The Would-Be Wiapoco Adventurer
Attempts to colonize Guiana began on the Wiapoco (Oyapock) River, when Charles Leigh arrived in 1604 with less than a hundred men and a ludicrous plan to carve a plantation out of the jungle.
As the title of the Substack Money, Murder, and Martiall Lawe implies, successful adventurism required lots of financial support and authorization from the English government. The importance of money is intuitive -it’s where men and materiel come from- but it’s a little less obvious why permission matters. The sociologist Max Weber noted that the state’…
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