Lost Colony Roanoke

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, America's First Colony

Fort Raleigh is located on Roanoke Island between the Outer Banks and the North Carolina mainland. It's the island where Virginia Dare, the first American child born of European parents, came into the world on August 18, 1587.

When I visited in early May, the visitor center was undergoing repairs. A temporary visitor center in a metal prefab box had several informational posters hung on the wall depicting the history. The small park bookstore took up about half the room.

To explain this site, it takes enthusiastic interpreters like Ranger Rob Bolling and Robin Davis, an Eastern National employee who has lived on the island for over 30 years. Ms. Davis willingly took me aside to tell me the site's story:

Sir Walter Raleigh sponsored several expeditions into the new world. Raleigh never came to North America, however, because Queen Elizabeth I didn’t want to lose him; she had already lost Raleigh's half-brother when he went off in an expedition.

The first two voyages to Roanoke were expeditions made up of men. They were looking for precious metals and a base from which to raid Spanish ships. Their interaction with the Roanoke Indians didn't go too well. The colonists became too dependent on the Indians for food and the Indians were dying of European diseases. The second expedition left 15 men to hold the fort, literally, for England and the rest went home.

On the third voyage in 1587, 117 people, including women and children, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the Chesapeake Bay. The ship made a stop on Roanoke Island to find the missing 15 men but they had disappeared. The captain said that he wasn’t going any further so they were dumped here. It sounds like the equivalent of "You'll figure it out." But they were not self-sustaining and asked their leader, John White, to return to England to get more supplies.

When White returned three years later, he found no one. Nothing but the letters down to Albemarle Sound with its small beach, passing an earthen fort along the way. This fort, dating from 1584 to 1590, has been excavated and studied since 1895. Recent digs have uncovered plenty of artifacts from the late 1500s, including Indian and English pottery pieces and glass beads.

The interpretive trail points out that the colonists were not self-supporting. One sign on the trail says The Elizabethan Gardens, a couple of miles from Fort Raleigh, features 10 acres of beautiful, well-manicured gardens. The design is Elizabethan but the plants are modern, some grown and sold on site. The sunken Gardens are the showpiece of the Elizabethan Gardens design, with the fountain in the center. It’s a cross design with an enclosed walkway. Elizabethan gardens were inspired by Italian designs at the time.

The LOVEolution » Exploring the Mystery of the Lost Colony of Roanoke

In 1584, explorers were sent to Roanoke Island (a narrow island situated between the Outer Banks and the mainland of North Carolina) by Sir Walter Raleigh to determine if the area would be well suited to establishing a colony. Upon their return, they delivered a positive report of the location, which included a list of the abundant natural resources surrounding the area and findings that Roanoke was better protected from the elements than the Outer Banks. The island appeared all around to be a good choice for a settlement with live oaks and plenty of other trees to build cabins and a variety of wildlife to hunt for food. Sir Walter Raleigh delivered the information to Queen Elizabeth and she granted Raleigh a charter to all the lands that he could claim in the area.

The next year Sir Raleigh sent out a group of one hundred men, mostly soldiers and craftsmen to establish the colony under the guidance of Ralph Lane, a military captain. The group met with poor results from the beginning and departed the area.

Sir Raleigh responded to the news of Lane’s departure by gathering a party of one hundred and seventeen men, women and children who were willing to sail from England in order to establish a permanent settlement in the New World.   As the group sailed to the New World, their leader John White included in his party his pregnant daughter Eleanor Dare.  Upon their arrival, the situation was hostile on all fronts and the colonists asked John White to return to England to gather support and supplies.

Three years after Eleanor gave birth to her daughter Virginia Dare, her father John White returned to Roanoke Island to find everyone and everything missing. All traces of the settlement had disappeared. There was no sign of struggle nor were there any signs of where the group had gone.  His heart raced with terror, were his daughter and his granddaughter alive? Had someone taken them?  There had been no way to get a direct message to them for the past three years. The colonists had no news source and relied on ships that very infrequently stopped in the area. It’s highly likely that the colonists might not have known about the war that had kept White from traveling back to them. They may have presumed White to be dead or lost at sea.

Imagine how Eleanor must have felt, a new baby and practically defenseless, waiting each day in such dangerous territory, cradling her small daughter Virginia while everyone rationed the dwindling supplies.  John White understood this and more, realizing that his dream of starting the first settlement in the new world and bringing his daughter with him, had led to her destruction.

The Lost Colony of Roanoke

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The Lost Colony of Roanoke, a primary source history

A Primary Source History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke

The Lost Colony of Roanoke