The Spirits of Roanoke Island: The Story of a Mysteriously Disappeared Colony That Hasn't Been Found for Over 400 Years

Stephen King wrote about her and horror films were shot - perhaps this is the most ancient mystery North American history. More than a hundred inhabitants of the Roanoke colony disappeared, leaving behind only a strange word on a tree. What happened to them - "360" understands.

Photo source: Flickr /Ronnie Robertson

One of the most mysterious cases in the history of North America occurred almost 200 years before the formation of the United States on its territory.

The population of the fortified fort on the island of Roanoke disappeared without a trace in its entirety - men, women, children, as if dissolved in the twilight of the primeval thicket. This colony was the first settlement of the English colonialists and became the first secret of the New World. It remains unsolved to this day, but scientists expect to find out the truth with the help of modern technology.

Lost Colony

This expedition received the highest approval of the English Queen Elizabeth - over 150 people under the command of the navigator John White were to establish a settlement on the shores of a distant continent.

In 1587 they successfully crossed the ocean and landed on a small island off the east coast of North America. The colonists built houses, surrounded them with a palisade, but the supplies they brought with them quickly ran out, and the hostility of the local Indian tribes prevented the rapid development of a small fort.

White, who became governor of the island, made a fateful decision. He decided to sail home for help. At the stern of White's ship were his friends, relatives and newborn granddaughter Virginia Dare - the first European child in the New World. He will never see them again.

The navigator counted on a quick return, but war broke out in Europe - the "Invincible Armada" of the Spanish crown brought down its power on the English fleet. Fierce naval battles undermined Spain's dominion at sea, but delayed aid for the colony for a long three years.

When White was finally able to get a ship and return to the island, the settlement was abandoned. There were no signs of a struggle, no natural disaster, fortifications and houses were dismantled, which means that the settlers did not leave in a hurry. The governor of the lost colony was rushing between the trees in search of his daughter and granddaughter, when suddenly an inscription in Latin letters flashed on one tree - CROATOAN.

This word could mean an Indian tribe or a neighboring island. But the strangest thing is that the colonists promised in case of danger to leave a completely different sign, namely the Maltese cross. Not knowing what to think, White decided to continue the search, but his people revolted - a strong storm was approaching, and a strange, spell-like inscription and the impending darkness of the night did not help raise spirits.

The rescue expedition left the island with nothing - thus began the legend of the "Lost Colony".

In the photo: a drawing made by John White

Secret of Croatoan

In the harsh times of the first colonists, no one wasted time - instead of the missing colony, the British built several new ones and gradually, in battles with nature, local tribes and settlers of other European countries, conquered North America. And meanwhile, Roanoke, which disappeared from the face of the Earth, settled in folklore - in the dark evenings, mothers whispered to children about the enchanted city and its inhabitants.

As the centuries passed, the theme of the missing fort continued to haunt writers and screenwriters. In the book "The Storm of the Century", the "king of horrors" Stephen King took it upon himself. According to his idea, Croatoan is the name of an ancient sorcerer who destroyed the settlement for refusing to give him one of the children, whom the magician was going to raise as his successor.

In the film "The Lost Colony" there were a lot of villains - supposedly the ghosts of the Vikings who died on the island many centuries ago hunted for the colonists. The heroes of the sixth season of the American Horror Story, with the speaking name Roanoke, also encounter spirits.

Surprisingly, the real fate of the colony may indeed be connected with the spirits.

In the photo: an old map of Roanoke Island

New searches

In 1937, an unknown man brought to Emory University a strange stone with an engraved cross and an inscription in old English, recalls National Geographic. When experts deciphered the message, they were shocked. It turned out to be a message from Elizabeth White, daughter of the hapless ruler of the Lost Colony.

It described how hunger and other hardships had weakened the colonists so much that they could not resist the hostile Indians. The shamans of one of the tribes announced that the spirits were angry with strangers - this was the signal for a bloody massacre, in which almost all the colonists were killed. Elizabeth's daughter was among those killed.

It seemed that the discovery had solved a mystery that researchers had been wrestling with for almost four centuries. Soon another person appeared who was involved in the secret of the lost colony. A Georgia stonemason unearthed more than 30 stones detailing the lives of Elizabeth and six other colonists after they fled the island for the mainland.

Here are just a skeptical journalist carefully studied the history of the appearance of stones and exposed the bricklayer. It turned out that he faked his "find" for the sake of fame. The scandalous article ruined more than one scientific career and cast a shadow over the first stone, found by a stranger who was never seen again.

