MYSTERIES UNCOVERED-TRUE STORIES OF THE PARANORMAL AND UNEXPLAINED-The Lost Colony of Roanoke

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The Lost Colony of Roanoke

To this day, nobody knows what became of the 115 pioneering souls who made up the Roanoke Island Colony, America's first-ever English settlement. Were they killed? Did they succumb to disease or starvation? Did they leave the island for the nearby mainland? Speculation about their fate has endured for centuries. What became of the Lost Colony remains one of the US's greatest—and earliest—mysteries.

"The English were very backward in
trying to manage in that environment."
Historian Karen Kupperman

The first Roanoke Island Colony was established in 1585. It was sponsored by the renowned explorer and polymath Sir Walter Raleigh, at the behest of Queen Elizabeth, who hoped the settlement would yield gold, silver, and other riches that could be brought back to England. Ralph Lane, governor of the colony, called the island, situated just off the coast of what is now North Carolina, "the goodliest and most pleasing territory of the world." The first group of 108 pioneers built a fort and cabins, but after 11 months, they were forced to return to England owing to scarce food and deteriorating relations with the American Indians in the area. In fact, the party left so quickly that three men who had left the camp on an expedition were left behind. What became of this unfortunate trio remains a mystery.

Shortly after the colonists abandoned Roanoke Island, the English sea captain Sir Richard Grenville arrived. Discovering the deserted settlement, he left behind some men and enough supplies for two years. These men also vanished.

Two years later, in July 1587, a second group of settlers, including 90 men, 17 women, and 11 children, was dispatched to found a permanent settlement in the New World. Sir Walter Raleigh had bankrolled a settlement for the shores of Chesapeake Bay. However, the captain mysteriously dumped the colony at Roanoke Island instead. Some historians have speculated that the navigator, Simon Fernandes, wanted to drop the settlers off as quickly as possible so that he could return to sea to attack Spanish ships that were sailing up the coast, loaded with valuable cargo from Spain's South American colonies.

The settlers were led by John White, who was an artist and not an explorer. He brought along with him his pregnant daughter, Eleanor, and her husband, Ananias Dare. Eleanor gave birth to a daughter, Virginia—the first English child born in the New World—on August 18.

Despite—or because of—the fact that virtually nothing is known about her, Virginia Dare's name has echoed through the centuries, with speculations on her mysterious fate sparking controversy. She became a symbol of innocence and purity; a legendary heroine of tales celebrating the first white settlers' pioneering spirit; her name was used to advertise all sorts of goods; and numerous places in North Carolina were named after her. To American Indians and African Americans, the name Virginia Dare would come to have very different significance: It would become a potent symbol of white supremacy by Anglo-Americans seeking to reaffirm their racial dominance.11

Shortly after Virginia's birth, White left the settlers on Roanoke Island while he sailed back to England for more supplies. He had anticipated the round trip to take months; delayed by war between England and Spain, however, he didn't return until 1590. When he finally reached Roanoke, he discovered that the entire colony had vanished. His account of what he found there was published in 1600 by Richard Hakluyt in Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation.

White recorded that there was no sign of a struggle or battle. In fact, there was little evidence of the settlement site at all, except for a few cannonballs and a log stockade that had enclosed the colonists' dwellings. There were intriguing clues, potentially hinting at their whereabouts, notably the word "Croatoan" carved into a post and "Cro" carved into a tree. Before White had left for England, the majority of the Roanoke Colony had been planning to move "50 miles into the maine," referring to the mainland.

Presuming that they had joined the friendly Croatan tribe that lived on Croatoan Island, White planned to sail there the next day. However, a storm blew White and his fleet out to sea. The weather damaged White's ship, forcing the crew to abort the search and sail back to England, never to return.

White took solace in the apparent message that was carved into the post: "I greatly joyed that I had found a certain token of their being at Croatoan where Manteo was born." Manteo was a leader from Croatoan Island who became friendly with the Roanoke Colony and was even baptized a Christian on Roanoke Island. However, no Englishman would ever see the Roanoke colonists again.22

Numerous conspiracy theories and plausible scenarios have attempted to explain the settlers' disappearance. Historians, determined to fill in the blanks of history, have spent centuries tracking down the very few tantalizing clues left about the fate of the "Lost Colony." Some commentators believe that the colonists resettled elsewhere, while others think they merged and interbred with American Indians.

