The Lost Colony

Erwin Middle SchoolMr. Scullion

A Third Attempt Having now had 2 failed attempts at colonizing the Americas, England was not ready to give up.

A Englishman, John White was now going to attempt where the previous had failed. He had great respect for the Indians and was furious when his fellow colonists murdered them. He believed the colony had failed because the men spent too much time looking for treasure and not enough time learning to farm and fish. He thought a group of families would be more successful. Sir Walter Raleigh agreed with him, and together they began to plan a different kind of colony and another trip to Roanoke.

A Third Attempt White began gathering families for another try, including his own daughter, Eleanor White Dare, and her husband, Ananias Dare. In the spring of 1587, 110 colonists left England. White wanted them to settle farther north in the “Bay of the Chesapeakes,”. But the ship’s captain refused to take the settlers farther north because of storms. The group sailed to Roanoke and set up camp. They began to build houses and plant crops. On August 18, 1587, Eleanor Dare gave birth to a baby. She named her Virginia Dare. John White’s granddaughter became the first English child born in the Americas.

A Third Attempt The colonists found a new tribe of Indians to trade with, as the previous tribe no longer wanted anything to do with the colonists. The Indians came from the Island of Croatoan, however they had no food to share. The lack of food caused a major problem. The colonists had planned on trading for food, so they had not brought enough from the ship to live on. By the time they realized their mistake, the ship that brought them to Roanoke had left. The small ship that remained was not large enough to take all of them back to England. They would have to survive on their own.

A Third Attempt

vsA Third Attempt

John White decided to sail the small ship back to England to get supplies. The round trip should have taken just a few months, but when White arrived in England, he found the country at war with Spain. No one was willing to send supplies or ships to a tiny colony on the North American coast. It took White three years to get back to Roanoke.

The Lost Colony

When he did return, White found the colony destroyed. On a nearby tree, someone had carved the letters “CRO.” “CROATOAN” was carved on a post. White had instructed the settlers to carve a cross if they were in danger, but there was no cross. He presumed the settlers had moved to Croatoan, so he planned to head to the island the next day.

Then a storm blew up. The captain of White’s ship insisted on sailing back to England. White never returned to the Americas. He never saw his family again. The fate of the Lost Colony remained a mystery. European settlers did not return to North Carolina for decades.

The Lost Colony

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The Mystery Continues For centuries, people have wondered what happened to the Lost Colony.

For hundreds of years, the letters “CRO” carved into a tree and “CROATOAN” carved into a post were the only physical clue to the Lost Colony’s fate. Then, in 1998, a 16th-century English signet ring, a flint lock from an English musket, and two English coins were found at an archaeological site inside the ancient capital of the Croatoan chiefdom. The crest on the ring is that of the Kendall family. Kendall was one of the Roanoke colonists.

Besides this evidence, oral traditions suggest that the colonists became part of an Indian community. Decades after the disappearance, another English settler met some North Carolina Indians who told him they had white ancestors. These people practiced Christianity, and many of their names were similar to those of the Roanoke colonists. Many of North Carolina’s present-day Lumbee Indians believe they descended from members of the Lost Colony.

Jamestown

The failures at Roanoke did not stop Europeans from heading to the Americas. In 1607, a group of Englishmen settled in Virginia at a place they named Jamestown. This was the first permanent English settlement in the New World.