Best defence

JON WILSON is swept up by a look at how diverse peoples worldwide reacted to British efforts to trade with, conquer, colonise and dominate their homelands

- JON WILSON

The Great Defiance: How the World Took on the British Empire

by David Veevers Ebury Press, 512 pages, £25

Manteo and Wanchese were pioneering explorers. Leading figures in the Algonquian community on Roanoke Island, on North America’s Atlantic coast, the two men were persuaded to sail to London after the first English mission to the region arrived in 1584. They were tasked by their chief, Wingina, with finding out as much as possible about the strangers. Though from similar backgrounds, their responses to their encounter with England could not have been more different.

Manteo was convinced that securing his people’s future meant working with the foreigners. After befriending Englishmen and learning English, he returned to North America as an interpreter and guide, helping English settlers navigate their often violent relationship with Algonquian society.

“Wanchese’s experience of England pushed him in the opposite direction,” writes David Veevers in his new book. Where Manteo anticipated collaboration, Wanchese saw an aggressive society that needed to be resisted at all costs. On returning to his homeland, he slipped away from the English. Over the next few years, he led the Roanokes in their defence against the English onslaught.

Between 1500 and 1800, people across the world were faced with the conundrum that confronted Manteo and Wanchese: how to react to the arrival of British explorers, merchants, warriors and bureaucrats. Veevers’ book tells the complex story of how these diverse peoples responded.