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Willoughbyland

At the beginning of the 1650s, England was in ruins – wrecked by plague and civil war. Yet shimmering on the horizon was a vision of paradise: Willoughbyland. Ever since Sir Walter Ralegh set out in 1595 to claim the `Beautiful Empire of Guiana` for the English crown – and to find the legendary city of El Dorado – adventurers had struggled against the fierce jungle of the Wild Coast in search of their fortune. Now, in the lush landscape between the great Amazon and Orinoco rivers, a group of Cavaliers, expelled by Oliver Cromwell, had established a new colony named after its founder – Sir Francis Willoughby. This is the untold story of Willoughbyland`s spectacular rise and fall, set at a pivotal moment in British and world history. Here are the indigenous `Indian kings` and their people, both friend and foe to the new arrivals. Here is Fifth Baron Willoughby himself, like his colony a mass of contradictory extremes. And here is Aphra Behn – later one of the most successful dramatists of the Restoration stage – sent to spy on a man with whom she will fall in love, transforming the fate of this entire enterprise.In the blissfully warm and fragrant air, these adventurers and exiles found a land of unimaginable freedom and natural beauty. Yet, as planters and traders followed explorers, and mercenaries and soldiers followed political dissidents, it would become a place of terror and cruelty, of sugar and slavery. As Matthew Parker reveals, the history of Willoughbyland is a microcosm of the history of empire, its heady attractions and fatal dangers.

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