History's Greatest Mysteries - Roanoke: The Lost Colony

Written by Scott Edwards

If you are like me, you get to hearing about mysteries in the past that have never been solved and want to know what really happened. I am a sucker for a good story and can come up with all sorts of ideas about what actually happened, rather than what the reports are trying to tell you. With my love for history and being one of the few people left that actually likes to do research, I will admit that the addition of the internet is pretty cool to use for these purposes, since even the same site with different listings for an event has different information attached, so you have to do a little bit more research to find out what they are trying to say as the stories tend to stay the same, while the facts are always a little bit different. Today I would like to weigh in on the Roanoke Lost Colony Mystery since I have a few thoughts of my own about what happened that are not listed as the possible reasons of the disappearance of over a hundred people that has never been solved.

So here is the story of what happened on Roanoke Island back in 1584. Sir Walter Raleigh was granted a charter to colonize North America in the name of the queen before the Spanish were able to get a foot hold. Needing to set up a colony to have, hold and enjoy, Raleigh was also supposed to develop an outpost for ships filled with privateers* that could head off the Spanish fleet and take their treasures as they continue to raid the south. With ships exploring the southern coastline of North America, Captain Grenville’s fleet was hit by a terrible storm, forcing them to break up and Grenville was able to establish a fort while waiting for his other ships to arrive on the banks. Tired of waiting for his ships, he abandons his fort and heads back up the coast to Newfoundland to privateer. 

In 1585 a new exploration into the southern coast takes place again and this time Grenville is able to find a spot to try and colonize. But there is a problem, a lack of supplies, so he heads back to Europe to refill leaving 100+ people to colonize the area. Building a fort, the group is met by hostile natives whom they are able to fight off, but most of the colonists want to return home since life in their new home is not what they were promised. To their surprise, Sir Francis Drake had spotted the group and gave most of the survivor’s safe passage back to Europe. After getting supplies, Grenville returned to Roanoke and found it abandoned. Leaving a small garrison of a dozen or so men to keep a presence there, the captain returned home as well.

In 1587, Raleigh dispatched a new group of 115 colonists to establish England’s presence in the New World. Being led by John White, the group was supposed to stop and pick up Grenville’s men at Roanoke from the previous year, but only found the fort and a skeleton in what seemed to be an abandoned post once again. The master pilot, Simon Fernandez refused to allow any of the colonists back on their ship as the abandoned settlement seemed fine for what they needed to do. Not heading any further north to Chesapeake Bay as instructed, Fernandez seemed to have this destination in mind before the ships made it to land.

Setting up their settlement, John White is able to smooth over relations with the local tribes and make sure his daughter and new granddaughter were well tended to. But once again the supplies were running low and White would need to return to England to resupply. What should have been a three month voyage turned into three years for the aging man who was able to get his requests tended to, but he was not able to get a ship as England’s war with Spain was in full effect. Being able to secure two ships in 1588, the captains were more concerned about lining their own pockets than making it to the colonists and the precious cargo was lost. In 1590, White was finally able to cross the Atlantic to his small colony, but found it abandoned, and this is where the story comes into play and reports vary in description.  

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It appeared that the settlement had moved as the wall that was constructed was moved further inland than White had remembered and the area was overgrown with vegetation. The buildings that stood tall and true were no longer standing and not a soul was to be found in the surrounding areas. Searching for a sign of a Maltese cross that he told the colonists to carve into a tree if they were attacked by the natives, he was not able to locate one, but instead found a carving in a fence post that said CROATOAN and a carving on a tree that just said CRO. Believing that this meant that his people moved islands, as Croatoan was the name of an island hosting a friendly tribe, White took his boats back out to set sail looking for his people, but got caught in a storm that pushed him further out into the Atlantic and he was forced to head back to England without knowing what happened to the settlement.

Raleigh decided to try and find out what happened to the colony years later and in 1602 his first attempt came back empty handed and Raleigh was arrested for treason shortly after, so he could send no further expeditions. In 1603, Bartholomew Gilbert tried to find the Lost Colony as well, but weather once again came into play and his expedition was blown off course. Their luck did not get any better, since the landing party, including Gilbert, were killed by a group of Native Americans shortly after they landed. 

