As you are coming to the end of your long journey, you’re overwhelmed with the idea that you’ll be home soon, accompanied by warm, familiar faces. However, when you return home, you’re not welcomed by friends and family, but by silence and only the howl of the wind. You look around and not a single soul is in sight. Not one person in your home or in your whole village. A frightening scenario, isn’t it? This was the startling reality that John White and his fellow colonists were faced with when they returned home from their long voyage. His home was none other than the infamous Roanoke Colony.
In 1587, John White led 113 men, women, and children to Roanoke island on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I, in order to establish a New World colony, and claim riches for the queen and people of England.1 The land was somewhat familiar as it had been a previous military outpost.2 However, its first attempt at establishing a colony there had failed. John White and his men were determined not to fail their Queen on this attempt. They especially did not want to fail their investor, Sir Walter Raleigh, like others had in the past. So they went to all extents to make sure their colony’s needs were met.3 The colony seemed to settle well; however, they quickly outgrew supplies, which were essential for the long-term establishment of the colony; so now governor of Roanoke, John White, sailed back to England in order to restock. Upon his arrival in London, he was met with war with Spain and the Spanish Armada, England’s enemy at the time. Storms and many other factors made the return back to Roanoke a long one, one of years, leaving the colonists to wonder when their leader would return.4
Once John White and his men returned, Roanoke was bereft of all its colonists. They recalled that on their way to Roanoke, once already on land, they found a few footprints from Indians.5 However, they made nothing of it at the time. When they reached the village, White came across the letters “CRO” carved on a tree and the word “CROATOAN” carved on a post. Upon further inspection, it seemed that all the houses that the Roanoke Colonist were living in had been dismantled. After seeing this, White was more at ease because he believed that they had relocated to Croatoan, where the Croatoan tribe lived. This was due to the fact that White told the colonists that if they ever relocated, they were to carve the name of their new location somewhere visible. If the move or escape was out of distress, they were also to carve a Maltese cross, but none were in sight. One small thing bothered White though. He had told the colonists to hide his valuables underground, but he found that some were scattered and others were lost. In the end, for a reason unknown, White only looked for the colony one time, but didn’t find them. After this failed attempt, he made no others.6
One question still lingered in the mind of many others: what happened to the Roanoke colonists? It’s said that they were never seen again by Europeans, but there were also many speculated accounts of their whereabouts and fate. In 1608, John Smith wrote in his book that the Indians reported to him of people that looked like him. George Percy, another colonist, reported seeing a white boy with blonde hair among the Indians. Smith later sent two missions towards the south in order to find evidence of the remaining colonists, eventually learning that they were killed.7
Later, a twenty-one-quartz stone was discovered that is believed to have been a “grave marker” for the Roanoke deceased. On the smooth side of the stone was a cross and on the other were passages, speaking of deaths within the colony along with the years.8 As a last matter, in 1612, writer William Strachey reported that the Roanoke Colony did indeed live in harmony with the Chesapeake Indians for twenty-five years. Both the Indians and colonists shared knowledge and lived together until Powhatan, a leader of another Indian tribe called the Powhatan, slaughtered the colonists and the Indians sheltering them in fear that a rival to him would appear from within their tribe. A few of the colonists escaped and were later spared when they were found due to the fact that they worked well with copper, making them valuable. Still many wondered if these were facts or just stories that people wanted to hear.9 In the end, all the evidence points to the fact that the Roanoke colonists are not lost to history, but were rather killed off by brutal Indians. There is no mystery left, it’s just a matter of connecting the dots.
- The Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained, 2003, s.v. “The Desertion of Roanoke,” by Brad Steiger and Sherry Hanson Steiger; Karenne Wood, “The Roanoke Colony,” South Atlantic Review 77, no. 1/2 (2012): 178-79. ↵
- Lee Miller, Roanoke Solving the Mystery of England’s Lost Colony (London: Pimlico, 2001), 7-9. ↵
- Karenne Wood, “The Roanoke Colony,” South Atlantic Review 77, no. 1/2 (2012): 178-79. ↵
- Lee Miller, Roanoke Solving the Mystery of England’s Lost Colony (London: Pimlico, 2001), 10-11. ↵
- Karen Odahl Kupperman, Roanoke The Abandoned Colony (New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984), 133-135. ↵
- Karen Odahl Kupperman, Roanoke The Abandoned Colony (New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984), 136-137. ↵
- Karen Odahl Kupperman, Roanoke The Abandoned Colony (New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984), 137-139. ↵
- Haywood J. Pearce, “New Light on the Roanoke Colony: A Preliminary Examination of a Stone Found in Chowan County, North Carolina,” The Journal of Southern History 4, no. 2 (1938): 148-150. ↵
- Karen Odahl Kupperman, Roanoke The Abandoned Colony (New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984), 139. ↵
114 comments
Katherine Watson
Even after not being able to find a single trace of them when they were alive, their legacy got to live on forever as people question what happened to the Roanoke Colony. Although we do not have an official answer (and we might never get one), the most important thing is that their death was marked down in history, we know that they did not perish after Smith left them. They wanted their story found, and we heard them, but their mystery will live on forever.
