Then Ecija saw another large plume of smoke rising nearby. “And thus we went sailing along the shoals” to find the source of what he presumed to be a signal fire. He sent two men into the rigging as lookouts and posted crew with muskets and readied the cannon in case this was a trap. The ship passed an inlet that appeared too dangerous to enter. For a time, the sailors could see no evidence of people as it cruised up the long and straight line of beach.
Then, an hour before sunset, seven Native Americans suddenly appeared on the beach and began to wave and shout. Ecija brought his vessel “as close to land as a stone’s throw from the surf” and hailed the Indians, presumably in Spanish, as the ship rode just beyond the light surf. “But it appeared that they were fearful,” he reports. “And they climbed a hill and began to play on some flutes.” He ordered the anchor dropped, and the crew called out again, “but they made no move of any sort to come to the beach.”
With darkness fast approaching, the perplexed crew gave up their attempts to make contact and moved the ship offshore to anchor for the night. They made little progress sailing up the coast the next two days amid heavy rains and contrary winds. “And all during this period they”—the Indians—“never left off making smoke signals to us,” he adds.
Brisk winds forced the ship back to the same spot where they had seen the flute-playing Indians previously, apparently just north of Port Ferdinando. Two new smoke plumes rose into the sky, and Ecija made for the nearest one. “And as we came abreast of it, six Indians appeared just as [the others] had before, drumming to us and shouting.” The captain again enjoined the crew to skirt the shore. “But we were not able to speak to them as they took off and climbed up through the ravines. And we were anchored, awaiting them.”
It was a strange cat-and-mouse game, the Spanish coasting close to the long strip of barrier island, the urgent shouting, and then the Indians’ retreat into the sand dunes. Frustrated by this odd behavior, Ecija ordered his men to haul up the anchor and head north to the Chesapeake to seek out the English at Jamestown.
“And as we were turning away from them, a great number of them who [were] in ambush within the ravines with some bows and quivers came out into sight.”
If it were an ambush that had lost the essence of surprise, the Native Americans didn’t give up their efforts to attract the attention of the European vessel. Half a dozen of the men took off in a sprint, shadowing the ship as the crew unfurled the sails and began to move north, “following us at a full run along the beach for a great stretch until we left them behind by sailing. And as they went along, they were continually blowing on some pipes and shouting to us.”
The shouts were indecipherable as the sails caught the July breeze and sped the vessel ahead, leaving the sprinting Indians behind. Above the sounds of the surging surf and creak of the ship, Ecija could make out what he called tunes “made by foreigners,” by which he seems to mean Europeans. It is an extraordinary and eerie scene: Native Americans playing what were apparently Old World melodies as they raced desperately along the beach, shouting at the departing ship.
Ecija and his crew later entered Chesapeake Bay, only to be chased away by an English ship guarding the entrance. Standing out to sea, the captain revealed to his officers the secret orders directing him to continue far up the coast to look for candidate sites for Spanish forts. No one liked the look of the weather, however. The ocean swells grew longer and higher, and a stiff breeze sprang up; there was an ominous cast to the sky in the south. The men agreed that “the season is much advanced” and that “this coast is so dangerous in the season that begins with August,” meaning that this was the period when hurricanes swept up the Eastern Seaboard. The decision to abandon the mission and return to St. Augustine was unanimous. The retreat likely saved their lives, because a massive hurricane moved through three days later.
It was arguably the most significant storm ever to pass up the Atlantic coast. Had Ecija succeeded in his secret mission, the future of any English designs in the region might have been imperiled. The same hurricane also caught the flagship of an English fleet carrying a new Virginia governor and supplies destined for the starving settlers at Jamestown. These were the men shipwrecked on Bermuda, six hundred miles to the east, and forced to build a new ship to complete their journey.
William Strachey, the governor’s secretary, was on board the ship. Once safely in Jamestown the following spring, he relayed the adventure back to England, spurring Shakespeare’s Tempest, which was first performed in 1611. The bard’s famous play opens in the midst of the wild storm that shipwrecks passengers and crew on a remote island ruled by Prospero, the magician-scientist modeled on John Dee, and inhabited by the wild Caliban, possibly based on the Virginia Algonquian Machumps, who claimed that the Indians had enslaved or massacred the Lost Colonists.
Back in St. Augustine, Ecija wrote a report for the king detailing his expedition. The captain speculated that the haunting music he heard on the Carolina beach “was a signal that they had for the ships that passed by, judging from the diligence with which they did it.”
It apparently never occurred to him that the combination of a Dutch flag and his crew’s shouts in Spanish might have confused those onshore. The Netherlands was still allied to the English, and the peace with Spain was a new development. These peculiar Indians might have sought contact with those they perceived as friends, only to be frightened when they realized they were face-to-face with potential enemies.
It’s possible that Ecija and his men had just encountered Roanoke colonists or their kin. Perhaps the locals were eager to be rescued. Maybe they simply sought to exchange news or goods. Europeans might have found the Lost Colonists after all. But because they were dressed in deerskins rather than woolen jerkins, and speaking Carolina Algonquian rather than English, their original identity would have been too obscure to recognize. The melodies that so perplexed Ecija might have been a clever way to alert the passing ship to their English origins, without giving away their identity to a potential foe.
