by Lee Miller
Fifty Miles into the Main
It is a startling revelation. To explain himself fully, White would have to recount what had happened on Roanoke in 1587. The unexpected death of George Howe. The danger in which he left the colonists. The crime that had been committed: the reason for his leaving. Instead, he reveals only that they had considered relocating. At the time of my last departure from them, he says, they were prepared to remove from Roanoke 50 miles into the main.
Seized with dread that he would be unable to find them when he returned, they devised a plan, a secret token agreed upon between them & me. A way of ensuring a reunion which was, that in any ways they should not fail to write or carve on the trees or posts of the doors the name of the place where they should be seated.
But there is more, in this age of cyphers and riddles: I willed them, that if they should happen to be distressed in any of those places, that they should carve over the letters or name, a cross & in this form. So that he would be assured of their condition, with no doubt about their state. White runs an anxious hand over the bark, where were carved these fair Roman letters: CRO. But no cross — we found no such sign of distress.
A Settlement Vanished
They are wasting time. Hoping for a better clue, White races toward the settlement clearing, where the colonists dwelt three years ago in sundry houses, the men scrambling after him. But as they enter the compound, he stops short, stunned. For before him is … nothing at all. There are no carvings on the door posts, for there are no doors anywhere. No doors, no houses, no sheds, no buildings; not a lock, not a board, not a nail. A bare clearing, void of life. As though the colonists had never been.
A chill sweeps over White, constricting his heart. Everything gone … but one thing. In the center of the compound is a high wooden palisade, artificially constructed of trees with curtains and flankers very fort-like. The place where the houses stood is curiously surrounded by it, strongly enclosed. White has never seen it before. There is no explanation for it. Not a soul here.
CRO. White stands amazed. He had not expected this. Without a more complete message, there is no way to determine where the colonists are. A rising panic. CRO is meaningless! And then he sees it: on one of the chief trees or posts at the right side of the entrance to the palisade, where the bark is scraped away. There, five feet from the ground, in fair capital letters was graven CROATOAN. Bold, prominent characters etched deeply into the wood, and — incredibly, wonderfully! — without any cross or sign of distress.
At last, the tension of three years’ struggle, of months risking life and limb at sea aboard the Hopewell, all the danger and uncertainty and upset, releases in a flood. Croatoan. He knows where they are. CRO. Perhaps the men allow White a respectful moment alone, or perhaps they crowd around him in open jubilation. He has come so very far to be here.
Clues
Inside the palisade the men locate a few remaining items. Bars of iron, lead casts, four iron fowlers, iron sacker shot and such like heavy things in disarray, thrown here and there, almost overgrown with grass and weeds. Clues. Heavy things not easily transported. Heavy things — weapons — and that is all.
Leaving the sailors to search the grounds, White and Captain Cocke inspect the point of the creek to see if we could find any of their boats or pinnace, but we could perceive no sign of them. Nor of their armaments — the falcons and small ordnance — which were left with them. The picture is far from clear.
Meanwhile, there has been a discovery. Some of our sailors meeting us, told us that they had found where divers chests had been hidden, and long since dug up. The chests themselves are broken up, and much of their goods spoiled and scattered about, but nothing left, of such things as the savages knew any use of, undefaced.
White is shown the place, in the end of an old trench, made two years past by Captain Amadas. Odd he should say two years past — he really means five. The trench was dug in 1585. Five years ago. In his recounting of events, is White harkening back to the summer of 1587, when he was last here with his family? As though time had stopped then? It must seem incredible, now, as he gazes around, at this place where his house once stood, where his daughter Eleanor gave birth to her child, and they baptized her Virginia Dare. Where the people of Dasamonquepeuc and Croatoan once came in friendship, and he painted their portraits and knew them by name. Back when the future held dreams. The sailors pick over grounds that to them present such novelty.
