Roanoke

by Lee Miller

  But Jamestown did not understand the message. Neither Powell nor Todkill, in the dark recesses of the forest, were sure of what they had seen. A doorway was opened on the Lost Colonists for the briefest of moments. A glimpse. And then White’s survivors were hustled back behind an impenetrable wall of silence. Cut off forever, they had signaled their last SOS. A forest of trees etched with crosses.

  The Mandoag Are Gone

  It seems a simple thing, now, to find the Mandoag. To enter their world and reclaim White’s people. But when almost within our grasp, the Lost Colonists again disappear. War is declared on the Powhatan, who are accused of their murder. Jamestown stops searching. A neat cover-up. It holds for four centuries.

  1650. A merchant named Edward Bland makes a startling discovery. Acting on a rumor that Englishmen are alive to the south, deep within the interior, he hires an Appomattoc guide and descends into the forest. His journal details the whole of the journey into this haunting world, yet when he reaches the spot where the Mandoag should have been, Bland discovers … There are no such people.

  25 WHO ARE THE MANDOAG?

  The Mangoaks (whose name, and multitude besides their valour is terrible to all the rest of the provinces), durst not for the most part of them abide us….

  Ralph Lane1

  Edward Eland’s Strange Journey

  August 27, 1650. The path over which the eight travelers ride is slick and choked with rain, the packhorses frothy from ploughing weary miles through clinging mud. Darkness descended hours ago, the thick forest blotting out even the meager light of the stars, so that the blackness is suffocatingly complete. Well into the night, long past the hour when he would have favored sleep, Edward Bland and his companions, led by an Appomattoc guide named Pyancha, struggle across Nottoway Creek and into a Nottoway Town, startling the inhabitants. It was Sir Walter Rawleigh ‘s observation, Bland murmurs, that Paradise was created a part of this earth.1 In 35 degrees north latitude.

  This night is the first in an odyssey that will carry Bland into the depths of an uncharted wilderness, both geographical and human, and it is natural that his thoughts should turn to Raleigh, for his mission clearly involves the Lost Colonists. At the behest of Governor William Berkeley of Virginia, he has plunged into the trackless sea of timber lapping at the southern edge of Jamestown and her satellite communities to make contact with certain mysterious Englishmen rumored to be alive among a nation known as the Tuscarora. Their territory, one in which Europeans have never yet set foot, lies to the southwest of the Secotan country.3 Eland’s instructions are to locate the Tuscarora to speak with an Englishman amongst them, and to inquire for an English woman cast away long since, who was amongst those nations.

  But the next night, the forest dripping with mist, a Nottoway king named Chounterounte enters Eland’s quarters frowning, and with a countenance noting much discontent, urges him to go no farther, alleging there was no English there, that the way was long, and the passage very bad by reason of much rain that had lately fallen and many rotten marshes and swamps there was to pass over; in fine, we found him, and all his men, very unwilling we should go any farther. Bland resolves to push forward, regardless, prompting Chounterounte to show afear in his countenance.

  By the following morning, as Eland’s company prepares to depart, Chounterounte edges closer to the truth of the matter. He again came privately unto us, said Bland, in a most serious manner, confiding that he lively apprehended our danger and that our safety concerned him.… for that he certainly knew that the nations we were to go through would make us away by treachery. Bland ignores him and pursues his course.

  The Meherrin

  The long, tiring day progresses without mishap. At night, with gloom again pervading the forest, the path underfoot grows so intensely dark that only with difficulty can the travelers pick their way forward. The deathly silence that has accompanied them undisturbed for many miles is suddenly shattered as they catch the sound of voices and discern a muted light flickering ahead. The party passes through a dark copse of trees with trunks five feet wide and a hundred foot tall, and enters a town called Maharineck. Who these people are, or what their connection to the neighboring nations is, is never disclosed. Bland only reports that its leader is a youth.

