Roanoke - Part 2a

[Jay Edward (deceased)]

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COLONY. An island south of Cape Hatteras, now known as Ocracoke, was reached on June 26. The remainder of the month and most of July were spent in exploring the coastal islands and the adjacent mainland. During one of these expeditions, Grenville sought to strike terror into the hearts of the Indians by burning the Indian village of Aquascogok in retaliation for the theft of a silver cup stolen by one of the Indians. Not until July 27 did Grenville anchor at Hatoraske, off the barrier island, a short distance southeast of Roanoke Island. Here at a break in the barrier reef, almost due east of the southern tip of Roanoke Island, Simon Ferdinando discovered a port, named Port Ferdinando in his honor and considered the best port along that stretch of coast.

A colony was established on the "North end" of Roanoke Island, and Ralph Lane was made Governor. From Port Ferdinando, and later from Roanoke Island, letters were written by Lane to Secretary Walsingham informing him of the successful founding of the colony. Still another letter was written to Sir Philip Sidney, son-in-law of Walsingham, who was interested in western discovery. A letter to Richard Hakluyt, geographer and historian, written by Lane from the settlement on Roanoke Island indicated that the Governor of Virginia was impressed by the "huge and unknowen greatnesse" of the American continent. He added that if Virginia only had horses and cows in some reasonable proportion and were inhabited by Englishmen, no realm in Christendom would be comparable to it. The Indians, he said naively, were "courteous, and very desirous to have clothes," but valued red copper above everything else. Wingina, chief of the Roanoke Island Indians, had received the white men hospitably and had cooperated with them in the initial phases of the founding of the settlement. This is clear from Grenville's account as well as Lane's.

Grenville lingered a short while after the founding of the settlement, then returned to England for supplies. On the way home he captured a richly laden Spanish ship, which must have repaid him handsomely for his western trip. On his arrival in England, he too reported to Walsingham, thus acknowledging the interest of the Queen and emphasizing the semi national character of the Virginian enterprise.
Lane built a fort called "The new Fort in Virginia," where the present Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is situated and where the remains of a fort were still visible as late as 1896. The fort was located near the shore on the east side of Roanoke Island between the "North Point" of the north end of the Island and a "creek." The mouth of the so-called creek was big enough to serve as the anchorage for small boats (Shallow Bag Bay, known as late as 1716 as "Town Creek").
Lane's fort on Roanoke Island resembled in some noteworthy respects the fort, which he had built on St. Johns Island, Puerto Rico, in May 1585, when he seized the salt supply. Both forts seem to have been roughly shaped like a star built on a square with the bastions constructed on the sides of the square instead of at the corners, as was common in later fortifications. Copies of the plans of these forts may be seen in the Fort Raleigh museum.

The dwelling houses of the early colonists were near the fort, which was too small to enclose them. They were described by the colonists themselves as "decent dwelling houses" or "cottages" and must have been at least a story and a half or two stories high, because we have a reference to the "neather roomes of them." The roofs were thatched, as we learn from Ralph Lane's statement that the Indians by night "would have beset my house, and put fire in the reedes that the same was covered with." The chimneys and the foundations may have been of brick, because Darby Glande later testified that "as soon as they had disembarked {at Roanoke} they began to make brick and fabric for a fort and houses." Pieces of brick were reported found at the fort site as late as 1860, and recent archeological work at the fort turned up a few brickbats, possibly of the Elizabethan period.

Thomas Hariot remarked that though stone was not found on the island, there was good clay for making bricks, and lime could be made from nearby deposits of oyster shells in the same manner that lime was made "in the Isles of Tenet and Shepy, and also in divers other places of England." However, as no evidence of the extensive use of brick has yet been found, it is perhaps safe to assume that the chief building material was rough boards. It has already been noted that they had a forge which they could set up to make nails. Richard Hakluyt, in his Discourse of Western Planting, written at the request of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, about 1 year before the colony sailed, had recommended as "things to be prepared for the voyadge" that any colonial expedition should include "men experte in the arte of fortification," "makers of spades and shovells," "shipwrights," "millwrights, to make milles for spedy and cheape sawing of timber and boardes for trade, and first traficque of suertie," "millwrights, for corne milles," "Sawyers for common use," "Carpinters, for buildinges," "Brick makers," "Tile makers," "Lyme makers," "Bricklayers," "Tilers," "Thatchers with reedes, rushes, broome, or strawe," "Rough Masons," "Carpinters," and "Lathmakers." The presumption therefore is that typical English thatched cottages and houses, such as were found in rural Elizabethan England, were built at Roanoke. (The log cabin appears to have been introduced into America about 50 years later by the Swedes and Finns on the Delaware.) The Roanoke cottages were presumably well built. The skilled labor of the expedition had been able to construct a seaworthy pinnace at Puerto Rico in less than a month's time.

