelly says, were evident in the early days of the Jamestown colony.
Historical records of the time generally came from those in power -- the men in charge of the colonies and tasked with working the colonists on behalf of the corporations -- so those who rebelled have largely been depicted as lazy and deserving of the privations and starvation they suffered. Mr. Kelly has dug deeper, to get to accounts of the colonies that come from commoners. "The true story of what happened at Jamestown has been buried deep," he says. "The history of Jamestown was recorded by upper-class gentlemen who... looked at the common settler, the Company's low-level employees, ... as a resource to be manipulated."
This is a highly readable book, not the kind of textbook you remember from school. The anecdotes are fresh and revealing, and the author's research deep and thoughtfully analyzed. I would recommend that you read this book along with another new title, Pocahontas and the English Boys: Caught between Cultures in Early Virginia, by Karen Ordahl Kupperman. It examines the colonies' exchange of young people between Native Americans and the colonists for cultural and strategic purposes.
July 12, 2024
Overall, Kelly gives a decent view of English America’s Jamestown settlement. The biggest constraint of this book is its persistence in disorganization. You are jumping to different areas on the globe and to disparate people far too often which causes a distinct fragmentation in the narrative. At times I was asking myself what in the hell was going on.
Nevertheless, the aim of the book is made more salient in conclusion chapter where Kelly foments the commonplace Plymouth Rock origin story in favor of the ruffled English experience at Jamestown.
In some sense, this is an overdue argument. However, the more you read about Jamestown the more you see that it was not the origin story in the sense of a body politic that organized modern American ideals and government. There were certainly fragments of American political history to be found in Stephen Hopkins and Henry Paine—much being discernible in the season of shipwreck at Bermuda—though seemingly all of that was stifled by the tyrannical possessors of Jamestown.
Jamestown had discontented settlers who were oft separated between gentlemen and laborers. It had the ambiance of an open air prison than a fortuitous settlement where the laborers would be subject to formal correction if they didn’t abide by the rules set by the charters. Defectors combined with the neighboring natives for purposes of mere survival as Jamestown was at no point a formidable success. The ubiquitous John Smith probably led the most… ehh successful?… period of the settlement. Which even then was met with harsh criticism, opposition, and defecting.
The most pertinent aspect of this read was the expectation versus reality. For instance, Pocahontas and John Smith had far less grasp on the conscience than did the romanticized, fiction of Disney’s film in the 1990s. Of course the Disney film fantasized much of its plot and framed the many peoples in the form of contemporary biases and prejudices. Additionally, I expected to hear a convincing narrative of the origins of American politics and ideas, but it was more so that this was a Roanoke story of mere survival than anything else.
Nevertheless, the aim of the book is made more salient in conclusion chapter where Kelly foments the commonplace Plymouth Rock origin story in favor of the ruffled English experience at Jamestown.
In some sense, this is an overdue argument. However, the more you read about Jamestown the more you see that it was not the origin story in the sense of a body politic that organized modern American ideals and government. There were certainly fragments of American political history to be found in Stephen Hopkins and Henry Paine—much being discernible in the season of shipwreck at Bermuda—though seemingly all of that was stifled by the tyrannical possessors of Jamestown.
Jamestown had discontented settlers who were oft separated between gentlemen and laborers. It had the ambiance of an open air prison than a fortuitous settlement where the laborers would be subject to formal correction if they didn’t abide by the rules set by the charters. Defectors combined with the neighboring natives for purposes of mere survival as Jamestown was at no point a formidable success. The ubiquitous John Smith probably led the most… ehh successful?… period of the settlement. Which even then was met with harsh criticism, opposition, and defecting.
The most pertinent aspect of this read was the expectation versus reality. For instance, Pocahontas and John Smith had far less grasp on the conscience than did the romanticized, fiction of Disney’s film in the 1990s. Of course the Disney film fantasized much of its plot and framed the many peoples in the form of contemporary biases and prejudices. Additionally, I expected to hear a convincing narrative of the origins of American politics and ideas, but it was more so that this was a Roanoke story of mere survival than anything else.
November 30, 2020
Super fascinating. Obviously, I'm well versed in the Mayflower/Pilgrims/Plymouth Rock story that makes its way through schools from like 2nd grade on. With some of my ancestors having arrived on the Mayflower, it has captivated my imagination.
