What do you suppose happened to the original Roanoke Colony?

[CatWoman]

The first English Colony of Roanoke, originally consisting of 100 householders, was founded in 1585, 22 years before Jamestown and 37 years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, under the ultimate authority of Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1584 Raleigh had been granted a patent by Queen Elizabeth I to colonize America.

This Colony was run by Ralph Lane after Sir Richard Grenville, who had transported the colonists to Virginia, returned to Britain for supplies. These colonists were ill-prepared and not particularly clever, because, although they depended upon the local Indians for food, they also antagonized the Indians by such tactics as kidnapping them and holding them hostage in exchange for information. Unfortunately for the colonists, who were desperately in need of supplies, Grenville's return was delayed. As a result, when Sir Francis Drake put in at Roanoke after destroying the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, the entire colony returned with Drake to England.

Interestingly, when Drake picked up these colonists, he left behind 15 of his own men, who were never heard from again. This foreshadowed one of the great mysteries of North America, Roanoke's so-called "Lost Colony" of 90 men, 17 women and 9 children, founded in 1587 and discovered to be missing in 1590, but for the word "Croatan" carved on a post. Although both the English and the Spanish searched for clues to the colony's disappearance for many years, the mystery has never been solved.

[AngryAmish]

1. Didn't they find it a few years ago?

[JHB]

31. They found the archeological remains...

...not any indication of what happened to the people.

Best guess: killed by or assimilated into the local NA tribes. Or both.

[Midlodemocrat]

2. Personally, I think they died of starvation or disease.

[Warpy]

7. yes, and debilitated survivors fled to join the closest tribe,

accounting for its name hastily scratched into a tree.

They then infected the tribe before they died.

[FreedomAngel82]

19. Yes

Were they French or Spanish? I can't remember now and don't have my notes around but the French married within the Native tribes (it was acceptable) and so perhaps they just became apart of the nearest tribe and perhaps there's just noone who wrote things down and if they did it got destroyed perhaps.

[LostinVA]

52. Ah, but the surnames live on in that part of NC

So, not everyone would have died.

[FreedomAngel82]

14. I think so too

More than likely. Harsh winters perhaps. We just got done talking about this in my history class (college). But what about grave sites? Most grave sites have some sort of marker to where you can find the person. :shrug: It's all so strange.

[LostinVA]

54. That part of NC has mild winters

I lived there for a long time. It's a rare Winter day that's freezing or below.

[Thtwudbeme]

3. I think there's a good possibility they pissed off the Lumbee

Indians.

[LostinVA]

5. Lots of Colony surnames in the Lumbee community

including Locklear -- Heather Locklear's Dad is a Lumbee.

[CatWoman]

8. WOW

Didn't know that!!!

:wow:

[Thtwudbeme]

11. I am having a pretty good time with my Native American stuff this

semester---actually I have found that I prefer the study of Native Religions to Asian--not sure why, just personal preference.

Anyway, I have a special interest in the Lumbee because they are kind of my "home" tribe--I don't live too far from Lumberton.

[LostinVA]

51. Actually, in Robeson County,, NC

You can find alot of the Colony surnames in the phone book. There have been books written on it, etc. Alot of it is just speculation. I don't think, however, it's straining the realm of credibility to say that some of the Colonists "moved in" with the Indians.

[petgoat]

4. Some say it was Jimson Weed ("Jamestown Weed"?)

Or maybe they just went off with the Indians.

Lots of white folks after a taste of life with the Indians
didn't want to go back to their old lives at all.

[FreedomAngel82]

21. Right

Lots of different reason's I would go too. I think their religion is very interesting and just how they are. Something different with them. :)

[Coexist]

50. I think the missing piece in the archaelogical record re: slaughter

is that there were no remains of the settlers found.

Here is an interesting site I found while trying to dig up that:

http://www.lost-colony.com/isit.html

[Richard Steele]

6. The "mystery" is actually non-existent; it is fiction.

They were killed by natives, and the natives told everyone who ever asked
that that is what happened.

But the "Disappearing colony mystery" makes a better story,
and so it grew to be the accepted truth, despite all
testimony to the contrary.