White can only go through the motions now, his memory cluttered with old familiar scenes. We found five chests, that had been carefully hidden of the planters, and of the same chests three were my own, and about the place many of my things spoiled and broken. He stares at them burst open in the trench, the spilled watercolors streaked with rain. Remembering the time, three years ago, when he had worried about their safety. Standing before the colonists and knowing they intended to remove 50 miles further up into the main, he had expressed fear that his stuff and goods might be both spoiled, and most of it pilfered away. They had assured him that his effects would not be harmed.
They had tried their best, burying the chest in the trench. White sifts through his belongings, spoiled and broken. What pains him most are not the objects he once thought valuable, but the items he can never replace, my books torn from the covers, the frames of some of my pictures and maps rotten and spoiled with rain, and my armour almost eaten through with rust. But possessions no longer matter. For although it much grieved me to see such spoil of my goods, yet on the other side I greatly joyed that I had safely found a certain token of their safe being at Croatoan, which is the place where Manteo was born, the people of the island our friends.
The Storm
There is nothing more to be seen. An empty compound bearing the imprint of lives once lived; a palisade; a few pictures, spoiled by rain. The men turn away, reboarding the shallops. But the misfortune that has dogged the rescue thus far continues unabated. Clouds scud across the sun and a wind picks up, raising a chop on the sound. Rowing with as much speed as we could, they push toward the sea, brine spraying from the bows, perspiration clinging stubbornly in the clammy air, portending a storm. The atmosphere is drenched, alive with electricity; all indications are very likely that a foul and stormy night would ensue. At Port Ferdinando, the channel roils higher than before, the ocean heaving and alive. Devourer of eleven men, hungering for more.
It is not until evening, and with much danger and labour, we got ourselves aboard the ships, by which time the wind and seas were greatly risen, that we doubted our cables and anchors would scarcely hold until morning. The Hopewell breaks free, abandoning water casks on shore, impossible to retrieve without danger of casting away both men and boats. Night passes fitfully, the ships plunging in the mounting swells.
The next morning, despite the weather, Captain Cocke agrees to set a course for the island of Croatoan, where our planters were, since the wind at least was good for that place. The anchor draws in with a shriek, fighting the sea. A cable snaps. The anchor spins away, taking a second down with it. Untethered, the ship drives fast into the shore. Toward the shoals.
The Captain barks orders to release the third anchor, which came so fast home that the ship was almost aground by Kenricks Mounts: so that we were forced to let slip the cable end for end. By accident, sheer luck, they fall into a channel of deep water and avoid being dashed to pieces on the bar. Otherwise, we could never have gone clear of the point that lies to the southwards of Kenricks Mounts.
Safe for the moment, but not without some loss. Only one anchor remains of an original four, and the weather grew to be fouler and fouler; our victuals scarce and our cask and fresh water lost. The near miss works a sobering influence. Willing enough to court disaster privateering, the Hopewell's crew does not dare risk Croatoan.21
Reckless Wager
Knowing the Spanish treasure fleet will sail for Europe in the spring, White salvages plans, desperately begging the captains to reconnoiter in the Caribbean either at Hispaniola, Saint John
, or Trinidad, that then we should continue in the Indies all the winter following, with hope to make two rich voyages of one.21 Counting on the Hopewell's greed to supply the will. A reckless wager. If God would only protect White another six months before our return to visit our countrymen at Virginia. His personal feelings bitter. Not enough time had been allotted for the search. The crew regarding very smally the good of their countrymen — his family, his daughter! — determined nothing more than merely to touch at those places where he might have found them.
Having urged his proposal with earnest petitions. White agonizingly awaits the decision. Aware that this will be his last chance to see his family again. The minutes tick by. Certain considerations are weighed: additional time spent away from England and the cost of refitting the ships for the winter, against the possibility of capturing a Spanish ship off guard, the potential for purchase and spoils. The odds are too great for the Moonlight. Her men decline, claiming a weak and leaky ship. They head back for England. The strain taking its toll on White as the Hopewell considers her options. Finally, the captain and the whole company of the Hopewell, (with my earnest petitions), thereunto agreed. They will winter in the West Indies. A course is charted for Trinidad, in the face of a rising sea.
