Historical Era:
Year Created: 1609
Historical Theme:
Categories of Documents:
Nova Britannia is a piece of the purest propaganda, a pamphlete representing the finiest in seventeenth-century marketing techniques. Its author is assumed to be one Robert Johnson, acting as a one-man public relations department for the Virginia Company, and its purpose was to recruit new investors. In addition to describing the natural bounty to be found in Virginia (so what if there is no gold?), and dismissed the reports of famine and disease that had already crossed the Atlantic (oh, that was all the colonists’ fault), Nova Britannia invokes the example of the Elizabeth and her ‘sea dogs,’ seeking to shame its readers into undertaking or undersigning this patriotic (if more than a little risky) expedition.
Source: Title page of Nova Brittania: offering most excellent fruits by planting in Virginia, illustrated with sailing ship. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2006683500/>.
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