What Do We Know Aboutthe Lost Colony of Roanoke?On August 15, 1590, an English ship called the Hopewell dropped its anchor off the coast of an island in the Outer Banks, near what is today North Carolina. The Hopewell had been traveling since March 20, and had finally reached the site of the English colony of Roanoke. John White, who was the governor of the colony, was aboard the Hopewell.Three years earlier, he had sailed from Roanoke Island to bring supplies back from England. Now, after many delays, he had returned. He was eager to see his daughter, Eleanor; his baby granddaughter, Virginia; and the other English colonists again.John could see the land from the deck of the ship and, even better, smoke from a fire. His family would be there, waiting.Unfortunately, it turned out to be the wrong island. The next morning, John and the sailors loaded into small boats to row to the correct island. But even though Roanoke Island was so close that they could see the trees on shore, this short journey was dangerous. Waves rose and crashed along the shore, and the crew were in open boats. On the short trip, all the gunpowder, food, and bullets in one boat got soaked with water. Another boat turned over, and seven sailors drowned.The rest of the crew was starting to wish they’d never agreed to take John to shore. They wanted to turn back. But John insisted they take him in. He hadn’t waited three years just to turn back now.On their second attempt that day, the boats finally reached shore, but darkness had already fallen, so John and the sailors anchored their boats, letting them bob on the water until morning. Through the trees, they could see the fire burning. They’d wait until morning to go ashore, they decided. Throughout the night, they blew a trumpet they had with them, sang English songs, and called out, but didn’t get a response.At last, morning came. As soon as it was light, John and a few companions set out. First, they investigated the fire. Just a natural fire, it turned out, probably started by lightning. No people were around.Then John saw it. On a tree near the deserted shore, someone had carved three letters: CRO.A clue. But who had left it?The village itself was empty, too. All the houses had been taken apart, and the colonists had built a sturdy fence of logs around where the homes had once been. John could tell by how much brush had grown up around the ruins that no one had lived there for a long time.Then John saw another clue. On one of the fence posts, a word had been carefully carved: CROATOAN. Another sign. And perhaps, an answer. Chapter 1Life in Coastal CarolinaThe people who lived in the coastal area of what is now North and South Carolina were part of the Algonquian, a group of Native communities who spoke related languages and shared cultural similarities.Under this large umbrella, smaller groups organized themselves into villages of one totwo hundred people up and down the coast and farther into the mainland. These villages included Tramaskecooc, Croatoan, Aquascogoc, Pomeiooc, Cotan, and Secotan. Groups of villages were governed by leaders called mamanatowick (say: mah--mah-nah--TOW--ik), and within that system, each individual village was then governed by a werowance (say: were--WANTS).For thousands of years before John White and his settlers landed on their shores, theCarolina Algonquian peoples had been living in what is now the eastern part of the mainland coast of North Carolina—-loosely from present--day Albemarle Sound south to the Pamlico River. They also lived on the string of barrier islands now called the Outer Banks, including Croatoan Island, which today is called Hatteras Island.The Carolina Algonquians By the late 1500s, anywhere from five to ten thousand people lived in settled villages up and down what is now the North Carolina coast and barrier islands. European colonizers (people who take control of an area of land that is not their own) brought diseases such as smallpox with them when they arrived in the Americas. As disease spread through the Native populations of the Americas, it killed as many as 90 percent of them within a hundred years. The Carolina Algonquians who survived stayed on their own land, however. As the centuries went by, they married and had generations of children. Some married into the white and Black communities who now lived near them, but they still kept their Algonquian traditions strong. Their culture hasn’t disappeared. The group still holds heritage festivals and social and cultural gatherings called powwows. They fight to keep coastal North Carolina’s land and water clean and protected from development to honor the land they have lived on for so long.The Algonquian peoples of the coastal Carolinas were hunters, fishers, and farmers. The walls and roofs of their houses were built of wood and bark with woven mats that could be rolled and unrolled to let light and air in. Families slept on benches around the walls, and a fire in the middle kept the house warm. In the center of each village was an open space for