For almost 80 years, the artifact has been gathering dust in the archives of the university, to recently serve as an impetus for new searches for the Roanoke colony. A team of scientists from the University of Breno aims to accurately establish the authenticity of the first stone found.

To do this, experts are going to apply a number of advanced methods from geochemical analysis to new data in the field of history and archeology, writes the Daily Mail. Now a number of examinations are being carried out, which are designed to determine the age of the stone and the message engraved on it. If he turns out to be real, he could give the definitive answer to America's oldest secret.

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Only 15 people remained. The second group of more than a hundred is considered missing. Its head, John White, who went to England for help, did not find the colonists upon his return, but the word "Cro" (probably the initial letters of Croatoan) was scrawled on the palisade pillar.

The popular story of the "disappeared colony", closely associated with the neighboring Croatoan Indian tribe, has been the basis of numerous works of fiction and films. The most common opinion is that the colonists were captured by local hostile tribes, or were taken from the island by the Spaniards or pirates.

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background

Raleigh himself never visited North America, but in 1617 he led expeditions to the Orinoco basin in South America in search of the legendary city of Eldorado.

First group of settlers

While waiting for the rest of the ships, Grenville established relations with the inhabitants of the Spanish colonies in America. In addition, he built a fort. "Elizabeth" arrived shortly after the completion of its construction. In the end, Grenville did not wait for the rest of the ships and set off on June 7th. The fort was abandoned, and its location remained unknown.

On June 26, the Tiger sailed along Ocracoke Inlet, but ran aground and lost most of her food supplies. After being repaired in early July, the Tiger rendezvoused with the Roe Deer and Dorothy, who had arrived in the waters of the Outer Banks with the Red Lion a few weeks earlier. However, the Red Lion disembarked her passengers and her crew went to Newfoundland in order to practice privateering.

in the new world

Despite this incident and lack of provisions, Grenville decided to leave Ralph Lane and 107 men to establish an English colony on the northern tip of Roanoke Island, promising to return in April 1586 with more men and fresh materials. A group led by Lane landed on 17 August 1585 and built a small fort on the island. At the moment there are no images of him, but he was similar to the fort built in "Musquito Bay".

Grenville's auxiliary fleet arrived two weeks after the colonists' departure with Drake. After finding an abandoned colony, Grenville decided to return to England, leaving only 15 people on the island to maintain the English presence and Raleigh's rights to colonize Roanoke.

Second group

In 1587 Raleigh sent a second group to colonize Chesapeake Bay. This group of 155 was led by John White, an artist and friend of Raleigh; he has also participated in past Roanoke expeditions. The new colonists were tasked with finding the 15 people left behind in Roanoke. However, having arrived there on July 22, 1587, they did not find any trace of them, except for the remains (bones) of a single person. One local tribe still friendly to the British, the Croatoan on present-day Hatteras Island, reported that the men were attacked, but nine survived and sailed to their coast in a boat.

The commander of the fleet, Simon Fernandez, did not allow the colonists to return to the ships and ordered to equip a new colony on the island of Roanoke.

Crossing the Atlantic at the end of the year was a risky venture. Fleet relief plans were belatedly executed by captains refusing to sail back during the winter. Shortly thereafter, England was attacked by the Invincible Armada during the Anglo-Spanish War. Every English vessel was involved in the battle, preventing White from returning to Roanoke. In the spring of 1588, White obtained two small ships and sailed for Roanoke. His plans were thwarted: wanting to profit, the captains tried to capture several Spanish ships that were sent abroad. The captains were captured and their cargo taken away. White was forced to return to England, as he had nothing to carry to the colonists. Thus, because of the war with Spain, White could not go to the colony for another three years. In the end, he was able to board a privateer's ship, asking to stop at Roanoke on his way from the Caribbean.

The only clue was the letters "CRO" carved into one of the trees near the fort, and on the palisade around the village was the word "CROATOAN". Two buried skeletons were also found. All buildings and fortifications were dismantled, which meant that the settlers were not forced to leave quickly. Before the colony disappeared, White decreed that if anything should happen to them, they would have to paint a Maltese cross on a tree near them; that would mean they had to leave. There was no cross, and White, on the basis of this, believed that they had moved deeper into the island of Croatan. To continue the search seemed unthinkable: a strong storm was approaching, and his people refused to go further. The next day they left the island.