Lorenzo Rivera
This article was extremely interesting, yet is filled with mystery. It is insane to think that an entire group of people could just vanish from the face of the earth, therefore there must be an explanation for when, where, and why the colonists decided to leave their settlement. The most likely scenario seems to be that they did in fact live with a Native American tribe following their disappearance seems most likely, however, we will never truly know if it is true.
Belene Cuellar
It’s so surprising to me that he never put in that much effort to find the missing colony. He only searched once and then called it off. I mean how could someone care so little for the colony they were in charge of. It’s almost like he didn’t even want to look for them in the first place. What kind of person does that?
Jennifer Salas
I really liked how the introduction pulled me in wanting to know more. It made me put in perspective how they must of felt coming from their journey to an empty home. This article was very well put together, and I never lost interest I just kept wanting to know more. I had always been curious about the Roanoke colony and wanted to know what exactly happen. I hope to engage readers and pull them to a story much like this article did to me.
Madison Guerra
This article was well put together and contained very interesting information that i never knew. Growing up i never knew there might have been evidence or any trace of what happened to the colony. I had always been told that when they read the word Croatoan on the tree that they never knew what it meant. To find out that they did know what it meant and that they believer the colony lived among the indians was very new and interesting to me. i really enjoyed reading this article.
Alyssa Garza
I’ve heard many different stories about what happened to the people but I like how this article suggested that they went to live with other Indians before being killed. I’m just not understanding why John White only looked for everyone once and that was it. It just doesn’t make sense why only look once for your people and give up. He saw all the evidence that something was different or wrong but he didn’t do any real investigation about what happen to the people.
Luke Lopez
This article provides different explanations as to what happened to the Roanoke colony. Prior to reading this article, I had never heard of the possibility that the colonists of Roanoke lived in harmony with the Chesapeake Indians for twenty-five years. To this day we still do not know definitively what happened to the Roanoke colony, but we can still make inferences from the information given.
Jocelyn Moreno
I have heard of this story before but a very board outlook about it which was, a town was there and then disappeared in the blue once John returned. It seems very logical that they merge with the Indians in order to supply. Both had skills that each could benefit from. What I don’t understand is that why would they leave everything out and not take it with them when merging? That doesn’t make sense to me because they were valuables ! But its crazy how John only went to search for them once and gave up shortly after, if you ask me he wasn’t a great “leader”.
Sarah Nguyen
Loved the introduction – it kept me wanting to read more. The Roanoke Colony has always been mysterious, and when I learned about it in grade school, it left me in chills as I wondered how an entire colony could mysteriously disappear like so. I had heard about the words carved into the tree before, but I never knew John White had instructed them to do so if they relocated – making it not so much of a mystery of what happened to the colonists any more. While the details of their whereabouts aren’t completely clear, this article did well to piece together the information to help lead the reader to a theory, although impossible to say for sure what happened. I wished the author had expanded the background on why the Roanoke Colony wasn’t initially successful, as it was more than just outgrowing their supplies. Great job, very interesting and thought provoking.
Antoinette Johnson
This article, “What Really Happened To The Infamous Roanoke Colony?” is interesting and very mysterious. I honestly never heard of Roanoke Colony disappearance until now. I can imagine John Whites thoughts when he came back to find no one there. I can also imagine the colonist one-day living in peace just waiting for your governor to come back with supplies then all of sudden thrown into utter chaos that would lead to the disappearance every member of the colony. This article puts in perspective, what if one day we came home or back to school and there was not a single soul and no one could say what happened or how everyone disappeared.