The Lost Colony of Roanoke

by Fullam, Brandon

  Assuming, then, that the last four entries for 1589 are separate references to the same September hurricane, as seems likely, there were three hurricanes that could possibly have taken a path to the Carolinas between August of 1587 and August of 1590. All three of these occurred in the twelve-month period between September of 1588 and September of 1589 and, as noted, are marked with an asterisk above. Unfortunately very few details were reported about either the strong hurricane that struck Cuba in September 1588, or the one that struck the Leeward Islands in August 1589. It is possible, however, that one or both of these could have turned northward, following a typical Atlantic track, and had an impact on the Carolinas and the English colony. Due to the lack of additional information, though, little else can be said about them.

  Much more can be established about the track of the September 1589 hurricane. From the four reports of that event, it appears that the Spanish fleet’s first encounter with the outer bands of the hurricane occurred on September 9, about 150 miles (“50 leagues”) east-northeast of Havana, probably about 100 miles or so from the Bahamas. Since hurricanes in the northern hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise, the “fierce northeasterly wind” would place the center of this storm considerably farther to the east-southeast, perhaps just north of the present-day Dominican Republic on September 9. This hurricane was clearly moving west-northwest towards southern Florida and then had to have tracked northward if, as indicated in the final two Spanish reports, it was soon located off Cape Canaveral.

  The future track of this September 1589 hurricane, then, is reasonably predictable. It appears to have followed the same historical path of many known hurricanes which have moved through the Caribbean and turned northward up the east coast of Florida to strike the Carolinas. This track along the east coast tends to follow the Gulf Stream, which provides a source of thermal energy and helps maintain a hurricane’s strength.11 As demonstrated in the following illustration based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as the National Weather Service, Hurricane Floyd followed a very similar track through the Caribbean and then up the Florida coast on September 13, 14, and 15, 1999, as had the September 1589 hurricane.12

  The position and track of the September 1589 hurricane corresponded with Hurricane Floyd’s, Sept. 13–16, 1999 (courtesy Michael Gayle).

  Hurricane Floyd, one of the worst to strike North Carolina, followed a historical path up the Atlantic coast, tracking the Gulf Stream, and made landfall at Cape Fear on September 16, 1999. Based on the Spanish reports, the reconstructed 1,000 mile path of the 1589 hurricane—from about the Dominican Republic to Cape Canaveral—was almost identical to that of Floyd on September 13, 14, and 15. Hurricanes traveling westward through the Caribbean either turn in a northward direction and curve toward the eastern coast of the U.S., like Floyd, or stay on a north-westward track and enter the Gulf of Mexico.13 Consequently, once the 1589 hurricane turned northward along the Florida coast, it likely followed the same thermal Gulf Stream track and made landfall somewhere along the Carolina coast, perhaps in the same general area as Floyd, on or about September 13, 1589.

  From the reports in the Archivo General, then, there were three hurricanes which could possibly have turned northward and affected the Carolinas between August of 1587 and August of 1590. All three possibilities occurred between September of 1588 and September of 1589. One of these three, the September 1589 event, can be reliably tracked through the Caribbean and then northward past Cape Canaveral, following the Gulf Stream hurricane path, and very likely struck the Carolinas. This hurricane could have had serious consequences for any Lost Colonists who may have remained behind in 1588, when the pinnace or pinnaces sailed north, as proposed earlier.

