The
Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island
in Dare County
in present-day North Carolina
was an enterprise financed and organized by
Sir Walter Raleigh. It was
carried out by Ralph Lane and Richard Grenville (Raleigh's cousin)
in the late 16th century to establish a permanent
English settlement in the
Virginia Colony. Between 1585 and 1587,
several groups attempted to establish a colony, but either
abandoned the settlement or disappeared. The final group of
colonists disappeared after three years elapsed without supplies
from the
Kingdom of England
during the
Anglo-Spanish War, leading
to the continuing mystery known as "The Lost Colony".
Raleigh receives rights to colonize
Sir Walter Raleigh had received a
charter
for the
colonization of the area of
North America known as
Virginia from
Queen
Elizabeth I of England.
The charter specified that Raleigh had ten years in which to
establish a settlement in
North
America or lose his right to colonization.
Raleigh and Elizabeth
intended that the venture should provide riches from the New World, and a base from which to send privateers on raids against the treasure fleets of
Spain
. Raleigh himself never visited North
America, although he led expeditions to South America in 1595 and
1617, seeking
El Dorado in the swamps of
the Orinoco River basin.
Exploration
In 1584, Raleigh dispatched an expedition to explore the eastern
coast of North America for an appropriate location.
It was led by Phillip
Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, who chose the Outer Banks
of modern North Carolina as an ideal location from which to raid the
Spanish, who had settlements to the south, and proceeded to make
contact with local Native Americans, the
Croatan tribe of the Carolina Algonquians.
First group of settlers
The
following spring, a colonizing expedition composed solely of men,
many of them veteran soldiers who had fought to establish English
rule in Ireland
, was sent to
establish the colony. The leader,
Sir Richard Grenville, was assigned to
explore the area further, establish the colony, and return to
England with news of the venture's success. The establishment of
the colony was initially postponed, perhaps because most of the
food stores were ruined when the lead ship struck a
shoal upon arrival at the Outer Banks. After the
initial exploration of the mainland coast and the native
settlements there, the natives in the village of Aquascogoc were
blamed for stealing a silver cup. In retaliation, the last village
visited was sacked and burned, and its
weroance (tribal chief)
executed by burning.
Despite this incident and a lack of food, Grenville decided to
leave
Ralph Lane and, with approximately
75 men, decided to establish the English colony at the north end of
Roanoke Island, promising to return in April 1586 with more men and
fresh supplies. They disembarked on August 17, 1585.
As April passed, there was no sign of Grenville's relief fleet.
The colony
was still in existence in June when Sir
Francis Drake paused on his way home from a successful raid in
the Caribbean
and offered to take the colonists back to England,
an offer they accepted. The relief fleet arrived shortly
after Drake's departure with the colonists.
Finding the colony
abandoned, Grenville returned to England with the bulk of his
force, leaving behind a small detachment both to maintain an
English presence and to protect Raleigh's claim to Virginia
.
Second group of settlers
In 1587, Raleigh dispatched another group of 117 colonists. They
were led by
John White, an
artist and friend of Raleigh who had accompanied the previous
expeditions to Roanoke. The new colonists were instructed to pick
up the fifteen men left at Roanoke and settling further north, in
the
Chesapeake Bay area; however, no
trace of them was found, other than the bones of a single man.
The one
local tribe still friendly towards the English, the Croatans on
present-day Hatteras
Island
, reported that the men had been attacked, but that
nine had survived and sailed up the coast in their
boat.
The
settlers landed on Roanoke
Island on July 22, 1587. On August 18, White's
daughter Eleanor gave birth to the first English child born in the
Americas,
Virginia Dare. Before her
birth, White re-established relations with the neighboring Croatans
and tried to re-establish relations with the tribes that Ralph Lane
had attacked a year previously. The aggrieved tribes refused to
meet the new colonists. Shortly thereafter, a colonist named George
Howe was killed by natives while searching for crabs alone in
Albemarle Sound. Knowing what had happened during Ralph Lane's
tenure in the area and fearing for their lives, the colonists
persuaded Governor White to return to England to explain the
colony's situation and ask for help. There were approximately 115
colonists — the 114 remaining men and women who had made the
trans-Atlantic passage and the newborn baby, Virginia Dare —
when White returned to England.
Crossing the Atlantic as late in the year as White did was a
considerable risk, as evidenced by the claim of pilot Simon
Fernandez that their vessel barely made it back to England. Plans
for a relief fleet were initially delayed by the captain's refusal
to sail back during the winter. Then, the coming of the
Spanish Armada led to every able ship in
England being commandeered to fight, which left White with no
seaworthy vessels available to return to Roanoke. He did manage,
however, to hire two smaller vessels deemed unnecessary for the
defence and set out for Roanoke in the spring of 1588. This time,
White's attempt to return to Roanoke was foiled by human nature and
circumstance; the two vessels were small, and their captains
greedy. They attempted to capture several Spanish ships on the
outward-bound voyage to improve the profitability of their venture,
but were captured themselves and their cargo taken. With nothing
left to deliver to the colonists, the captains returned to England.