LIFE IN THE COLONY. At first, relations with the Indians continued friendly, though the Englishmen had their detractors in the Council of the Indian Chief. The aborigines planted crops and made fish traps for the Englishmen. With rare foresight, the colonists also induced Chief Wingina (who had changed his name to Pemisapan) to put into simultaneous cultivation his lands both on Roanoke Island and on the mainland at Dasamonquepeuc in order that the Indians might have no excuse for not being able to supply the colony if need arose. The coast was explored by the English as far south as Secotan (about 80 miles) and as far north as the Chesapeake (about 130 miles). Thomas Hariot collected data on plants, animals, and minerals for his New Found Land of Virginia. John White made the inimitable water-color drawings of the Indians, the animal and plant life of Roanoke Island, and the coast, which have been engraved many times. The much rarer facsimile reproductions of these drawings in color may be seen in the Fort Raleigh museum. These paintings are the first artistic productions of Englishmen in America. The colonists also learned to smoke tobacco, using for this purpose Indian pipes or other pipes of their own modeled on the Indian pipes.
How closely the personnel of the first colony conformed to the standard suggested by Hakluyt in 1584 is not known; but historical documents indicate that there were men expert in fortification and that there were brickmakers, carpenters, and thatchers. Also the names of all of the colonists are known, if not their trades. Some were gentlemen, cousins of Raleigh and Grenville, as the names indicate. Hariot says that some were city dwellers "of a nice bringing up" who soon became miserable without their soft beds and dainty food. Others were excellent soldiers, as Lane testified of Captain Stafford; and there were the humbler folk, of whom Darby Glande was perhaps representative, though he was Irish and appears to have been forced to accompany the expedition. On the whole, they gave the appearance more of a military expedition than a colony. They were dependent upon the Indians and upon England for both food and supplies. Many of their basic commodities, such as salt, horses, and cattle, had been obtained in the first instance by trade, or by force, from the Spaniards in the West Indies. There appear to have been no women among them to give permanence to the settlement.

Grenville's deplorable action in burning the village of Aquascogok was indicative of the fact that the high-spirited Englishmen of that day could not live on even terms with the natives. In the lean period between the planting of crops in the spring and the expected summer harvest, English relations with the Indians grew strained and finally reached the point at which no further supplies could be had from them. Once the colonists and Indians were at odds, the fish traps began to be robbed or destroyed. Food became scarce, and Lane was forced to send groups of settlers to the barrier islands along the coast to live on oysters and other shell fish and to look for passing ships. Master Prideaux and 10 men were sent to Hatoraske Island for this purpose, while Captain Stafford and 20 men went to Croatoan Island, south of Cape Hatteras. (Croatoan Island is a sixteenth-century name, not to be confused with modern Croatan Sound area.) Sixteen or twenty others were sent at intervals to the mainland to live on oysters and native foods.
By June 1, 1586, the colonists were at open war with the Indians, and many of the latter were slain in the struggles that ensued both on Roanoke Island and on the mainland at Dasamonquepeuc. Pemisapan was among those who were killed in the fighting.