  It will be helpful at this point to understand the specific effects of a hurricane and how they could have impacted the remaining Lost Colonists. As defined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other meteorological sources, there are various factors which contribute to the destruction and loss of life in a hurricane. Strong winds, of course, are associated with all hurricanes and can cause extensive damage, but “the greatest threat to life actually comes … in the form of storm surge … water from the ocean that is pushed toward the shore by the force of the winds swirling around the hurricane.”14 Most flood-related deaths are caused by drowning, of course, but the death count increases dramatically when water levels rise rapidly, as they do from a storm or tidal surge. Hurricane Katrina, for example, caused at least 1,500 deaths in 2005, attributed mostly to the surge that accompanied the storm. According to the American Meteorological Society’s study of the fifty-nine Atlantic hurricanes that occurred from 1963 to 2012, about half of all hurricane-related deaths were caused by storm surge, whereas hurricane winds only accounted for 5 to 10 percent of fatalities. Moreover, the strength of the hurricanes when they made landfall was not necessarily related to the fatality rate. Of the ten most deadly storms during that forty-nine year period, only three were considered major hurricanes, i.e., Category 3 or higher. Six of the ten most deadly were just Category 1 hurricanes, or tropical storms, when they made landfall.15 Regardless of its strength at landfall, the 1589 hurricane could have had dire consequences for any colonists who remained either at Croatoan or the mainland settlement to the west.

  While a storm surge is the abnormal rise in seawater level caused primarily by a storm’s winds pushing water onshore, “a storm tide” is the total rise of seawater resulting from the combination of storm surge and the astronomical tide.16 When a storm surge occurs at normal high tide, the effects are even more devastating. If a storm tide accompanied the 1589 hurricane, the results would have been immediate and catastrophic. The previously mentioned Hurricane Floyd had diminished from a category 4 to just a minor category 2 hurricane when it made landfall near Cape Fear in 1999, yet the storm surge along the North Carolina coast was estimated at nine to ten feet. Most of the fifty-six deaths attributed to Floyd were due to the surge.17 By way of comparison, Hurricane Hazel made landfall at the North Carolina–South Carolina border as a category 4 on October 15, 1954. A storm surge of more than twelve feet inundated the coast, but reached as high as eighteen feet at Calabash, North Carolina, where the storm surge coincided with the time of the lunar high tide.18 It would not have taken a surge nearly as great as these to wipe away the mainland settlement and cause considerable fatalities among any Lost Colonists who may have been left behind the previous year.

  A few words should be added here about the settlement’s vulnerability to a storm surge. As proposed, by late March of 1588 the new settlement was established on the mainland, and by May a small contingent of colonists waited for White at an outpost on Croatoan and would then have led him to the settlement site upon his expected arrival perhaps as early as June. The mainland site must have been readily accessible via a good, navigable inlet—Wokokon—to facilitate what was expected to be periodic supply ships from England. As discussed, that site may well have been located west of the Wokokon/Ocracoke inlet in present-day Carteret, Craven, Pamlico, or the southern part of Beaufort County.

  Note the surge levels at those counties and the surrounding areas on the following storm tide map based on the models provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.19 As illustrated by the shaded areas, the maximum storm tide levels resulting from a so-called minor Category 2 hurricane would inundate the coastal parts of all the aforementioned counties with a surge of seven to nine feet, which would have effectively destroyed a new settlement at any of those locations. In fact the entire area from the northernmost reaches of the Pungo River all the way south to Cape Lookout and beyond, as well as the Outer Banks, would be similarly inundated.

  The impact from a Category 4 hurricane would have been even more devastating. Such an event could produce a surge reaching as high as fifteen feet well up the Neuse River in Craven County some twenty miles above New Bern. The same surge levels could be reached as far as thirty-five miles up the
Pamlico River. A surge of twenty feet would inundate the coastal areas of Beaufort, Pamlico, Craven, and Carteret Counties, all of which were potential settlement sites in 1588. A Category 4 surge would have been calamitous for the colonists and their new mainland settlement if it was located anywhere near these coastal areas or along the rivers farther inland.

  There is one irony concerning the 1589 hurricane and the Lost Colonists, and that has to do with a passage in John White’s account of his return voyage to Roanoke. When White returned to the original settlement site in 1590, it of course had long been abandoned, and as mentioned he “found the place very strongly enclosed with a high palisado of great trees, with cortynes and flankers very Fortlike.”20 It might seem, then, that if a hurricane and storm surge struck in 1589 and eradicated the new settlement on the mainland, how could the original palisade enclosure at Roanoke—constructed in 1587—still be standing in 1590?

