Roanoke Colony (1587): The Mystery of the Lost Colony

The Roanoke Colony, often called the Lost Colony, was an English settlement on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. About 115 men, women and children were landed there in July 1587 under governor John White. When White finally returned with supplies in August 1590 they had vanished, leaving only the word CROATOAN carved on a post. Their fate has become one of the most enduring mysteries of early American history.

Raleigh’s Virginia venture

In March 1584 Queen Elizabeth I granted Walter Raleigh a patent to explore and settle lands in North America not held by a Christian ruler. English interest in colonies was driven by rivalry with Spain, the hope of finding precious metals, and the desire for a base from which privateers could attack Spanish shipping.

That summer Raleigh sent a reconnaissance voyage under Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe. They reached the Outer Banks, a chain of barrier islands, and made friendly contact with the Algonquian-speaking peoples of Roanoke Island. Two Native men, Manteo of Croatoan and Wanchese of Roanoke, returned with them to England, where they helped Thomas Harriot learn their language. The land was named Virginia in honour of the unmarried queen, and Raleigh was knighted early in 1585.

The first colony, 1585-1586

In 1585 a fleet under Sir Richard Grenville carried about 100 men to Roanoke Island, where they built a fort and houses under the command of Ralph Lane. The group included the scientist Thomas Harriot and the artist John White. White’s watercolours of the people, villages, plants and animals of the region, now in the British Museum, are among the most important images of Native North America at first contact.

The colony depended on Native communities for food, and relations soon deteriorated. In June 1586 Lane’s men killed Wingina, the leading chief of the Roanoke people, also known as Pemisapan. Days later Sir Francis Drake arrived with his fleet after raiding Spanish settlements in the Caribbean and Florida. With supplies late and the colonists exhausted, Lane and his men sailed home with Drake.

A relief fleet under Grenville arrived shortly afterwards to find the island deserted. He left a small detachment of about 15 men to hold England’s claim. These men were later attacked by Native warriors, and the survivors fled; none were ever found.

The 1587 colony

Raleigh planned a different kind of settlement for 1587: a civilian colony of families who would own land, to be called the “Cittie of Ralegh”. John White was appointed governor. The colonists were meant to settle on Chesapeake Bay, which offered better harbours and land, and to stop at Roanoke only to collect Grenville’s men.

The ships reached Roanoke in July 1587. According to White’s account, the pilot Simon Fernandes refused to carry the colonists any further, and they were forced to settle on Roanoke Island. They found the bones of one of Grenville’s men and the fort in ruins. Soon after, the colonist George Howe was killed by Native men while catching crabs.

On 13 August Manteo was baptised and named Lord of Roanoke and Dasamonquepeuc. On 18 August White’s daughter Eleanor Dare gave birth to a girl, named Virginia; she was the first child born to English parents in the Americas. Another child, born to Margery and Dyonis Harvie, followed shortly afterwards.

The colonists urged White to return to England to speed up supplies. He reluctantly agreed and sailed in late August 1587, leaving behind his daughter and granddaughter.

War, delay and the discovery of CROATOAN

White reached England in November 1587, just as war with Spain was coming to a head. In 1588 the government ordered ships to stay in port to face the Spanish Armada. White managed to leave with two small ships, but they were attacked by French privateers and forced to turn back.

Raleigh was preoccupied with other affairs, and it was not until 1590 that White obtained passage on a privateering expedition to the Caribbean. The ships reached the Outer Banks only in August 1590, after cruising for Spanish prizes.

White landed on Roanoke Island on 18 August 1590, his granddaughter’s third birthday. The houses had been taken down and the site enclosed by a palisade of tree trunks. On a tree near the shore were carved the letters CRO, and on one of the main palisade posts the word CROATOAN.

Before leaving in 1587 White had agreed with the colonists that if they moved they would carve the name of their destination, and add a Maltese cross if they left in distress. There was no cross. Chests that the colonists had buried had been dug up and their contents scattered.

White concluded that the settlers had gone to Croatoan, where Manteo’s people lived, about 80 kilometres to the south. Storms, lost anchors and dwindling supplies made the captains refuse to sail there, and the ships returned to England. White never saw his family again.

Theories about the colonists’ fate

Historians and archaeologists have proposed several explanations. None is accepted as proven.

Move to Croatoan. The carving points to Croatoan, near modern Hatteras Island. Excavations there since the 2000s have found 16th-century English objects, but critics argue they could have come from trade rather than from the colonists themselves. In his account of a 1701 journey, published in 1709, the explorer John Lawson reported that some Hatteras people said they had white ancestors and some had grey eyes, a story often linked to the colony.

Move inland. The colonists had talked of moving about 80 kilometres “into the main”, the mainland. In 2012 researchers studying White’s map of the region in the British Museum found a small symbol for a fort hidden under a patch at the western end of Albemarle Sound. Excavations near there, at a location called Site X, have found pottery that some researchers link to English settlers, though this remains debated.

Killed in the Chesapeake region. Accounts from the early years of Jamestown, especially William Strachey, reported that the Powhatan ruler had attacked people living among the Chesapeake people, possibly including survivors of the colony. These reports were second-hand and cannot be confirmed.

Other ideas. Some have suggested that the colonists died of disease or famine, were attacked by Spanish forces, or tried to sail home and were lost at sea. The Spanish did search for the colony but never found it, which makes a Spanish attack unlikely.

Many historians believe the most likely outcome is that the colonists split into groups and were absorbed into neighbouring Native communities over time.

Myths and facts

Myth: The Dare Stones prove what happened. A series of inscribed stones, said to be messages from Eleanor Dare, appeared from 1937 onwards. Most were exposed as forgeries soon afterwards, and the first stone is widely regarded as doubtful.

Myth: Virginia Dare was the first European child born in the Americas. She was the first child of English parents born there, but Spanish and Norse children had been born in the Americas earlier, and the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine had existed since 1565.

Fact: The colonists left a planned signal. The CROATOAN carving matched the method White had arranged with them, which is why most historians reject theories of a sudden, violent disappearance from Roanoke Island itself.

By the numbers

Legacy

The failure of Roanoke delayed English settlement, but the experience and the knowledge gathered by Harriot and White were used by later colonists. Harriot’s A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, first printed in 1588, and the engravings based on White’s drawings published by Theodor de Bry in 1590, shaped European images of North America for generations. The next English attempt, Jamestown in 1607, became the first permanent English colony.

Today the site is preserved as Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, established in 1941, where an earthwork fort was reconstructed in 1950. Paul Green’s outdoor drama The Lost Colony has been performed there since 1937, and Virginia Dare became a popular figure in American folklore.

Timeline

• 1584, 25 March: Elizabeth I grants Walter Raleigh his patent.
• 1584, July: Amadas and Barlowe reach the Outer Banks.
• 1585, summer: Ralph Lane’s colony is established on Roanoke Island.
• 1586, June-July: Lane’s men leave with Francis Drake; Grenville arrives soon after and leaves about 15 men behind.
• 1587, July: John White’s colonists arrive at Roanoke Island.
• 1587, 18 August: Virginia Dare is born.
• 1587, late August: White sails for England to obtain supplies.
• 1588: War with Spain blocks relief voyages.
• 1590, 18 August: White finds the colony deserted and the word CROATOAN carved on a post.

Why it matters

Roanoke was England’s first serious attempt to plant a colony in North America, and its failure taught hard lessons that shaped later ventures. The unsolved mystery of the colonists also reminds us how closely early English survival depended on relations with Native American peoples.