Published in 2018
10 hours and 1 minute
Jennifer Potter is author of four novels and five works of nonfiction, most recently Strange Blooms, The Rose: A True History, and Seven Flowers. As Royal Literary Fund (RFL) Consultant Fellow, she inspires good writing among doctoral students and younger academics, and she was recently appointed one of the first RLF Fellows at the British Library.
What is this book about?
In 1621, 57 women undertook a three-month journey to Jamestown after responding to an advert placed by the Virginia Company, looking for wives for its tobacco planters in the New Colony.
They travelled of their own free will, but the Company was effectively selling them at a profit, having set a bride price of 150lbs of tobacco for each woman. But what did the women want? Why did they make the perilous Atlantic crossing to a dangerous land, where six out of seven European settlers died within a few years?
Using company records and contemporary accounts, Jennifer Potter gives the Jamestown brides their voice.