Hurricane
There are times when the ocean seems uncannily human. Ask any sailor, and he will recount for you its many changing moods. Coy, playful, slumbering. Fierce. But worse than these is a rising sea, neither one thing nor the other. Frightening in its indecision. The sailor shudders, for deep down, far beneath the grim surface, he can feel the forces gathering. The energy and fury of the universe flowing together, coiling up tightly, twisting into a pounding tension. Explosively released.
August 28 it happens. The wind shifts. John White should have sensed the sea was against him from the first. The storm blasts up off the Carolina coast from out of nowhere, ushered in by a relentless booming that sounds like cannon. A wild storm, full of malice and greed. Howling winds buffet the ship, coiling the sails around the masts. The thundering gusts swirl from southwest to west and northwest. Wrenching the Hopewell away from its destination. A hail of lightning spikes pounds the sea with the noise of war. Captain Cocke braces above deck, roaring commands at his men, battling the sea.
He loses. Routed by the wind, the Hopewell is forced east in a direct line with the Azores. Away from the eye of the storm. White fervently praying, willing the captains to reoutfit then depart anew for the Indies or Virginia. While there is still time.
White Is Finished
At Flores in the Azores the Moonlight is spotted riding with four English men-of-war. A surprise. The leaky hull only an excuse to rejoin the fray, dodging inactive duty at Roanoke. News is had, too, of the long-absent Little John, left behind in the Caribbean months before. Its Captain, Christopher Newport, sports a gaping hole where his arm had once been. The limb striken off in a skirmish.23 The West Indies would have been no safe place for White to winter. And all the while, the enemy sea and her ally the wind continue to play havoc with his plans, preventing a landing for provisions at St. George in the Azores. The Hopewell finally surrenders and sets a course for England.
October. Saturday the 24. We came in safety, God be thanked, to an anchor at Plymouth. The voyage is over. White’s last chance to contact the planters has come and gone.
Thus may you plainly perceive the success of my fifth and last voyage to Virginia, which was no less unfortunately ended than forwardly begun, and as luckless to many, as sinister to myself But I would to God it had been as prosperous to all, as noisome to the planters; & as joyful to me, as discomfortable to them. Yet seeing it is not my first crossed voyage, I remain contented. And wanting my wishes, I leave off from prosecuting that whereunto I would to God my wealth were answerable to my will. Thus committing the relief of my discomfortable company the planters in Virginia, to the merciful help of the Almighty, whom I most humbly beseech to help and comfort them, according to his most Holy will and their good desire, I take my leave from my house at Newtowne in Kylmore the 4 of February, 1593.
Your most well wishing friend,
John White
*Edward Spicer was captain of the Moonlight, the Hopewell’s consort.
2 A CASE OF MISSING PERSONS
Historians will leave it recorded to succeeding Ages, that the bright sun-shining and glorious days of England under Queen Elizabeth ended in a foul, cloudy and dark evening, yea in an eternal night. (Posterity … will impute the mass and heap of future calamities not so much to the adversaries’ malice, as to the gross carelessness of these times.)
Courtiers to Elizabeth I, 15871
The Investigation Begins
What we have is a case of missing persons on such a scale that it confounds the senses. An entire town is missing! One hundred and fifteen people — gone — from the tiny coastal island of Roanoke.* Without a trace. Our task is to try to make sense of it. First: Why have they disappeared? Second: Where are they? And eventually, from the evidence, a third, and chilling, question: Why have they remained lost?
At this point, however, it is not clear that a crime has even been committed. Governor John White saw his colonists settled on Roanoke. When he returned three years later, they were gone. These facts are from his word alone. Upon this foundation we will build our investigation.