Because of
the continuing war with Spain, White was
not able to mount another resupply attempt for three more
years. He finally gained passage on a
privateering expedition that agreed to stop off at
Roanoke on the way back from the Caribbean. White landed on August
18, 1590 on his granddaughter's third birthday, but found the
settlement deserted. His men could not find any trace of the ninety
men, seventeen women, and eleven children, nor was there any sign
of a struggle or battle. The only clue was the word "Croatoan"
carved into a post of the fort and "Cro" carved into a nearby tree.
All the houses and fortifications had been dismantled, which meant
their departure had not been hurried. Before he left the colony,
White had instructed them that if anything happened to them, they
should carve a
Maltese cross on a tree
nearby, indicating that their disappearance had been forced. As
there was no cross, White took this to mean they had moved to
Croatoan Island, but he was unable
to conduct a search. A massive storm was brewing and his men
refused to go any further. The next day, they left.
Hypotheses regarding the disappearance of Roanoke
The end of the 1587 colony is unrecorded (leading to it being
referred to as the "
Lost Colony"),
and there are multiple hypotheses as to the fate of the colonists.
The principal hypothesis is that they dispersed and were absorbed
by either the local
Croatan or Hatteras
Native Americans, or another
Algonquian people; it has yet to be
established if they did assimilate with one or other of the native
populations.
Tuscarora
In F. Roy Johnson's, "The Lost Colony in Fact and Legend",
co-author Thomas C. Parramore wrote;
...The evidence that some of the Lost Colonists were
still living as late as about 1610 in Tuscarora country is impressive. A map of the interior
region of what is now North Carolina, drawn in 1608 by the Jamestown settler Francis
Nelson, is the most eloquent testimony to this effect.
This
document, the so-called "Zuniga Map", reports "4 men clothed that
came from roonock" still alive at the town of Pakeriukinick,
evidently an Iroquois site on the Neuse
." It also goes on to say, "...By 1609 there
were reports in London
of
Englishmen from Roanoke living under a chief called "Gepanocan" and
apparently at Pakerikinick, It was said that Gepanocan held four
men, two boys, "and a young Maid" (who may be Virginia Dare) from Roanoke as
copperworkers..."
Francis Nelson Map circa 1607
On February 10, 1885, state legislator Hamilton McMillan helped to
pass the "Croatan bill", that officially designated the Native
American population around
Robeson
County as Croatan. Two days later on February 12, 1885, the
Fayetteville Observer
published an article regarding the
Robeson Native Americans' origins. This
article states
"......They say that their traditions say
that the people we call the Croatan Indians (though they do not
recognize that name as that of a tribe, but only a village, and
that they were Tuscaroras), were always
friendly to the whites; and finding them destitute and despairing
of ever receiving aid from England, persuaded them to leave the
island, and go to
the mainland... They gradually drifted away from their
original seats, and at length settled in Robeson, about the center
of the county..."
Person County
A similar
legend claims that the Native Americans of Person
County, North Carolina
, are descended from the English colonists of
Roanoke Island. Indeed, when these Native Americans were
last encountered by subsequent settlers, they noted that these
Native Americans already spoke
English and were aware of the
Christian religion. The historical babies of
this group also correspond with those who lived on Roanoke Island,
and many exhibit
European physical
features along with
Native American
features. Others discount these as coincidences and classify the
settlers of Person County as an offshoot of the
Saponi tribe.
Chesepian
Some hypothesize that the colony moved wholesale, and was later
destroyed.
When Captain John Smith and the Jamestown colonists settled in Virginia in 1607, one of their assigned tasks was to locate
the Roanoke colonists. Native Americans told Captain Smith
of people within fifty miles of Jamestown who dressed and lived as
the English.
The
weroance Chief Wahunsunacock (better-known as Chief Powhatan) told Captain Smith about the
Virginia
Peninsula
-based Powhatan
Confederacy, and went on to say that he had wiped out the
Roanoke colonists just prior to the arrival of the Jamestown
settlers because they were living with the Chesepian, (a tribe living in the eastern portion
of the present-day South Hampton
Roads sub-region who had refused to join Chief Powhatan's
Powhatan Confederacy). Archaeological evidence found at a Chesepian
village site in Great Neck Point in
present-day Virginia
Beach
suggests that the Chesepian tribe was related to
the Carolina Algonquins, rather than the
Powhatans.
Chief Powhatan reportedly produced several English-made iron
implements to back his claim.
No bodies were found, although there were
reports of a Native American burial mound in the Pine Beach
area of Sewell's
Point in present day Norfolk, Virginia
, where the principal Chesepian village of Skioak may have been located.
This hypothesis is somewhat contradicted, since according to
William Strachey's
The Historie
of Travaile into Virginia Britanica (1612), the Chesepians
were eliminated because Powhatan's priests had warned him that
"from the
Chesapeake Bay a nation
should arise, which should dissolve and give end to his empire."
