The Lost Colony of Roanoke

by Fullam, Brandon

  In any case it makes little difference what anyone thought about the meaning of “Roanoke” other than Strachey himself and his Jamestown contemporaries. The fundamental defect with the assertion that “Roanoke” was considered a vast geographic area is that the claim is not supported by relevant sources: local native tradition, historical “Roanoke” usage, or—most importantly—by the contemporary Jamestown chroniclers, including Strachey himself.

  To the native peoples there was an important distinction made between the location of Roanoke and the territory which the Roanoke tribe occupied at various times. According to a Roanoke-Hatteras tribal history source, the original territory of the Roanoac tribe was limited to Roanoke Island and the nearby eastern shore of the mainland where their capital town, Dasamonguepeuk, was located (near today’s Mann’s Harbor). That location, although sometimes inhabited by the Roanoke tribe, was continually called Dasamonguepeuk, and never Roanoke. From time to time they also occupied the narrow barrier Bodie Island just to the east of Roanoke Island.37 The Roanoke tribe occasionally inhabited these peripheral areas, but the location of “Roanoke” was always Roanoke Island. The Roanoke Indians, in fact, called themselves “the northern people” because tradition says they lived at the north end of Roanoke Island.38 The location called “Roanoke” always meant Roanoke Island in Indian tradition.

  It might be assumed that the existence of locations—other than Roanoke Island—bearing the name of “Roanoke” could lend support to the assumption that “Roanoke” was not considered a specific location to the Jamestown colonists. The “Roanoke” River, for example, flows more than 400 miles from southern Virginia to Albemarle Sound. If one counted the entire river basin, including the land area drained by the Roanoke River and its tributaries, the total area would be vast and vague indeed. That argument, however, rests upon the faulty assumption that the Roanoke River was so called by the early 17th century Jamestown writers and mapmakers.

  The present-day Roanoke River has been known by a variety of different names in the course of history, but it was not called “Roanoke” River until the 18th century. At the time of English contact in the late 16th century it was called Moratuc or Moratoc; the Morattico River in 1657; the Noratake River in 1671. There is one early reference to “divers sorts of Firre, Sivet Cats up Roanock River” in Bullock’s aforementioned 1649 Virginia Impartially examined, but it is likely that Bullock was referring to the body of water adjacent to Roanoke, present-day Albemarle Sound. The first indisputable reference to the river as “Roanoke” apparently did not appear until 1733 when Edward Moseley wrote the name ‘‘Roanoke River’’ on his map.39 Other Virginia locations did not bear the name “Roanoke” until much later: Roanoke County in Virginia was so named in 1838 and the town of Roanoke, Virginia, was called “Big Lick” until 1883 when it became an important railroad terminus.40 All such designations obviously did not come into existence until long after Strachey and his contemporaries were writing. There are a few 17th century examples of the word “Roanoke” used in a descriptive phrase, as in “the sea of Rawnocke,”41 and probably Bullock’s “Roanock River” above, referring to the body of water adjacent to Roanoke (Albemarle Sound), but the word was not used to indicate a location unless it referred specifically to Roanoke Island.

  More significantly, Parramore’s broad geographical interpretation of “Roanoke,” which he claimed was “the common Virginia expression” for the area surrounding Albemarle Sound to the south, is not supported by the early 17th century source documents themselves, including William Strachey’s. An examination of the contemporary accounts reveals an entirely different picture. Within the six narratives recounting Virginia colonization contained in Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, there are thirty-one references to “Roanoke.” Three of these are “an Island called Roanoke,” “Island of Roanoke,” and “Isle of Roanoke.” The remaining twenty-eight are phrases such as “at Roanoke,” “to Roanoke,” “from Roanoke” etc., and all clearly signify Roanoke Island.42 This, of course, is to be expected since the six accounts in Hakluyt narrated events between 1584 and 1590, before Jamestown was founded. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that “Roanoke” continually indicated Roanoke Island since the first arrival of the English in 1584.