Yet like so much in the search for the Lost Colony, this is a story that can never be confirmed; the final leap has to be one of imagination.
Perhaps the men who ran at full speed along the beach in their leather loincloths, blowing furiously on their pipes, played the same English tunes that John White ordered sung on the eve of his granddaughter’s third birthday in 1590, off the northern end of Roanoke Island. “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,” Caliban tells the arriving Europeans in The Tempest. “Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.”
Acknowledgments
In searching for the Lost Colony, I found an extraordinary number of people willing to lend their time and expertise. Along with those mentioned in the book, special thanks are due David Amber, Nathan Boniske, Asma Bouhrass, Marta Cavaco, Edward Collins, Vibrina Coronado, Joao Costa, Paul Farago, Mark Fleming, Glenn Fox, Josephine Hookway, Juliet Kaczmarczyk, Alexandra Merrill, Pedro Pinto, Tyson Sampson, Kim Sawyer, Fred Schwab, Aisling Tierney, and the crew of the Elizabeth II as well as Ann Lawler’s crab cakes. I feel particular gratitude for Mahan Kalpa Khalsa’s understanding and patience.
National Geographic supported countless research trips with the firm advocacy of my editor there, Glenn Oeland. The Hodson Trust–John Carter Brown Fellowship, directed by Adam Goodheart, graciously provided access to the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University as well as its remarkable staff and international community of scholars, along with eighteenth-century accommodations near Washington College to complete the writing—and with funding to boot. Such fortunate backing made, I hope, for a much better book. Thanks, finally, to my editor at Doubleday, Yaniv Soha, and my agent, Ethan Bassoff, a dynamic duo that so calmly and ably guided this long voyage.
Notes
Elizabethans are notorious for creative spelling; Walter Raleigh recorded his own name in dozens of variations. To ensure ease of reading,
I have rendered most sixteenth- and seventeenth-century quotations in modern English and names in their current popular forms. For events described by English accounts in those centuries, time has been counted according to the Julian calendar, while Spanish and Portuguese dates from the era have been converted from Gregorian into Julian time.
PRELUDE
“put us in good hope”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 2:610.
“to the place at Roanoke”: Ibid.
“with a reasonable space”: Ibid.
“It was much further from the harbor”: Ibid., 611.
“we had a sea break into our boat”: Ibid.
“beat them down”: Ibid., 612.
“until they sunk”: Ibid.
“Before we could get to the place”: Ibid.
“the light of a great fire”: Ibid., 613.
“many familiar English tunes”: Ibid.
“a secret token agreed upon”: Ibid.
“a high palisade”: Ibid.
“I greatly joyed that I had safely found”: Ibid., 616.
“fifty miles into the main”: Ibid., 613.
“where our planters are”: Ibid., 617.
“to visit our countrymen”: Ibid., 618.
“as luckless to many”: Ibid., 715.
“Would to God my wealth”: Ibid.
INTRODUCTION: THE TERROR WITHIN
“make plans to brave”: “It’s Baaaackk! Psychopath Is Spooktacular!” HiddenOuterbanks.com, Oct. 18, 2015.
“creatures, maniacs, zombies”: “Frightening Halloween Festivities on the Outer Banks,” Blog.kittyhawk.com, Oct. 6, 2015.
“massacres, murders, and other bloody scenes”: Seaworthy, Nag’s Head, 126.
“the barbarous years”: Bailyn, Barbarous Years, title.
“there could be something sinister”: “Zombie Colony of Roanoke”: Zombie Research Society. Last modified Oct. 22, 2009. zombieresearchsociety.com.
“Wander off the stage of history”: Charles Frazier, Thirteen Moons, 414.
“This venture had little”: Jenkins, History of the United States, 8.
“The fate of the ‘Lost Colony’ ”: Chitwood, History of Colonial America, 44.
“Raleigh’s missing settlers still haunt”: Arner, “Romance of Roanoke,” 45.
“The profound significance”: Sloan and Chaplin, New World, 7.
“is full of grinning, unappeased”: Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, 60.
CHAPTER 1: SOME DELICATE GARDEN
“great fires because of the numerous”: Wroth, Voyages of Giovanni da Verrazzano, 13.
“seashore completely covered”: Ibid., 13.
“clothed with palms, laurel, and cypress”: Ibid., 137.
“The sky is clear and cloudless”: Ibid., 135.
“making various friendly signs”: Ibid.
“was seized with terror”: Ibid., 136.
“an isthmus one mile wide”: Ibid.
“As for the Indians”: Herbert Bolton, foreword to Barcia’s Chronological History of the Continent of Florida, by Barcía Carballido y Zúñiga, 5.
“attract them to our service”: Pickett and Pickett, European Struggle to Settle North America, 18.
“The entire Spanish nation”: Ibid.
“Many persons died of hunger”: Sauer, Sixteenth Century North America, 75.
“a weak, and poor state”: Great Britain Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers, 4, xvii.
