The Lost Colony: The Third Expedition

This series is meant to be a short overview of Walter Raleigh’s expeditions to the New World that culminated in the separation and abandonment of what is now know as the Lost Colony. At the end of this series, I’ll provide book recommendations. For now, it’s helpful to read the previous posts:

What we know of John White’s colony, later called The Lost Colony, is common knowledge: The group was supposed to have settled along the Chesapeake, but their Portuguese pilot, Simon Fernando, forced them to disembark on Roanoke Island. This just a year after Ralph Lane caused numerous problems with the natives. 

Within days, George Howe was brutally murdered by natives while searching for crabs. A couple of weeks later, White’s daughter, Eleanor Dare, gave birth to the first English baby born in the New World, Virginia Dare. Facing an imminent abandonment by Fernando and in need of supplies, the colonists sent John White back to England with the ships to tell Raleigh of their plight and to get aid. 
Grounds near Fort Raleigh

Where would the colonists stay in the meantime? They built homes on Roanoke, but according to all reliable sources, the colony planned to move fifty miles into the main. If Fernando really did abandon them on Roanoke, when did they come up with this plan? Surely not before they left England, as they were supposed to have gone to Chesapeake. And yet, the symbol for a fort located approximately fifty miles into the mainland was recently found on one of John White’s maps. A map that White had either left in England or had taken back with him. 

In his A Strange Kingdom book on the Lost Colonists, James Horn states the follow:

Then (White) and the assistants had to decide where the colonists would go when they left Roanoke Island. Mindful of the threat of attack by the Secotans, White and the settlers had decided to leave the island and move inland, where they hoped to find friendly Indian peoples to help them. The best prospect was somewhere near the head of Albemarle Sound, where the Chowanocs lived. White knew from discussions with Ralph Lane that both peoples had been loyal allies of the English the previous year. Possibly the aged Menatonon would be equally helpful to his settlers.

Horn doesn’t provide a footnote here, so we don’t know if his, “the best prospect was somewhere near the Albemarle Sound....” is based on a primary source, if it’s accepted speculation, or if he knew the symbol for the map had recently been found. It’s located on the northern edge of Secotan territory. Would they have gone there instead of the island of Croatoan (modern Hatteras) after everything that had transpired during past expeditions? And if so, why had they carved CROATOAN into a post and CRO in a tree?

While White was in England, war finally broke out with Spain, preventing his return. When he finally returned to Roanoke in 1590, he found the fort abandoned and nature taking over (indicating it had been abandoned for some time) his belongings strewn about and damaged, and no one around. Or so he reported. As mentioned above, he found CRO and CROATOAN carved on a post and a tree, indicating their destination. The token indicating distress was not included, so it seems they left peaceably and went with their friends down to what is now Hatteras Island and eventually assimilated with the natives. Pretty much everyone agrees that’s where they went. I agreed. Why not? 

Subsequent primary sources from other explorers seemed to settle the matter. Edward Bland explored “New Britainne” (Virginia and the northern part of North Carolina) in 1650—just over sixty years later. He traveled to the Albemarle Region (of which we speak) after hearing reports of Englishmen living among the natives. In his trip through the Carolinas in 1700, John Lawson reported meeting members of the Hatteras nation who had gray eyes and whose ancestors could “talk from a book.” In my mind, it was settled. While reading an advanced copy of Shannon McNear’s upcoming novel on the colony, even before I reached the part where John White had left for England, I started thinking about it and realized that couldn’t be the end of it. Not because there are so many theories about the fate of the colonists, but because of events that occurred upon John White’s return in 1590. 

Suddenly, what had been the obvious no longer made sense. I had to do more research and rethink everything.