As I mentioned in my previous post,
I recently worked through questions I had about the
fate of the Lost Colonists. It's helpful to read that post first and then continue here.
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History is cause and effect. We cannot look at one historical event without examining catalysts that led up to it, along with changes that came about as a consequence of that event. I couldn't begin to understand the Lost Colony until I had a grasp on the political, economic, and religious situations of the time, and the personal goals of those involved.
However, so much was involved with the arrival and disappearance of the Lost Colony, entire books had to be written to present all the facts. Books are still being written. There are several theories out there, but in trying to figure out what was bothering me about this situation, I decided to stick solely with known facts.
So I read. Much of what I originally gleaned all those years ago came from books such as Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony by Lee Miller, The First Voyage to Roanoke 1584 by Arthur Barlow, and Thomas Harriot's A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, along with a few other sources, including Ralph Lane's journal of his disastrous expedition. This past month, I downloaded Beechland and the Lost Colony by Philip McMullen and James Horn's A Kingdom Strange: The Brief an Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. All of those sources taught me much about Roanoke Island, the natives who lived along the coast, and Raleigh's expeditions, but in these posts, I sometimes quote McMullen's Beechland and Horn's Strange Kingdom. While I don't agree with McMullen's theory for reasons I'll state later, he does a fabulous job of laying out chronological events that led up to the disappearance of the colonists. Quotes from both books are place in quote marks.
To start, it’s important to remember that Spain was a formidable power taking over parts of Europe, the Caribbean and South America. An expansion financed by what seemed like an infinite amount of gold mined in South America.
What is now the US Atlantic coast wasn’t a hidden gem Sir Walter’s men just happened to stumbled on. The Spanish knew about it. According to Horn's Kingdom Strange, Spanish ships sailed past the Outer Banks on occasion, and sailors had, one on occasion, wrecked their ship on one of the islands. Other nations were already fishing in the area around Newfoundland and likely around the area that’s now Nova Scotia and Maine. The Pilgrims were aware of them forty years later and had encounters with a few of them.
With ships exploring and fishing in the waters to the north and to the south of the mid-Atlantic coast, once can assume a few of those ships sailed past it as well, including the Spanish. No one wanted the Spanish to take possession of more land and resources. In fact, England wanted to stop them all together.
As Horn stated in his Strange Kingdom, “Ralegh would organize (but not lead) a large expedition to establish a harbor on Roanoke Island, from which English privateers could harass Spanish shipping in the Caribbean and western Atlantic, establishing a long-term English presence in the New World that would in time fatally undermine Spain’s empire.”
His first attempt to do so began in 1584.
Next post: Raleigh's First Expedition