The First Suspect
White’s own behavior is somewhat suspect. It is clear that something had gone very wrong on Roanoke in 1587. Something that left the colonists wholly unprepared. In fact, for reasons we do not yet understand, they were in trouble. And yet White’s action in the face of this apparent danger was to abandon the colony. Why would the Governor, the person most directly responsible for the welfare of the group, be the first to leave? And why, if they were safe at Croatoan three years later, did no one come forward to meet the rescue ships? Especially since there was ample time to do so? How likely is it that the Hopewell went undetected? After all, she was firing cannon. There may be more here than meets the eye. Is White, in fact, guilty of a crime?
Not according to his own testimony. He alleges that it was not his decision to leave, but that the whole company, assistants and planters, came to him and with one voice requested him to return himself into England. Anticipating recriminations back in London, he initially refused to go and steadfastly alleged many sufficient causes why he would not. Not least among his fears was the scandal of public opinion, realizing that he could not so suddenly return back again, without his great discredit, leaving the action, and so many, whom he partly had procured through his persuasions, to leave their native country, and undertake that voyage.2
Curiously, and most significantly, his concerns appear concrete. There would seem to be specific, unnamed individuals enemies to him, and the action, who wish to poison his name and would not spare to slander falsely both him, and the action, by saying he went to Virginia but politicly, and to no other end but to lead so many into a country in which he never meant to stay himself, and there to leave them behind.3
These arguments sound convincingly personal, though admittedly such sentiments were a reflection of the times. It was an age when the reputation and honour of a man doth master every other affection* when credit and respect were of vital importance. A spotless name is more to me, declares Avisa in a poem of the same name written by one of Raleigh’s coterie, than wealth, than friends, than life can be}
Indeed, there is some indication that White’s fears were not ill-founded, and that such a stigma may have been attached to his name after his return to England, as it certainly has been by later historians.6 Posterity has deemed him weak and ineffective, unable to control company and crew; too unassertive to deflect the forces ranged against him. But we shall see that this is a serious misjudgment, for those forces, once set in motion, were very powerful — indeed, too powerful to resist.
Who, then, is John White? Why did he go to Roanoke, what is his background? These questions demand answers, yet if we ho
pe to solve the mystery of the Lost Colony by questioning its Governor, we will be disappointed. For when we open our investigation, we discover … John White is gone.
*Throughout this book, 117 is the number of the original colonists; 116 indicates the missing colonists without John White, who returned to England; and 115 the colonists minus John White and George Howe, who died before White’s departure.
3 JOHN WHITE: GOVERNOR
And such as marks this world, and notes the course of things,
The weak and tickle stay of states, and great affairs of Kings,
Desires to be abroad, for causes more than one,
Content to live as God appoints, and let the world alone.
Thomas Churchyard1
John White: The Enigma
The records are missing. Or incomplete. Or deliberately concealed. Thus very little is known of John White: not his place of birth; not his age; not his family connections. Nor how he came to be associated with Raleigh, nor why he was a member of the Roanoke expeditions … nor, indeed, why he appears to have vanished completely after the bombshell announcement of his colony’s disappearance.
The mystery surrounding him only deepens when we search for the answers. There is no John White mentioned for the Roanoke voyage of 1584, though we know, by his own reckoning, he was there.2 Nor is his name among the list of soldiers and specialists resident on the island the following year. Except for a single notice in an anonymous 1585 ship’s log, we would have no record of his being on the expedition at all.3 There is almost no trace of him in any document. In a wild flight of fancy, we might almost suspect the all too common name of John White to be a pseudonym. A disguise, like that of Edward Kelley (aka John Talbot), scryer to the famed mathematician, Dr. John Dee. Or the satirists John Penry and Job Throckmorton, who both went under the name of Martin Mar prelate to keep themselves from being killed. Or Bernard Mawde (alias Montalto), an agent to Secretary of State Sir Francis Wal-singham. Assumed names were not uncommon.