ABANDONMENT OF THE COLONY. Meanwhile, Grenville was delayed in leaving England for the supply of the Roanoke colony. This placed the colonists in a desperate predicament. Such was the state of affairs at Roanoke Island when, on June 9, 1586, Captain Stafford brought news of the fact that Sir Francis Drake was off the coast with a mighty fleet of 23 ships. Richly laden with booty from his attack on the Spanish West Indies and Florida, Drake's fleet anchored next day partly in the port near Roanoke Island (probably Port Ferdinando) and partly in a "wilde roade" at sea 2 miles from the shore. Second in command to Drake on this expedition was Capt. Christopher Carleill, Secretary Walsingham's stepson and son-in-law, who had been interested in American exploration since 1574. Lane and some of his company went on board Drake's flagship, and Drake made them a generous offer. He would give them a ship, one or two pinnaces, a number of smaller boats, and sufficient ship masters, sailors, and supplies to afford another month's stay at Roanoke and a return voyage to England, or he would give them all immediate return passage to England with his fleet. To Lane's credit it must be said that he was loath to give up the Roanoke Island project. He accepted the first offer, and the ship was turned over to him; but before the supplies could be made ready, a storm arose and the ship was blown out to sea and did not return. The fleet suffered other losses in this storm, but Drake remained open handed. He offered Lane supplies as before and another ship, but since this vessel was much too large to be kept in Lane's only harbor, its acceptance, and dependence on it, involved a great risk.
This fact, the troubled state of Europe and America, making war with Spain now practically inevitable, and the unaccountable delay in the arrival of Grenville's supply fleet caused Lane to ask for passage to England. When Drake sailed, on June 18, he carried the colonists home with him.
GRENVILLE'S FIFTEEN MEN. Shortly after Drake and the colonists had sailed, a supply ship sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh arrived at Hatoraske and after searching in vain for the colonists returned to England. About a fortnight after Raleigh's ship had left, Grenville arrived with three ships and likewise searched in vain for the colonists. Grenville found the places of colonial settlement desolate, but being "unwilling to loose the possession of the country which Englishmen had so long held," he left 15 men on Roanoke Island, fully provisioned for 2 years, to hold the country for the Queen while he returned to England.

The Lost Colony of 1587
In the year 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh organized another colonial expedition consisting of 150 persons. Its truer colonizing character was evidenced by the significant facts that, unlike the expedition of 1585, this one included women and children, and the men were called "planters." Its government was also less military, since the direction of the enterprise in Virginia was to be in the hands of a syndicate of subpatentees--a governor and 12 assistants whom Raleigh incorporated as the "Governor and Assistants of the Citie of Ralegh in Virginia."

The new arrangement indicated that colonization was becoming less of a one-man venture and more of a corporate or business enterprise, anticipating in a certain degree the later English companies that were to found successful colonies in Virginia and New England. Exactly what inducements Raleigh offered to the planters are not known. His terms were probably liberal, however, because Hariot, writing in February 1587, paid tribute to Raleigh's generosity, saying that the least that he had granted had been 500 acres of land to each man willing to go to America. Those contributing money or supplies, as well as their person, probably stood to receive more. From the list of names that has come down to us, it would appear that at least 10 of the planters took their wives with them. Ambrose Viccars and Arnold Archard brought not only their wives but one child each, Ambrose Viccars and Thomas Archard. Altogether there were at least 17 women and 9 children in the group that arrived safely in Virginia.

In still another respect, this second colonial expedition seemed to anticipate the later Jamestown settlement. Raleigh had directed, in writing, that the fort and colony be established in the Chesapeake Bay area where a better port could be had and where conditions for settlement were considered to be more favorable.

The fleet, consisting of three ships, sailed from Plymouth for Virginia on May 8. Continuity with the previous expeditions was afforded in the persons of the Governor, John White, who was to make in all five trips to Virginia, Simon Ferdinando, Captain Stafford, Darby Glande, the Irishman, and perhaps others. The route, as in 1585, lay via "Moskito Bay" in Puerto Rico. Here Darby Glande was left behind, or escaped, and lived to testify regarding the first Roanoke Island colony before the Spanish authorities at St. Augustine some years later. The expedition sailed along the coast of Haiti, even passing by "Isabella" where Grenville had traded with the Spaniards for cattle and other necessities in 1585, but this time there was no trading, possibly because of the precarious relations between England and Spain, now on the eve of open war. Whatever the reason for this failure to take in supplies in Haiti, it constituted a certain handicap for the colony of 1587.