  After Jamestown was settled in 1607 “Roanoke” continued to indicate Roanoke Island. As mentioned above, Smith’s 1607–08 A True Relation contains two references to Roanoke (Roonok), and they both clearly indicate Roanoke Island. His Generall Historie, published in 1624, contains eight references to Roanoke, all of which also unquestionably refer to the specific location, Roanoke Island.43 The same is true of Harriot’s Briefe and True Report: ten references, all indicating Roanoke Island.44 Even Robert Beverley’s later The History of Virginia, originally published in 1705, contains fourteen references to Roanoke, nine of which specifically mean Roanoke Island, and the remaining five which refer, not to any location, but to the name (Roenoke) given to pieces of cockle shell used by the Indians as ornaments and currency.45

  Most importantly, William Strachey himself used the word “Roanoak” on twenty-seven occasions in his Historie, including the excerpts cited earlier. An examination of all twenty-seven of Strachey’s uses of the word “Roanoke” demonstrates that there is no evidence, contextual or otherwise, that anything other than Roanoke Island was intended on each of these occasions.46 It is Strachey, after all, as author of the troubling “slaughter at Roanoke” phrases, whose meaning is essential. Of the ninety references to “Roanoke” or its spelling variants used by Hakluyt, Smith, Harriot, Beverely, and Strachey himself, all—with the exception of the five cockle shell names—refer to Roanoke Island. The conclusion is unavoidable: The argument by Parramore and others that Strachey’s “Roanoak” must have meant a larger, much more general geographic area than Roanoke Island is convincingly repudiated by the textual evidence. To William Strachey and his Jamestown contemporaries “Roanoke” specifically meant Roanoke Island.

  The interpretation of “Roanoke” as the broad area south of Jamestown lives on only through the authority of repeated assertion, the fallacy mentioned above and in the Preface. This particular fallacy has unfortunately led Lost Colony theory hopelessly astray. It has hindered any real progress in Lost Colony research for decades and has resulted in the many misguided theories being promoted today. It has allowed authors and historians to fashion scenarios placing an imagined massacre of the Lost Colony anywhere in “the vague vast country to the south … which extended westward from the Atlantic to near the head of Albemarle Sound.”

  19

  The “Slaughter at Roanoke” Solved

  1610–1611

  Lost Colony authors, historians, and devotees have essentially dealt with Strachey’s “slaughter at Roanoke” in one of two ways. The more seriously focused writers have followed the Parramore school of thought and have embraced the assumption that when the Jamestown writers used the word “Roanoke,” they were not referring to Roanoke Island, but to a broad area of territory south of Jamestown. As demonstrated, however, that assumption was based on an unproven and unchallenged assertion, which is directly contradicted by an examination of the Jamestown writers’ use of the word “Roanoke.” Other authors have simply disregarded the “slaughter at Roanoke” phrase entirely. In either case the result has been, especially in recent decades, a general devaluation of Strachey as a reliable Lost Colony source. A discredited or ignored William Strachey, after all, has opened the field to an assortment of other theories about the Lost Colony. With Strachey disputed or ignored and Quinn’s Chesapeake theory safely retired, it was possible to place the Lost Colony at a variety of locations—the Chowan River, the Roanoke River, Weapemeoc, Cashie Creek in Bertie County—and the slaughter almost anyplace other than Roanoke Island.

  And thus we are left with an assortment of Lost Colony theories today, all of which are essentially variations of the following broad scenario: The 1587 colony, short of food and supplies, left Roanoke hastily and settled n
ear or among the Chesapeake, Chowanoke, Weapemeoc, or Croatoan tribes, where they lived for many years among the local natives. At some time perhaps coinciding with the arrival of the Jamestown settlers in 1607, the Lost Colonists were slaughtered by the Powhatans or a neighboring tribe someplace in present-day North Carolina or Virginia, but a handful of colonists survived the slaughter and were scattered to remote places throughout the land.