The fate of the lost colony

Only 12 years later, Raleigh decided to find out what happened to his colony. In 1602 an expedition was sent out led by Samuel Mays. It differed from the previous ones in that Raleigh bought his own ship, and promised the crew a salary so that he would not be distracted by privateering. However, Raleigh intended to capitalize on this expedition. Mace's ship stopped in the Outer Banks to collect aromatic woods or plants (such as sassafras) that could be sold profitably in England. When Raleigh again focused on Roanoke, the weather turned bad and the expedition had to return to England without ever reaching the island. After this, Raleigh was arrested for treason and was unable to send other expeditions.

The Spaniards were also interested in finding a colony. They knew of Raleigh's plans to use Roanoke as a privateering base and hoped to destroy it. In addition, they received inaccurate reports about the activities of the colony, so they imagined it to be much more developed and successful than it actually was. In 1590, the Spaniards found the remains of the colony quite by accident, but assumed that the main part of it was in the Chesapeake Bay area, where John White originally wanted to go. However, the Spanish authorities did not find enough support from the people to make such an adventure.

Hypotheses about the disappearance of the colony

The main hypothesis regarding the fate of the lost colony is that the settlers scattered around the area and were absorbed by the local tribes.

Tuscarora

In Roy Johnson's book Disappeared colony in facts and legends"says:

The evidence that some of the Lost Colonists were still living around 1610 around Tuscaroa is impressive. A map of the interior of what is now North Carolina, drawn up in 1608 by the Jamestown settler Francis Nelson, is the most telling evidence of this. This document, called the "Zuniga Map", says: "4 men dressed as if they came from Roanoke" still live in the city of Packerukinik, apparently the land of the Iroquois on the Nisi River. This is also supported by reports in 1609 in London of Englishmen from Roanoke Island living under a "Jeponokan" chief, apparently in Packerukinik. The Jeponokan held "four men, two boys" and "one young girl" (Virginia Dare?) from Roanoke as copper miners.

On February 10, 1885, Rep. Hamilton McMillan helped pass the "Croatan Bill," which officially designated the Indian population around Robison County as Croatoan. Two days later, on February 12, 1885, The Fieteville Observer published an article about the origins of the Robeson Indians. Here is an excerpt from it:

According to them, tradition tells us that the people we call Croatoan Indians (although they do not recognize this name, and say that they were Tuscarors) were always friendly whites; and finding them destitute of supplies and despairing of ever getting help from England, persuaded them to leave the island, and go inland. They gradually moved further from their original place, and settled in Robson, in the center of the county."

Locality Persons

Similar legends claim that the Native Americans of Person in North Carolina are the descendants of English colonists from Roanoke Island. Indeed, when subsequent settlers encountered these Indians, they noted that these Native Americans already spoke English and had a Christian religion. But many discount these coincidences and classify the settlers of the Person area as an offshoot of the Saponi tribe.

Chesepian

Others hypothesize that this colony moved in its entirety and was later destroyed. When Captain John Smith and the Jamestown colonists settled in Virginia in 1607, one of their main tasks was to locate the Roanoke colonists. The local population told Smith about people living around Jamestown who dress and live like the English.

Chief Wahunsunakok (better known as Chief Powhatan) told Smith that he had destroyed the Roanoke colony because they lived with the Chesepian tribe and refused to join their tribes. To confirm his words, Powhatan demonstrated several English-made iron tools. No bodies have been found, although there have been reports of an Indian burial mound on Pine Beach (now Norfolk) where the Chesepiana village of Scioak may have been located.

Death in the ocean

However, others suggest that the colonists simply gave up waiting, tried to return to England, and died during the return attempt. When White left the colony in 1587, the pinasses and a few small ships remained there to scout the coast or move the colony to the mainland. All ships remained in the bay [ ] .

Spaniards

There are those who suggest that the Spanish destroyed the colony. At the beginning of the century, the Spaniards destroyed the French colony of Fort Charles in southern South Carolina, and then killed the inhabitants of Fort Caroline, a French colony in what is now Florida. However, this version is unlikely, since the Spaniards were still looking for an English colony 10 years after White discovered the disappearance of the colony.

In culture

• In 1937, the American playwright Paul Green wrote the play Lost Colony about Roanoke (en: Lost Colony (play))
• According to Philip Farmer's science fiction novel Deir ( Dare), the inhabitants of the colony were abducted by aliens and taken to one of the planets in the Tau Cita system.
• The film "The Disappeared Colony" (USA, 2007), in which the spirits of the Vikings are allegedly responsible for the disappearance of the British, "locked" between the world of the living and the world of the dead ("Valhalla"), who fed on the souls of the colonists and aborigines.
• Published in the form of a book, the screenplay "The Storm of the Century" under the authorship of

Roanoke Colony is an English colony on the island of the same name in Dare County (now North Carolina, USA), founded by Sir Walter Raleigh under Queen Elizabeth I in order to create the first permanent English settlement in North America.

