Well I've come to the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site to learn about the Lost Colony
and the history behind their first attempt to colonize the new world.
The visitor center is right next to the parking lot.
So when you go into the visitor center, what you're going to find is a very nice little museum,
where they have displays of artifacts and information about the lost colony and actually,
about the voyages that took place before the lost colony and also, although I don't have pictures
of it, they have a visitor film here, that is very informative, and I really enjoyed the visitors film.
One thing that I didn't expect to find is they have displays that tell you
about the freeman's colony that was here during the Civil War, where escaped slaves
came to live under the protection of the U.S government for the last part of the war.
They also have a room that is in the Elizabethan style, with some
more information in it. This was very nice and I enjoyed all the displays in here too.
Just outside the visitor center you will find the path that leads to the earthen fort here at the
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and on this path you will encounter a stone monument that was
put up in 1896. This tells the story of the lost colony and also about Virginia Dare the first
english child born in America. Then just beyond this monument you will find the earthen fort.
i'm now entering the reconstructed fort here at Fort Raleigh. Now it's clear that this
fort is very small and could not have defended the complete colony that was here.
The fort we see now is a reconstruction fort, that was based on archaeology done in the area.
Why they had such a small fort is unknown but the main colony lived in a palisade
outside of this fort which they have not found yet.
When you come to Fort Raleigh, they have a short visitor film that really explains what happened
here. Also I always recommend when you come to one of these national parks that you do the ranger
programs. These are really informative and I highly recommend them. What we know these fortifications,
they are uh only a hundred feet by a hundred twenty. It was in case of Spanish attack. They are
in the correct place. They are the correct size and the correct shape. Archaeologists have told us that.
This area right here, remember the man from Prague, the metallurgist, Walken Gans he and Harriet had a
workshop here. We have some of their equipment from that workshop in the museum inside the visitor
center. Over there where there are benches that was a charcoal manufacturer and brick manufacturer.
And it's Raleigh that goes to Elizabeth and says you know we need to go explore in the new world,
and maybe we too will find gold and silver, or a passage to the pacific and orient. Good idea.
So Sir Walter Raleigh puts together two ships. So the two ships get up here,
three important people on board; one an artist John White by name, he is to paint what he sees.
The second is an ethnographer scientist, he was a mathematician, he was an astronomer, and did
practical science as well, and his name was Thomas Harriet. He is to look at the new world as to
how can England make money from the new world, and he's going to write a report
for the investors at the end of the journey. And then third we have Simon Fernandez.
He is the chief pilot. A pilot is like a navigator. He's not the captain.
Fernandez was born in the Azores. The Azores belong to Portugal. Portugal is it an ally of Spain.
Who is he sailing for? The English their prime enemy. So they get over here, and they're at
anchor off the Outer Banks and second day we have a single indian come up in a canoe.
They invite the indian on board. They give him a hat and a shirt. He goes back to the canoe goes
fishing and presents the crew with fresh fish. That was the start of a very harmonious relationship
between the Indians and the English. The English supplied the Indians principally with metal goods.
The Indians gave squash, corn beans, cucumbers, nuts, and animal pelts in trade.
The english were only here for six weeks, did a lot of exploring, and they're ready
now to go back to England, and they invite two indians to come along;
Mantio who is from the Croatoan tribe, and that tribe, they were in their summer home,
which is near Ocracoke. They also had a home on the mainland, because of course Ocracoke sand you can't
harvest corn in sand. The second indian was Wancheese who came here from the island.
He was from the Roanoke tribe. This is a map that comes from that time and 1584. It is
very accurate for the time frame. Sir Walter Raleigh goes back to Elizabeth says you know what, we need
to go back, and have people who are going to colonize there. They're going to live here
for a year. Elizabeth says I will give you my largest one of my largest ships the tiger and she
does. Raleigh puts together seven ships, six hundred men, sailors, and soldiers, with a few exceptions
on the ships. We have Mantio, Wancheese coming back home. Simon Fernandez, he's the
head pilot of all seven ships. We also have uh White the artist on board. We have Harriet,
the scientist, and we have a man named Joaquin Gonz, he's from Prague. He's a metallurgist. He's
coming here with metal workers. They're going to start smelting rocks looking for gold and silver.
According to White's journal it is Simon Fernandez who makes a disastrous mistake.
As they're coming into the Outer Banks he puts the Tiger the largest ship, without the majority
of their supplies a ground on a sandbar, an underwater sandbar. The ship is damaged.
They lose most of their supplies. Now we have three weeks of food for 600 men,
but the Indians are very hospitable. They invite them to a meal. The English
take with them a silver cup, because they want to show the Indians what silver looks like.
When they get back home they don't have the cup, and so a nineteen-year-old hot-headed captain,
named Amadeus is sent back to the Indian village with a group of men to retrieve the cup.
He can't find it. So he burns the village and destroys the crops. Not a smart idea if you're
expecting to trade for food. Okay, Grenville who is the lead captain of all seven ships is a cousin
of Sir Walter Raleigh. He realizes that 600 men can't stay here. He loads up all but 107 and takes them
back to England. Along the coast comes Sir Walter Raleigh, I'm sorry Sir Walter Raleigh's cousin
Sir Francis Drake, 23 ships strong. Yes I can give you a big boat. You 107 if you get back home.