[CatWoman]

12. the History Channel did a special on it last night

but I missed it :(

[Richard Steele]

18. Well, poop! I missed that as well.

History Channel can be pretty 'hit or miss',
but when they are good, they are good.
I wonder how they covered it.

[CatWoman]

23. here's a bit from their site:

Digging For the Truth: Roanoke the Lost Colony
*TV-PG
February 20 at 9:00 PM ET/PT

Josh Bernstein is on the trail of America's oldest missing person's case. In 1587, over one hundred settlers landed in the New World to establish England's first permanent colony. Three years later, they had vanished. Fly high above Roanoke Island in a powered paraglider, climb and core a cypress tree to study the climate conditions the settlers faced, and learn to cook as the local 16th-century natives once did. Bernstein also travels back to England to trace the roots of a family who could be descendants of the Roanoke colony.

http://www.controlyourtv.org/NetworkDetail.php?NetworkID=35

[MrBenchley]

29. I thought that was pretty good....

[CatWoman]

30. looks like they are replaying it

http://www.historychannel.com/diggingforthetruth/?page=episodes

[MrBenchley]

34. I urge anyone interested to watch it...

It's a bit melodramatic, but covers most of the story....

Ever see "Two men in a trench" on PBS? It's also an entertaining and informative look at working anthropology....

[CatWoman]

35. I haven't seen it, but will watch for it

thanks!!!

[SoCalDem]

66. Perhaps a few women and children were assimilated into the tribe,

but it's likely that the men/boys were killed..or perhaps left behind to starve when the women & childrens might have been taken..

Do we know how literate these folks were?? Perhaps Croatan was a phonetic spelling of a native american's name..or a place??

I can never understand how people close to a coast can starve.. Eventually someone would surely try to find clams or to figure out how to catch fish..There are many simple ways to find water too..

Weather would not have been that big of an issue..

Or they could have all eaten poison mushrooms..:shrug:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Blue eyed Native Americans

I've heard that the colonists either died or were adopted by Native American tribes. Supposedly there are some folks who claim descent from these "blue eyed Native Americans".

[soleft]

10. They were taken by The Others

I'm sorry, I had a 5 hour Lost marathon yesterday

[Midlodemocrat]

13. Not to hijack this thread, but what happened last week?

I was in Puerto Rico and didn't see the show.

[CatWoman]

15. *A HEM*

:D

[Midlodemocrat]

16. Sorry, CW

:blush:

[porphyrian]

17. They assimilated with the natives, since the natives knew how to survive.

The idea that the colonists could only have been killed by the "savages" is just bullshit Eurocentric imperialist racism. The colonists made friends with the people who knew how to survive in that land, and they went off to live with them.

[Thtwudbeme]

20. Well....here's your answer Catwoman!!! All those Historians,

archeologists and anthropologists haven't figured it out, but by God, DU did!

[CatWoman]

26. LOLOLOLOLOL

:D

[porphyrian]

27. I'd say blow me, but that would just get deleted.

This probably will, anyway.

[Thtwudbeme]

Oh go ahead

Jesus, it's not like DUers haven't seen me cuss before.

But, here's a hint...don't use big words describing people that don't believe YOUR theory of something unknown.

Or as Jimmy Buffett sings, "Don't try to describe the ocean if you haven't seen it."

[porphyrian]

37. Big words? Which one don't you understand?

I reject the premise of your implication - that I don't know what I'm talking about - just because my "theory" isn't something you agree with. Believe whatever you want, but you don't have to be an asshole about it just because you don't agree with me.

[Thtwudbeme]

42. Let's see, dearie

you referred to people who do not subscribe to your theory as Eurocentric Imperialist racists.

Then tell me I am an asshole because I made fun of you.

I understood everyone of your words perfectly.

[porphyrian]

44. Wrong.

What I said was, "The idea that the colonists could only have been killed by the "savages" is just bullshit Eurocentric imperialist racism." If you had understood "everyone" of my words perfectly, you would know that, in this sentence, "the idea" is what is "bullshit Eurocentric imperialist racism," not the reader of the sentence. Also, instead of getting defensive and posting a knee-jerk insult of my take on Roanoke, a theory shared by many historians, anthropologists and archaeologists who aren't beholden to bullshit Eurocentric imperialistic racist assumptions about the capability of the "savages" to do anything other than kill or hide from European colonists, you could have simply ignored my post. Instead, you chose to make a joke at my expense. Now who's the asshole?

