This text introduces students to both primary sources and analytical essays and is designed to encourage critical thinking about American colonial history. Each chapter contains an introduction, headnotes, and suggestions for further reading.

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The story of Roanoke is a tale marked by courage, miscalculation, exhilaration, intrigue, and enduring mystery. Now in its second edition, Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony tells the tragic and heroic story of the lost colony during the years between Columbus's voyages and the landing of the Mayflower. Award-winning historian Karen O. Kupperman brings to life the struggle of the settlers and the complex Native American cultures they encountered; and examines reasons for the colony's failure and what might have become of the first English settlers in the New World....