The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram : An Elizabethan Sailor in Native North America - Dean Snow

The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram

An Elizabethan Sailor in Native North America

By: Dean Snow

Hardcover | 5 May 2023

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In The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram, author Dean Snow rights the record on a shipwrecked sailor who traversed the length of the North American continent only to be maligned as deceitful storyteller.

In the autumn of 1569, a French ship rescued David Ingram and two other English sailors from the shore of the Gulf of Maine. The men had walked over 3000 miles in less than a year after being marooned near Tampico, Mexico. They were the only three men to escape alive and uncaptured, out of a hundred put ashore at the close of John Hawkins's disastrous third slaving expedition. A dozen years later, Ingram was called in for questioning by Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster. In 1589, the historian Richard Hakluyt published his version of Ingram's story based on the records of that interrogation. For four centuries historians have used that publication as evidence that Ingram was an egregious travel liar, an unreliable early source for information about the people of interior eastern North America before severe historic epidemics devastated them.

In The Extraordinary Journey of David Ingram, author and recognized archaeologist Dean Snow shows that Ingram was not a fraud, contradicting the longstanding narrative of his life. Snow's careful examination of three long-neglected surviving records of Ingram's interrogation reveals that the confusion in the 1589 publication was the result of disorganization by court recorders and poor editing by Richard Hakluyt. Restoration of Ingram's testimony has reinstated him as a trustworthy source on the peoples of West Africa, the Caribbean, and eastern North America in the middle sixteenth century. Ingram's life story, with his long traverse through North America at its core, can now finally be understood and appreciated for what it was: the tale of a unique, bold adventurer.
Industry Reviews
"A highly informative and smooth combination of biography and colonialism history, Snow's book both shines new light on a four-century-old discussion over Ingram's credibility and provides a much-needed new perspective to studying the Age of Discovery." -- World History Encyclopedia "The Elizabethan traveler David Ingram claimed to have walked from the Gulf of Mexico to coastal Canada, a journey that many over time have questioned. Here the renowned archaeologist Dean Snow, through an act of masterful archival sleuthing, has put his journey, which encompassed participation in the slave trade and early ethnographic observations, into a rich and memorable context." -- Peter C. Mancall, author of The Trials of Thomas Morton "In this deftly argued and elegantly written investigation into the travels and travails of David Ingram, Dean Snow argues that we can still learn a few things from the misunderstood shipwreck survivor, despite his mendacityDLand more than a few things from Professor Snow himself." -- Matthew Restall, author of Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest "With expert historical detective work, Dean Snow has recovered a compelling 'truth is stranger than fiction' story from early America. David Ingram's odyssey calls to mind the travels of Cabeza de Vaca and Sir Walter Raleigh and the other-worldly fantasy of The Tempest. It is an illuminating record of Elizabethan England's first tentative steps into the New World." -- Timothy J. Shannon, author of Indian Captive, Indian King "Cogent and well-documented, this is a valuable correction to the historical record." -- Publishers Weekly "Provides a rare glimpse of an Atlantic world on the cusp of profound transformations wrought, in part, by ordinary sailors like [Ingram]." -- Times Literary Supplement "Utilising his expertise in the anthropology and archaeology of North America, Snow has meticulously reconstructed Ingram's 3,600-mile journey along known 16th-century indigenous trails, and has also proved that everything Ingram said to his interrogators was true to the best of his knowledge and ability... Fascinating." -- History Today "Utilising his expertise in the anthropology and archaeology of North America, Snow has meticulously reconstructed Ingram's 3,600-mile journey along known 16th-century indigenous trails, and has also proved that everything Ingram said to his interrogators was true to the best of his knowledge and ability... Fascinating." -- History Today "Absorbing... Thanks to Dean Snow's impressive sleuthing, David Ingram's account can at last resume its proper place as an astonishing and true story." -- , Sea History "Snow has done good service to Ingram and to the wider understanding of the world of early Elizabethan mariners. At the very least, this book will provoke scholars to look with fresh eyes on the extraordinary journey of David Ingram." -- Cheryl Butler, International Journal of Maritime

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