[Thtwudbeme]

49. I never said I wasn't an asshole eom

;)

[LostinVA]

58. There's actually alot of evidence they weren't killed

But rather joined the tribe. They left White's personal stuff behind, no bodies were found, the camp wasn't ransacked, and -- most importantly -- NO CROSS WAS FOUND. Thatw as the sign they were to leave if they had to decamp because of something bad. Everything else was basically intact. The surnames live on in the Lumbees/Robeson County.... all very interesting, very provocative. And, I agree that calling the NA's savages who love massacring whites is a mental block many Americans need to get over. Even Liberal ones.

[petgoat]

38. DNA studies will soon allow questions like this to be answered.

Probably so that descendants of specific survivors can be identified.

I read a book once that claimed that the Iroquois language had a lot of
scandinavian words in it and that the Iroquois had learned from the Vikings
how to make iron (which accounted for the Iroquois' military and commercial
might). It claimed that all this iron rusted to nothing within a couple
hundred years, leaving no trace.

It was persuasive if not convincing. I had no way to check its assertions
or its sources. And maybe it was all just the fantasy of a Viking-supremacist
who thinks that any native people who accomplished anything must have had
European genes.

[Bridget Burke]

47. Columbus was definitely not the first European "discoverer"

Norse ruins were discovered in Newfoundland back in the 1960's. (I prefer "Norse" to "Viking"--to distinguish settlers from the aggressive folks who went a-viking for up loot & slaves.)

Did Basque and/or Portuguese fishermen go for cod near Newfoundland before Columbus? They did NOT announce their discovery to the world--what might happen to the fisheries? (What eventually DID happen.)

Then there are the Irish stories--pagan & Christian--of a land to the West.

The hypothetical landbridge between Asia & North America was NOT the only way to get here in the really old days.

The more recent pre-Columbian visitors either visited briefly, died out or--quite possibly--intermarried with the previous inhabitants. The Founding Fathers were met with a mix of welcome & hostility. "Perhaps they'll fit in eventually" was the thought. But the settlers just kept coming!

The Center for the Study of the First Americans is located at Texas A&M. Lots of interesting stuff: www.centerfirstamericans.com/

[Lisa]

64. L'Anse aux Meadows World Heritage Site, Newfoundland

http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=4
http://www.pc.gc.ca/progs/spm-whs/itm2-/site1_E.asp



As you say, the Ingstads (Norwegian archaeologists) excavated the site in 1960 ... confirming their theory that the Norse sagas about sailing across the Atlantic were based on real deeds.

Mark Kurlansky's book "Cod -- A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World", which discusses the Basque/Portugese connection with Newfoundland, has been made into a documentary by the CBC. It stars Newfoundland comedian Mary Walsh, and it's very enjoyable.

[porphyrian]

75. Regarding early exploration:

I seem to recall something about ancient Chinese patterns or characters being found in some American (Central or South, I think) art, indicating that the ancient Chinese had probably been there. I also recall a conversation where we decided that a ship of Chinese cooks had visited the ancient Jews, but that was based mostly on speculation.

[dr.strangelove]

22. Duh, it was the devil

During one of the worst winter storms in history a french visitor name Andre Linoge appeared in Roanoke. He told them to give him what he wanted and he would go away. He told them he wanted a child to be his prodigy. The town refused and he killed all the citizens. Turns out he was a demonic being of great power. One day a few centuries later he went to a small island town off the coast of Maine with the same demand. These people also initially refused, but later changed their mind when he told them about Roanoke. After a lottery the town gave him the son of the guy from the TV show Wings, who was the town sheriff.