When Jamestown was founded, John Smith also had interest in the Lost Colony, but the normal means of searching was not working so he turned to the local Powhatan tribe for answers. Hearing from the Chief Powhatan that he massacred the white people that were traveling with the Chesepains, a rival tribe, Smith believes that he has found the final answer as to what happened to the Lost Colony. In 1610, William Strachey, the Secretary of Jamestown also got the same response from Chief Powhatan and this was accepted as truth, however, the story that Powhatan has conveyed seemed to line up with more about what happened to a garrison with a small amount of men and not families being harbored by the Chesepains, so there are more questions than answers from this.

Well, there is the story behind the mystery, now on to the theories as to what happened to the colonists after John White left them alone in an unforgiving country.

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Integration with local tribes – This seems to be the most popular and most likely to have happened theory out there. When more archeologists are trying to find out what happened back during 1587, they have found that during this time, the area was having the worst drought in over 800 years and it would have been next to impossible for the colonists to grow their own food without help from the natives. While everyone seems to gravitate to this theory very quickly, what I find interesting is that none of the Native American sites have any artifacts from European settlers that would indicate that this happened.  With the lack of evidence to support this, there has to be more that we are missing.

Slaughtered by a tribe – During this time frame, it was hard to know what was going to happen with the local tribes, even if you were on good terms with them, a random murder would happen outside of camp.  While the settlers were not trying to encroach on the new territory to take it away from the natives, they could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time when another tribe was making their paces. What does not leave this theory with much to stand on is the lack of bodies around Roanoke since Native Americans did not observe the same types of burial rights as the English and there would have been some sort of evidence of burning in the area, even after three years.

The Spanish destroyed the colony – I kind of like this theory, but the biggest problem with it is that there is no evidence of a struggle and the buildings in Roanoke were taken down, not burned to the ground which was a trademark of a village being pillaged. Besides the fact that the Spanish were still looking for the colony after John White found that it was no longer there years earlier. 

The Dare Stones - This is an interesting part of the story that I just found out about while doing some research. The original Dare Stone is said to have been written by Eleanor Dare, the daughter of John White, and tells of an attack that took place at the colony where many people died. With only seven survivors, Eleanor says that there will be another stone that will reveal where all of the bodies are buried. Getting a huge story in 1937 after being found, many ‘Dare Stones’ were brought in with different stories attached to them and most of them were found to be counterfeit, but a few might be able to point the searchers for the Lost Colony in the right direction. This really seems to be the only possible clue about what might have happened back in 1587, but only if it is legit. 

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The Virginia Pars Map – A map drawn by John White during his visit to Roanoke Island in 1585. The map is supposed to show the location of the colony, but it was discovered in 2011 that the map has patches on it that could be hiding the true location. When sitting on top of a light box, you can see what was covered and a large square shape symbol with oddly shaped corners can be seen. Many people believe this to be the fort where the colonists chose to settle around.

An elaborate sham – This is one of my theories on what happened on Roanoke Island. One of the things that I believe is that the colonists were killed on arrival to the island and only a few survivors stayed on the boats, including John White. When his supplies were getting depleted, he decided to leave and say that the colony was doing fine, rather than face the repercussions of a massive failure. My reasoning behind this falls onto the buildings being taken down in the colony. Nobody does this, especially if they are moving to a different island, since there really is no good way to move all of the wood. If the colony was really there, there would be something that indicated that it did exist within three years of missing it and there was only a fence? That seems a little odd to me.

John White wanted freedom for his colony – One of the things that comes to mind when hearing about the Virginia Pars Map and the covered sections, is that John White wanted to get out from under the thumb of England. Knowing that nobody would question him when they found that the colony had gone missing, his people could be living anywhere in the New World and if they were able to integrate with the local tribes, there would be no better way in doing it. Make a false town, don’t leave anything that even implies that the English have settled there and most of all, leave no clues behind that can be followed up upon, resulting in freedom for the first English colony that could have landed anywhere in North America and found a safe place to live for generations.

There you have it, the history and theories of what happened on Roanoke Island back in the sixteenth century. Will we ever know what really happened there? I hope we do, but most signs are pointing to no.  One of the biggest issues for trying to find out what happened to the 115 people that went missing is the overall lack of evidence that they were even there. Some Archaeologists believe that the settlement has been pulled underwater with how much the land has been eroding in the area, and while that seems like something new to look at, I don’t think anyone would have settled that close to the ocean with the storms that were always moving in. But hey, keep your eyes open to see what they are able to find next and hopefully one day we will have the answers that we are looking for, rather than more questions, which always seems to be the case.

*Privateer – an armed ship owned and officered by private individuals holding a government commission and authorized for use in war, especially the capture of enemy merchant shipping. Pretty word for a Pirate.

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