  The Englishmen are not the only visitors to this town. Soon after their arrival, as the horses are watered, a Tuscarora man presents himself and told us that the Englishman we were searching for was a great way off at the further Tuskarood Town. Far to the south. Bland immediately hires him to convey certain letters to this stranger, hastily written in English, Latin, Spanish, French, and Dutch. It is arranged that the Englishman will be brought to them at a place called Hocomowananck, where they agree to rendezvous.4

  There would seem to be a great parade of foreigners among the Meherrin. They were nothing, apparently, if not rich in guests, for Bland is next accosted by a man introduced as the werrowance of Hoco-mawananck River himself which, by any standard, was undeniably convenient. What this leader has to say, however, is of primary importance. There is a tremendously powerful nation nearby, he tells Bland, known as the Wainoakes. The Tuscarora, many thousands strong, can attest to this: the Wainoke block their passage north to Jamestown, preventing trade. It is difficult to imagine anyone inhibiting the movement of a nation as numerous as the Tuscarora. We begin to suspect that it is the Wainoke who created such terror in Chounterounte that he urged Bland to abort his mission. This is the nation whose territory he would have to cross should he try to contact the Englishmen directly.

  The following day, intent on keeping his appointment at Hocomawananck, Bland pushes southwest to the swollen Roanoke River. And here something strange occurs, for notwithstanding his friendly conversation the day before with the Hocomawananck leader, both Bland’s Appomattoc and Nottoway guides immediately grow nervous and wary, asserting that the Hocomawananck Indians were very treacherous. Only at this juncture do they tell Bland what they knew all along: that the Hocomawananck chief was an impostor. He was, in fact, Meherrin.

  What on earth is going on? It would seem that both the Meherrin and the Wainoke — whoever they are — are intent on impeding Bland’s progress. The Appomattoc and Nottoway guides, with increasing agitation, exhibit great uneasiness at the party’s perilous position, which is now somewhere north of the Roanoke River. Hocomawananck territory. Their immediate response is to get out, informing Bland that if he follows the river upstream as he intends, he will encounter two nations — the Occonacheans and the Nessoneicks — whose towns are built on islands in the river. At their urging, Bland proceeds no farther, merely noting something that strikes him as an oddity. The people of this region, he says, have beards. And, he adds, we saw among them copper.

  Double Dealing

  September 2. The bizarre events continue. At dawn Bland is jarred awake by yet another remarkable visitor. This time, a man calling himself Occonosquay and claiming to be the son to the Tuscarora King, arrives to inform the party that the Englishman they are supposed to meet at Hocomawananck is now at his house a long way off. He requests that they follow him there instead.

  Bland refuses, hurriedly retracing his steps to what he inexplicably assumes to be the safety of the Meherrin town. To his surprise, the people this time greet him as though they were angry at us, owing to Wainoake spies who had been there in his absence. Bland now belatedly realizes that his first “Tuscarora” visitor was also an impostor. Rather than carry his letters to the Englishman as directed, the imposter delivered them into the hands of the Wainoke, and we had information that at that time there were other English among the Indians. Eland’s party, at last considering itself in grave danger, beats a retreat to Jamestown by the swiftest route possible. They are trailed all the way by Wainoake spies, set out there to prevent our journey ings.

  What’s in a Name?

  When we look at John White’s map, it is clear that much of Eland’s route lay within the area delineated “Mandoag.” So where was this nation
? Why did Bland never encounter them? The various countries far and near were carefully pointed out by his guides, yet none at all went by the name of Mandoag. Could Hariot, Lane, and White — independently — have got the location wrong? Or had the Mandoag and their Lost Colony captives moved away? Not likely, for Bland heard a great deal about the presence of Englishmen in the area. So how could they remain invisible? How could a people, so well known in Lane’s time for their ferocity, independence, and wealth, now be so wholly out of the picture? Or were they?

  The truth is that the Mandoag were present, but were not what they seemed. Indeed, Bland was among them, and never even knew it. To understand what happened, we must examine the written reports from other regions. We must translate a word. We know that Lane and Hariot learned about the Mandoag through conversations with Secotan and Chowanoc informants, both of whom spoke Algonquian. The word “Mandoag” is documented among this language family the entire length of the eastern seaboard, from the Carolinas to Canada and far interior, with dialectical variations: Mangoak, Mangoage, Manato, Mengwe, Mingo, Doeg, Toag. The forms are slightly different. The meanings are all the same. Mandoag, the stealthy and the treacherous, means enemy. Distrusted; snakes}

  Bland has seen them. Or heard of them. The problem is, of the nations he encountered, which were the Mandoag?