Steven King's Storm of the Century

[bif]

24. Abducted by aliens

[Bridget Burke]

25. Hakim Bey has an idea....

The opening of the "new" world was conceived from the start as an occultist operation. The magus John Dee, spiritual advisor to Elizabeth I, seems to have invented the concept of "magical imperialism" and infected an entire generation with it. Halkyut and Raleigh fell under his spell, and Raleigh used his connections with the "School of Night"--a cabal of advanced thinkers, aristocrats, and adepts--to further the causes of exploration, colonization and mapmaking. The Tempest was a propaganda-piece for the new ideology, and the Roanoke Colony was its first showcase experiment.......

We were taught in elementary school that the first settlements in Roanoke failed; the colonists disappeared, leaving behind them only the cryptic message "Gone To Croatan." Later reports of "grey-eyed Indians" were dismissed as legend. What really happened, the textbook implied, was that the Indians massacred the defenseless settlers. However, "Croatan" was not some Eldorado; it was the name of a neighboring tribe of friendly Indians. Apparently the settlement was simply moved back from the coast into the Great Dismal Swamp and absorbed into the tribe. And the grey-eyed Indians were real--they're still there, and they still call themselves Croatans.

So--the very first colony in the New World chose to renounce its contract with Prospero (Dee/Raleigh/Empire) and go over to the Wild Men with Caliban. They dropped out. They became "Indians," "went native," opted for chaos over the appalling miseries of serfing for the plutocrats and intellectuals of London.

www.hermetic.com/bey/taz3.html#labelGoneToCroatan

Hakim Bey has lots of ideas. Have fun!
www.hermetic.com/bey/index.html

[The Sleeper]

28. Well, it depends...

Were there any of the Bush Family Ancestors in their leadership ?

[myrna minx]

40. Bwah! Young Goodman and Goody Bush

sells Roanoke to the highest bidder and takes the proceeds and slaves to relocate to scenic Oak Island. :hi: :rofl:

[bjeversole]

77. I Live On Oak Island...

...Maybe I'm a descendent.

[myrna minx]

78. Or Francis Bacon or the Templars.

:7 :hi: Welcome to DU.

[FSogol]

32. They voted repub. n/t

[underpants]

33. It is pretty much considered a fact down there that Andy Griffith did it

http://www.thelostcolony.org/show.html

[melody]

46. Andy Griffith is behind everything down there, I hear

He's kind of the Tangiers of the Carolinas.

:sarcasm:

[myrna minx]

36. Here's a little blurb from Archaeology Magazine

http://www.archaeology.org/9809/newsbriefs/colonial.html
Colonial Dry Spell Volume 51 Number 5, September/October 1998
by Richard A. Grossman

Tree-ring data suggest that a prolonged drought during the early colonial period in Virginia may have caused the collapse of the so-called Lost Colony of Roanoke and the near failure of the Jamestown settlement. Studying the rings of bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum), a team of scientists led by David W. Stahle of the University of Arkansas has analyzed the severity of droughts in Virginia and North Carolina for the past 800 years. Stahle describes the trees as "natural archives of environmental variability," which show that the periods during which the infant colonies at Roanoke and Jamestown suffered most gravely coincided with the driest spells that part of the continent had experienced in nearly a millennium.

and from National Geographic...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/03/0302_040302_lostcolony.html

America's Lost Colony: Can New Dig Solve Mystery?
Willie Drye
for National Geographic News

March 2, 2004
More than four centuries ago, English colonists hoped to carve out a new life—and substantial profits—in the wild and strange land of North America. One group of colonists gave up and returned to England. A second colony, in what is now North Carolina, vanished in the 1580s and became immortalized in history as the "Lost Colony."

Today the prosperous little town of Manteo, North Carolina, surrounds the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, a national park protecting the place where the English tried to establish their first American colony—before Plymouth, before even Jamestown.

[petgoat]

41. Drought would weigh in on the side of the idea that the

Indians killed them, IMHO.

Hey, these hairy-faced guys show up, they're dirty, they smell, they talk funny, the rains stop,
people start getting strange diseases--obviously they're Bad News.

[Marie26]

39. Didn't they join the Indians? nt

[leftofthedial]

43. they joined the circus

most people don't know that

[Cleita]

45. There is a speculation out there of disease and starvation in

the colony and that the survivors were taken in by a neighboring Indian tribe, who absorbed them into the tribe by intermarriage. Later explorers told of meeting Indians who spoke an Elizabethan dialect of English and some of them had blue eyes. Of course no one can prove that they are the survivors or maybe other Europeans who intermarried into the tribe.

