by Lee Miller
There is more. Other ships, Glande warns, will follow with many additional settlers. The news jolts Spain to the core. English intrusion into this tightly controlled region is tantamount to invasion. It is this information that will prompt Spanish authorities to dispatch Captain Vicente Gonzalez in 1588 to scour the coast for White’s colony. On the Outer Banks he will find a slipway for vessels. Other searches will follow and reams of paper will be expended in the frantic effort to find them. All this commotion stems from Darby Glande.
But what was his motive? Certainly Glande cherished no love for the English — an Irishman, captured by them twice. Yet this could hardly have prompted him to deliver himself into Spanish hands, to throw his life away. For a reward, he was impressed as a galley slave and served a seven-year term before securing his release in Havana.14 Later, in a sworn deposition made while a free man and in the service of Spain, we see clearly that Glande did not instigate his own defection. Having been seized in London and taken aboard the Lion as far as Puerto Rico, he says he was told to make his escape.15 He did it; he was ordered to do so.
This is curious. Nowhere does the record indicate that Glande was restrained during the voyage or confined below deck. Therefore, had the opportunity to flee presented itself, he would not have required much direction. Had he wanted to escape, he need only have watched and waited. He would not have lingered until he was told to go.
If the individual who instructed Glande to escape had been his London kidnapper, Glande might have said so. To be seized and then released without ceremony on an island in the West Indies defies explanation, and we would expect him to have registered some surprise. It makes no sense that someone would go to all the trouble of forcing him aboard ship, only to urge him to break free when the voyage was no more than half over. Yet never at any point does he inform Valdés that it was his captor who agreed to release him, but simply that he was told to escape.
It is far more likely that Darby Glande was a dupe. That the person who told him to run was neither friend, nor captor, but a third party. And that the escape was orchestrated as part of a larger plan. So there were two conspirators. The man who forced Glande aboard ship, and another who released him. The Irishman was a pawn to destroy White’s colonists. If true, his dismissal on Puerto Rico was no coincidence, but a strategic maneuver. They were counting on Glande to alert the Spanish authorities. He had been to Roanoke before.
Who Else Remains?
In any case, since Darby Glande never completed the trip, it is clear that he is not the saboteur. Somebody else must be involved in the colonists’ betrayal. Someone who had been present on Roanoke during the winter of 1585 and was aware of the jeopardy in which he was placing them (with Glande’s warning to Spain as additional insurance), who was capable of seeing that the colonists never left the island. He and Darby Glande had come face to face. The question is, who was he? And who was his accomplice? We have eliminated White, Lasie, and Wright. None of the other colonists has ever been to Roanoke.
Perhaps we have needlessly narrowed our search. It is true that no one on White’s voyage had been present during that fateful winter on Roanoke. But then that wasn’t necessary: not as long as they had ears with which to hear. In other words, someone had only to know about the circumstances. To know about them and use them to his advantage. We have been overlooking the obvious. Was there a colonist aware of what had happened on Roanoke Island who never intended to remain in the City of Raleigh? His identity now is clear. It should have been all along.
Identity Revealed
July 1. The evening of Glande’s defection. The ships enter Puerto Rico’s Rojo Bay. White was here before, in 1585, to load salt from deposits on shore. Fernandez has promised to stop here again, and so in preparation, the colonists have busied themselves making as many sacks for that purpose, as we could. White arms a defensive party for protection, lest Spaniards appear from the nearby garrison of San German.
But Fernandez, perceiving them in a readiness to disembark, sends for White and, using great persuasions, urges him not to land. Although he has guided previous expeditions ashore in this exact place, Fernandez now produces many excuses not to take in salt there, saying that he knew not well whether the same were the place or not: also, that if the pinnace went into the Bay, she could not without great danger come back, till the next day at night, and that if in the meantime any storm should rise, the Admiral were in danger to be cast away.
