History of the Roanoke Colony | First Colony Foundation

boyle-rental-book — Boyle Rental Book, Killmore entry.

John White’s House in Ireland

A key document in the story of Sir Walter Raleigh’s colony in North America is the 1593 letter sent to the chronicler of English exploration, Richard Hakluyt. The information it contained comes to us only in the version published by Hakluyt in 1600, but we must assume that his editing left it substantially correct. The letter writer was John White, who had worked for Queen Elizabeth’s Serjeant-Painter, drew remarkably detailed water colors of the native flora, fauna, and people of modern-day North Carolina.

croatan-de-bry-1591-map — De Bry 1591 map. The palisade icon is a convention, not an actual depiction.

Croatan: The Untold Story

Just as the fifth century era of famine, epidemics, and invasion saw tribes shift from region to region in Europe, so too did the proto-colonial period in eastern North America. Historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists have recorded such movements — and the all-too common finality of tribal extinction. For example, as late as the 19th century, accounts document that most of North Carolina’s Tuscarora departed Bertie County to join their Iroquoian cousins in New York state.

Commonplace Decapitations

Victorian and twentieth-century sensibilities have been quick to condemn the decapitation of Wingina by a force under the command of Ralph Lane. They saw the action as unwarranted brutality against a Native American leader. Though, in actuality, it was not Wingina whose head was displayed to Lane. The Roanoke chief had changed his name to Pemisapan, which Lane – probably informed by Manteo – correctly took to mean that he planned to start hostilities. This is also what another Algonquian chief, Powhatan, did a generation later.

white-map — “La Virginea Pars”, a map of the east coast of North America (c. 1585-87).

The Roanoke Colonies

European exploration of the Outer Banks of modern-day North Carolina began in the early decades of the sixteenth century. The Florentine Giovanni da Verrazzano in the service of the French king, Francis I, skirted the Outer Banks in 1524 and the following year the Spaniard Pedro de Quejo passed by on a voyage to the Chesapeake Bay. Neither the French nor Spanish made any effort to settle the region, however, and other than a brief visit by the Spanish in 1566 Europeans showed no interest in the Outer Banks until the Roanoke voyages sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh nearly twenty years later.

Indian-woman-John-white-crop — An Indian Woman by John White. 1585-1593. Image courtesy of the British Museum.

Indian Peoples of the Ossomocomuck

Approximately 7,000 Indians inhabited Ossomocomuck (coastal North Carolina), from the Great Dismal Swamp in the north to the Neuse River in the south. They were loose groupings of semi-autonomous peoples rather than centralized political entities controlled by powerful rulers.

swallow-tail-butterfly-john-white_crop — Swallow-tail butterfly by John White. 1585-1593. Image courtesy of the British Museum.

Historical Documents & Research

John White was an explorer, artist, and later, governor of the Roanoke Colony. He was a keen observer of the local Indians and the flora and fauna of the Outer Banks region, the likeness of which he recorded in a series of watercolors painted between 1585 and 1593. The British Museum kindly allowed First Colony Foundation access to their collection of John White’s paintings, a few of which can be viewed below.

manor-farm-dethick-sleep-b-bs-large — Dethick Hall, now a B&B, where Captain Stafford lived after his return from Roanoke in 1587.

Identity of Roanoke Leader Discovered

Little was know about Captain Edward Stafford, except that he later served in Plymouth under Raleigh during the threat of invasion by Spain. Dr. Klingelhofer’s two-year research drew upon British archival documents as well well as complicated genealogical relationships.