But so has Jamestown. Actually, it probably has more so.
Disney's Pocahontas is, while definitely problematic, at least a decent frame of reference for some of the characters and interactions. Pocahontas and John Smith (especially him) are huge people to watch in this book, as is Governor Ratcliffe, who is kind of as jerkish as his Disney counterpart. (Though Smith's no hero either.) The Powhatans/Tsenacomocoans are definitely interesting as well. And can I say I spelled that off of memory and I'm pretty sure I did it right?
What makes this book unique is its fundamental interest in looking at this particular moment in history through the lens of those who did not record this history. Many of the stories were written by Smith and William Strachey, both gentlemen and Men In Charge, if you will. The London Company wrote and printed many pamphlets as well. But the common working sort, the settlers, the Native Americans, did not necessarily have their stories recorded. Not exactly. And this book takes aim at that. I really respected the conclusions it reached, particularly relating to the reactions of settlers to the overbearing, oppressive rule of their leaders. The psychology involved here was utterly fascinating and it was not hard for me to immediately see how it crops up in my life.
Most of the story is, obviously, about Jamestown, but it focuses on other shipwrecks and maroonings as well. There's a lot about Sir Francis Drake and his befriending of maroons in Panama. There's a lot about Roanoke and the slave trade and the West Indies. It's about freedom, and getting it any way you can. And that was weirdly inspiring.
But so has Jamestown. Actually, it probably has more so.
Disney's Pocahontas is, while definitely problematic, at least a decent frame of reference for some of the characters and interactions. Pocahontas and John Smith (especially him) are huge people to watch in this book, as is Governor Ratcliffe, who is kind of as jerkish as his Disney counterpart. (Though Smith's no hero either.) The Powhatans/Tsenacomocoans are definitely interesting as well. And can I say I spelled that off of memory and I'm pretty sure I did it right?
What makes this book unique is its fundamental interest in looking at this particular moment in history through the lens of those who did not record this history. Many of the stories were written by Smith and William Strachey, both gentlemen and Men In Charge, if you will. The London Company wrote and printed many pamphlets as well. But the common working sort, the settlers, the Native Americans, did not necessarily have their stories recorded. Not exactly. And this book takes aim at that. I really respected the conclusions it reached, particularly relating to the reactions of settlers to the overbearing, oppressive rule of their leaders. The psychology involved here was utterly fascinating and it was not hard for me to immediately see how it crops up in my life.
Most of the story is, obviously, about Jamestown, but it focuses on other shipwrecks and maroonings as well. There's a lot about Sir Francis Drake and his befriending of maroons in Panama. There's a lot about Roanoke and the slave trade and the West Indies. It's about freedom, and getting it any way you can. And that was weirdly inspiring.
December 4, 2025
Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America’s Origin by Joseph Kelly is the story of the early days of the English settlement at Jamestown and the shipwreck of one of Jamestown's early supply ships, the Sea Venture, in Bermuda. Kelly's premise is that Jamestown and the Bermuda shipwreck survivors were basically marooned because of their long distance from England, forcing them to live by their wits and ingenuity.
Kelly points out that Jamestown, rather than Plymouth, Massachusetts, was the original American colony. History apparently tends to give more attention to Plymouth because it was in the North, but Jamestown preceded it by 13 years, 1607 as opposed to 1620. There aren't a lot of famous names associated with Jamestown, but John Smith and Pocahontas are fairly well known in history. Kelly highlights many not so famous personalities that played a role in the early days of Jamestown and Bermuda, including Stephen Hopkins, William Strachey, Thomas Gates, George Percy, and Wahunsonacock, chief of the Algonquians living around Jamestown.
Kelly develops a repetitive theme in this book that Jamestown and the Bermuda shipwreck colony were progenitors of the American ideals of democracy and meritocracy, because the old English nobility system was being questioned by the early colonists who had common roots. I am not so sure of this premise, since the colony was largely governed by the English aristocrats, but the author seems to be enamored of this idea.
Overall, Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America’s Origin is a very interesting book about the early days of Jamestown and the founding of America. The hardships endured by the colonists, the relations they had with Native Americans, and the constant infighting for leadership positions makes for a very entertaining reading experience.