Strachey, who arrived in the
Virginia
Colony in May 1610 with the
Third
Supply, was well aware of the mystery of the Roanoke colonists,
but made no mention of them in conjunction with his writings about
the fate of the Chesepian at the hands of the Native
Americans.
Lost at sea, starvation
One possibility is that the colonists simply gave up waiting, tried
to return to England on their own, and perished in the attempt.
When Governor White left in 1587, he left the colonists with a
pinnace and several small ships for
exploration of the coast or removal of the colony to the
mainland.
It has been suggested that, with the region in drought, the colony
must have suffered a massive food shortage.
Cannibalism
Archaeologist
Lawrence Stager has
suggested that the colony might have been eaten by cannibals.
Spanish
Another
theory is that the Spanish destroyed
the colony. Earlier in the century, the Spanish did
destroy evidence of the French
colony of
Fort Charles in coastal
South
Carolina
and then
massacred the inhabitants of Fort Caroline
, a French colony in present-day Jacksonville
, Florida
. However, this is unlikely, as the Spanish
were still looking for the location of England's failed colony as
late as 1600, ten years after White discovered that the colony was
missing.
Archaeological evidence
In 1998,
East
Carolina University
organized "The Croatoan Project", an archaeological
investigation into the events at Roanoke. The excavation
team sent to the island uncovered a 10
carat (42%) gold 16th century English
signet ring,
gun
flints, and two 16th century copper
farthings at the site of the ancient Croatoan
capital, 50 miles (80 km) from the old Roanoke colony.
Genealogists were able to trace the lion crest on the signet ring
to the Kendall coat of arms, and concluded that the ring most
likely belonged to one "Master" Kendall who is recorded as having
lived in the
Ralph Lane colony on Roanoke
Island from 1585 to 1586. If this is the case, the ring represents
the first material connection between the Roanoke colonists and the
Native Americans on Hatteras Island.
Lost Colony DNA Project
The
Lost Colony DNA Project is
an ongoing effort underway by the Lost Colony of Roanoke DNA
Project at Family Tree DNA of
Houston,
TX
. The project will use DNA testing to prove
or disprove that some Lost Colony survivors assimilated with the
local Native American tribes either through adoption or
enslavement. A large percentage of the surnames do exist among
these tribes. Additionally, deeds and wills have been discovered to
bear this theory out. The project will attempt to locate and test
as many potential descendants as possible. Testing is also planned
for some ancient remains.
Climate factors
Also in 1998, a team led by
climatologist David W.
Stahle, of the
University
of Arkansas
, Department of Geography, in Fayetteville, Arkansas
, and archaeologist
Dennis B. Blanton, of the Center for Archaeological
Research at The College of William and Mary
in Williamsburg, Virginia
, used tree ring cores from 800-year-old bald
cypresses taken from the Roanoke Island area of North Carolina and the Jamestown area of Virginia to reconstruct precipitation and temperature
chronologies.
The
researchers concluded that the settlers of the Lost Colony landed
at Roanoke
Island in the summer of the worst growing-season drought
in 800 years. "This drought persisted for 3 years, from 1587
to 1589, and is the driest 3-year episode in the entire 800-year
reconstruction," the team reported in the journal
Science.
A map shows that "the Lost Colony drought affected the entire
southeastern United
States but was particularly severe in the Tidewater region near
Roanoke [Island]." The authors suggested that the Croatan who were
shot and killed by the colonists may have been scavenging the
abandoned village for food as a result of the drought.
Effect on popular culture
The "Lost Colony" and its fate, particularly the baby Virginia
Dare, have had a significant effect on American popular culture.
Numerous
books and articles (ranging from scholarly to improbably romantic)
have been written on the subject, and a number of places have been
named Roanoke, Raleigh
and Dare.
Written by
Pulitzer Prize winning
playwright
Paul Green in
1937 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the birth of Virginia
Dare, the first English child born in the New World,
The Lost Colony is an epic
outdoor drama combining music, dance, and acting to tell a
fictional recounting of the ill-fated Roanoke Colony.
It has played at
Waterside Theater at Fort Raleigh National Historic
Site
on Roanoke Island during the summer months
near-continuously since that time with the only interruption being
World War II. Alumni of the cast
who have gone on to fame include
Andy
Griffith (who played
Sir Walter
Raleigh),
William Ivey Long,
Chris Elliott,
Terrence Mann, and
Daily Show correspondent
Dan Bakkedahl.
References
- Stager, Lawrence "An Investigation into the Roanoke Colony" in
the Harvard Alumni Magazine retrieved 8/17/09
- Family Crest on Sixteenth-Century Gold Ring
Tentatively Identified
Further reading
- This volume contains practically everything known about the
Croatan language spoken on Roanoke Island.
- Critically acclaimed account, based on contemporary travel
accounts from 1497-1611, of attempts to establish a colony in the
Roanoke area.
- Karen Ordahl Kupperman: Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony.
Rowman & Littlefield 1984, ISBN 0847673391)
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