There were several attempts to establish a colony. The first group of settlers had to endure a difficult time: unfamiliar territory, harsh winter, dwindling food supplies. In addition, the colonists were in close proximity to the aggressive Indians, constantly repelling their attacks.

Having lived on the island for winter and spring, people decided to return to England. In June 1586, the colonists left Roanoke, but a few weeks after their departure, a new group of fifteen brave men landed on the island, who fully supported the idea of ​​extending England's power in the New World.

In 1587, Sir Rowley made another attempt to colonize the New World by sending a second group of settlers to the Americas. The group was led by John White, who had already visited Roanoke Island. He was instructed to move the settlement from the island to the shores of Chesapeake Bay. But the sailors refused to take people further than Roanoke Island, and when on June 22, 1587, 150 colonists, including 11 children, landed on the island, but he met them with deathly silence. 15 people left on the island a year ago have disappeared.

Settling in a new place, the settlers found a clear lack of tools, food and other vital things. John White agreed to return to England for the necessary equipment and left the island a week later. Due to a number of problems, he managed to return to Roanoke only after 4 years.

The island was deserted. Another 150 people are missing. White found only the word “Croatoan” carved on a tree (according to another version, only “Cro” was written), the name of an island located 80 km to the south and inhabited by Indians.

Before his departure, John White agreed with the colonists that if they had to leave the island, they would carve the name of the place where they would go on a tree. And in case of any danger, under the name of the new place of the colony, they will carve a cross. There was no cross under the carved inscription.

Maybe the "threat symbol" did not have time to apply? But not a drop of blood, not a strand of hair, not a piece of clothing - no traces of a struggle could be found. Everything indicated that there was no sudden attack on the colony. The search for graves in the vicinity also did not bring any results. Everything pointed to the fact that people left Roanoke voluntarily.

The version that the colonists intermarried with the local tribes is absurd. Why did civilized people need to join the savage Indians? Yes, and English ships visited Roanoke for many years and explored the surrounding islands, as well as lands on the mainland, trying to find traces of the colonists. Unsuccessfully.

It is also interesting that the Indians worshiped the god Croatan (reaper of souls), from which the name of the island "Croatoan" came from, where they lived. The Indians believed that this incorporeal being lived among them and could inhabit any body. Once a year, a "helper" was brought to Croatan, a strong warrior who was placed in a locked hut with a ritual altar. When the hut was unlocked in the morning, neither the warrior nor his traces were found.

There were several attempts to organize a colony: the first group of colonists left the island due to the plight; 400 more colonists who arrived as support for the first group, seeing an abandoned settlement, went back to England, only 15 people remained. The second group of more than a hundred is considered missing. Its head, White, who went to England for help, did not find the colonists upon his return, but the word "Cro" (probably the initial letters of Croatoan) was scrawled on the palisade pillar.

The popular "vanished colony" story, closely associated with the neighboring Croatoan Native American tribe, has been the basis of numerous works of fiction and films. The most common opinion is that the colonists were captured by local hostile tribes, or were taken from the island by the Spaniards.

background

In 1584, Raleigh sent out an expedition to explore the coast of North America in search of a suitable site. The expedition was led by Philip Armades and Arthur Warlow, who soon brought back specimens of flora and fauna (including potatoes) and two natives. The land explored by Armades and Warlow was named Virginia in honor of Elizabeth ("the virgin queen").

The moved queen gave Raleigh permission to colonize. The decree of Elizabeth I specified that Raleigh had 10 years to establish a colony in North America, otherwise he would lose his right to colonization. Reilly and Elizabeth I organized this enterprise, realizing that it would open the way for them to the riches of the New World and serve as the basis for raids on the Spanish fleet.

First group of settlers

In April 1585, the first colonial expedition was sent, consisting entirely of men. Many of them were veteran soldiers who fought in the war to establish British influence in Ireland. The leader of the settlers, Sir Richard Granville, was ordered to further investigate the area and return back to England with a report on the success of the operation.

On July 29, the expedition arrived at the shores of America. Initially, the founding of the colony was delayed, perhaps because most of the colonists' food supplies were destroyed when the lead ship crashed in the shallow water. After an initial reconnaissance of the mainland coast and local Indian settlements, the British accused the natives of the village of Akwakogok of stealing the silver cup. The village was destroyed and burned along with the leader of the tribe.