Kelly points out that Jamestown, rather than Plymouth, Massachusetts, was the original American colony. History apparently tends to give more attention to Plymouth because it was in the North, but Jamestown preceded it by 13 years, 1607 as opposed to 1620. There aren't a lot of famous names associated with Jamestown, but John Smith and Pocahontas are fairly well known in history. Kelly highlights many not so famous personalities that played a role in the early days of Jamestown and Bermuda, including Stephen Hopkins, William Strachey, Thomas Gates, George Percy, and Wahunsonacock, chief of the Algonquians living around Jamestown.
Kelly develops a repetitive theme in this book that Jamestown and the Bermuda shipwreck colony were progenitors of the American ideals of democracy and meritocracy, because the old English nobility system was being questioned by the early colonists who had common roots. I am not so sure of this premise, since the colony was largely governed by the English aristocrats, but the author seems to be enamored of this idea.
Overall, Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America’s Origin is a very interesting book about the early days of Jamestown and the founding of America. The hardships endured by the colonists, the relations they had with Native Americans, and the constant infighting for leadership positions makes for a very entertaining reading experience.
May 2, 2019
Forget the idea mentioned in the blurb that Jamestown rather than Plymouth was the real origin of America. That's probably publisher's hype, and there is plenty of room for both origin stories. I sometimes teach many of the underlying documents that Kelly is making reference to, and the really interesting part of this history is his explication of the ways in which new conditions in the New World were leading English settlers away from ideas of hereditary nobility and privilege to something more egalitarian, meritocratic, and entrepreneurial. That same thing was happening in slightly different ways in New England.
Why only four stars? Well, Kelly spends more time tracing the events than probably was needed, but this might be a flaw in me as less than ideal reader, as I know much of this stuff already.
Incidentally, Kelly is not alone in his conclusions, is paying attention to many scholars' work over the last decades that moved toward attention to the lives of ordinary people and enabled a more realistic and finer-grained account of settlement. John Smith is the closest thing we get to a star here, and Kelly pays considerable attention to Smith, but he never seems to go too far in making Smith his model for the evolving American.
Why only four stars? Well, Kelly spends more time tracing the events than probably was needed, but this might be a flaw in me as less than ideal reader, as I know much of this stuff already.
Incidentally, Kelly is not alone in his conclusions, is paying attention to many scholars' work over the last decades that moved toward attention to the lives of ordinary people and enabled a more realistic and finer-grained account of settlement. John Smith is the closest thing we get to a star here, and Kelly pays considerable attention to Smith, but he never seems to go too far in making Smith his model for the evolving American.
January 30, 2022
3.5 stars.
I found this a fun, readable walkthrough of the history of the early years of England exploring and settling in the area of Jamestown, including how those people interacted with those nations and people who were already living in the area prior to European settlement.
I probably came at this in a bit different a background from most: I live about an hour's drive from Jamestown, but I grew up in Canada, so my formal education did not include much focus on Jamestown or anything else related to English exploration of and settlement in what is now the United States: what we learned of that time related mostly to the area that would become Canada.
All of that is to say that I'm not the best judge of the information Joseph Kelly includes, but I appreciated that it was engagingly told, while including many footnotes about the sources behind the story. If you're reading this for pleasure, like I was, the footnotes aren't likely to be important to you, but I almost saw each one as a gentle nudge to remind me: this is history, not a novel.
I found this a fun, readable walkthrough of the history of the early years of England exploring and settling in the area of Jamestown, including how those people interacted with those nations and people who were already living in the area prior to European settlement.
I probably came at this in a bit different a background from most: I live about an hour's drive from Jamestown, but I grew up in Canada, so my formal education did not include much focus on Jamestown or anything else related to English exploration of and settlement in what is now the United States: what we learned of that time related mostly to the area that would become Canada.
All of that is to say that I'm not the best judge of the information Joseph Kelly includes, but I appreciated that it was engagingly told, while including many footnotes about the sources behind the story. If you're reading this for pleasure, like I was, the footnotes aren't likely to be important to you, but I almost saw each one as a gentle nudge to remind me: this is history, not a novel.
