CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN: THEY’RE LOST!

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN: THEY’RE LOST!

I just OD’d on miniature tootsie rolls, and now I’m brewing the universal antidote, Good Earth tea with milk and sugar (I know, I know).  Don’t tell me you’ve never OD’d on candy. It feels so good while you’re eating it – piece after piece. It’s so easy to digest. That’s the reason my doctor gave for my attraction to candy – after one intestinal problem after another, I found the perfectly digestible food group – candy. And I’m indulging myself – why? The Admiral is on his way to the Royals victory parade. Hope it’s not premature. When the Admiral is gone, even for only a day, I fall back into wicked ways of eating candy, shoveling in cold cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner and staying up all night reading. How did I survive so many years without the Admiral? A lot of you have probably been asking the same question. Perhaps it was my maniacal devotion to work – prosecution 24/7. Or the adrenalin rushes of escaping gangland execution or murder by Seaside drug dealers (same thing, actually). By the time the Admiral came along, it was clearly time for a transition to a more balanced life. And the move from being stuck in 5^th gear to doing everything in (and on) Slow Motion has been remarkably withdrawal-free and painless. And so, if you are a dedicated workaholic devoted to saving the world one crime victim at a time, there is hope for you. No, I’m not going to share the Admiral with you, much as he might enjoy that. Find your own Admiral. And get back into balance – try yoga, tai chi, a dog, long walks, fresh fruits and vegetables, visits with family and friends, travel. Oh yes, travel – that has been my avenue to a better life. There is also a strong belief among some of my friends that the arrival of grandchildren can give you more balance, as well as a lot of pure joy. Life is short. Find out what you enjoy doing more than anything else in the world, and DO IT (unless it’s unhealthy like eating too much candy). Balance, my friend, balance is the key. 

The tea is working. My thoughts have turned from powdered sugar to the history of the Lost Colony on Roanoke Island. With the rain flying out of the sky and pummeling Slow Motion, it’s a great time to recount this part of North American history. For my birthday, the Admiral drove us to the Outer Banks, where we spent two days and nights right on the Atlantic Ocean – only a very high sand dune separated us from the pounding surf at the Shutters Motel in Kill Devil Hills. This was our second trip to the OBX; on the first foray, a day trip, we were so busy exploring the Life Saving Service Stations and the Hatteras Lighthouse that we had no time left to visit Roanoke Island. On Columbus Day, a fitting holiday for my personal exploration of America, I made up for that oversight. Spoiler alert – I did not find the Lost Colony. But read on to find out what I did learn about the Roanoke recluses of the late 1500’s. For the squeamish, there is a beheading in this story, but no video of it. And you may be surprised by what “barbarians” did the beheading. Here we go – back in time!

Speaking of Columbus, he had advanced Spain’s claims to most of the “New World” as he sailed west hoping to bump into India. By the end of the 1500’s Spain was raking in gold and silver from its colonies in the Caribbean and Central and South America. And that’s what it was all about – finding these precious metals and getting rich! The English considered themselves pretty good explorers, but they weren’t finding the figurative “pots of gold” at the end of their jaunts to the New World. And tiny Portugal was outshining them in the discovery and exploitation of new lands. Indeed, the Portuguese began the “Age of Exploration” with their exploration of the Azores, Madeira and the African Coast in the early 15^th century. Portuguese ship captain Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa in 1488, nearly a century before the Roanoke Colony was even a gleam in Walter Raleigh’s eye.

 In 1497, after Columbus had made several voyages of exploration, Italian explorer John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) was commissioned by Henry VII of England to sail across the Atlantic in search of a shorter route to the West Indies. This was England’s first big effort to get into the “game” (the search for gold in the New World). Caboto landed somewhere near Newfoundland, not known for its gold mines. Oh well. As a navigator, I feel his pain. Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator sailing under Spanish auspices, had much greater success, as he found a way to the Pacific Ocean in 1519 – through the eponymous Strait of Magellan. (There! I finally used “eponymous” in a sentence.) Seriously, in the 15^th century, except for the exploitations and explorations of Englishman Francis Drake, the Spanish and Portuguese ruled the seaways between Europe and the Americas. The Dutch started moving in on these two superpowers in the late 15^th century and certainly came into their own during the 80 Years War (1568 – 1648) with Spain. Also known as the Dutch War of Independence, the 80 Years War certainly tops both Iraq and Afghanistan for longevity, also for results. At its conclusion, the Dutch Republic was freed of the rule of Spain and was recognized as an independent nation.

