THE OVERLOOK
By Tom Clavin
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It was 432 years ago this week that the first and most enduring mystery in American history began. On August 18, 1590, John White, the governor of Roanoke Island, returned from a supply trip to England to discover that the English settlement on the island was deserted. Over a hundred colonists had simply disappeared. There was no evidence of disease or violence, no skeletons. Among the missing were White’s daughter and son-in-law and their daughter, Virginia Dare, the first English child to be born in America.
All that was found by Governor White was the word “Croatoan,” the former name of what is now Hatteras Island, carved into a post.
The Roanoke colony was an attempt by Sir Walter Raleigh to establish the first permanent English settlement in North America after the English, led by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had claimed St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1583 as the first English territory in North America. The first Roanoke colony was founded by Governor Ralph Lane in 1585 on Roanoke Island in what is now Dare County in North Carolina. Following the failure of that settlement, a second expedition, led by John White, landed on the same island in 1587.
Lane's colony had been troubled by a lack of supplies and poor relations with the local Native Americans. While awaiting a delayed resupply mission by Sir Richard Grenville, Lane abandoned the colony and returned to England with Sir Francis Drake in 1586. Grenville arrived two weeks later but also returned home, leaving behind a small detachment to protect Raleigh’s claim.
The following year, Raleigh sent White on an expedition to establish the "Cittie of Raleigh" in Chesapeake Bay. During a stop to check on Grenville's men, flagship pilot Simon Fernandes forced White's colonists to remain on Roanoke Island. White, however, returned to England with Fernandes, intending to bring more supplies back to his colony. The Anglo-Spanish War delayed White's return to Roanoke until 1590, and upon his arrival he found the settlement fortified but abandoned. The cryptic word "CROATOAN" was carved into a stockade post. White interpreted this to mean the colonists had relocated to Croatoan Island. Before he could follow this lead, rough seas and a lost anchor forced the rescue mission to return to England.
To this day the fate of the approximately 115 colonists remains unknown. Speculation that they had assimilated with nearby Native American communities appears in writings as early as 1605. Investigations by the Jamestown colonists (who arrived in 1607) produced reports that the Roanoke settlers had been massacred. There were also stories of people with European features in nearby Native American villages, but no hard evidence was produced. More scientific research over the centuries has failed to find archaeological evidence to explain the disappearance of the colonists. Some historians have contended that the colonists were killed by hostile Spaniards, or that they died off due to disease or famine, or were victims of a deadly storm.
But researchers uncovered a new lead in 2012 while examining a map at the British Museum in London that White had painted of Elizabethan-era America titled La Virginea Pars. Hidden in invisible ink, presumably to guard information about the colonies from the Spanish, were the outlines of two forts, one 50 miles west of Roanoke—the same distance away that the colonists had told White they planned to move, according to his writings. Archeologists with the First Colony Foundation, a North Carolina nonprofit, led by Nick Luccketti, set out to investigate the site in Bertie County in 2015. Promisingly, the possible settlement was close to a Native American village called Mettaquem, which resembled early European settlements.
There was no sign of a fort, but just outside the village wall the archaeologists found two dozen shards of English pottery at what’s been dubbed “Site X.” Ground-penetrating radar revealed another possible dig site two miles away. The search continued in December 2019 at what’s been dubbed “Site Y,” yielding many more fragments of ceramics from different parts of Europe. The fragments, which come from vessels used for food preparation and storage, suggest the presence of long-term residents.
Although the experts haven’t ruled out the possibility that the artifacts may have been left behind by colonists from Jamestown, Luccketti believes his find is evidence of a group of relocated Roanoke colonists. Notable is a lack of English pipes, which were ubiquitous among Jamestown settlers, suggesting the ceramics date from an earlier period – the Roanoke settlement.
Another theory about the colony is that the settlers moved to Croatoan. The word carved on the wooden post was not cryptic at all but literally informed any who read it of where the colonists had gone. What happened to them after that . . . is a mystery.
Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including his latest collaboration with Bob Drury, Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier, and Lightning Down: A World War II Story of Survival. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase a copy.
Tom Clavin had me going there for a minute, thinking he was going to finally solve the enduring mystery of Roanoke. Dang! He didn't, because no one can as yet, but this is still a great read.