Despite this incident and lack of provisions, Granville decided to leave Ralph Lane and about 75 men to establish an English colony on the northern tip of Roanoke Island, promising to return in April 1586 with more men and fresh materials.

By April 1586, Lane organized an expedition to explore the Roanoke River and possibly search for the legendary "fountain of youth." However, relations with neighboring tribes were so damaged that the Indians attacked the expedition led by Lane. In response, the colonists attacked the central village of the natives, where they killed their leader, Vinjin.

After April, Granville's fleet was still missing; the colony survived with difficulty due to food shortages and conflicts. Fortunately, Sir Francis Drake's expedition sailed past Roanoke in June, returning home from a successful trip to the Caribbean. Drake invited the colonists to sail with him to England, they agreed.

Granville's relief fleet arrived two weeks after the colonists with Drake sailed. Finding an abandoned colony, Granville decided to return to England, leaving only 15 people on the island to maintain the English presence and Raleigh's rights to colonize Virginia.

Second group

In 1587 Raleigh sent a second group of colonists. This group of 121 was led by John White, an artist and friend of Raleigh's. The new colonists were given the task of finding 15 men left behind in Roanoke and settling further north in the Chesapeake Bay region; however, no trace of them has been found, except for the bones (remains) of a single person. One local tribe still friendly to the British, the Croatans on present-day Hutter Island, reported that the men were attacked, but nine survived and came to their coast in a boat.

The settlers landed on Roanoke Island on July 22, 1587. On August 18, White's daughter gave birth to the first English child born in America, Virginia Dare. Prior to her birth, White re-established relations with the Croatan tribe, and attempted to mend relations with the tribe that had been attacked by Ralph Lane the year before. The offended tribes refused to meet with the new colonists. Shortly thereafter, a colonist named George Howe was killed by the natives while he was fishing for crabs alone in Albimail Sound. Knowing what happened during Ralph Lane's stay, the colonists, who feared for their lives, convinced the head of the White colony to return to England to explain the situation in the colony and ask for help. At the time of White's departure to England, 116 colonists remained on the island - 115 men and women and one girl (Virginia Dare).

Crossing the Atlantic at the end of the year was a risky venture. Fleet relief plans were delayed by captains' refusal to sail back during the winter. White's attempt to return to Roanoke was thwarted by the inadequate size of the court and the greed of the captains. Due to the war with Spain, White could not return to Roanoke with help for two years.

The fate of the lost colony

The main hypothesis regarding the fate of the lost colony is that the settlers scattered around the area and were absorbed by the local tribes.

Tuscarora

In Roy Johnson's book Disappeared colony in facts and legends"says:

The evidence that some of the Lost Colonists were still living around 1610 around Tuscaroa is impressive. A map of the interior of what is now North Carolina, drawn up in 1608 by the Jamestown settler Francis Nelson, is the most telling evidence of this. This document called the "Zuniga Map" says "there are 4 men dressed as if they came from Roanoke" still living in the city of Packerukinik, apparently this is the land of the Iroquois on the Nisi River. This is also supported by reports in 1609 in London of Englishmen from the island of Roanoke living under a "Jeponokan" chief apparently in Packerukinik. The Jeponokan held "four men, two boys" and "one young girl" (Virginia Dare?) from Roanoke as copper miners.

On February 10, 1885, Rep. Hamilton McMillan helped pass the "Croatan Bill," which officially designated the Indian population around Robison County as Croatan. Two days later, on February 12, 1885, the Fiteville Observer newspaper published an article about the origin of the Robison Indians. Here is an excerpt from it:

According to them, tradition tells us that the people we call Croatan Indians (although they do not recognize this name, and say they were Tuscarors) were always friendly whites; and finding them destitute of supplies and despairing of ever getting help from England, persuaded them to leave the island, and go inland. They gradually moved farther from their original place, and settled in the area of ​​Robeson, about the center of the county."

Locality Persons

Similar legends claim that the Native Americans of Person in North Carolina are the descendants of English colonists from Roanoke Island. Indeed, when subsequent settlers encountered these Indians, they noted that these Native Americans already spoke English and had a Christian religion. But many discount these coincidences and classify the settlers of the Person area as an offshoot of the Saponi tribe.

Chesepian

Others hypothesize that this colony moved in its entirety and was later destroyed. When Captain John Smith and the Jamestown colonists settled in Virginia in 1607, one of their main tasks was to locate the Roanoke colonists. The local population told Smith about people living around Jamestown who dress and live like the English.