[melody]

48. Lots of things

Primarily, they married into the native populations. The Lumbee sport Anglo names and have the occasional red-haired, blue-eyed child.

Some of them probably died of various things.

Andy Griffith ate the rest.

[LostinVA]

55. As I said up thread: Heather Locklear's Dad is a Lumbee

[CatWoman]

57. LOL with the Andy Griffith references!!!!!

:rofl:

[anarch]

53. I'm 100% sure that they all died. A long time ago.

[puerco-bellies]

56. Very Simple possibility - Hurricane

A moderate hurricane could totally sweep a small settlement away leaving just the flora and fauna to quickly re-establish it's self

[LostinVA]

59. But, the settlement wasn't swept away.

[bobbieinok]

60. in 1622 many settlers were killed by Indians at Berkeley Hundred

near/at Jamestown

this was the same tribe that Pocahantas was a member of earlier (she died in England in 1619? on the way back from England....her husband John Rolfe was apparently killed in the massacre

their son Thomas apparently was later given the opportunity to take up the leadership of the Indians......he opted to be white and part of the beginning plantation society

[CatWoman]

61. Don't confuse Roanoke Island in the Carolinas with Roanoke, VA

Pocahontas was of the Algonquian Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia (where I was born).

Interesting tidbit: Pocahontas played a significant role in American history. As a compassionate little girl she saw to it that the colonists received food from the Indians, so that Jamestown would not suffer the fate of the "Lost Colony." She is said to have intervened to save the lives of individual colonists. In 1616 John Smith wrote that Pocahontas was "the instrument to pursurve this colonie from death, famine, and utter confusion." And Pocahontas not only served as a representative of the Virginia Indians, but also as a vital link between the native Americans and the Englishmen. Whatever her contributions, the romantic aspects of her life will no doubt stand out in Virginia history forever.

http://www.apva.org/history/pocahont.html

[underpants]

62. Bird Flu

Think about it, we still lose how may every year to poorly cooked food?????

[Felix Mala]

63. I read recently that Croatan was well known to the British but

the island was south of Roanoke and the second landing party was trying to avoid that area because they didn't want to be caught colonizing by the Spanish. (Spain had previously claimed all of the area.) In fact, Raleigh's second expedition only stopped in Roanoake to pick up the survivors and take them north so they could establish a colony that was safer from the Spanish. Because of the Spanish, they weren't about to head south again toward Croatan. According to one account I've read, fifty years later -- when England was no longer so scared of Spain and they began exploring the Carolinas -- they came upon natives who could speak some English and who were quite familiar with Christianity. These were likely the descendents of Roanoake refugees or, at least, descendents of those who took them in. There's also evidence of a rare multi-year drought that would have made life on the coast nearly impossible.

[H2O Man]

65. The past, revisited .....

You might find this quote from Part IV of the interview I did with Onondaga Chief Paul Waterman interesting. Paul was the Gauyesa Toyentha, and you may be familiar with our work at returning burials and grave goods to the earth. Now my friend Cat Woman questions everything, and right now is saying, "H2O Man, what would an Onondaga be doing in this area?" So first I'd say get out your copy of the 9-87 National Geographic, and look at the map on page 380. The governor of Kentucky had asked what Paul and Leon were doing at the Slack Farm, too, and so Paul showed him that map. The governor said, "Well, if it's in National Geographic," and if you look on pages 390-1 of your March 1989 edition of National Geographic ..... well, you get the picture.

So a quote from Paul regarding the Roanoke: "...It's hard to have people from one culture really understand another. There's a site in West Virginia, where I have been asked to rebury 664 remains. But they are held in an Ohio museum. The people in Ohio asked me why I want to rebury people in West Virginia. And here I was wondering why they wanted to dig them up!

"Or there is the Roanoke site. These were non-Indian people, who wanted to live like Indians. The Indians took them in. Archaeologists dug them up. Now Indians want to rebury them. And the people in the cultural center want to know why.

"I'm not sure everything can be explained. Some things you either understand, or you just don't. Maybe the goal should be to teach respect for other people, even if you don't fully understand them."

