Colonial Americas

The year was 1587 when a total of a hundred and seventeen men, women and children landed on Roanoke Island, at the entrance to Albermarle Sound on North Carolina's eastern shore.

To the north of the island, on the mainland, were largely friendly Algonquian-speaking tribes, including the Secotan, Dasamonquepeuc, Roanoke, and Pasquenoke.

Within three years they seem to have vanished without trace.

Timeline

The Roanoke Colony, located on the large island to the lower centre-left of the illustration, was founded in 1586, but by the following year it had failed

What became of them?

Three possible explanations have been proposed to explain the disappearance of the Roanoke colonists.

• The first is that they could have been murdered by Spaniards.
  
  Florida was the northernmost Spanish possession at the time. The Spanish governor, Pedro Menendez Marques, had heard rumours of an English fort being built. Marques had seen the town of St Augustine sacked by Sir Francis Drake, but as long as the English had no base in the Americas, there would be some respite from their constant depredations during the summer months.
  
  A full-blown colony would mean that English fleets could winter nearby; something the Spanish wished to avoid at all costs. Marques could not have known that Drake merely stopped off at Roanoke to remove the stranded Grenville would-be colonists. Nor did he know of the second group of colonists left on Roanoke in 1587. Marques was determined to discover what the English were up to.
  
  In 1588, Vicente Gonzalez was sent northwards to scout the area. He searched the Chesapeake Bay area but failed to find any trace of the settlers, and on his return he chanced upon Roanoke Island where he found a landing place and some barrels, but no fort and no settlers, which meant that the colonists had already left, presumably having left their 'CROATOAN' inscription, although why didn't Gonzalez find that? If he did, why did he not call in at Croatoan to investigate? After all, he would pass by that island.
  
  On his return, Gonzalez discovered that Marques had learned independently of the Roanoke colony and had received instructions from the king of Spain to destroy it at his earliest opportunity. The destruction of Roanoke never happened as the Spanish were too preoccupied with fending off English buccaneers who were a constant threat to Spanish treasure ships from the Caribbean. In light of this, it seems unlikely that the Spanish were responsible. If they were, it seems odd that such an event went unrecorded in Spanish historical accounts.
• The second option is that they could have been killed by Indians.
  
  Governor John White had memories of the time of his first landing in 1585, of the warm welcome and hospitality shown by the natives. It is true to say that without the help of the Indians the colonists would not have survived that first winter. The Indians helped them to plant corn, gave them seeds, and showed them the best way to catch fish. Because a silver cup went missing from one of the boats, the settlers responded by burning a village and destroying a cornfield, thereby repaying the Indians' kindness with hostility.
  
  The then governor, Ralph Lane, on hearing a rumour that local chief Wingina was planning an attack, made a pre-emptive strike on the Indian village, killing the chief and all his counsellors. Perhaps the 'Lost Colony' was destroyed as vengeance for these injustices?
  
  However, before abandoning the Roanoke settlement, the colonists did not mark a cross on either of the two inscriptions to indicate danger, leaving only the enigmatic 'CROATOAN'. Did this mean that they moved peaceably to that island? Did any of the settlers make it to Chesapeake, missing Gonzalez's search party?
  
  There is simply no evidence that the colony fell victim to native retribution.
• The final option is that they could have been assimilated.
  
  The most likely scenario is that the settlers probably did move many of their number to Chesapeake Bay according to their original plan, with possibly the last twenty-five making a trip to Croatoan owing to some unknown circumstance.
  
  This must have happened in 1589, the year after Gonzalez had made his fruitless search of Chesapeake Bay, and the year before White's return to Roanoke. This would account for there being no settlers on either date, yet the inscription - 'CROATOAN' - would still indicate their last movement.
  
  During the intervening years between 1587 and 1607 the settlers had simply become assimilated within the various tribal groups who had taken them in, adopting their customs, dress, and culture. They simply melted into the background. Ironically, the northern group who, it is hypothesised, merged with the Chesapeakes, almost certainly shared the fate of that unfortunate tribe when the settlement of Skicoac was destroyed by Powhatan's warriors.
  
  This would seem to be an entirely plausible reconstruction if alien abduction and falling foul to Susquehannock cannibals is implausible.
  
  A month later, in May 1607, Jamestown was founded.

Text copyright © Mick Baker, extrapolated from The Lost Colony (Great Mysteries of the Past, Readers Digest, 1992). An original feature for the History Files.