Sir Walter Ralegh in Trinidad and Guyana
Besides information on Christopher Columbus, the Caribbean Amerindian Centrelink endeavours to provide information on some of the other major European colonial adventurers who figured prominently not just in the recording of information on Caribbean Amerindian populations, but whose own interests also played a role, directly or indirectly, in shaping the (mis)fortunes of native polities. Sir Walter Ralegh, whose travels took him to encounters with the Amerindians of Trinidad and Guyana, was one of these prominent figures. Sir Robert Dudley and Sir Lawrence Keymis were two other British figures of similar importance, and information on them will be posted on the CAC as soon as more is available on the Internet.
DISCOVERY OF GUIANA. By Sir Walter Ralegh, 1595—Full text of book. Download for free. Click here for a Plain Text copy of the book.
Discoverers Web: An extraordinary collection of information by Andre Engels, with a vast series of links of numerous explorers.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sir Walter Raleigh, 1154-1618: Excerpt—“Raleigh also spelled RALEGH, English adventurer and writer, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, who knighted him in 1585. Accused of treason by Elizabeth's successor, James I, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and eventually put to death….Between 1584 and 1589 he had tried to establish a colony near Roanoke Island (in present North Carolina), which he named Virginia; but he never set foot there himself. In 1595 he led an expedition to what is now Guyana, in South America, sailing up the Orinoco River in the heart of Spain's colonial empire. He described the expedition in his book The Discoverie of Guiana (1596). Spanish documents and stories told by Indians had convinced him of the existence of Eldorado, a fabulous city of gold in the interior of South America. He did locate some gold mines, but no one supported his project for colonizing the area. In 1596 he went with Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, on an unsuccessful expedition against the Spanish city of Cádiz, and he was Essex' rear admiral on the Islands voyage, in 1597, an expedition to the Azores….He still hoped to exploit the wealth of Guyana, arguing that the country had been ceded to England by its native chiefs in 1595. With the King's permission, he financed and led a second expedition there, promising to open a gold mine without offending Spain. A severe fever prevented his leading his men upriver. His lieutenant, Lawrence Kemys, burned a Spanish settlement but found no gold. Raleigh's son Walter died in the action. King James invoked the suspended sentence of 1603, and in 1618, after writing a spirited defense of his acts, Raleigh was executed….”
Sir Walter Ralegh (1552-1618), Site by Anniina Jokinen: Includes—Quotes; Life of Sir Walter Ralegh - Jim Batten; The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh; Essays and Articles; Additional Sources; Ralegh at the Bookstore
"Raleigh's Tall Tales", by Kim Johnson, Trinidad Express, Sunday, 04 July, 1999: [look half way down this page to find the fifth article] "Despite the six-cent commemorative stamps issued in 1935, 1938 and 1953 by the colony of Trinidad and Tobago, Sir Walter Raleigh never claimed to have discovered the Pitch Lake. He knew that the aboriginal inhabitants of Trinidad were long familiar with the pitch lake-pitch is an Amerindian word….Yet his most outrageous tales were swallowed, such as that of the Ewaipanoma tribe, who 'have their eyes in their shoulders, and mouths in the middle of their breasts, and that a long train of hair groweth backward between their shoulders'…"
This page last updated: Saturday, 29 July, 2006