Chief Wahansunacock (better known as Chief Powhatan) told Smith that he had destroyed the Roanoke colony because they lived with the Chesepian tribe and refused to join their tribes. To confirm his words, Powhatan demonstrated several English-made iron tools. No bodies have been found, although there have been reports of an Indian burial mound on Pine Beach (now Norfolk), where the Chesepiana village of Scioak may have been located.

In fiction

• In 1937, the American playwright Paul Green wrote the play Lost Colony (play) about Roanoke.
• According to Philip Farmer's science fiction novel Deir ( Dare), the inhabitants of the colony were abducted by aliens and taken to one of the planets in the system

Croatan - a lost colony

Today at Roadside Bar we're going to talk about secrets.
In our world, where, it would seem, everything has already been explored and discovered, in fact, there is still a lot of mystery.
There is, for example, the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle.
Everyone knows about him, of course.
There is Loch Ness with the legendary Nessie, also widely known.
In America, too, there is something similar: this is Lake Champlain. There is also a terrible underwater monster that scares tourists, guards the smugglers' treasure, which rests at the bottom.
Soon we will talk in detail about this monster and find out what kind of treasure it guards.
There are other mysteries that are destined to remain unsolved, for example, the mystery of the disappeared colony of Roanoke Island.
The English colony, which in 1587 he founded in North Carolina, on an island at the entrance to Albemarle Bay, Sir Walter Reilly and which numbered more than a hundred men, women and children, mysteriously disappeared and to this day no one can understand how this happened and what fate befell the people.
No clue has been found, and the story of the vanished colony has become one of America's legends.

This story happened a long time ago, many years ago.
Queen Elizabeth 1 considered colonies in North America.
Sir Walter Reilly, a noble English nobleman, at the personal request of the Queen, attempted to establish such a colony.
In 1584, Reilly sent an expedition to Roanoke Island to explore the site.
He reached the east coast of America and established a colony, which he named Virginia. The territory of Virginia stretched from the modern state of Pennsylvania to the Carolinas. Roanoke Island was located close to the mainland, washed by the bay, and seemed quite suitable for life.
On April 9, 1585, 108 people went to America.
They settled on the island and began to settle down in a new place.
The colonists had a hard time: an unfamiliar continent, an unusual climate, a harsh winter, hunger - supplies were running out - diseases, all this became a difficult test for them.
In addition, the settlers were surrounded by Indians. Perhaps if the British had found a common language with the Indians, it would have been easier for them, but enmity arose between the colonists and the natives. The British constantly had to be on the alert, expecting an attack, and, in the end, the settlers, having lived on the island in winter and spring, decided to return to England.
Opportunity soon arose: the famous pirate Francis Drake made an unexpected stop on Roanoke Island in June 1586 after raiding the Spanish colonies in the New World. He agreed to take the men on his ships and take them to England.
In June 1586, the colonists left Roanoke.

Literally a few weeks after the departure, a new group of fifteen brave men landed on the island. The newly minted colonists were given supplies, Sir Richard Grenville ordered to hold positions until reinforcements arrived from England, after which the ship departed.
Grenville did not deceive the colonists: in 1587, another attempt was made to colonize the New World.
The next group was led by John White, who had already visited Roanoke Island and was now appointed governor of the colony, which was to be founded on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.
On April 26, 1587, three ships carrying 117 future settlers, including women and children, set sail from Portsmouth.
Among the passengers was White's daughter Eleanor.
She was married to a man named Ananias Dare and was expecting a child.
On July 22, the ships approached Roanoke Island.
John White was going to pick up 15 people who landed there a year ago.
Roanoke greeted them with silence.
15 people left on the island a year ago have disappeared.
It was possible to find only one - or rather, its remains.
The fortifications were destroyed, the houses were overgrown with ivy.
This seemed like an unkind sign, however, new colonists landed on the island. Here they were to spend their whole lives, so that henceforth this unfamiliar island and foreign country was to become their new home.
27 days after the colonists landed, a girl named Virginia Daer was born on the island. She was the granddaughter of John White, the first English child to be born on American soil.

Baptism of little Virginia.

