ROANOKE
What happened to Virginia Dare and the rest of the colonists of Roanoke remains a mystery to this day.
“How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness every where!
—William Shakespeare, “Sonnet XCVII”
IN 1584, EXPLORERS WERE SENT to Roanoke Island (a narrow island situated between the Outer Banks and the mainland of North Carolina) by Sir Walter Raleigh to determine if the area would be well suited to establishing a colony. Upon their return, they delivered a positive report of the location, which included a list of the abundant natural resources surrounding the area and findings that Roanoke was better protected from the elements than the Outer Banks. They also brought back with them a Native American chief to show that relations between the tribe’s people and the settlers could be peaceful. The island appeared to be a good all-around choice for a settlement, with live oaks and plenty of other trees with which to build cabins and a variety of wildlife to hunt for food. Raleigh delivered the information to Queen Elizabeth, and she granted him a charter to all the lands that he could claim in the area.
The next year Raleigh sent out a group of 100 men, mostly soldiers and craftsmen, to establish the colony under the guidance of Ralph Lane, a military captain. The group met with poor results from the beginning. One of their ships struck a sandbar and tilted onto its side during their attempt to land. As a result, a good portion of their food and other supplies were lost as they tumbled into the water and sank. In addition, they arrived in late summer and were unable to plant the crops they needed for food. The third and most disastrous occurrence was that instead of making friends with the natives, Lane fought with them and ended up killing their chief over a cup that he believed the natives had stolen. Reports state that the natives retaliated by ransacking the village and setting it on fire. This ended the opportunity of receiving any help from the native tribe. With cold weather approaching, Lane and his men abandoned the area, reportedly leaving a few of the craftsmen behind. As luck or karma would have it, a ship with reinforcements and supplies arrived a week later. Fifteen men from the ship’s crew were ordered to remain behind to secure the area while the captain and the rest of his crew, along with the craftsmen who didn’t leave with Lane, returned to deliver this information to Raleigh in England.
Raleigh responded to the news of Lane’s departure by gathering a party of 117 men, women, and children who were willing to sail from England in order to establish a permanent settlement in the New World. John White was selected to be the new governor of the charter land, which Raleigh had once proclaimed would be called the “citi of Raleigh.” As the group boarded the ship to sail back to the New World, White included in his party his pregnant daughter, Eleanor Dare, and her husband Annanias Dare. The native chief, who had traveled to England with the original explorers, also sailed back with the colonists.
After Lane’s fiasco with the natives, Raleigh had decided that Chesapeake Bay would be a better choice for a settlement, and this was where the ship was supposed to take Governor White and his party. The Portuguese captain of the ship was first ordered to stop at Roanoke to drop off supplies and check on the men who had been left there, as well as to drop off the Native American chief at his home. The ship arrived safely in Roanoke. While there, the ship’s crew discovered that the natives who had fought with Lane had also killed the 15 men who had been left behind to guard the settlement, and most everything there had been burned or destroyed with only a few bones of the dead men found scattered. It was extremely dangerous and considered uninhabitable at this time due to the ongoing battle with the local native tribe.
During the voyage to Roanoke, the ship’s captain had received word that the Spanish were gearing up to fight England, and he decided that this was a golden opportunity to make a fortune pirating and looting the ships carrying cargo back and forth. He made the decision that he would not take the passengers all the way up to Chesapeake Bay; instead they would be left at Roanoke so that he could return to Europe. Even though the captain was aware that everyone who had previously been at Roanoke was now dead, he forced Governor White and all of the passengers off the ship and onto Roanoke Island.
The passengers scrambled to build some sort of shelter, and White immediately reached out to the Croatan people, who had been friendly with the earlier explorers. He also reached out to the other tribe that had fought with Lane. The Croatan people were friendly, but the other tribe refused to make peace with the settlers.
The colonists busied themselves trying to create shelter and unpack their belongings while the ship’s crew was busy loading fresh water and other supplies back onto the ship.
On July 28, 1587, a member of White’s party, George Howe, set out walking along the beach, looking to collect crabs to cook for that evening’s dinner. As he was walking, he was captured and killed by being shot 16 times with arrows, and then his head was beaten into pieces by the native tribe.
Afraid for their lives, the colonists asked the governor to travel back with the ship when it departed and make his way to England to ask for immediate assistance and reinforcements. This was a risky voyage, as traveling across the Atlantic Ocean in the fall was a very rough journey for ships due to storms and high waves. There was also concern about the Portuguese captain heading into battle and pirating along the way during the trip back to Europe.
Before White’s departure on the ship, his daughter Eleanor gave birth to the first colonist child on August 18, 1587, on Roanoke Island. She named her child Virginia Dare. On August 27, 1587, John White sailed with the ship back to England. What happened subsequently is every father’s nightmare.
Governor White just barely made it back to England, as the captain noted in his ship’s log; they had been lucky to find their way to the English shore. White gathered supplies and resources but could not find a captain who was willing to risk the voyage across the Atlantic during the stormy and choppy seas of the winter months. He was forced to wait, leaving his family and the colonists at the mercy of a long, cold winter with few supplies and a hostile enemy surrounding them.
In spring of the next year, White desperately tried to get back to the colonists at Roanoke. During this time the Anglo-Spanish War broke out and all available ships were being used in the battles. He managed to find two ships, which were small enough that they were deemed unable to be of any assistance in battle. As White sailed toward Roanoke, the two ships encountered Spanish pirates whose crews boarded the English ships and stole all of the cargo. Empty-handed, John White was forced back to England again to gather new resources and supplies. Due to the ongoing war, White was unable to hire a ship until three years later, in 1590, when he managed to get on board with, an expedition that agreed to drop him off at Roanoke.
Three years after Eleanor gave birth to Virginia, her father landed on Roanoke Island to find everyone and everything missing. All traces of the settlement had disappeared. There was no sign of struggle, nor were there any signs of where the group had gone. His heart raced with terror. Were his daughter and granddaughter alive? Had someone taken them? There had been no way to get a direct message to them for the past three years. The colonists had no news source and relied on ships that very infrequently stopped in the area. It’s highly likely that the colonists might not have known about the war that had kept White from traveling back to them. They may have presumed White to be dead or lost at sea.
Imagine how Eleanor must have felt, a new baby and practically defenseless, waiting each day in such dangerous territory, cradling her small daughter while everyone rationed the dwindling supplies. White understood this and more, realizing that his dream of starting the first settlement in the New World and bringing his daughter with him had led to her destruction.
White searched through the entire settlement, and the only clues he found was the word CROATAN carved into one of the trees and the letters CRO carved in a second tree nearby. He had asked the group to leave a sign should they be forced to move further inland and suggested that they