Whilst he was thus persuading, he caused the lead to be cast, and having craftily brought the ship in three fathom and a half water, he suddenly began to swear and tear God in pieces, dissembling great danger, crying to him at the helm, bear up hard, bear up hard: so we went off, and were disappointed of our salt, by this means. Without it, the colony will have difficulty surviving. It is their chief means of preserving food.
A definite and terrifying pattern is emerging. The flyboat abandoned off Portugal, the futile search for supplies on Santa Cruz, the ingestión of poisonous food and water, the denial of salt on Puerto Rico, unnecessary delays, deception. Is the saboteur White’s Assistant, Simon Fernandez?
The next day, sailing along the west end of S. Johns, the Governour determined to go aland in S. Germans Bay, to gather young plants of oranges, pineapples,16 mameas, and plaintains,17 to set at Virginia, which we knew might easily be had, for that they grow near the shore, and the places where they grew, well known to the Governour, and some of the planters: but our Simon denied it.18
The Case of Alanson
Rather than land on Puerto Rico, where White is familiar with the terrain, Fernandez instead makes for Hispaniola to visit his friend Alanson, a French trader, who will furnish them both of cattle, and all such things as we would have taken in at S. Johns. But Fernandez never intends to land, as it plainly did appear to us afterwards. July 3. The ships reach Hispan-iola and bare with the coast all that day, with the expectation, as promised, that the pinnace will be sent ashore to the place where Fernando his friend Alanson was: but that day passed, and we saw no preparation for landing in Hispaniola.
The following day, nearing the town of Isabella, and we having knowledge that we were past the place where Alanson dwelt and no preparation yet seen for going ashore, White confronts Fernandez. Demanding whether he meant to speak with Alanson, for the taking in of cattle, and other things, according to his promise, or not: but he answered, that he was now past the place. And, furthermore — another shock — Alanson is not even there. He thought him dead, Fernandez flippantly remarks, for the French ambassador told Raleigh that Alanson had been arrested and taken to Spain. So that it was to no purpose to touch there in any place, at this voyage. The next day, we left sight of Hispaniola, and haled off for Virginia, about 4. of the clock in the afternoon.
Pitiful Situation
We can only imagine the condition of White’s planters. They have been en route since April, with little fresh food and water, though within sight of islands that might easily have provided both.19 Eleanor Dare and Margery Harvey are nearly to term in their pregnancies. Another woman is nursing a baby. All three have special dietary needs.
By now the living quarters are stinking and filthy from three months of accumulated waste. Human excrement dribbling from privies directly onto the ballast in the hold of the ship. Pooling with rotten garbage from the galley. Raleigh has a reputation for well-designed vessels. Yet even he admits that to embark upon an ocean voyage is to endure a rolling ship, to change the diet of soft bread and fresh meat for hard biscuit and salt beef, to drink unsavoury water instead of wine and beer… besides a world of other harms and hazards.20
Satirist Thomas Churchyard summed it up in a poem:
And all for country’s cause, and to enrich the same,
Now do they hazard all they have; and so for wealth and fame,
They fare along the seas, they sail and tide it out;
They hail and stretch the sheets aloft, they toil and dread no doubt.
They feed on b
iscuit hard, and drink but simple beer,
Salt beef, and stock-fish dry as keck, is now their greatest cheer.
And still a fulsome smell of pitch and tar they feel;
And when sea-sick (God wot) they are, about the ship they reel.
And stomach belcheth up a dish that haddocks seek,
A bitter mess of sundry meats, a syrup green as leek:
Then head and heart doth heave, and body waxeth cold:
Yet face will sweat, a heavy sight the same is to behold.
But they must needs abide a greater brunt than this,
And hope that after hellish pains there comes a time of bliss.21
For White’s colonists there will be no time of bliss. Only prolonged agony. On July 6 they arrive at the Caicos, wherein Fernando said were two salt ponds, assuring us if they were dry, we might find salt to shift with until the next supply, but it proved as true as the finding of sheep at Beak. This was their last chance. Fernandez is stalling.
