There is nothing the world loves more than a good mystery, and there's few mysteries
quite as tantalizing as the tale of the infamous lost colony of Roanoke.
Originally a settlement of over a hundred colonists, the English returned three years
later to their North American colony only to discover it a mess of overgrown weeds.
Curiously, farm implements and even rifles were left laying on the ground, and strangest
of all were the words Cro and Croatan carved into a tree.
But what exactly happened to this near-mythological lost colony?
Let’s travel back in time and find out.
The year is 1587, and governor John White makes landfall on the northern tip of modern
day North Carolina with 117 colonists - 97 men, 17 women, and 9 young boys.
This site is not White's first choice however, as he originally planned to land on Chesapeake
Bay further north which would eventually become the site of the first successful British colony,
Jamestown.
Ship Captain Simon Fernandez though, refuses to sail north, and forces White and his colonists
to set up shop here in Roanoke.
Originally meant to be a pit stop so the ship could pick up a previous fifteen men left
there two years ago, the location becomes permanent when the colonists are forced to
offload.
As far as the fifteen men they had planned to pick up, there's no sign of them, and instead
the colonists find signs of a massacre- an inauspicious start for the new colony.
For White, this is his second trip to Roanoke, and for the British it’s one of several
faltering attempts to settle the new world.
In 1578 Queen Elizabeth I tasked Sir Humphrey Gilbert to sail to the new world and discover
lands that had not been claimed by the Spanish in order for England to make her stake.
On an initial expedition Gilbert located some suitable sites for a permanent colony, but
on his second expedition his ship was lost in a shipwreck.
After his death, his half-brother Walter Raleigh then took over the task of finding lands to
colonize and planned to scout for locations ranging from Spanish Florida to the Arctic.
Would-be governor John White is on Raleigh's second expedition, which makes landfall with
a garrison of troops in Roanoke in 1585.
Their job is to set up a fort from which British power in the new world could be consolidated,
and after making contact with local Native Americans, relations are initially good.
The Roanoke and Croatan tribes both prove to be friendly to the British, and representatives
from their tribes sail back to England with John White and are introduced to Queen Elizabeth's
court.
These men would be given the English names of Wanchese and Manteo, with Manteo becoming
the first baptized Protestant Native American.
Unfortunately back in the new world, the commander of the British garrison quickly soured relations
with other native tribes, and led two separate campaigns against native villages within a
matter of months.
Having thrown the proverbial stone into the hornet's nest, the British fort soon found
itself under constant attack, and when Sir Francis Drake passed by the area on one of
his explorations of the New World, the men in the fort rushed to the ship to be rescued.
So great was their haste to board that they left three men behind who had been on an expedition
out in the woods.
When the British finally returned back to the colony later in the year they discovered
the fort completely abandoned, and the three men who had been left in the woods were nowhere
to be found.
Sir Richard Grenville, who had been in command of the first expedition, then decided to leave
another fifteen men behind to guard the remains of the fort, he gave them two years worth
of provisions and then promptly left for England again.
It was at this time that John White made landfall in Roanoke, hoping to link up with the fifteen
men who had been left behind two years earlier.
To the surprise of nobody, the men were missing and they too would never be heard from again,
having likely been killed by the natives.
Despite the hostile locals, ship Captain Simon Fernandez nonetheless forced the colonists
to stay where they were, and nine days after landing colonist George Howe was killed by
American indians while crabbing along the shore.
White did not wish to further antagonize the locals however, and he went to great lengths
to repair relations.
He did this by using Manteo to help him make peace between the colony and the Croatans,
who lived nearby on Hatteras Island.
Unfortunately though Wanchese had soured on the British during his time in England, and
saw the future arrival of British colonists as an invading force- legend says that he
had participated in the attack on the fifteen men left behind the second time on Roanoke.
Needless to say, relations with the locals were tumultuous, though the Croatans proved
friendly enough thanks to Manteo's intervention.
Where the previous two colony attempts had failed though, the third began to flourish.
Rather than bringing along employees or military troops, White had brought families who had
a personal stake in the land they were fighting to cultivate.
The success or failure of the colony would mean their own personal success or failure,
and thus they had ample motivation to make the attempt work.
Soon, the first English baby born in the new world arrived, when on August 18th, 1587,
Virginia Dare was born to Eleanor Dare and Ananias Dare, John White's daughter and her
husband.
The colonization attempt was hopeful, and things seemed to be going well enough.
There was one major problem though - the colonists had arrived too late to plant crops and were
in dire need of fresh supplies.
