Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Colony Part 2

Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Colony Part 2

The last episode related how Richard Grenville returned to Roanoke Island to find the colony deserted, as Sir Walter Raleigh had rescued the beleaguered settlers some days before Grenville arrived with fresh supplies. This episode is the conclusion of the tale of Roanoke Island.

From the Book

Colonial American History Stories - 1215 - 1664

Transcript:

Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Colony

The last episode related how Richard Grenville returned to Roanoke Island to find the colony deserted, as Sir Walter Raleigh had rescued the beleaguered settlers some days before Grenville arrived with fresh supplies. This episode is the conclusion of the tale of Roanoke Island.

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After Grenville returned to England, Sir Walter Raleigh began preparations for another attempt. He appointed a man named John White to lead the expedition. Little is known of John White's life prior to this other than that he was an accomplished artist and that he and Raleigh had become friends. This expedition would differ from the first one in that it would include families, as Raleigh's goal was to establish a "Cittie of Raleigh," on the mainland of the Chesapeake Bay. Explorations in the area had located other sites other than Roanoke that were more favorable to settlement. White included his pregnant daughter, Elinor Dare and her husband Ananias, in the expedition.

The ships used for the expedition were the 120 ton Lyon and a flyship. A flyship is a small ship usually outfitted as a merchant ship. Each prospective settler received a promise of 500 acres of land in the new colony. The ships departed England on April 27, 1587. The voyage was a stormy one and the ships did not arrive off the coast of Virgina until July 16. On July 22, the expedition stopped at Roanoke Island to check on the men that Grenville had left behind. They found a deserted colony with only the skeleton of one of the men to greet them. Many of the prospective settlers left the ship to mount a search for the men, however nothing was found. When they attempted to board the ship, captain refused to let them on. He maintained that it was late in the season and he did not want to spend time looking for another site. The colonists had no choice but for the others that had remained on the ship to disembark. The captain, a man named Fernandez, had done some pirating and many suspect that he wanted to spend some time raiding before winter. They repaired the remaining buildings and settled in.

After the ship left, White contacted some of the local tribes. In the beginning, the relations between the colonists and the natives went well. Upon inquiry, one of the chiefs told White that some of the tribes had killed the men at the colony. White led an attack on the village that supposedly housed them and attacked in the early morning hours of August 8. Too late, the English discovered that the information was false. They had attacked and killed Indians that had been friendly to them. Relations between the colonists and the natives soured after the incident.

John White's daughter, Elinor, delivered a baby girl, Virginia, on August 18, 1587. She was the first English child born in North America.

By late summer the colony's supplies were running low and, since the colony was not where it was supposed to be, they feared that supply ships from England would not know where they were. They begged John White to return to England for supplies. He reluctantly agreed and on October 24, 1587 White took the flyship and returned to England. His goal was to acquire supplies and return to Roanoke later that year, however the flyship encountered stormy seas, delaying the voyage. They eventually managed to land in Ireland, with many of the crew dying of scurvy in October 1588.

White was aghast to learn that tensions had risen to a fever pitch between the two competing European powers,England and Spain. In fear of a Spanish invasion, Queen Elizabeth had forbade any ships leaving England in anticipation of needing every available ship to counter the expected Spanish invasion. The invasion force, carried by the Spanish Armada, would include 130 ships. The next episode will cover this planned invasion of England.

Sir Walter Raleigh requested ships to resupply the Roanoke colony, however the queen denied the request. He did manage to scrounge two small pinnacles which he filled with supplies and sent out. These ships encountered French pirates which plundered the cargo.

White would not be able to mount a resupply expedition until March 1590. The supply ships did not reach Roanoke until his granddaughter's third birthday, August 18, 1590.

Bad luck hampered the search. A gale struck, which almost grounded the ships. The crew blew bugles to alert the colonists on shore that they had arrived. They managed to land eventually and reached the village, finding that the houses had been torn down and the logs used to construct a palisade. On the right side of the entrance they found a single word, "CROATOAN," carved. Weeds had overgrown the interior of the palisade and the food spoiled.

The name of a nearby island was Croatoan and this was the supposed destination of the colonists. The expedition returned to the ship, hopeful of finding the colonist at the island. However, foul weather returned. A foraging expedition to a small island for fresh water failed, the men barely making it back to the ships. Gale force winds again almost forced the ships aground. They lost three anchors in the fight against the wind and managed only by luck to get into deep water, avoiding grounding. Assailed by bad weather and short of water and supplies the expedition at this point had no choice but to return to England and abandon the search.

On October 24, 1590, White returned to England never to see his daughter or granddaughter again. The mystery of the Lost Colony endures to this day.

In the next episode I will talk about the Spanish Armada and the Spanish attempt to invade England. The articles in the book contain much more detail about the topics discussed. Additionally, there are other topics not included in the podcast. I encourage you to subscribe to both my web site, mossyfeetbooks.com and this You Tube channel.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast and thank you for listening.