I can give you two penises, that's a single masted shallower draft ship, great for exploring our signs,
our sounds where the water is only six to seven feet average depth.
I can give you supplies. But fate intervenes again. That night a nor'easter comes in.
The large ship, the two penises are lost as well as several other of drake's entourage.
i can give you a ride home to England. All 107 men get on board and they go home.
Now Grenville, who had been the captain on the previous, well for that group ,
he had gone back to England and he did organize a relief ship,
and he got here two weeks after they had left. There's not a single person here.
He leaves 15 men with two years of supplies here on the island and he turns around and
goes back home to England. And now we have the Lost Colony. And White recruits 89 men 11 women,
I'm sorry 17 women and 11 children. Children are all boys. One of the recruits is his only child
Eleanor. She's married to Anayas Dare. They leave their two older children at home with relatives.
She is pregnant when she boards the ship in London. Manteo is coming back after his second
visit to England and we have Simon Fernandez who indeed is the pilot. They don't get up here until
the end of july, 1st of august. Now they have to stop here. One we have to drop off Manteo. Second
we had left those 15 men here. We have to check on those men, and then we're to go up to the Chesapeake.
When they get to the island, uh there are no men. They find out from Manteo's Croatoan Indian
tribe that two of the men were killed by another Indian tribe. The 13 remaining got in a row boat
and headed for England never to be seen or heard from again.
As the colonists are getting off the ship into smaller boats to come look at the island, and get
fresh water it is Simon Fernandez who says to the men who are in the doing the oars on the row boat
"do not bring the colonists back. I am going no farther north. it is too late in the season."
So here they are. They move into the homes that have been left by the previous English.
They begin constructing homes for families. One of the colonists a man
named Gordon Howe, went out to the sound and he's crabbing out there. He is beaten to death
by Indians. It's at this point that the colonists go, you mean not all the Indians are pro-English.
They too build a palisade around their village, but they know they're in trouble.
Those seeds that they had brought with them to plant are going to have to be consumed during the
winter, so they can survive. They go to Governor white. Sir you have got to go back to England.
You and Sir Walter Raleigh get a relief ship organized and get back here as soon
in the spring as you can. I'm the Governor. I'm responsible. I'm not leaving you here. Besides
my daughter just had a granddaughter for me, Virginia Dare. By the way there was a second
child born. uh We don't know the sex of the child nor the child's first name.
The family name was Harvey and that was only a few weeks after Virginia Dare was born.
The colonists go back to Governor White. Sir
you're the only person who knows Sir Walter Raleigh personally. You will best represent us
and we know you'll come back. He agrees. So he goes back home to England.
In April of the following spring, he and Raleigh did organize a relief ship. It left
London. It was making one more stop at Plymouth to take on last minute supplies.
In Plymouth, Queen Elizabeth and the Privy cCouncil said nope we are commandeering all ships.
They are needed to protect England from the Spanish Armada.
John White does not get back here for three years. When he comes back,
he's simply a paying passenger on a ship. He has absolutely no authority.
The captain of the ship knows he's to stop here at the island to look for the colonists.
They get to the area there is a terrible storm.
They had to move away from the coastline, so that they wouldn't get a ground.
In that move, an anchor line broke. On the third day John White gets to the island. And he first comes
into what is what's called Port Fernando and this was named after Simon Fernandez, the chief pilot. It
would be about where Bodie Lighthouse is today. And on a piece of wood there was carve the letters cro.
White before he ever left the island had said if you ever have to move please
tell me where you're going by carving it in a tree. And if you are having to move under duress,
carve a cross above the name of the place where you're going. There was no cross
White comes to the village. On the palisade around the village is carved the whole word Croatoan.
Again no cross. But no homes either. They had been dismantled.
White goes back to the captain of the ship. Captain we need to go down to the Croatoan tribe, if our
people aren't there then we need to go to the Chesapeake where we were supposed to go in the
first place. Captain agrees. That night the storm intensified. That night they had to cut the anchor
line. That was the third of four anchors that the captain had lost. Captain says I'm sorry Mr. White,
we cannot stay here. We'll go down to the Caribbean have a great winter, nice beaches, good pineapple.
We'll come back in the spring. Look for your people. Fine on the way down to the Caribbean,
a hurricane blows in. Blows the ship all the way to the Azores. They limp
into Ireland. John White is now bankrupt. Basically that's the end of the story.
Originally the preceding ranger talk had a lot more information in it, but I edited it to make
it shorter. So that it would fit in this video. Now next to the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site
is the Waterside Theater, the home of the Lost Colony. This is a play that has been running since
the 1930s, that explains the history of the Lost Colony. It is not run by the National Park Service
and you can buy tickets to see this play during the summer. I have seen it before and it is very
good and I highly recommend it. Also next to the visitor center is a monument to commemorate the
Freeman's Colony that was here at this location during the Civil War. It's very interesting to
read. Well I've enjoyed my visit to the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. The information
I got here was really fascinating. The ranger talks were really good. They have a program here
on the Lost Colony and they also have a program on the Freedmen during the Civil War. So i would
highly encourage you to come see this historic site because there's no charge to see this place.