  As demonstrated, however, the textual evidence from the Jamestown chroniclers is more than enough to conclude that when Strachey used the phrase “at Roanoke,” he was clearly referring to Roanoke Island. It follows that when he used the phrase “slaughter at Roanoke,” he intended it to mean that the slaughter actually happened at Roanoke Island. The phrase is not inexplicable or equivocal, nor is it an archaic reference or a slip of the quill on Strachey’s part. He used the identical phrase on several occasions, and each time he wrote precisely what he meant to say.

  Strachey was an educated gentleman whose writing skills were very well regarded. He was educated at Cambridge, and he was a familiar figure in literary circles. He regularly attended plays in London and was a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theatre. He was certainly acquainted with London’s poets and playwrights, among whom were Thomas Campion, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare. Strachey was regarded highly enough by his contemporaries to have a poem of his included in Jonson’s play Sejanus His Fall in 1605. As previously mentioned, many believe that Shakespeare’s The Tempest was directly influenced by Strachey’s A True Reportory, his account of the shipwreck of the Sea Venture on the islands of Bermuda en route to Jamestown. And of course Strachey’s appointment as Secretary of the Jamestown Colony in 1610 was an acknowledgment of his writing skills. Although early 17th century spelling and morphology may have changed over the centuries, English grammar—based largely on Latin—has remained fairly stable. William Strachey was certainly no stranger to proper grammatical usage and syntax.1

  Further confirmation of this can be provided by an analysis of Strachey’s “at Roanoke” phrases. In the problematic excerpts cited in the previous chapter, consider his use of “at,” a preposition which indicates specificity, and is used “to show an exact position or particular place.”2 Regarding a slaughter of the colonists, Strachey uses the phrase “at Roanoak” in the four excerpts (nos. 1, 4, 6 and 7):

  The first usage is “the men, women, and childrene of the first plantation at Roanoak were … miserably slaughtered….” In this case “at Roanoak” is an adjective phrase indicating a specific location, but the phrase is modifying the word “plantation” and simply indicates that Roanoke was the specific location of the plantation, not that the slaughter necessarily happened there. It does, however, once again clearly indicate that Roanoke meant Roanoke Island and also that the victims of the slaughter were from Roanoke—an important point to be taken up later.

  The second, third, and fourth occurrences of “at Roanoak” tell a very different grammatical story. The second occurrence, found in the fourth excerpt, is “those Englishe whoe escaped the slaughter at Roanoak….” Here is another adjective phrase, but this time modifying the key noun “slaughter” and clearly indicating that Roanoke was the specific place where the slaughter happened.

  The third occurrence, in excerpt 6, is “the same cuppe which he made our poore countrymen drink of at Roanoak.” Here Strachey was speaking figuratively, equating the slaughter to a cup from which the colonists were forced to drink. In this case “at Roanoak” is an adverbial phrase modifying the archaic verb “drink (of)” and telling clearly and specifically where “our poore countrymen” were made to drink of that figurative cup: unquestionably the same specific location meaning Roanoke Island. The fourth occurrence, in excerpt 7, is “we shall find them [the Powhatans] practize violence or treason against us (as they have done to our other colony at Roanoak).” Once again “at Roanoak” modifies “our other colony” and indicates the place where the “violence” occurred.

  There is no grammatical or contextual evidence that the word “Roanoke,” used elsewhere in Strachey’s Historie and in all the contemporary accounts cited earlier, refers to any other location than Roanoke Island, and it is clear that Strachey intended to say that the slaughter occurred there. R.H. Major of the British Museum, editor of Strachey’s Historie published in 1849 by the Hakluyt Society, had no doubt about Strachey’s use of the word “Roanoak” and wanted the reader to understand as well. Immediately after the word “Roanoak” in the aforementioned passage contained in excerpt 6—“the same cuppe which he made our poore countrymen drink of at Roanoak”—R.H. Major inserted a footnote which reads, “The colony planted by Sir Walter Raleigh, which Powhatan destroyed.”3 The latter part of Major’s footnote—“which Powhatan destroyed”—will be addressed below, but suffice it to say for now that his notation clarifies the fact that a slaughter of “our poore countrymen” planted by Raleigh occurred at Roanoke Island.