But back to the English – Sir Francis Drake wasn’t always revered. In fact, the Spanish and Portuguese governments and their navies hated him. He was a “privateer”, a nice word for pirate. He hung around the ports where the Spanish and Portuguese were bringing the gold from Peru, and he stole it whenever he could. Oh sure, he did some exploring as well – probably when he was forced to flee from his many enemies. In the Pelican, later renamed the Golden Hind, he sailed up the California Coast and claimed the entire West Coast for England, dubbing it New Albion. No one knows for sure where he landed – it’s still a big secret – but Marin County swears he landed somewhere along their coast. For some reason the date of his landing, June 17, 1579, is not in dispute. While the dreaded Drake was plying the waters of the Pacific and ultimately circumnavigating the globe, back home in England, a plan was brewing to send English citizens to colonize the New World. Again, the motive was greed. These efforts predated the cross-Atlantic journey of the Puritans to escape religious persecution. In the immortal, money-grubbing words of Sir Walter Raleigh: “he that commands the sea, commands the trade, and he that is lord of the trade of the world is lord of the wealth of the world.” Oh, and you’ll love his mission statement: “To seek New Worlds for Gold, for Praise, for Glory.” What did Elizabeth I see in this guy?

According to the narrative at the National Park Service’s Fort Raleigh Historic Site on Roanoke Island, Elizabeth I was in need of a “big win” to maintain her popularity. England was inferior to Spain in every way that counted to an empire builder. Sir Walter Raleigh easily convinced her that a colony in the New World would provide England (and the Queen herself) power, prestige and wealth. Naturally, Raleigh wasn’t just in this endeavor to help the Queen – he intended to amass a personal fortune from this venture as well. How noble! Raleigh’s persuasive skills not only moved the Queen to back him, but also helped him enlist London citizens to make the difficult transatlantic trip of several months to become the first English colonists. By 1584 he had signed up a captain and a co-captain for two ships and a crew of  80 men. This was basically the scouting party for the first of 3 expeditions, called the Roanoke Voyages. Captain Arthur Barlowe took the lead. Philip Amadas was the other ship’s captain. This intrepid group explored the Outer Banks and determined that Roanoke Island looked inhabitable. Barlowe was assigned to report his findings to Raleigh. He wrote, in part, the following: “We found it To be a Most Pleasant and Fertile Ground, Replenished With Goodly Cedars and Diverse Other Sweet Woods Full of Currants, Of Flax, And Many Other Notable Commodities…The Soil is The Most Plentiful, Sweet, Fruitful, And Wholesome of the Whole World.” Barlowe went from sea captain to realtor in record time – think he wanted to keep his job?

Of course, Roanoke Island was habitable, you 16^th century idiots! Duh! It was already inhabited by native Americans who had first moved to this area in 600 to 900 CE (common era). They were part of the Carolina Algonquian group. Algonquians populated the entire Atlantic Coast from Carolina to Canada. The subset of Carolina Algonquians who lived on Roanoke Island and the mainland were known as Roanoc – get it? The entire Outer Banks area, called Ossomocomuck by the Carolina Algonquians, had been the home of this group of native Americans for a long time. They survived by hunting, farming and fishing. They fished in the summer, planted squash, beans, corn and other crops which they harvested in the fall. And they hunted in the winter months. “Where does the gold come in?”, you may well ask. Roanoke Island was not Peru – no huge civilization like the Incas. And it was not full of gold mines. But it did provide a place that was defensible, from which it was believed that English ships (privateers) could attack Spanish and Portuguese ships returning to Europe laden with gold and silver from their South American colonies. Clearly, the Brits in the 1584 crossing had not experienced the horrendous storms that regularly torment the Outer Banks, giving them the moniker “Graveyard of the Atlantic.”

To his credit, Barlowe developed a keen interest in the Native Americans who were living where he landed on Roanoke Island. He wrote about them in some detail, particularly the Secotan subset of the Carolina Algonquians, with whom he had the most contact. The Secotan leader at the time, Wingina (called a wereoance or chief), tried to get Barlowe to side with him and his tribe against their rivals, the Neusiok tribe, who lived at the mouth of the Neuse River. Wingina’s group had tried to form a lasting peace with the Neusiok, and they agreed to get together for a feast to celebrate their arrangement to coexist. However, the Neusiok used the gathering as an opportunity to ambush and kill all the Secotan men attending the feast. Wingina wanted Barlowe to retaliate with an ambush of the Neusiok. Barlowe wouldn’t do it. But he apparently liked Wingina and the Secotans so much that he took two Secotan men, Manteo and Wanchese, back to England with him. This is odd, but true. Manteo is identified in Wikipedia as a Croatan Indian. He is credited with helping the English through the harsh winter of 1585 when they arrived too late to plant crops and build up a store for winter. He actually went to England twice, in 1584 and 1585, then returned to Roanoke Island in 1587 with the third Roanoke Voyage group led by Governor John White. But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Back to Barlowe’s first expedition in 1584.