There has also been widespread speculation that they were massacred by a local tribe. By the time the colonists settled on Roanoke Island, the area had been the scene of regular conflicts for generations. Not only were the region's tribes disrupted by European colonization; the Spanish had explored and settled along the East Coast for decades before the English had even arrived. Some American Indians, such as those in the Chesapeake area, were friendly; but other tribes, such as the Powhatan of coastal Virginia, who were led by a powerful chief named Wahunsonacock, were fiercely opposed to English settlers encroaching on their territory.

Around 17 years after the doomed attempt at colonization on Roanoke Island, explorers from the Jamestown Colony in Virginia—the first permanent English settlement in the New World—resolved to investigate what had happened to the Roanoke community. According to William Strachey, Secretary of the Jamestown Colony from June 13, 1610, to the summer of 1611, the Roanoke Colony had been murdered by the Powhatan. He described this incident as the "slaughter at Roanoke." Allegedly, the Roanoke Colony had moved north to the southern shores of Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Indians were the only tribe in the area who had not submitted to Wahunsonacock's Powhatan, and they accepted the Roanoke colonists as their allies.33 Research showed that the Roanoke Colony would not have fared well without assistance from friendly natives. According to the historian Karen Kupperman, who specializes in 16th- and 17th-century colonialism, "The English were very backward in trying to manage in that environment."

By the time of the establishment of the Jamestown Colony, the Powhatan domain was vast, having expanded to about 30 sub-tribes.44 Strachey reported that Wahunsonacock's Powhatan had wiped out the Chesapeake Indians—and presumably the Roanoke colonists with them—after his priests had warned him that "from the Chesapeake Bay a nation should arise, which should dissolve and give end to his empire.' "55

Strachey writes of this massacre in his account of the Jamestown Colony titled The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, which, though written in 1612, was not published until 1849. Strachey also records the discovery, in two American Indian settlements, of two-story houses with stone walls. This led him to speculate that some native people had learned building techniques from the Roanoke colonists—indicating that the settlers must have allied with the tribes at some point. The Jamestown Colony also received reports that some members of the Roanoke Colony had survived the massacre by the Powhatan. Strachey relates that he spoke with a friendly member of Powhatan's tribe named Machumps, who assured him that there were indeed survivors from the Roanoke Colony, some of whom were being held by a chieftain named Gepanocon, who was now forcing them to forge copper into weapons and utensils. However, Jamestown search parties found no English-speaking people, and the community's focus quickly shifted toward its own survival. John Smith, a member of the Jamestown Colony, published his own report on the expedition titled The Proceedings and Accidents of the English Colony in Virginia. His report makes no mention of any mass slaughter in the area. Although some historians have since speculated that Smith did not want to deter potential future attempts at colonization, no archaeological evidence exists to support claims of a massacre of the Roanoke colonists, nor is there legitimate evidence of its occurrence in Powhatan tribal history.

Nevertheless, tension between local tribes forced out of traditional hunting grounds by English colonists who brought with them deadly new weapons and even worse diseases, was clearly high. Several years after the Jamestown Colony investigation, the Powhatan attacked the Jamestown Colony, killing 347 people—a quarter of the entire population.

In 1937, a 21-pound (9.5-kg) rock was discovered in a swamp 60 miles (96.6 km) west of Roanoke Island on the Chowan River by a Californian tourist named L. E. Hammond. Carved into one side of the stone were the words:

"ANANIAS DARE & VIRGINIA

WENT HENCE UNTO HEAVEN 1591

ANYE ENGLISHMAN SHEW

JOHN WHITE GOVR VIA"

On the other side, the following message was carved:

"FATHER SOONE AFTER YOV

GOE FOR ENGLANDE WEE CAM

HITHER ONLIE MISARIE & WARRE

TOW YEERE ABOVE HALFE DEADE ERE TOW

YEERE MORE FROM SICKNES BEINE FOVRE &

TWENTIE

SALVAGE WITH MESSAGE OF SHIPP VNTO US

SMAL SPACE OF TIME THEY AFFRITE OF REVENGE

RANN

AL AWAYE WEE BLEEVE YT NOTT YOV SOONE

AFTER

YE SALVAGES FAINE SPIRTS ANGRIE

SVDDIANE

MVRTHER AL SAVE SEAVEN MINE CHILDE

ANANIAS TO SLAINE WTH MVCH MISARIE

BVRIE AL NEERE FOVRE MYLES EASTE THIS

RIVER

VPPON SMAL HILL NAMES WRIT AL THER

ON ROCKE PVTT THIS THEIR ALSOE SALVAGE

SHEW THIS VNTO YOV & HITHER WEE

PROMISE YOV TO GIVE GREATE

PLENTIE PRESENTS

EWD"

The letters "EWD" at the end are thought to stand for "Eleanor White Dare," and the inscription is believed to be a message to her absent father, John White. These inscriptions suggest that Ananias and Virginia were massacred not long after White returned to Roanoke Island. They were buried on a hill near the river and their names carved into a second stone near their graves. This stone was the first of what would become known as the "Eleanor Dare Stones." Over the ensuing years, another 47 stones were uncovered, including some as far away as Georgia. The fundamental problem with the stones, however, was the question of authenticity. For example, one stone included the hyphenated names of several English families—such as Pole-Carew—even though hyphenated names were not in use before the end of the 18th century.66 In 1941, the Saturday Evening Post dismissed the stones as a massive fraud in an article entitled, "Writ on Rocke."

However, a 2009 article by University of North Carolina Wilmington professor David La Vere published in the North Carolina Historical Review argues that the original stone could be authentic because it was the only one written in a style and prose that is consistent with Elizabethan English. An Elizabethan scholar La Vere asked to examine the language on the stone was "particularly interested in the word 'salvage' (for savage) which was used in English (from the Italian word for forest) during only a few years . . . The Lost Colony fits in with that period."77 Experts have not been able to discredit this stone like they have the 47 additional stones. "If this stone is real, it's the most significant artifact in American history of early European settlement," said Ed Schrader, a geologist and president of Brenau University in Georgia, where the stone is kept. "And if it's not, it's one of the most magnificent forgeries of all time."88

In 1998, new research claimed that the Roanoke Colony had simply had monumental bad luck. The colonists had arrived in the area in a period of severe drought, bringing starvation and death. Dennis Blanton, the director of the William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, and a group of tree-ring specialists from the University of Arkansas, came to this conclusion by studying tree rings from ancient bald cypress trees along the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina. They gathered hints of weather conditions by measuring the width of tree rings from the trunk of the bald cypress tree, which can live for more than 1,000 years. They discovered that the rings were much smaller than average between 1587 and 1589, and also between 1606 and 1612, the early years of the Jamestown settlement, indicating that growth had been much restricted in those years, possibly owing to lack of water. "The Roanoke and Jamestown Colonies have both been criticized for poor planning, poor support, and for a startling indifference to their own subsistence. But tree-ring reconstruction indicates that even the best-planned and supported colony would have been supremely challenged by the climatic conditions," wrote Blanton in his report.99

According to Matthew D. Therrell of the University of Arkansas, the years between 1587 and 1589 marked the most extreme drought of any comparable period during the entire 800 years of the tree-ring record. While there was no weather data available from the time, the researchers said that the tree-ring data was similar to the short-term drought that was recorded from the 1940s in the same area. This led to speculation that the settlers died or were forced to move elsewhere.

Modern archaeological investigations have been similarly inconclusive. In fact, it isn't even known exactly where the Roanoke colonists originally settled on Roanoke Island. Much of the search for the Lost Colony has focused on earth berms shaped like an old English fortification at the north end of Roanoke Island, where Fort Raleigh Natural Historic Site now stands. The National Park Service reconstructed these mounds in the 1950s, and numerous archaeological digs have been conducted here. A number of artifacts found during the digs indicate that the area served as a workshop for scientist Thomas Harriot and metallurgist Joachim Gans, who were part of the first Raleigh-sponsored expedition that returned to England in 1586. However, none of these items suggested that the Lost Colony was ever located there. "We have looked and we have looked and we have looked. The main settlement is not here. It is someplace else," said Guy Prentice, who oversees excavations for the National Park Service Southeast Archaeological Center.1010