September 3, 2023
In Marooned Joseph Kelly attempts to dissect the events surrounding the founding of Jamestown in 1607. John Smith, Pocahontas, John Rolfe, William Strachey, Wahunsonacock and the Tsenacomoco empire are all revisited. Bermuda is a marooned place of refuge for a Jamestown-bound shipwreck and John Smith is overthrown ushering in a period of chaos and near destruction. Relations with local Indians seesaw between friendly cooperation and savage competition. Dozens of English settlers flee what Kelly calls a slave concentration camp for Indian villages and integration. Jamestown barely survives , with 13 insurrections in its first four years, but marks the first English colony on the American continent, achieving success when Rolfe refined tobacco as an export crop. Slavery follows shortly thereafter. The American myth glosses over the autocratic nature of both Jamestown and Plymouth. The former a company controlled system of servitude and the latter a dogmatic theocracy seeking freedom only for itself. Thought provoking and fascinating history.
June 8, 2023
This was a really well-researched and written history of the Jamestown settlement beginning with the formation of the Virginia Company in London. What is good about this version is that it is told from the perspective of the common man who came to Jamestown, not the Gentry who ruled with an iron fist. The commoners were no better than slaves. Called to muster-roll twice a day, assigned to work "gangs", forced to attend church even when they were exhausted, and they were fearful of Indians. The story of the shipwreck on Bermuda with the 3rd supply ship also was fascinating. I had never heard this before. This is pure history but reads more like a novel. It was not a fast read for me as I had to digest all the new information. I am planning to keep this book just for the huge bibliography, resources, and notes at the end.
October 23, 2024
Fascinating and well written history of the momentum of practical matters and corruption which founded democracy. I found the information eye-opening and impressive in its depth. This work enlarged my understanding of the manipulation of the indigenous American people and the laborers(settlers) transported to the new world in a manner which is never taught in school.
The charming myth of the founding of the United States was debunked as deliberate brainwashing for economic gains. This is unique lens for viewing America's evolution as well as revolution against the status quo. It is interesting to see the building blocks of contracts and democracy in this extensively researched work.
I highly recommend Marooned to all readers deeply intrigued by American History as well as those beginners who would appreciates starting place with a well-founded perspective.
The charming myth of the founding of the United States was debunked as deliberate brainwashing for economic gains. This is unique lens for viewing America's evolution as well as revolution against the status quo. It is interesting to see the building blocks of contracts and democracy in this extensively researched work.
I highly recommend Marooned to all readers deeply intrigued by American History as well as those beginners who would appreciates starting place with a well-founded perspective.
August 31, 2022
A kind of counterpart to Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower, this book is about the early days of the Jamestown settlement, beginning in 1609. Woefully unprepared, conditions were rough in Jamestown with the settlers alternately negotiating with and trying to eliminate the indigenous population, even as many decamped to live with the Algonquians. Chaos and mutiny prevailed. Meanwhile, the Third Supply was shipwrecked in Bermuda, with the lower caste experiencing similar tyranny from their leaders. Some disappeared into the woods, and eventually the crew built new ships and made their way to Jamestown.
The author theorizes that the seeds of democracy grew from this decidedly undemocratic society. The last two pages of the book provide an inspirational summary of this.
The author theorizes that the seeds of democracy grew from this decidedly undemocratic society. The last two pages of the book provide an inspirational summary of this.
July 13, 2023
Well done! What a well-researched historical account! I appreciated learning interesting, new information - such as the concept of marooning, the fact that there were Native Americas aboard the Sea Venture, and the power dynamic after the shipwreck. Fascinating insights and illuminating details. The people of Jamestown were definitely NOT a monolith - lots of varied personalities and and competing desires! Kelly has shed light on some incredible, brave souls in history who deserve our recognition and reverence, as possibly the original founders of the American experiment, well ahead of the American Revolution.
April 19, 2019
Marooned, Jamestown, shipwreck, and a new history of America's origin by Kelly_ Joseph
About the author and a summary of the book.
Starts with the ship and the storm as they are heading west, 1611.
7 ships have left England in 1609 for virginia. Lots of notes that are referenced but not included in this audio tape.
ust want to hear the story-not the notes. So much more it focuses on: shakesphre, JFK, etc
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
About the author and a summary of the book.
Starts with the ship and the storm as they are heading west, 1611.
7 ships have left England in 1609 for virginia. Lots of notes that are referenced but not included in this audio tape.
ust want to hear the story-not the notes. So much more it focuses on: shakesphre, JFK, etc
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
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