meetings and religious gatherings, along with human-­made ponds to collect freshwater.The people hunted turkeys, squirrels, rabbits, bear, and deer, and gathered roots and nuts. They worked in their fields, where they grew corn, beans, pumpkins, sunflowers, tobacco, gourds, melons, cucumbers, and peas. On platforms above the field, people would take turns watching for animals who might eat the crops. At night, they cooked their meals over grills on outdoor fires or made stews or corn pudding. Special drinks were brewed from sassafras, ginger, and other herbs.This land was braided with inlets, marshes, and rivers snaking in from the nearby ocean. The people who lived there fished in canoes made of single logs that were burned, scraped, and smoothed out. Some of the canoes could carry as many as twenty people. They wove fence-­like nets that they used to catch fish. During the spring and summer, they made trips to the barrier islands off the coast to fish in the deep ocean water.The Carolina Algonquian grew plenty of food in the rich soil and tended their crops carefully. Their diet was healthy and nutritious. They made beautiful, sturdy clay pots for cooking and storage; wooden dishes; and copper jewelry. They also made swords hardened with fire, willow bows, and reed arrows topped with fishbone arrowheads for hunting.Across the Atlantic Ocean, though, life in England was very different. John White and other Europeans were part of a longtime system of colonialism that existed all over the world. Europeans at this time were beginning to send exploratory groups to almost every continent on Earth. They were looking for many things: shorter routes to countries withwhich they wanted to trade, gold and silver, and land for farming.Even though living on these lands were civilizations who already had been there for thousands of years, European colonizers moved onto land that was not theirs to settle. They believed they had the right to establish their own communities—­colonies—­on any new land they encountered, especially in North and South America and the Caribbean. While some British settlers were looking for freedom to practice their own religion, those from Spain and Portugal were more interested in spreading their religion, Catholicism, throughout the world. Chapter 2Ships SailPeople in London, England, during the late 1500s found themselves in very close quarters. London was extremely crowded. Bubonic plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, and malaria regularly broke out. The water was not clean enough to drink. Diseases that come from dirty water, like cholera, were common. London was also expensive. And landlords charged high rents. Outside the city, farmland was hard to own if you were young or poor.Queen Elizabeth I ruled over this busy, crowded place and all of England and Ireland. She knew about the scarce farmland, cramped houses, and dirty water, but she had other worries on her mind, too. Spain was building a whole new fleet of warships that they could use to attack English ships. Elizabeth’s powerful adviser Sir Walter Raleigh told her that if England could make a permanent settlement in the new land of North America, they could use it as a base to attack Spanish ships. England could then have the land and any valuable resources they found there, too.Raleigh decided that some ships should sail to the coast of what is now the Carolinas to explore the land and find the best place for a colony. In April 1584, almost forty years before the Mayflower would reach what we now call New England, two ships, commanded by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, set sail from England. On July 13, they landed on the barrier islands that are now called the Outer Banks.When Amadas and Barlowe saw what is now Roanoke Island, about twelve miles long and three miles wide, they thought they had found the perfect spot. They noted that the soil was wholesome, sweet, and good for crops.A group of people, who might have been Secotan or Roanoke, welcomed them. The tribal leader, Wingina, was recuperating from a thigh wound in a distant town, but his brother, Granganimeo, offered to trade with the Europeans.Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1553–-1618) Sir Walter Raleigh was born in the English countryside and served in the army as a young man. Handsome and charming, he was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. Raleigh organized and raised money for three expeditions to North America, in 1584, 1585, and 1587. Raleigh himself did not travel to North America, but he did sail twice to South America to explore there. The queen wanted Raleigh to be loyal only to her, and when he secretly married her lady--in--waiting Bess Throckmorton, she was angry. She had the couple locked in the Tower of London, a royal fortress, palace, and prison. The Raleighs were released after a few months, but Sir Walter was banned from the queen’s court. After the queen died in 1603, the new king, James I, suspected Raleigh of plotting against him. He again