“They care little for foreigners”: Sharpe, London Review of Politics, Society, Literature, Art, & Science 11 (1865): 45.
“Books wherein appeared angles”: Fauvel, Flood, and Wilson, Oxford Figures, 62.
“obstinate ignorance, pedantry”: Shirley, Thomas Harriot: A Biography, 42.
“Pity the poverty”: Ibid., 43.
“These enclosures be the causes”: Lipson, Economic History of England, 1:162.
“There are more than two hundred”: Strickland, Letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, 2:77.
“great terror to the people”: Andrews, Trade, Plunder, and Settlement, 185.
“not actually possessed”: David B. Quinn, Set Fair for Roanoke, 18.
“riotous, lascivious, and incontinent”: Trevelyan, Sir Walter Raleigh, 18.
“a thorough-paced scoundrel”: David B. Quinn, “A Portuguese Pilot in the English Service,” in England and the Discovery of America, 250.
“frustrated by the usual Elizabethan blend”: Nicholls and Williams, Sir Walter Raleigh, 12.
“Desirous to do somewhat”: Ibid.
“Man may not expect the ease”: Birch and Oldys, Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, 254.
“He that commands the sea”: Sir Walter Raleigh, “A Discourse of the Invention of Ships,” The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh KT 8, 325.
“was a man noted”: Nicholls and Williams, Sir Walter Raleigh, 45.
“Gilbert’s scheme was wrecked”: J. B. Black, Reign of Elizabeth, 805.
“the language and logic”: Mancall, Hakluyt’s Promise, 129.
“There is a mighty large old map”: Maine Historical Society, Documentary History of the State of Maine, 2:216.
Hakluyt’s 1582 book: Hakluyt, Divers Voyages Touching the Discovery of America and the Islands Adjacent, xc.
“five or six of the best captains”: Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, 12:76.
“wax cold and fall”: Great Britain Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1574–, no. 4.
“stay the Spanish king from flowing”: Hakluyt, Discourse Concerning Western Planting, no. 1, 154.
“I am most willing”: Great Britain Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1574–, no. 4.
“the souls of millions”: Hakluyt, Discourse Concerning Western Planting, no. 1, 10.
“shall be of the allegiance”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 82.
“so sweet, and so strong”: Ibid., 94.
CHAPTER 2: ALL SIGNS OF JOY
“never making any show”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 98.
“After he had spoken of many things”: Ibid.
“In less than half an hour”: Ibid.
“When he came to the place”: Ibid., 99.
“all signs of joy”: Ibid.
“very handsome and goodly people”: Ibid., 98.
“clap it before his breast”: Ibid., 101.
“fat bucks”: Ibid., 105.
“You wear great clothes”: Ibid., 99.
“Their towns are but small”: Harriot, Briefe and True Report, 24.
“to an island which they call Roanoke”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 106.
“At the north end thereof”: Ibid.
“to meet us very cheerfully”: Ibid., 107.
“caused us to sit down”: Ibid.
“other wholesome, and medicinal herbs”: Ibid., 108.
“and with all beat the poor fellows”: Ibid., 109.
“the land produces little to eat”: Ibid., 790.
“after the manner”: Ibid., 108.
“We brought home”: Ibid., 116.
“Fain would I climb”: Trevelyan, Sir Walter Raleigh, 49.
“The members had to be restrained”: J. B. Black, Reign of Elizabeth, 322.
“mantle of rudely tanned skins”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 116.
“well proportioned in their limbs”: David B. Quinn, Set Fair for Roanoke, 50.
“No one was able to understand them”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 116.
“some of the people”: Great B
ritain Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series, 26:33.
“Pointing with a finger”: Trevelyan, Sir Walter Raleigh, 77.
“Arms of Walter Raleigh”: Ibid., 78.
Some scholars believe: Gullberg, Mathematics, 109.
“invocations or conjurations”: Sharpe, Witchcraft in Early Modern England, app.
“intolerable pride and insatiable ambition”: David B. Quinn, Set Fair for Roanoke, 66.
“glasses between his teeth”: Bushnell, Sir Richard Grenville, 30.
“you will wrest the keys”: Bent, Short Sayings of Great Men, 455.
“because on the mainland there is much gold”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 328.
“Betwixt the decks”: Middleton, Tobacco Coast, xxiv.
“they said the Indians”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 184.
CHAPTER 3: FIRING INVISIBLE BULLETS
“We were all in extreme hazard”: David B. Quinn, Set Fair for Roanoke, 63.
“the ship was so bruised”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 177.
accused Fernandes of “unskillfulness”: Ibid., 189.
“of the age of 8”: White, “A Wife of an Indian ‘Werowance’ or Chief of Pomeiooc,” British Museum, 1906,0509.1.13.
“were well entertained there”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 191.
“a ceremony in their prayers”: David B. Quinn, Set Fair for Roanoke, 187.
“to demand a silver cup”: David B. Quinn, Roanoke Voyages, 191.
“we burnt, and spoiled their corn”: Ibid.
“enemies of those of Port Fernando”: David B. Quinn, Set Fair for Roanoke, 142.
“You can do nothing”: Anderson, Honorable Burden of Public Office, 88.
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