In 2012, a 16th-century map of Virginia and North Carolina drawn by then-governor John White—who had led the colony before returning to England for supplies—was examined by experts in the British Museum at the request of the First Colony Foundation. Using advanced imaging techniques, they uncovered hidden markings drawn with invisible ink. The drawings appeared to show a "fortlike image" in what is now Bertie County, North Carolina. The Roanoke colony could have resettled here after abandoning their original camp. For the next three years, archaeologists excavated an 850-square-foot (79sqm) rural site south of the Chowan River bridge, near Edenton in North Carolina, around 50 miles (80.5km) from Roanoke Island. The area—which became known as Site X—had been inhabited for centuries, first by American Indians, and then early English settlers, before becoming the site of a governor's plantation. Here, archaeologists discovered a number of Elizabethan artifacts, including bale seals used to verify cloth quality, 16th-century nails, firing pans from snaphance firearms, and pieces of pottery jars for storing dried and salted fish.1111

Alastair Macdonald, officer and archaeologist for the First Colony Foundation, commented: "Elizabethan artifacts appear on very few other sites in Carolina at all. There's virtually none . . . the concentrations of Elizabethan objects are on Roanoke Island, the site of the Croatoan village [on what is now Hatteras Island, off the coast of North Carolina], and our site . . . No other English or Europeans were in that area until Nathaniel Batts came in the 1650s. It is interesting, too, that there were artifacts from several pots, it wasn't just one object that was broken. That suggests there might have been a certain continuity at the site for a period of time." 1212

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, on finally returning to the original Roanoke settlement, John White reported that the word "Croatoan" had been carved on a post and the word "Cro" on a tree, possibly suggesting that the colonists had relocated to nearby Croatoan (now Hatteras) Island. Over the years, ancient fragments dating back to Elizabethan times have been found on Hatteras Island. In 1993, Hurricane Emily unearthed hundreds of artifacts. These caught the attention of Professor of Anthropology David Phelps of East Carolina University. Throughout the 1990s, he conducted digs on the island and uncovered evidence of native and English assimilation.1313 However, the origin of the Elizabethan artifacts remains uncertain, and shipwrecks could account for at least some. Furthermore, Croatoan Island was visited by English mariners on a number of occasions between 1585 and 1587 who sometimes remained there for several weeks. In addition, there was an English presence on the island throughout the 17th century.

In 1998, Phelps' group discovered a small gold ring with a lion motif buried on Hatteras Island. This ring was linked to the Kendall family of Devon and Cornwall. A Master Kendall allegedly participated in the first colonization attempt in 1585. However, this seeming breakthrough was scotched in 2017 when archaeologist Charles Ewen ordered the ring be tested with an X-ray fluorescence device at East Carolina University, which revealed that the ring was brass, not gold. Ewen speculated that the ring had probably been brought over by European settlers and traded to American Indians long after the Roanoke Colony vanished. "Everyone wants [the ring] to be something that a Lost Colonist dropped in the sand," Ewen remarked to Smithsonian magazine.1414

While the evidence is still speculative, many believe that the original Roanoke colonists joined an American Indian tribe. "Something happened between 1587 and 1590, we know they were there in 1587 and we know they were gone in 1590, and it is certainly expected that some of them went to the village of Croatoan, but we think that area would not have been large enough to support all of the villagers," observed the First Colony Foundation's Alastair Macdonald.1515 Fred Willard, director of the Lost Colony Center for Science and Research, hypothesized that after White left for England, the Roanoke colonists became hungry and fearful of the increasingly hostile American Indians and realized that they needed to relocate if they wanted to survive. Seeking safety in numbers, they merged with the friendly Croatan tribe.1616

Although the Roanoke Colony vanished in 1590, it wasn't actually considered "lost" until almost 250 years later. Its disappearance was an obscure, largely forgotten event until 1837, when an article in The Ladies' Companion written by Eliza Lanesford Crushing coined the term "the Lost Colony." Contemporary Elizabethans would not have considered the fate of the settlers particularly mysterious. They would have come to the conclusion that the settlers simply abandoned the colony, joined a local tribe, adopted their ways, and intermarried to survive. "If I were hungry, and knew John White might never return with supplies, I would start practicing my Algonquian and learning Indian methods for hunting, fishing, and farming," said Andrew Lawler, author of The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke.1717