imprisoned Raleigh in the Tower of London, this time for thirteen years. When Raleigh was released, he went on one last expedition to South America, in 1616. During the trip, his men attacked a Spanish settlement. King James had Raleigh arrested for stirring up trouble and sentenced him to death. He was beheaded on October 29, 1618.Over the next few days, the Indigenous people offered deer skins, pearls, and dyes in exchange for tin dishes, knives, and axes. As the Europeans grew more comfortable, Barlowe took seven men on an exploring expedition in their smaller boat. They visited Granganimeo’s village, on the same island, where they were welcomed by Granganimeo’s wife.The Europeans were dirty and smelly after both their long journey across the ocean and their shorter journey to the village. Granganimeo’s wife, whose name is not known, invited them into her house and washed some of their clothes. Other women washed Amadas’s and Barlowe’s feet and cooked them a meal of venison, roast fish, fruit, corn pudding, and wine with ginger and sassafras. The men were given leftovers and reed mats to use as umbrellas when they returned to their boat to sleep. Granganimeo and his wife had a reason to treat the captains so well. They might have been hoping that making friends with the Europeans would help them politically. They would have formed a partnership with the outsiders that some of the other Algonquian nations would not.Amadas and Barlowe decided that they would tell everyone back in England that the coastal Carolinas were a perfect place for settlement. But they had barely explored. They could see that the Algonquian people grew good crops, but they did not know what farming techniques they used. They wanted their trip to be a success. So they decided to report that it had been, even without knowing many details about the land they had visited. And they had only visited a single island.Two members of allied Algonquian groups—­Wanchese, who was a part of the RoanokeNation living on or near Roanoke Island, and Manteo, who was Croatoan and whose people lived on Croatoan Island—­traveled to England with the explorers when they left for home. We’re not certain why, but they may have been sent by their leaders who believed that making friends with the English would be helpful to their people.In England, Sir Walter Raleigh was delighted to hear the two captains’ report about the coastal Carolinas. Raleigh brought Wanchese and Manteo to visit Parliament, the seat of government.Their homeland was rich and bountiful, they declared to the elected officials. Raleigh wanted to lobby the members of the British government for enough money to establish a full colony.Manteo Manteo was a leader and member of the Croatoan Nation of Algonquian people and was a friend to the colonial settlers for as long as there is a record of him. He sailed to England on two separate journeys, in 1584 and 1586. There, he wore English clothes made of brown taffeta and stayed at a home of Sir Walter Raleigh. Eventually, Manteo learned English and taught the Algonquian language to others who were interested in learning about Algonquian life. On Roanoke Island, Manteo helped the English colonists by interpreting for them with different Algonquian groups. He also tried to convince Croatoans and others not to fight the English. He was baptized and became a member of the Church of England in August 1587. Manteo is the first Native person to be baptized into the Church of England.And Raleigh got what he wanted. On April 9, 1585, under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, five big ships and two small ones left England for the Carolina coast, with about six hundred men aboard—­and only men. No women and children were included. Their plan was to establish a permanent English colony. About half the men were professional sailors and many in the other half were soldiers and craftsmen, such as carpenters, smiths, and cooks. Others were gentlemen and friends, relatives, and neighbors of Sir Walter Raleigh. Some were laborers and regular citizens.Overall, Raleigh modeled this trip after a military expedition and chose men who could fight, live in rough conditions, and obey orders. They carried weapons, supplies, and mining and scientific equipment. Ralph Lane, a professional soldier, would become the governor of this new settlement. Manteo and Wanchese were also aboard. They had been away from their home for eight months.The expedition arrived in the Outer Banks in June 1585, about three months after leaving England. Everyone got off the boats and made a new plan. The food supplies were low, and there wasn’t enough left to feed everyone. Sir Grenville and Ralph Lane decided that Laneand about one hundred men would stay on Roanoke Island over the winter. But they could not stay there permanently. The water around the island was too shallow for big English ships to anchor. Instead, the larger sailing ships had to anchor several miles offshore.Lane and his men would make Roanoke Island their base and use their smaller boats