  Finally, there is conclusive verification in Strachey’s own words that the slaughter indeed happened at Roanoke Island. Aside from a mention of Roanoack (Island) in the introductory notes called “Praemonition to the Reader,” the first reference to “the slaughter at Roanoke” in the body of Strachey’s Historie is found on page twenty-six of the work. That reference is the previously cited excerpt which begins, “at Peccarecamek and Ochanahoen, by relation of Machumps, the people have howses built with stone walles, and one story above another, so taught them by those Englishe whoe escaped the slaughter at Roanoak.”4

  Two pages later, on page twenty-eight, the second mention of Roanoack is found: “in this country [South Virginia] it was that Sir Walter Raleigh planted his two colonies, in the islande aforesaid, called Roanoack.”5 The “islande aforesaid, called Roanoack” is a direct and indisputable reference to the “slaughter at Roanoak,” on page twenty-six. There is no other “aforesaid” Roanoke than that one. These are Strachey’s first two references to “Roanoak,” and he was unquestionably equating the latter with the former. Here is conclusive confirmation from Strachey himself that when he wrote of the “slaughter at Roanoke,” he was undoubtedly referring to the specific location of Roanoke Island and was saying that the slaughter occurred there and no place else. Any assertion that Strachey’s “Roanoak” must have meant some vast geographical area is clearly mistaken. Consequently, any theory which includes a slaughter occurring any place other than Roanoke Island must also be flawed and must also be reconsidered.

  Once it is firmly established that Strachey’s “slaughter at Roanoak” indeed refers to a slaughter that occurred at Roanoke Island, the fog begins to lift. There is only one legitimate candidate for the “slaughter” and it cannot be John White’s Lost Colony. As mentioned, any notion that the 1587 colony was slaughtered at Roanoke Island is quickly dispelled by the documentary evidence. Parramore was initially right when he cited White’s own description upon his return to the island in 1590 in search of his colony. There was no evidence of any “slaughter” or actual Indian attack on the 1587 colony at Roanoke. All indications pointed to the facts that the colonists willingly abandoned the island, that they dismantled and removed transportable parts of their dwellings, that they carried their portable weapons and implements with them, that they took the time to bury cumbersome chests too difficult to transport, and that they left messages intended to direct White to Croatoan.

  Yet Strachey insisted that there was a slaughter at Roanoke, and it has now been well established that the slaughter happened at Roanoke Island. There was only one Indian assault known to have occurred at Roanoke Island, but it happened in 1586, the year before White’s arrival. The Grenville/Lane military expedition to Roanoke in 1585 had resulted in open hostility between the English and Indians and culminated, on June 1, 1586, with Lane’s attack upon the Indians on the mainland and the killing and beheading of their leader Pemisapan. Sir Francis Drake arrived at Roanoke about two weeks later, and Lane decided to accept Drake’s offer to transport the colony
back to England. In the meantime Sir Richard Grenville was just days away from Roanoke with his supply ships intended for Lane’s colony. When Grenville arrived, he found the settlement deserted, but before departing he left a fifteen, or possibly an eighteen, man garrison at Roanoke in order to retain territorial possession for Raleigh. That garrison was later attacked and routed by Pemisapan’s followers. This Indian assault was the only significant attack to occur at Roanoke, and the evidence will show that this must have been the event Strachey actually referred to in his Historie. The 1587 Lost Colony was not involved at all.

  Strachey’s own words demonstrate that this is the event he wrote about. Note his previously cited reference to two colonies in “Sir Walter Raleigh planted his two colonies, in the island aforesaid, called Roanoack.” His reference is historically accurate. There were two attempts at colonization at Roanoke; the first was the Grenville-Lane military colony in 1585–86 and the second was White’s 1587 colony. Therefore when Strachey wrote that the colonists, “of the first plantation at Roanoak … were miserably slaughtered,” he could only be referring to the 1585–86 colony, which Grenville tried to perpetuate upon his arrival with the re-supply ships in July 1586, by placing and provisioning the contingent of men there.