A 1608 Virginia Company's pamphlet titled "A True and Sincere Declaration" certainly suggests that the Roanoke Colony intermingled with a native tribe. An extract from it explains, "Some of our nation, planted by Sir Walter Ralegh [sic], are yet alive, within fifty miles of our fort." The Jamestown Colony may even have come close to finding them, until their search was thwarted by the warlike Powhatan tribes. The pamphlet adds, "Though denied by the savages speech with them, they found crosses and letters, the characters and assured testimonies of Christians cut in the barks of trees."

A later search party was told that there were "four men clothed" who had originally come from the Roanoke Colony, however this expedition was halted shortly afterward, without further inquiries for survivors being conducted.

In 1701, a naturalist named John Lawson was visiting Hatteras Island when American Indians from the coast told him that "several of their ancestors were white people and could talk in a book (read), as we do; the truth of which is confirmed by gray eyes being found frequently among these Indians, and no others."1818 Toward the latter part of the 19th century, it was noted that a number of American Indians in the southeastern part of North Carolina were light-skinned with pale eyes, and many had surnames matching those of the Roanoke colonists. In 1885, these individuals were officially recognized by the State as Croatan Indians. Lawson speculated that members of the Roanoke Colony had assimilated with the Croatan Indians after they lost hope of White returning from England.

While this theory has been accepted, both by 16th-century and 21st-century historians, according to author Andrew Lawler, this idea was "so repellent to white Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries, that they made the colonists' disappearance a mystery, rather than as a first step toward the multicultural nation that we increasingly are becoming."

The mystery of the Lost Colony has intrigued historians and the popular imagination for centuries. It has become a part of American folklore and, just like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, the colonists and their fate have proved elusive, their trails evaporating into nothingness. After all this time, nobody has yet been able to pinpoint exactly where the Roanoke Colony built their fort or houses. No artifacts have been found that can definitively be linked back to them. Some believe that the settlement has been covered or even washed away by the waters of Roanoke Sound. Others believe that the Lost Colony will be lost forever, and that this might not be such a bad thing: "It will help keep the mystery alive," said Noel Hume, the retired chief archaeologist at Colonial Williamsburg. "Things that get solved tend to go away."22

The Virginian-Pilot, July 29, 2018: "A Lost Colony, An Impossible Mystery"

News & Record, November 11, 2007: "Our Great Mystery"

The Light and the Glory: 1492 and 1793, Peter Marshall and David Manuel

The Lost Colony of Roanoke: New Perspectives, Brandon Fullam

The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, William Strachey

Richard Grenville and the Lost Colony of Roanoke, Andy Gabriel-

Powell

The News & Observer, May 3, 2012: "Past Times: Lost Colony Mystery Continues"

Newsmax, July 5, 2018: "Scientists Seek to Verify Authenticity of Dismissed Roanoke Stone"

Akron Beacon Journal, April 24, 1998: "Tree Rings Show Severe Drought Ravaged First American Colonies"

The Virginian-Pilot, April 14, 2017: "Looking for Lost Colony Settlers in All the Wrong Places?"

Winston-Salem Journal, July 17, 2016: "Artifacts Possibly From Lost Colony Found in Bertie County"

International Business Times, August 15, 2015: "Secret Club on 400-Year-Old Map May Solve Mystery of Lost Colony of Roanoke"

News & Record, July 8, 2017: "Lost Colony Settlers May Have Lived with Natives"

The New York Observer, April 10, 2017: "Debate Over a Gold Ring Revises the Lost Colony of Roanoke Mystery"

International Business Times, August 15, 2015: "Secret Club on 400-Year-Old Map May Solve Mystery of Lost Colony of Roanoke"

The Virginian-Pilot, March 31, 2001: "New Hints to Lost Colonists Found Settlers May Have Gone West with the Croatan Indian People"

Yes Weekly, June 6, 2018: "Secret Token Examines White America's Fascination with the Lost Colony"

A New Voyage to Carolina, John Lawson