  Maximum storm surge levels from Category 2 and 4 hurricanes (courtesy Michael Gayle).

  The answer to that question depends entirely on the Roanoke settlement’s vulnerability to a tidal surge, and that in turn depends on the settlement’s exact location on the island in 1587. As illustrated on the map above, Category 2 and 4 surges may reach as high as nine to twenty feet respectively, more than enough to wipe away a settlement and cause any number of fatalities along the Outer Banks and the coastal mainland of southern Pamlico Sound. Note, however, the following close-ups of Roanoke Island based on data taken from the same NOAA maps.

  The shaded area surrounding and mostly covering Roanoke represents five to ten foot maximum surge elevations in Category 2 and Category 4 storm tides respectively. In both models, however, there are elevated areas at the northern end of the island that are affected far less by either storm tide. The Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, which claims to preserve the location of the 1587 Colony, is located at the extreme north end of the island, well within that less affected zone. Erosion over the centuries may have erased part of the original site, leading to some debate today about its precise location, but there is no doubt that the 1587 settlement was located somewhere at the northern end of the island.

  Category 2 and 4 hurricane surge models show little impact on the north end of Roanoke Island where the fortified settlement was located (courtesy Michael Gayle).

  John White wrote that the original settlement was located “round about the North point of the Iland” and was clearly at some elevation since to approach the settlement site he “entered vp the sandy banke.”21 A Category 2 or 4 storm tide in 1589 would probably not have affected the old palisade built of “great trees” very much at all, and would account for the fact that it was still standing when White returned in 1590. Ironically, the mainland settlement may have been eradicated by a surge that inundated Carteret, Craven, Pamlico, and Beaufort Counties, while leaving their original settlement at Roanoke virtually unscathed.

  Finally, the potential 1589 hurricane and surge must be juxtaposed with the other critical event that probably impacted the Lost Colony after John White’s failure to return as expected in the summer of 1588: the likely decision to utilize their seaworthy pinnace—and perhaps build a second vessel—in an effort to make contact with other English ships about 1,200 miles to the north at Newfoundland. A single 30–35 tun pinnace might carry forty to forty-five persons on a northward voyage along the coast, leaving about fifty-five to sixty colonists behind. If the colonists built a second pinnace, it is probable that they did so in order to accommodate everyone who wished to go, like the castaways at Bermuda would later insist. Perhaps there were a few who decided to take their chances among the Croatoans. There is a chance, then, that there may have been anywhere from just a few to as many as sixty remaining colonists before the hurricane struck in September of 1589.

  The death toll from a seven to thirteen foot surge is impossible to calculate, but the percentage could have been quite high. Assuming a 50 percent fatality rate—a conservative estimate considering that such a surge would have inundated Croatoan and completely swept away the mainland settlement—the number of surviving colonists may have been as few as one or two to as many as thirty immediately following the hurricane of 1589. There could very possibly have been additional deaths among the survivors afterwards, from injury, illness, and malnutrition from inadequate or spoiled food caused by the storm.

  Any attempt to describe the psychology of the surviving colonists after the 1589 hurricane would be highly conjectural; nevertheless, work has been done in recent decades to understand the specific psychological effects of floods on survivors. Interestingly, it has been found that a survivor’s dislocation and the loss of personal possessions after a flood may undermine his sense of attachment and self-identity.22 Whether or not this condition has any relevance to whatever colonists may have survived the hurricane surge in 1589 cannot be known with any degree of certainty, of course, but the event would most likely have accelerated the assimilation of any survivors into the native Indian society.