  Copper

  In order to find the Mandoag, we need evidence — something, anything — to go on. Without it, we are hunting for a needle in a haystack. The region is large, the nations many. And yet we do know something. A single, tangible piece of information has been within our grasp all along. A clue, imprinted in the journals, to guide us. It is repeated incessantly. The writing insists upon it. The formula is simple: the Mandoag use copper. This connection appears again and again — the Mandoag ornament their homes with it. The Mandoag hire out as mercenaries for it. The Mandoag control access to the mines of Chaunis Temoatan. The Lost Colonists are last reported at the rich copper mines ofRitanoc. Like the Spaniards, the Mandoag are formidable because of their wealth. The Monocan, too, have copper. Jamestown repeatedly tries to locate the source, vaguely described as lying somewhere to the southwest.

  Until recently it was assumed that all native copper in the region was imported via trade from Indian mines on Lake Superior. This is now known to be false. Copper occurs in sheets within rock at various localities in the Southeast. Scientific analysis of metal artifacts recovered demonstrates that the majority of southeastern copper was obtained and worked locally.6

  Lake Superior, then, can only serve as an analogy. Mines there were often merely surface quarries in which copper sheeting was extracted from folds sandwiched between rock. Newport was told of a similar excavation process used west of the Powhatan. However, Lake Superior metalworkers also culled copper from extensive subsurface pits. Of those documented, many were more than twenty feet deep. In Minnesota, at the bottom of a twenty-six-foot abandoned shaft, a six-ton mass of copper was discovered, along with more than ten cartloads of hammers.7 Mauls, shovels, chisels, bowls, and ladders were the tools of the copper trade.

  Extracted ore was annealed by cold hammering. That is, the copper was heated by fire to very high temperatures, from 900o to 1,500 Fahrenheit, then hammered and heated again until sheet metal was formed. Heat prevented brittleness. They dig a hole in the ground in which they put the ore, reported a Jamestown colonist, duly impressed, and make thereon a great fire, which causeth it to run into a mass, and become malleable. English copper only became pliable after it passeth eleven fires}

  Conversion of copper into sheets for trade, then, was a time-consuming operation, involving the mining of raw material, the stoking of fires, and the melting and hammering of ore into sheets before delivery to artisans. The activity was labor-intensive, which is why Strachey — in the midst of reporting the Lost Colony murder — recorded something truly astonishing. At Ritanoc, he said, the Weroance Eyanoco preserved 7 of the English alive, four men, two boys, and one young maid (who escaped and fled up the River of Chaonoke) to beat his copper, of which he hath certain mines at the said Ritanoc.9 Ritanoc has never been translated. Yet a clue to its meaning may lie in the Delaware word liteu, relating to fire, meaning literally “it burns.”10 Oc is a locative ending. Ritanoc, then, may be rendered as a “Place of Fire,” a “Burned Place.” The Lost Colonists were at a center of copper manufacture. Ore was annealed over fire into malleable sheets.

  But where was Ritanoc? Jamestown investors learned from Hariot that Southwest of our old fort in Virginia, the Indians often informed him that there was a great melting of red metal … Besides, our own Indians have lately revealed either this or another rich mine of copper or gold in a town called Ritanoe near certain mountains lying west of Roanoac}1 Ritanoc was either the same place as Chaunis Temoatan, or familiar to it.

  Yet here we encounter another problem, for the location of Chaunis Temoatan was never determined. As far as we know, no Europeans ever went there. To find the Mandoag, then, we must discover what neither Lane nor Newport nor Virginia Company officials ever did. We must find the copper. We must find the mines of Chaunis Temoatan.

  Chaunis Temoatan

  Copper ornaments worn by the Secotan were made, as we understood, said Hariot, by the inhabitants that dwell farther into the country where, as they say, are mountains and rivers.11 Because of this description, past investigations of Chaunis Temoatan have focused on the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachian chain and the gold-producing region of northern Georgia.13 And have found nothing.

