Roanoke: The Lost Colony

There are many theories on how the people of Roanoke disappeared; of how the colony just went up in smoke. One is that the colonists were killed by the native tribe, the Algonquin Indians. First, the Algonquin already had a grudge against the English for relying on them too much, using up their supplies, and the war between the Algonquin and the Colonists in the spring of 1586. The Algonquin already had reason to attack the colonists when they returned in 1587. After Roanoke’s governor, John White, left to England, the colony was basically on their own until he returned. When he hadn’t come back after two years, the colonists surely would have started to run out of supplies after he left, and started searching for new food and fresh water sources. The Algonquin may have taken the opportunity to get their revenge against the white men and wiped out the entire English settlement and used their supplies and bones for weapons and their own uses.

The second theory is that the colonists found the Croatoan tribe and merged into their tribe by marrying in and starting families with these natives. The colonists were told that if they had to leave for any reason they were to write a message on the doorpost at the exit of the town and, if it was to leave because of danger, to carve a Christian cross above the message; when John White came back in 1590 - three years after he left - he found the message CROATOAN carved into the doorpost, but no cross, signaling that there was no danger. Just over one hundred years later, in 1709, an explorer by the name of John Lawson visited Roanoke and the neighboring Hatteras tribes. During his time with the natives, he wrote “that several of their ancestors were white, and could talk in a book as we do, the truth of which is confirmed by grey eyes being found infrequently among these Indians and no others.” In addition, many of the Pembroke North Carolina Natives held English surnames - those of the colonists - and many bore Anglo features: fair, pale eyes rather than deep brown, light hair color rather than black, and Anglo bone structure.

A third theory is that the Roanoke colonists left Roanoke and went north, towards the Chesapeake Bay. Using rafts made from their homes and taking their supplies with them, the colonists up and left. Growing sick of waiting for John White to return with supplies, the colonists most likely decided to build their own ways of transportation, and sailed northbound to the Chesapeake Bay area, and started a new settlement. Twenty years later, when John Smith settled Jamestown, Powhatan, Pocahontas’ father and the chief of the Powhatan tribe, admitted to killing off a settlement near the Chesapeake to prevent further settlement of the English on their land. These are just three theories on how Roanoke disappeared. There are probably many more, and we may never know what became of the colonists of the first English settlement.