What happened to the Roanoak Colony? This is the question asked by John White when he found the colony abandoned in 1590, and this is the questions asked by historians ever since. There are many theories as to what happened to the colony and are backed by differing facts that don’t match each other so that when looking at the situation as a whole there was no one answer. A new study, however, sheds some new light on the subject and shows that the colonists at Roanoak Island was integrated into the local Lumbee Indian tribes during one of the worst droughts of the area’s time.
In 1587 Sir Walter Raleigh and John White created the first colony in Queen Elizabeth I’s time upon Roanoke Island. One hundred and seventeen colonists were with John White hoping to start a new life in a new land, but supplies were quick to dwindle. Sir Walter Raleigh had lost fifteen men at the hands of natives from a previous attempt to establish a military colony on the island. This made the potential for alliances with the local Native American tribes tense and uneasy; however the Hateras tribe was a friendly local tribe at the time and would have seen the potential in having an alliance with the settlers for weapons and potential political power. John White, named the Governor of the Roanoke settlement established in July of 1587, was forced to return to England to resupply two months later, ten days after John White’s daughter Eleanor Dare gave birth to a daughter named Virginia Dare on August 18th 1587. In John White’s diary he left back for England with the promise to bring back desperately needed supplies. The trip was only supposed to take three months, but while John White was in England gathering supplies for the colony war was declared on Spain and Queen Elizabeth called for every able ship, causing John White no passage back to Roanoke. It took him three years to return to the Colony with supplies. He came back in 1590 expecting to be greeted by his granddaughter who would have been three by then. John White’s own words of what he found describe it all. (John White, 1590)“Where I left our colony in the year 1587. In all this way we saw in the sand the print of the savages’ feet of 2 or 3 sorts trodden the night, and as we entered up the sandy bank upon a tree, in the very brow thereof were curiously carved these fair Roman letters: C. R. O. which letters presently we knew to signify the place, where I should find the planters seated, according to a secret token agreed upon between them & me at my last departure from them.” (p. 1) He came upon a confusing sight with his men unsure what happened to his family and the colonists the rest of his words help describe a sign of distress if there was one to be found. (John White, 1590) “I willed them, that if they should happen to be distressed in any of those places, that then they should carve over the letters or name, a Cross in this form, but we found no such sign of distress. And having well considered of this, we passed toward the place where they were left in sundry houses, but we found the houses taken down with no cross of distress.” (p. 1) John White was forced to leave because of a storm that came in after countless days of searching. He left the fate of his family behind in Roanoke, ignorant as to what happened to them until the day he died.
Through the Lost Colony DNA project sponsored by the local historic society, and Oxford University in England, progress has been made towards answering what happened. A link has been discovered between the known ancestors of the lost colonists and the Lumbee Indian tribe once known as Croatoan or Hateras, who show signs of fair haired genetics going back four hundred years. The Hateras tribe was known to be open and diverse in accepting outsiders into their culture. Adopting a colony of starving colonists would have been a smart move in showing that the Indians were open to peace with these Colonists who had settled in a bad time. The Roanoke settlement was considered temporary and John White found houses deconstructed and other supplies pulled from the homes, suggesting the Colonists headed further inland to escape the harsh winter of the area. Abandoning the Colony for warmer houses and living with Indians would have ensured the survival of the Colony until John White’s return, and with John White leaving Roanoke behind in his past the tribes that took in the settlers would have adopted the entire colony and shared the native culture, giving the colonists the skills they needed to survive in this new world. The survival of the colony would have been the main priority of the colonists. In order to prevent panic the colonists would have sought out help from the Native Americans if they were starving and worried they had been left for dead when John White failed to return.
One other possibility of what happened to the colonists comes from the chief Powhatan of the Tsenacommacah, a group of tribes in Virginia, who said that he had destroyed the colonists. Powhatan was building an empire and his priests said that there would be an empire that would over throw him rising from the Chesapeake area. Powhatan told John Smith of Jamestown of his conquest to exterminate the colonists who had spread among the local tribes. However while Powhatan may have killed many colonists and the tribes who had adopted them, there are many stories heard by other explorers in the area of clothed Indians and colonists protected by powerful rivals of Powhatan. Powhatan would probably not tell the Jamestown Colonists or John Smith of the colonists he had not killed for the sake of pride and to keep Jamestown from joining with the Roanoak Colonists and building the empire his priests had foretold would overthrow him.
One other possibility of what may have happened to the colonists is that the Spanish, who knew of the colony’s existence, found the colonists and killed them. With England at war with Spain, the Spanish would have wanted to prevent England from getting a foothold on the new world. This theory is quick to be dismissed however since the Spanish records have no account of finding the colony or colonists despite looking for them, and the remains of the colony showed no signs of battle or fighting of any kind.
With no news on the war between England and Spain the colonists would have been left in the dark for three years. Leaving them once their supplies were gone desperate for survival, with the ensured link to Lumbee tribe and known ancestors of the colonists in England it is clear they found a way to survive. They were absorbed into the local Native American tribes leaving behind no trace of them as they brought what they could along making the journey inland to join their new found home with the Lumbee tribe. Life was survival of the fittest when Colonists first started settling into America, ensuring the survival of the first Colony in the name of the Queen would have been something dear to them. Sadly a war divided them from their Governor, forcing his family to leave into the uncertainty of when he might return. They left a sign showing they were all right, indicating where they would have gone. John White never got a chance to check the spot fifty miles inland to see if his daughter and granddaughter were living with these Indians. It is clear that the link is there through DNA, and genetics don’t lie as it shows clearly what the settlers’ fate was in those three years that John White was gone. The Colonists made the choice to survive by living with the Indians and learning their ways. It is clearly seen in the Lumbee tribe how diverse their culture is and how far the roots go back in Virginia.
Resources
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3. Mulero, E. (2010, Apr 13). Roanoke's lost colony had tragic history. Roll Call. Retrieved
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April 24). The Lost Colony and Jamestown Droughts. Science, 280(5363), 564-567. Retrieved November 25, 2013, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2895280. Grens, K. (2012). Lost colony DNA. The Scientist, 26(1), 16-16,18. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/916790270?accountid=458
5. White, J. (1590). Return to Roanoke. Retrieved November 30, 2013