In order to secure the colony's future, John White left the New World behind to sail for
England, hoping to be back by the new year with supplies.
Yet when he arrived back home in England, John White returned to a world on the verge
of war.
England was facing off against the Spanish Armada, and every available ship was needed
to fend off the far superior Spanish navy.
For three long years White was unable to return to Roanoke, but finally in 1590 he made the
voyage back across the Atlantic.
Upon his arrival White was initially hopeful, from a distance he could see that housing
had been established, and the protective walls made of pines had been repaired.
He became worried as they neared the shore though, when he saw no signs of activity or
smoke from fires.
As his rowboat made landfall his worst fears were confirmed- the colony was abandoned.
The entire fort was overgrown with grass and weeds, and guns lay strewn about throughout
the village.
Chests within which valuables were kept and had been hidden in holes in the ground, were
broken open and their contents of precious books, pictures and personal belongings lay
spilled across the floor.
Curiously valuables such as jewelry had been left behind, as had been all the extremely
valuable guns and farm equipment- whatever had happened to the colony, looting by natives
seemed to be improbable.
White had instructed his colonists to leave behind a sign in case of emergency, a cross
carved into a tree.
Instead of the cross though White would famously discover two other carvings- the first being
the letters C, R, and O etched into a tree, and another being the full word “CROATAN”.
Upon discovering the carvings, White believed that the settlers had been forced to abandon
the colony and moved with Manteo's people, the Croatans, on Hatteras island- a theory
he was unfortunately not able to prove when an approaching storm forced him to set sail
back to England.
With failing health, White never got a chance to return and rescue his colonists, and he
died three years later.
Theories abound as to what fate befell the colonists, but most believe that John White's
original hunch that the entire colony had moved to Mateo's people are probably correct.
This is because as part of White's secret code, the colonists were to etch the location
of their travel in case they had to leave due to an emergency, and the addition of a
cross would signal that the move was in response to a dire emergency.
The word Croatan was however discovered carved into the wood of a defensive palisade that
had been erected to supplement the colony's defenses, meaning that the colonists had clearly
been under some threat and preparing for attack.
In 2013 an expedition to the native american settlement on croatan island discovered the
remains of a European rapier along with the barrel of a gun, lead shot, scraps of copper,
and a piece of drawing slate with a lead pencil.
This would lend a great deal of credence to the theory that the colonists had simply moved
south with the Croatan people and assimilated into their population.
In the 1700s the discovery of Native Americans with gray eyes who claimed to have been the
descendants of white settlers helped to confirm the original version of events.
While the British artifacts could very well have been the results of trading with english
colonists later on, the discovery of buried trash pits also lends credence to the theory
that the Roanokan settlers made their move here rather than starve alone in the cold
winter or face innumerable hostile tribes alone.
The trash pits showed an abrupt change in diets from fish and turtles to deer and birds,
which could hint at the natives hunting using European guns which the colonists provided.
Despite hostilities against the first two settlements, native tribes were well known
to be extremely accepting of outsiders, and over the centuries of the New World's colonization,
many former English colonists who joined with native tribes refused to return home and chose
to stay with their tribes.
The theory that the Roanokans had simply been absorbed into the Croatan tribe is the most
likely to be true, and the most plausible, while other theories claiming that they were
simply massacred could also be true but is more unlikely.
Had there been a massacre then upon White's return there should have been remains to be
found, and yet White and his men discovered none.
The disappearance of the colony of Roanoke is likely far more mysterious than it ought
to be.
All the evidence points to the fact that the colonists simply faced starvation and hostile
neighbors, and so they moved to the only friendly tribe in the area, and made their home with
the natives there.
Wild theories however continue to abound, and our favorite, as usual, involves aliens
because of course it does.
In the alien theory the entire colony- to a man- was abducted by aliens.
During our own investigation into the alien theory on Roanoke we were unable to discover
any plausible motivation for why the entire colony was spirited away by alien forces,
and whatever the alien's motivations it was definitely not because human brains are delicious
to eat.
So rest easy and don't worry because the mystery of Roanoke is nothing more than a bunch of
settlers deciding to move in with friendly natives rather than face starvation, and definitely
not that they were abducted by brain-eating aliens from the Zeti Reticuli star system.
Trust us, there's no pending alien threat to harvest your tasty, delicious brains and
to get your mind off it you should go camping alone in the wilderness and tell no one where
you're going.
What do you think happened to the lost settlers of Roanoke?
Let us know in the comments!
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