  A hurricane strike and surge in September of 1589 would have initiated a rapid and decisive physical collapse of the colony. The immediate results would have been the inundation and eradication of the mainland settlement. A seven to thirteen foot surge would have swept away the wooden dwellings which had been disassembled and transported from Roanoke, along with equipment, supplies, and personal belongings. Iron and brass items like tools and “Falkons [or falconets, very light cannon capable of firing a 1-pound ball] and small Ordinance which were left with them [in 1587],”23 and which they removed upon vacating Roanoke, would have been buried under tons of silt. Their powder supply would have been ruined and, if any of their matchlock muskets remained, they would have been useless. The surge would have destroyed the corn crop and ruined existing food stores. Whatever livestock the colonists may have possessed would have perished. Everything would have been swept away.

  Such an event could provide a logical explanation for a number of unanswered questions surrounding the fate of the Lost Colony. In the first place it would explain how an entire English settlement could seemingly disappear without a trace left behind, and it would account for the failure of archaeological efforts to locate that site, which would have been literally wiped away. Also, many Lost Colony theorists have assumed that a very gradual, even generational, integration of the English colonists with the native Indian tribes took place. In actuality the number of colonists who survived the surge may have been quite small, and, without the bare essentials, they would have integrated very quickly—regardless of the psychological effect mentioned above—with elements of the remaining Croatoan or another tribe. Under this scenario, after September 1589, the English colony and the mainland settlement ceased to exist.

  10

  The “Legend of the Coharie” and the Hurricane’s Aftermath

  October 1589–January 1590

  There are any number of oral traditions and family histories in southeastern North Carolina that claim an ancestral connection to the 1587 Lost Colonists. One of the most interesting of these is a little known oral narrative which had been passed down for many generations in Sampson County and was finally transcribed by local historian Ernest M. Bullard in about 1950 as the “Legend of the Coharie.” What is fascinating about this particular legend is that it directly associates a powerful hurricane with the fate of the 1587 colony … long before there was any documentary evidence whatsoever that such a storm had actually occurred.

  This remarkable narrative traces—in considerable detail—the migration and ancestry of a mixed group of surviving Lost Colonists and Croatoan Indians and their descendants from shortly after the hurricane to their 19th century location in Sampson County, North Carolina, where their bloodlines are said to be mixed with the tribe known today as the Coharie Indians. The legend speaks of a “tremendous tidal wave” which forced the surviving group of Indians and colonists farther inland and had “salted the earth where they first settled so that it would not g
row corn.” This account of a substantial storm surge is unique among oral histories dealing with the Lost Colony. The following is the first part of the legend dealing with the hurricane and its aftermath. To use Bullard’s introductory line, “Only this much of truth I know to be; I tell the tale as ’twas told to me.”

  About the end of the year 1588 or early in the year 1589 the remnant of the Lost Colony which had taken up their abode with Manteo on Croatoan Island, the place of Manteo’s birth, accompanied by Manteo and all that survived a tremendous tidal wave left the island for the mainland beyond the sound to the west.

  One of the colonists making this sojourn was young George Howe, whose father George Howe, Sr., was slain by the Indians on Roanoak Island on July 28, 1587. These migrants of whites and Indians, it is believed, landed in what is now Carteret or Pamlico County, because, so goes the legend, they tried early the next year, probably 1589, to ascend the “Neus” River farther inland in order to reach higher land on which they could grow Indian corn, for the tidal wave had salted the earth where they first settled so that it would not grow corn. Many of the colonists grew sick for lack of bread to eat with sea foods and game which were abundant.

  Before they could get settled on a desirable location they were attacked by an unfriendly tribe and a few of the migrants were wounded.1

  It is interesting to note that the legend does not speak of a hurricane per se, but rather of “a tremendous tidal wave,” which would have accompanied a hurricane. “Tidal wave” was probably the common term used by Ernest Bullard in 1950 for what is technically called “storm surge” today, although “tidal wave” may actually be more accurate in this instance. As mentioned in the previous chapter, a “storm tide”—the simultaneous occurrence of a storm surge and the astronomical tide—is even more devastating than a storm surge.