Too Late to Plant
At last, the summer far advanced, the ships reach the southern limit of the Carolina coast. It is mid-July. Fernandez anchors to reckon his bearings; they lie dead in the water several days. It is impossible not to suspect a delaying tactic. Fernandez has conducted expeditions here before, successfully and with confidence. Raleigh’s captains named one of the three entries through the Outer Banks “Port Ferdinando” in honor of his discovery of it in 1585. Earlier, he sailed to America for Raleigh’s brother Gilbert, completing the trip in record time. Before the voyage he had been schooled by Thomas Hariot in the use of the latest navigational technology, not without almost incredible results.22 Yet days idle away before Fernandez finally realizes that he has mistaken an offshore island for Croatoan far to the north and, finding himself deceived, they move on. He need only have consulted Manteo, native to Croatoan, who was on board and who certainly could recognize his own homeland.
The colonists’ prospects for survival are bleak. The season is now too late for planting. Supplies from the Caribbean, which might have tided them over — salt, vegetables, and livestock — were not obtained. They will have no choice but to consume their own seed stock, leaving nothing to plant the following year. Their only recourse is to await the arrival of supply ships and, in the meantime, trade for food with the Powhatan nations of the Chesapeake Bay using irreplaceable pots, tools, and clothing. But Fernandez steadily subverts the mission. The ships head north along the dangerous edge of the Carolina coast, where in the night, had not Captain Stafford been more careful in looking out than our Simon Fernando, we had been all cast away upon the breach, called the Cape of Fear, for we were come within two cables’ length upon it: such was the carelessness, and ignorance of our Master.
Mutiny
July 22. Despite a harrowing passage, the ships arrive safely at Hatorask.23 John White boards the pinnace with forty of his best men to visit Roanoke according to Raleigh’s instructions. He is to hold conference with the fifteen soldiers stationed at the fort since 1586, concerning the state of the country and the Secotan people within it. Manteo is to be invested with authority over Roanoke and the town of Dasamonquepeuc. After that, the company will continue north to the Chesapeake Bay.
And then it happens. The final act of sabotage. As the pinnace carrying White and his men moves away from the ship, the accomplice, a Gentleman by the means of Fernando24 who was appointed to return for England, called to the sailors in the pinnace, charging them not to bring any of the planters back again, but leave them in the island, except the Governour, and two or three such as he approved, saying that the summer was far spent, wherefore he would land all the planters in no other place.
The announcement explodes like a bombshell. The planters, helpless in the tiny pinnace, are stunned. White, finding his voice, must have urged the sailors to disobey Fernandez and receive them back aboard the ship, to preserve their lives. A desperate appeal to all that is humane! His efforts are futile. It booted not the Governour to contend with them, for they were of one mind to follow Fernandez. Unto this were all the sailors, both in the pinnace, and ship, persuaded by the Master. There is nothing White can do. It is mutiny. He is lucky to have his life.
Overwhelmed, the men quietly depart for Roanoke. There is still hope to be had from the soldiers in the fort. At the very least, the colonists can expect temporary shelter. The soldiers will be furnished by Raleigh, even if the colony’s supplies bypass them for the Chesapeake Bay. Although rations for fifteen men will hardly feed one hundred and seventeen.
It doesn’t matter. On Roanoke, the men make the grisly discovery. The same night, at sunset they went aland on the island, in the place where our fifteen men were left, but we found none of them, nor any sign that they had been there, saving only we found the bones of one of those fifteen, bleaching in a clearing. There will be no help from the soldiers: one dead, the others missing. The nauseating realization must wash over them like a tide: they have reached the end. There will be no supply ships to save them. Fernandez will notify England that the soldiers are dead.
Later, they will find the fort dismantled. White will order repairs to the houses overgrown with weeds and melon vine. New cottages will be built of brick and tile. And shock will settle in. A certain numbness. For this is Roanoke. They cannot survive.