Raleigh was so stoked by Barlowe’s report that he himself wanted to lead the next expedition, the colonizing one, to Roanoke. He came to his senses, however, and hired Sir Richard Grenville, his cousin, and Ralph Lane, an equerry and officer of Queen Elizabeth’s household staff, to take 8 ships with 600 men – 300 sailors and 300 soldiers and “specialists” – back to the Outer Banks. Grenville himself was a scientist. It was relatively easy to recruit warm bodies for the adventure, given the living conditions in London at the time. According to the National Park Service narrative, “London in the 1580’s was crowded and polluted and opportunities were limited. [Hm – sounds like the East Coast today] Sir Walter Raleigh recruited young, middle-class men and women with promises of social mobility and land grants of at least 500 acres each in the New World.” Let’s see – eke out a subsistence living in squalor and filth rubbing elbows with your neighbor OR be the lord of 500 acres of land in an unpolluted country with boundless opportunities. If you didn’t get seasick, it was a steal of a deal – a no-brainer. Plus, Barlowe’s description of the lushness and richness (emphasis on “rich”) of the New World – along with the exotic, yet friendly, presence of Manteo and Wanchese – was the talk of London. Everyone who was anyone – and everyone who was not – wanted to join the next expedition to the wondrous New World.

The name of the area “discovered” by Barlowe, Ossomocomuck, did not resonate with Raleigh or his Queen. So, just as she rewarded him with a knighthood for Barlowe’s successful recon visit, he honored Elizabeth I by renaming the Algonquian settlements “Virginia”. Who knew better than Sir Walter that Elizabeth was still a virgin? For some reason, the Queen really liked the name – an inside joke? Anyway, the name “Virginia” stuck for quite some time, although North Carolinians chafe at the notion that Roanoke Island was ever considered a part of their northern neighbor.  

The second Roanoke Voyage was dominated by soldiers and scientists. This was not a group of colonizers so much as a group sent to gather more information on the resources available in “Virginia” and to hold the Native Americans at bay, while at the same time depending on their largesse to make it through the winters. Permanent housing was not built by the men on this second expedition. They built a fort. They had arrived too late (August 17, 1585) to plant crops, and they had not brought enough supplies to last through the winter months, so they were indeed relying on “the kindness of strangers”, namely the Roanoc tribes, the Secotans and Croatans and other Native American subsets. Manteo and Wanchese returned to “Virginia” with the second group. Manteo had become fluent in English and was indispensable as an interpreter for the English with the tribal leaders. It’s not surprising that some of his Native American brothers looked at him as a traitor, but for the most part he played a key role upon the arrival of Grenville’s group in communicating with the local Native Americans and garnering support for the English.

However, Manteo could not overcome the boorishness or stupidity of Ralph Lane, who was put in charge of the fort the English built, while Grenville returned to England. Grenville promised to return in April, 1586 with more men and new supplies. One of Lane’s assignments before being military governor of Fort Raleigh was “commissioner of piracy” in 1571. This is hard to believe, but the British Government fostered piracy against the Spanish and Portuguese ships, and when the English pirates, such as Francis Drake, stole the loot from these ships, the British Government was cut in on the proceeds. With his background working with pirates, Lane was not suited to the diplomatic niceties required to establish and strengthen good relations with the Native Americans, upon whose territory he had intruded. With Manteo’s help, Lane made contact with Chief Wingina and other local Native Americans. However, according to historians, Lane treated them with “suspicious harshness; on several occasions the colonists kidnapped Indians to extract supplies or information.”

Even though his group of 107 “settlers” was at times totally dependent on the generosity of the Native American tribes, Lane continuously took actions hostile to them. At first believing information from Chief Wingina that inland tribes, particularly the Chowanocs, were planning to destroy the English, Lane led a troop of soldiers inland to take military action against them. He took the Chowanoc tribal chief and his son as hostages, and that chief, Menatonon, and his son, Skiko, told him that Wingina was the one to fear. Based on nothing but that chief’s word (a chief who was trying to get out of custody of the English), Lane decided that Wingina was involved in a “conspiracy” to bring down the English. Since there are no written records prepared by Native Americans of the second arrival of the English on Roanoke Island, historians have only the journals written by the British scribes, who expressed suspicion regarding the motives of all the local Native Americans. Why? I can’t tell you. Here were these folks providing the English much needed food and other supplies, when they could have overrun them with their far superior numbers. Oh yes, the English had better weapons and they had brought their diseases to “share” with the Native Americans, ultimately decimating their population. Still, there is no record, even by the English, of any attacks on the British fort by Chief Wingina or any other local tribe leaders. Indeed, one reliable journalist among the English, Thomas Harriot, an expert navigator, naturalist and language specialist, reported that “relations between the Roanoke Indians and the English settlers were mutually calm and prosperous.” (A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, by Thomas Harriot, first published in 1588).

