The Life and Accomplishments of Sir Walter Ralegh Essay -- American Am

The Life and Accomplishments of Sir Walter Ralegh Sir Walter Ralegh, unlike his Spanish counterparts, lusted for land not precious metals. Ralegh used the promise of gold to entice his investors and hire his crews, but his real goal was English colonization in the New World. He experimented first in Ireland with his brand of colonization which brutalized the existing inhabitance and exploited the natural resources. He wanted to establish English colonies in order to cultivate new products (tobacco, potato), to increase the power and prestige of the crown (Queen Elizabeth) and to spread the Protestant doctrine to the New World or at least export the unwanted English Catholics and other religious rogues from English soil. Ralegh achieved his goals by his political activity, military escapades and poetic writings. Ralegh's desire for land stems from his aristocratic background. Although his father was a squire in the sea side town of East Budleigh, Ralegh's immediate family owned no land. The estate that his father farmed, Hayes Barton, was leased. Ralegh's vantage point was one of privilege without the common commodity to support it: land ownership. He was a Renaissance man without the money to live like one. This duality between his heritage and his financial situation created, in Ralegh, a desire to own land.(Lacey, 16) His desire for the sea may have come from his half brothers John, Adrian and Humphrey Gilbert who were "sea-crazy youths".(Lacey, 17) His father, in addition to being a squire, was a religious leader for the devout Protestants in East Budleigh. This factor of Ralegh's upbringing may have contributed to his ideas of implanting Protestant people into new lands and shipping the unwanted Catholics out of Engla... ...thrown into the fire before your eyes; then your head to be strucken off from your body, and your body shall be divided into four quarters, to be disposed of at the King's pleasure; and God have mercy upon your soul." (Sale,245) Ralegh had died as he had lived: in a violent world where religion was an excuse for any action. Ralegh left his mark on history and on the worlds in which he collided. Bibliography 1. Lacey, Robert, Sir Walter Ralegh, Atheneum, New York, 1974 2. Pollard, A.F., The Political History of England, Greenwood Press Publishers, New York,1969 3. Rodriguez-Salgado, M.J., England, Spain and The Gran Armada, Barnes and Nobel Books,Savage Maryland, 1990 4. www.devon-cc.gov.uk/tourism/pages/woodbury/raleigh.html Sir Walter Raleigh, of Hayes Barton 5. Sale, Kirkpatrick, The Conquest of Paradise, First Plume Printing, New York, 1990