Settling in a new place, the settlers realized that in order to survive on the island in winter, they need much more things and supplies than they brought.
We needed tools to build houses, more weapons and gunpowder to defend ourselves, food to survive the winter, and other vital things.
At the end of July it was already too late to sow and grow something, a month later autumn began, and then a harsh winter. There was no need to hope for the help of the Indians: they left the island, frightened and offended by the behavior of the British, who had arrived here earlier.
Then White decided to sail to England for provisions. Perhaps there was nothing else for him to do.
He left one of the three ships to the settlers: they had to use the one left by him, so that party after party would move north to the Chesapeake Bay, leaving a group of 25 men on Roanoke, so that when White returned, they showed him the way to a new settlement.
John White left the island, promising to return and bring everything he needed in six to eight months.
He sailed to England, and the settlers began life on the island, in a new place that was to become their new home.
Probably, they often went ashore and looked into the distance: did the silhouettes of ships appear on the horizon?
After all, John White promised to return in six months!

He returned to Roanoke only three years later.
The enmity between England and Spain delayed him and delayed his arrival.

On August 17, 1590, almost three years after the English ships left Roanoke, John White returned.
The ships anchored off the island separating Albsmarl Bay from the Atlantic Ocean, and two boats immediately rushed to the shore.
But as if a bad fate met people: the very first boat was turned over by a breaking wave, and the captain with six sailors drowned.
John White decided not to pay attention to such omens: he had no doubt that the colonists were waiting for him on the island!
However, once on Roanoke, White found that no one was there.
The island was deserted.
The sailors managed to find only the word "Croatoan" carved on a tree.
117 people and John White's little granddaughter disappeared without a trace.

There is still no answer - what happened to people?
Were they killed? They were captured by the Indians and were taken deep into the mainland?
Or maybe they voluntarily went to the Indians to survive?
The newly minted governor and the sailors searched the entire island. But they found only a palisade that surrounded the place of the former settlement, and the remains of the British fortifications. The houses stood intact and no remains of boats or weapons were found. The sailors did not find any remains or burials of white people. During a second search of the island in one of the ditches, five chests were found with the things of the governor, which he left during his hasty departure from the island.
What happened?
There is something else that needs to be mentioned here.
Three years ago, before leaving the island, John White agreed with the colonists that if they had to leave Roanoke, they would leave a sign in a conspicuous place saying where they had gone.
If they are in danger or have to leave the island in order to escape, then they will additionally carve a cross on a tree called the new place of the colony.
There was no cross under the carved inscription.
This could mean only one thing: the settlers left the island of their own free will.
But what did the word "Croatan" mean?
Croatan is an island located 80 kilometers to the south and inhabited by Indians.
Perhaps the settlers were there?
White wanted to sail there immediately, but the weather turned bad. The ship "Hopewell" broke anchor, and it began to be demolished into the open sea. Because of this, White never covered the short distance to Croatoan. He headed for England and returned to Plymouth on 24 October.
But this does not mean that the settlers were left to fend for themselves.
Later, English ships repeatedly visited Roanoke Island and explored the surrounding islands, as well as lands on the mainland, trying to find traces of the colonists. But they couldn't find anything.
In total, four search expeditions were sent to the North American island of Roanoke in 1590, the last one was headed by the commissioner of Queen Elizabeth I, Walter Reilly.
Not even a drop of blood, a strand of hair, or a piece of torn clothing was found, which would indicate an enemy attack!
Interestingly, along with the people, pets also disappeared - the soldiers did not find a single dog or chicken.
The surrounding forests were carefully examined in search of fresh graves, but not a single corpse was found. The tribe of local Croatoan Indians treated the whites well, but just in case, they also searched their village on a neighboring island.
It didn't give any results.
As a result, a dispatch was sent to the queen: “They could not just disappear without leaving even a trace. The devil took them."
Later, Reilly, on his own initiative, was looking for settlers, dug up all the land on the site of the village, and only after 14 years he stopped unsuccessful searches.
None of the 117 men, women, and children who remained on Roanoke Island in 1587 were ever seen again.
The disappearance of all the colonists of Roanoke is considered one of the main mysteries in the history of mankind.

There are many theories regarding the fate of the missing colonists, but none have been documented.
What happened to them?
Let's look at several versions, and then don't forget to say which one is the most convincing for you. :)

1.Sacrifice
The Indians worshiped the god Croatan - from this the name of both their tribe and the island adjacent to Roanoke, where they lived, comes from. The name itself was translated as "Reaper of Souls." It was believed that he always lived among them, but was invisible and could move into any body at will. The Indians said that food was carried to the god on the sacrificial altar: the priests sat in a circle and watched the food slowly disappear into the air. Once a year, Croatan was sent an "assistant" - a strong warrior: he was placed in a locked hut with an altar, but by morning the warrior disappeared.
Is it possible that there was a case of mass hallucination on the island, which was arranged by the shaman of the Indian tribe, and then the sacrifice of white settlers to the god Croatan?
(By the way, the recognized master of horror writer Stephen King also did not stand aside: according to his version, set out in the novel "The Storm of the Century", the inhabitants of the village disappeared because they did not want to voluntarily give one of their children to the devil's messenger).