Whether Chief Wingina was trying to get the Brits to help him subdue his rivals, or whether Chief Menatonon and  Skiko were trying to get the Brits to go after Wingina’s tribe, we have no way of knowing for sure. However, one thing we do know is that Lane gave the order to his soldiers to kill Chief Wingina. Wingina had withdrawn his tribe from Roanoke Island to the western banks of the Croatan Sound, a place called Dasemunkepeuc (easy for you to say). He had intended to deny further supplies to the English. That is probably the real reason for Lane’s order to kill him, not a concern that Chief Wingina was planning to attack. At any rate, in the summer of 1586 the English attacked Chief Wingina’s tribe, and Wingina was shot by Philip Amadas. He managed to run into the woods, but a young Irish servant of Lane named Edward Nugent pursued the Chief into the woods and when he found him, he beheaded him. Nugent even carried Chief Wingina’s head out of the woods to display his handiwork. Wonder if the non-Islamic non-State reads British history. They certainly did not invent barbarism – the English were centuries ahead of them in committing barbarous murders to advance their own agenda. You can read about the beheading of Chief Wingina in the book, “The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand”, by Michael Oberg. Funny how the English colonists are never referred to as the “Savages”. Lane’s group earned that moniker.

One interesting footnote: Prior to the English assault which led to his beheading, Chief Wingina had changed his name to Chief Pemisapan. It apparently was not unusual for Native Americans to change their names, according to sources I have read, especially when they foresaw a momentous change in their lives. The new name, Pemisapan, meant “one who vigilantly watches.” His new name said it all: Chief Pemisapan had decided to keep his distance from the English so as to better observe them and to protect his people from them. Sadly, the bellicose English did not leave him or his tribe alone. Whatever else you remember from this lengthy summary of the Roanoke Voyages, remember that Chief Wingina/Pemisapan did not deserve to die at the merciless hands of the English.

The British contingent on Roanoke Island had proved far better at killing than planting and harvesting crops. They had waited in vain for Grenville’s return, scheduled for April 1586. They attacked The Secotans that summer, and soon thereafter, they were offered the chance to flee from Roanoke Island. Their savior? None other than the renowned English pirate, Francis Drake, who had sailed to Roanoke in hopes of finding a good place from which to launch surprise attacks upon gold-laden Spanish ships. Lane and his lot begged for a return trip to English, and Drake obliged. Lane’s group left behind a fort, but the remains have never been located. “Fort Raleigh” at the National Historic Site is comprised solely of some raised earthen works where Lane’s fort is believed to have been built. Just two weeks after Lane and his group escaped from Roanoke Island, Grenville’s ships finally showed up with more supplies – and found no one. Grenville left behind 15 men to “hold down the fort” and returned to England. As if Lane’s stay on Roanoke Island weren’t disastrous enough, what with his unjustified murder of Chief Pemisapan, he and his men returned to England with tobacco and introduced that filthy weed to British society, along with the benign crops of corn and potatoes.

Needless to say, Sir Walter Raleigh was not happy with the abrupt return of Ralph Lane and most of his men from Roanoke. I’m just wondering if he was filled in on the beheading of the first Native American to welcome the English to their land. Or maybe Lane and his men kept that dirty little secret from Raleigh. Given that Manteo – loyal, steadfast Manteo – was still helping the English, it is hard to believe that the gory details were shared with him about his fellow Native American’s fate. Somehow Raleigh overcame his initial anger and proceeded to round up another willing group of colonists to ship back to Roanoke to establish a “permanent” settlement. He recruited 117 settlers, comprised of men, women and children for the first time. Among the would-be colonists were John White, who was a noted painter and who had made the Second Voyage to Roanoke with Glenville and Lane. White’s daughter, Eleanor Dare, pregnant and all, and her husband, Ananias Dare, were also in this star-crossed group. Yes, you’re getting ahead here – Virginia Dare was their daughter, the first English child born and baptized in the New World. And, of course, what voyage to Roanoke would be complete without Manteo? Sure enough, he hopped on one of the ships for his 2^nd or 3^rd return to Ossomocomuck, er, Virginia. John White was appointed Governor of the City of Raleigh (ego control, Walter?). And off the merry group went to their bright futures in the New World.