Those Roanoke were absorbed into Native society.

[CatWoman]

68. what's that saying about curiosity killing the cat?

:D

Now my friend Cat Woman questions everything

In my travels in El Paso, I found this book store that specialized in real old books.

I bought several that dealt with Native Americans.

One of them had a map, showing the original lands and habitats of the Natives, before "manifest destiny" took hold.

I was stunned at how ignorant I was about the subject.

Unfortunately, I lost those books (or they were stolen).

Anyhow, I can well see how they would have been absorbed into Native Society.

I recently purchased a book "Black Indians".

Natives were very open and accepting people, and adopted many into their society.

[H2O Man]

69. The Shinnecock

on Long Island often have black skin, and African features. From early on, they took in escaped slaves. The Cherokee, who are Iroquoian, had extended families of blacks in their clans. When a couple chiefs from farther away saw my nephews, they said, "Cherokee?"

Adoption creates linkages that ease tensions. So it is to help individuals, and to help groups.

US history has been severely weakened by separating non-white groups' relationships with one another. Gary Nash's "Red, White and Black: The peoples of early America," (Prentice Hall, 1974) is a great book for students of history.

A few miles from my home, there is a site where Mohawk leader Joseph Brant had one of his two camps on the "western front" during the Revolutionary War. The "boarder wars" were an important part of that conflict -- the Clinton-Sullivan campaign was one of the most vicious chapters in the war. The soldiers following Gen. Washington's instructions devastated local hamlets like Lt. Calley. I found journals in PA from soldiers, laughing later about looking through the gardens, and finding where women hid babies, and "running them through" with bayonettes.

A large part of Brant's camp here was comprised of "runaway blacks." Colonel Jacob Klock wrote a report to Governor Clinton, warning that Brant's forces included Iroquois, other Indians, "rascally Tories and runaway Negroes." Today, local schools and most area historians are totally ignorant of this fact. I have a large number of artifacts from the site, and do my best to teach the true history.

[H2O Man]

71. Past generations .....

Years ago, at a Q&A at one of the state universities we presented at, a student asked Chief Waterman why so many white people thought they had an Indian ancestor? Paul said, "Because my grandfathers were just like me."

[CatWoman]

72. ROFL!!!!!

:D

[H2O Man]

79. We had

some fun.

[CatWoman]

73. Have you ever seen "Son of the Morning Star"?

stars Gary Cole as Custer.

What the Army did to the Indians. :puke:

They were told to hang American flags on their tents to show they were not "hostiles", but they were still massacred.

The movie also suggested that Custer fathered a blond haired daughter who unfortunately did not live beyond infancy.

I like movies like that and Dances with Wolves, as they do try to show the Native's view of events.

What pisses me off is the name of the battle "Custer's Last Stand".

It wasn't his stand, it was the native's last stand.

I understand after the battle, the natives fled to Canada -- but were then hunted down by Sherman and killed or imprisoned.

[H2O Man]

74. In 1975

Stephen Ambrose published a book called, "Crazy Horse and Custer: the parallel lives of two American warriors." It may be the best study of both Custer and Crazy Horse ever done. It came out as a Meridian Book.

One of the great leader Red Cloud's grandsons, who was still living not that long ago, Matthew King, named my friend Rubin "Badger Star" when Rubin went to the land of the Lakotas to take part in ceremony.

[converted_democrat]

67. They had a leader like * and he screwed them into ground...n/t

[NuttyFluffers]

70. It was the Rapture. The rest of us are too late.

:evilgrin:
throw in several 10,000 more people "disappeared" (or as i like to think of it, 'kidnapped by angels') around that time and voila', it was the Rapture. so people are now wasting their time, there's no more slots for the faithful. aww, too bad!
:+

[Raine]

76. I think they were absorbed

into the Native American population.

[kentuck]

80. Have you read about the "Melungeons" ?

Many settled in about 4 or 5 counties in SE Kentucky. My Great-Grandma Mary was a Melungeon. Her last name was Collins. She was part Cherokee. I think, from what I have read, that they may have been part of the "missing tribe", although many researchers say they are from Portuguese descent.