Reunion
On the 25th there is a brief respite from the upset, a momentary victory over Fernandez. Captain Edward Spicer in the long-absent flyboat arrives at Hatorask, miraculously having found his way, though he has never been here before. The missing planters are reunited to the great joy and comfort of the whole company: but the Master of our Admiral, Fernando, grieved greatly at their safe coming: for he purposely left them in the Bay of Portingall, and stole away from them in the night, hoping that the Master thereof whose name was Edward Spicer, for that he never had been in Virginia, would hardly find the place, or else being left in so dangerous a place as that was, by means of so many men of war as at that time were abroad, they should surely be taken, or slain: but God disappointed his wicked pretences. They survived, only to be doomed.
A Death and a Birth
The festive mood is quickly shattered. It would have been better if Spicer had never found Roanoke and had instead returned to England. They have — all of them — survived months of torment, only to be marooned on Roanoke Island. In the midst of this crisis, George Howe is slain.
Aware of their dwindling food supply, the colonists had gone into the marshes to hunt crabs. Howe strayed off alone, not realizing that hunters from the town of Dasamonquepeuc were also there. After deer. Even if he had known, he would not have understood the significance. He had not been to Roanoke before. They, being secretly hidden among high reeds, where oftentimes they find the deer asleep, and so kill them, espied our man wading in the water alone, almost naked, without any weapon, save only a small forked stick, catching crabs therewithal, and also being strayed two miles from his company, shot at him in the water. Piercing him with sixteen arrows. With clubs, they beat his head in pieces. Through the woods, among the houses, his young son awaits him in vain. George Howe Jr., a mere boy.
It was inevitable. White knows they can hardly expect less, given the circumstances of 1585. The colonists are not responsible for what happened. They are innocent of England’s past. Yet they will pay heavily for the crimes that others committed … and someone in England will let them. George Howe’s death deals a crippling blow. An envoy is rushed to Croatoan with Manteo, hoping to smooth things over. Leaders from towns throughout the Secotan country are invited to Roanoke for peace talks. There is nothing more the colonists can do.
August 18. Another, fleeting, surge of hope. Eleanor, daughter to the Governour, and wife to Ananias Dare, one of the Assistants, was delivered of a daughter in Roanoke, and the same was christened there the Sunday following, and because this child was the first Christian born in Virginia, she was named Virginia. They stand together on a carpet of loblolly pine, in a clearin
g of houses pressed against the sound. Momentarily forgetting the horror, they celebrate this new life, and imagine what might have been. White’s granddaughter. Virginia Dare.
Plenty of Time to Linger
All the while, Fernandez remains at Hatorask. His excuse that the summer is too far spent to carry the planters the remaining hundred miles north to the Chesapeake Bay proves to be a lie when he tarries another thirty-six days leisurely preparing his ships. The vessels are emptied and scoured, laden with wood and fresh water, the men ordered to new calk and trim them for England. Activities that could have been accomplished far more easily on the Chesapeake Bay than on this rugged coast.
Although Captain Spicer remains friendly to the company, he can neither transport the colonists home, nor north where they wish to be. To disobey Fernandez would jeopardize his own life, and so the planters hopelessly prepared their letters and tokens to send back into England, to family left behind. Counting on the flyboat to deliver them.
Someone Must Go Home
August 21. The ships prepare to depart. As the colonists watch in despair, a violent storm slams into the coast. It is hurricane season. The Lion cuts cables and is forced out to sea, stranding most of the sailors on shore. Days pass and still such a tempest rages that the ship is lost from view and we feared he had been cast away. Roanoke closes in. For the first time their desolation hits home.
Curiously, even as he was marooning the colony, Fernandez had stated that White or an Assistant could return to the ships. Why he did so is unclear. Perhaps for show. In England he will maintain that it was too late in the year to complete the journey to the Chesapeake Bay. It will be his word against White’s. The fact that he offered to bring a representative back will prove his good intentions. He may also know that White, or his colony, has enemies at home — who will work in his favor. Fernandez must be very confident indeed that he will not be charged with mutiny.