And the rest is history, as they say. It was not at all like Caesar’s “Veni, Vidi, Vici”. Oh no. It was more like, “They came, they saw, they vanished.” They arrived July 22, 1587, Virginia Dare was born shortly thereafter, Governor White returned to England (August 27, 1587), and sometime after that the entire colony disappeared into thin air. That is why there are thousands upon thousands of pages written by historians about “The Lost Colony.” That is why, to this day, archeologists are searching Roanoke Island and the shore around the island for any bones, any artifacts – anything to indicate that the 100 plus men, women and children died in the area. The scientists have already determined that 1587, 1588 and 1589 were the worst drought years in 800 years on the island – this would lend itself to the theory that the colonists starved to death. But where are their bones? And would they just remain in the same location, knowing that they could not survive without rain water? Or did they move off the island and intermingle with Native American tribes to save their lives? Throughout the years, stories have emerged of blue-eyed or gray-eyed Native Americans and of Native Americans with the same last names as some of the colonists. But there is nothing definitive about these stories.

The members of the “Lost Colony” were not the first Roanoke settlers to disappear without a trace. Remember the 15 men who stayed behind when Lane and the rest of his crew hightailed it to English with Drake? None of them was found by Governor White, upon their arrival in 1587. Bones for one of the fifteen were allegedly found, according to White, but who determined that conclusively? White also wrote gratuitously that “the Savages” had slain the person, whose bones were found. Not so fast, Governor. We already know who the real savages were on Roanoke, and they weren’t Native Americans. Perhaps knowing how savagely Lane and his men had treated Chief Wingina and his tribe, Governor White naturally assumed that the Native Americans had retaliated. But there is no evidence of that. However, White and his fellow colonists were rather foolish to try to settle so close to the area where their English predecessors had killed the very people who had tried to help them. The original plan for the Third Voyage was to settle on land further north on the Chesapeake, but for a number of reasons – weather, the recalcitrance of the ship’s captain – they ended up in nearly the same place that Lane had deserted the year before. In hindsight, that was a colossal mistake.

Governor White left his charges ostensibly to get necessary supplies for them. He was supposed to do a quick turnaround – go to England, get the supplies and rush back to Roanoke. Not. The first time he tried to send ships back to Roanoke, in the spring of 1588, the captains decided it was a far better idea to try to capture some Spanish ships they came upon crossing the Atlantic. The English ships that tried this maneuver were themselves captured by the Spanish, so no supplies made it to Roanoke in 1588. When White tried to muster some more ships to make the crossing, the Spanish Armada intervened. The Anglo-Spanish War went into high dudgeon, and there were no ships to spare for a return to Roanoke. Finally, when things settled down a bit in 1590, Governor White was able to return on a privateering vessel – 3 years later! – with supplies for his colonists, including his daughter and grand-daughter. Governor White landed on Roanoke Island on August 18, 1590, his granddaughter’s 3^rd birthday. The sound of silence was deafening. Not a trace of anyone, and no sign of struggle whatsoever. The word “Croatoan” was carved into a fence post and the word “Cro” was carved into a tree. Thinking it was possible that the whole colony moved to Croatoan Island (now known as Hatteras Island), White intended to search for them there. However, a huge storm prevented his men from heading there, and they left. Yes, they left without looking for their fellow colonists in Hatteras Island.

I know what you’re thinking – this doesn’t stop the archeologists from looking for their remains on Hatteras Island, does it? Technically, it doesn’t. However, I don’t know of any such ongoing archeological project. And as one jaded Fort Raleigh Historic Site ranger put it: “These colonists did not die with gold in their arms.” He took the somewhat skeptical view that archeologists are more likely to search for the remains of wealthy cadavers buried with valuable metals and precious stones than to search for starving, impoverished settlers who were abandoned even by their own kin. The ranger may be right on this one. There is not a great deal of money being expended on poking around Roanoke Island to look for the remains of The Lost Colony.

Had enough? I did. I drove straight from Fort Raleigh’s meager landscape to the lush terrain of the Elizabethan Gardens just a stone’s throw away. The Garden Club of North Carolina has been very, very busy. They have created ten acres of pure bliss. I wore a bright pink top and yellow butterflies flocked to me as soon as I entered the Gardens. I can only imagine what spring would be like along the rhododendron and azalea paths. In October there were still plenty of flowers – roses, hydrangeas, camellias – to ooh and aah over. Whenever you visit the Outer banks, get thee to the Elizabethan Gardens and your mind will be assuaged, your soul will be filled. Fort Raleigh – not so much.