Virgin America for Barren England: English Colonial History and Literature, 1575–1635

The ‘virgin land’ metaphor that anthropomorphized the Americas as a fecund female was a prominent motif for colonization promoters in Renaissance England. Scholars have pointed to the misogynistic and racist tendencies of male English colonizers like Walter Ralegh when explaining the meaning of these comparisons, but England’s societal problems shed additional light upon the prominence of the allegory in colonial history. England’s growing poor population and reduced harvests created the necessity of acquiring fertile lands outside of the English metropole, so colonization advocates began likening desired territories to virgin women. Focusing on the domestic landscape amidst an examination of this established trope clarifies the meaning of these metaphors and presents avenues of further inquiry.