  It is a thing most notorious to all the country, Lane enthused, that there is a province to the which the said Mangoaks have recourse and traffic up that River of Moratico, which hath a marvellous and most strange mineral. This mine is so notorious among them, as not only to the savages dwelling up the said river, and also to the savages of Choanoke, and all them to the westward, but also to all them of the main: the country’s name is of fame, and is called Chaunis Temoatan.14

  Here is a stumbling block, for the River Moratico — so designated on early maps for the Roanoke — flows from the northwest. Yet Hariot reported the mines to be located southwest of the fort on Roanoke Island. Neither man had ever been there. Hariot, at least, could speak the language and was confident of what he had heard. In fact, both may have been correct: Chaunis Temoatan lay to the southwest, but the normal route to it — or, more properly, to the province that retailed its product — lay northwest via the Roanoke River.

  Skiko, who had been a prisoner of the Mandoag but had never been to Chaunis Temoatan, declared it to be twenty days’ journey overland from the Mangoaks to the said mineral country, and that they passed through certain other territories between them and the Mangoaks before they arrived.15

  How far was a day’s travel? Strachey said that an Indian march is some fourteen or sixteen miles a day, while Smith reported six days’ travel from Jamestown to the village of Powhatan, approximately fifty miles.16 Menatonon directed Lane to the Chesapeake Bay, a journey up the Chowan River, followed by a four-day descent overland.17 Supposing the foot portion to begin near the current Carolina/Virginia border, the four days would correspond to about forty miles. We might conclude, therefore, that a day’s travel was anywhere from ten to fifteen miles — presumably less in swampy areas, more on higher and drier ground.

  Here we have, then, a reasonably accurate measurement. Chaunis Temoatan lay twenty days away, or roughly two to three hundred miles deep in the interior, in a direction angling southwest from Roanoke Island. On a modern map, this would place us somewhere between the Haw River west of Chapel Hill as the lesser distance, and a point east of the Catawba River at, say, Mooresville, as the greater.

  But was there copper here? There certainly was! The exact area we have delineated as the probable position of Chaunis Temoatan lies within a geological formation known as the Carolina Slate Belt.18 A zone of volcanic and faulted rock consisting of rhyolitic to basaltic flows and tufts, it contains deposits of gold, c
opper, lead, and zinc. Copper occurs in mineralized veins three to five feet wide, tending to the northeast, with deep pockets and dips.

  When we examine the Slate Belt more closely, however, we discover a curious pattern. The formation stretches in a southwesterly band from Granville County in the northeast to Union County in the southwest. Its width varies from twenty-five to seventy miles. The thickest portion of the belt, where the heaviest concentration of metallic deposits is located, occurs roughly in its middle, in present-day Randolph County. Just to the west lie faults of gold and silver, giving rise to a rash of modern town names such as Gold Hill, Eldorado, Richfield, Silver Hill, and Goldston. Lane observed that some of the copper of Chaunis Temoatan was soft and pale, like gold. Tests conducted by his mineralogist on samples of Secotan copper revealed trace amounts of silver. The copper mine we are looking for, then, should optimally be near all three mineral deposits. Is Randolph County our target area? Distance from Roanoke Island: approximately 250 miles.

  The Intriguing Zúñiga Map

  If we are right that Randolph Country is the location of Chaunis Temoatan, then we have defined the east/west coordinates within which the Mandoag operated. We must now find the boundaries to the north and south. As a result of John Smith’s investigations of the Lost Colonists, he had a map drawn on which he pinpointed their known locations. A copy of this map, as we have seen, fell into the hands of Spanish agent Pedro de Zúñiga and has been preserved.19

  When we examine the Zúñiga map, we find that south of the James River, four additional rivers are depicted, which we will label A, B, C, and D. Against the southernmost, D, is a notation that appears to read: Paker-akanick. Here remaineth 4 men clothed that came from roonock to okanahowan. River C bears the label Morattico toward its mouth, and Machemen-checock along its higher reaches. Beside River B is the marking: Panawiock. here the king of paspahegh reported our men to be and went to se. Finally, A is a river divided into three branches: Chawwone, Ocanahowan, and a third, rather unintelligible, word that appears to be Nottawmusawone.