to scout the mainland for a more suitable permanent site for the colony. Meanwhile, Grenville and the others would go back to England and get supplies.They would return in the spring, around Easter. The leader Wingina offered land to those staying on Roanoke Island, and Lane’s men immediately got started on a fort and houses to live in. They needed the fort to protect themselves in case the Spanish found the English settlement and decided to attack.Soon after they landed, Wanchese returned to his own people on Roanoke Island. Manteo tried to meet with him, but Wanchese refused to have anything more to do with the English, who now had lost a valuable ally.While on a visit to a Secotan village called Aquascogoc, the English could not find one of their silver drinking cups. They accused the villagers of stealing it and demanded it back. When they did not receive it back, they burned the village houses and corn crops to the ground in a shocking act of violence. The English did not write down why they did this, just that they did. This extreme overreaction may have been meant to teach the Secotan a lesson about disobeying the English, even though the English were not their rulers. The Secotan people were furious. How dare the English burn their homes and farmland?At this time, some of the Native people on Roanoke Island started to get sick. The men who had arrived from England were spreading germs that the villagers had never been exposed to and couldn’t protect themselves from. Many Native people began to see the English as dangerous and harmful.The Algonquian began to wish that their visitors would go home. They had shared food with them. They had even made fish traps for them. But now it was time for them to leave. By early March 1586, the English settlers began to run out of food. They asked the Secotan people to give them corn. But the Secotan did not have enough for a hundred extra people and eventually refused. Easter, the time for Grenville to return, came and went with no sign of the resupply ships.Then, Wingina made a decision: If the English wouldn’t leave, he would fight. He gathered other groups together and made plans to attack. But the English had an advantage. They had captured an Algonquian prisoner, and he warned them of the coming fight.The English decided to strike first. They tried to steal tribal-­owned canoes, and violence broke out. The English beheaded some Native people the next morning. They landed canoes near Wingina’s village. They fired on it with their pistols. Wingina headed for the woods. The English ran after him and killed him.The Algonquian people were not going to witness the murder of their leader and donothing. Ralph Lane knew that. But he still wanted to look for a permanent colony site and wait for Grenville and his supplies.Then, in early June 1586, a fleet of ships appeared off the coast. They were commanded by the famous explorer Sir Francis Drake, who had been on a monthslong expedition around the West Indies and the Florida coast. Part of his mission, which Lane did not know about, was to check on the colony.Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540–-1596) Sir Francis Drake was the son of tenant farmers in Devonshire, England, and first went to sea when he was about eighteen. In the 1560s, he began commanding his own ships as well and led English slave--trading expeditions to the West Indies, pirating expeditions against Spanish ports in the Caribbean, and, in 1577, an expedition around South America to the Pacific Ocean. Drake continued west to the Philippines, eventually reaching England again. He was the first English person to sail around the world. Drake was celebrated and knighted by Queen Elizabeth I. In 1587, he served as the second--in--command in the English victory over the Spanish Armada. Drake died of dysentery in 1596 off the coast of what is now Panama, and his body was buried at sea.Lane and his men were very glad to see Drake. He offered them supplies, sailors, and ships so that they could keep looking for their colony site. Lane gratefully agreed. But as the men were talking and making plans, on June 13, a hurricane blew up.It destroyed several of Drake’s large and small boats, along with the supplies that were onboard, and it snapped the anchor cables on others, so that they drifted out to sea.Lane had had enough. He abruptly changed his mind and decided that he and his men would leave with the English fleet. Drake agreed, and at the last minute, Manteo decided to come along as well. In late June, Drake’s remaining ships pulled up their anchors. The wind caught at their sails, and the big ships glided away from the Carolina coast. The colony was abandoned.It had failed.In late August, Grenville returned to Roanoke Island from England, not knowing that Lane and his men had left. He brought ships, supplies, and men. But when he found the abandoned buildings, he decided not to stay. Instead, he dropped off fifteen men with some weapons to guard the buildings. Then he, too, left, and sailed back to England.