2.Settlers drowned
As you know, the future colonists sailed to Virginia on three ships. The governor returned to England on two, leaving one ship on Roanoke. There is an opinion that the settlers, desperate to wait for help, sailed to England on a ship, but got into a storm and drowned.
Is it possible? There were no experienced sailors among the colonists. It seems doubtful that 119 people, and even including women and children, would dare to cross the ocean.

3.The colonists were killed by the Spaniards
England was going to colonize the American coast. Spain, her number one enemy, knew perfectly well the place where the settlement would be founded, and sought to prevent the establishment of a colony there.
In 1586, the famous English pirate Francis Drake sacked San Autustin in Florida, the northernmost Spanish settlement in America, and sailed north along the coast on his way home. Rumors reached the Spanish governor that the British were building a fort in the north, and perhaps even wanted to establish a colony. The Governor, unaware, of course, was that Drake had merely made a stopover in Virginia and picked up the distressed colonists from Roanoke. The Spaniard probably did not know about the second group of settlers left on Roanoke by White in 1587. However, in June 1588 he sent a small ship to reconnoiter. Having examined the Chesapeake Bay, the Spaniards stumbled upon Roanoke, and although they did not see any settlers or fortifications, they were ordered to destroy the colony at the first opportunity.
However, they didn't. All the ships that were in the West Indies, including those that were preparing to go to Roanoke, were chartered to transport home the treasures of the Spanish colonies - gold and silver stolen from the Indians. The Spanish expedition from the West Indies to North America was first delayed and then cancelled. Thus, the Spaniards are not to blame for the disappearance of the colony.

4. Epidemic
The entire population of Roanoke Island died from an unknown disease.
Pretty absurd theory. An outbreak of an epidemic, of course, could be, but then where did the bodies of the dead go? No burials have been found.

5.Indian attack
The second most popular (and very convincing) version.
But here, too, there is a discrepancy: on the trees where the settlers left signs, there was no cross, which would mean that they had to flee from Roanoke, fleeing from danger.
It can, of course, be assumed that the attack was sudden and people did not have time to cut out the symbol, but when White arrived on the island in 1590, he found neither corpses nor burned buildings. Thus, there is no evidence to support that the settlers were attacked by the Indians.

6. The main version (if we exclude the mystical options for the disappearance of people) is as follows: Assimilation
Crotan, or Hatteras, is the name of the island
But it is also the name of an Indian tribe, one of many that previously inhabited the territory of modern North Carolina.
Historian John Lawson spoke with representatives of this tribe in 1709, and this is what he wrote down: “The Hatteras Indians either lived at that time on the island of Roanoke, or often visited it. They say that several of their ancestors were white people. We are convinced of the veracity of this by the gray color of the eyes, which is often found among these Indians, but no more - in any other. They are extremely proud of their kinship with the English and are ready to render them all kinds of friendly services.
There are additional facts that speak in favor of Lawson's version. The names of some of the Hatteras Indians repeat the names of the colonists from Roanoke Island, and their language bears clear traces of influence. of English language in the form in which it existed four centuries ago.
Perhaps the colonists could not stand the harsh living conditions, turned to the Hatteras Indians for help and gradually assimilated?
But even here there are questions.
Why did the colonists leave an indication on the island that they were moving to one place, while they themselves sailed in a completely different direction? Why didn't they take the governor's personal belongings? Not enough space? But why didn't they come back for them?
Let the British leave the island of Roanoke, but where did they go in this case? Should there have been traces of their new settlement at least somewhere - houses, tools, weapons, boats, books, household items?
But in the almost four hundred years that have passed since then, no one has ever found traces of them anywhere.
The colony disappeared without a trace...

Now Roanoke is a tourist destination. A crowd of tourists come to look at the same tree with a carved inscription (although, as historical sources say, the words have already changed three times. In a certificate from 1670, the nun Emily Vane writes that on the bark of the word - "Evil is inevitable", and now - just an inscription Others believe that the original words were almost completely burned out by order of the expedition commander - Reilly considered that "one of the names of Satan" was encrypted in the message on the bark: only individual letters were preserved).
Souvenirs and baseball caps with the inscription "Where have the people gone?" are quickly bought up.
This question will never be answered.