Description
Ever since Sir Walter Raleigh set out in 1595 to claim the ‘Beautiful Empire of Guiana’ for the English, crown adventurers have set off in search of their fortune. Now, in the lush landscape between the great Amazon and Orinoco rivers, a new colony is established, named after its founder – Sir Francis Willoughby. As planters and traders followed explorers, and mercenaries and soldiers followed political dissidents, it would become a place of terror and cruelty, of sugar and slavery. As Matthew Parker reveals, the history of Willoughbyland is a microcosm of the history of empire; its heady attractions and fatal dangers.