The Roanoke Colony

In the 1580s England was a latecomer to American colonization, eager to challenge Spain and to find wealth and a base for privateering. Raleigh sponsored a reconnaissance voyage in 1584 and a military colony in 1585–86, which quarreled with the local Algonquian peoples and abandoned the island.

The 1587 expedition was meant to be different: a settlement of families, intending to establish itself on the Chesapeake Bay. Instead the colonists were left at Roanoke.

The 118 colonists began their journey in April 1587 under John White, intending to settle on the Chesapeake Bay but left instead at Roanoke. Relations with neighboring peoples were tense: at one point the colonists mistakenly attacked friendly Croatoan people, an assault stopped only by Manteo, a Croatoan man working with the English. That August brought the birth of Virginia Dare, White’s granddaughter. Facing the threat of attack, a lack of reliable food, and the coming winter, the colonists persuaded White to sail to England for supplies.

White could not return until August 1590. He found the settlement abandoned and the word “CROATOAN” carved on a post. Assuming the colonists had moved to Croatoan, a nearby island home to Native allies, Raleigh and White made several attempts to find them but never did.

England abandoned its efforts at Roanoke. It would be seventeen years before the next English colony, at Jamestown in 1607.

Theories about the colonists’ fate — that they were killed, died of hunger, or joined nearby Native communities — have circulated for four centuries, and none has been proven. The “Lost Colony” became an enduring American legend. More importantly, Roanoke’s failure taught English promoters lessons about supply, investment, and relations with Native peoples that shaped the Virginia Company’s venture at Jamestown.