INTRODUCTION

Thirty-seven years before Plymouth Rock and twenty-three years before Jamestown, the English landed in North Carolina. It was the first time the English had set foot in what is now the United States and the first time the English had any contact with Native Americans. What unfolded over the next four years is a forgotten history to most that ends with an abandoned English colony in North Carolina whose fate is largely unknown.

The legend of the Lost Colony usually goes like this: Over one hundred English colonists went to Roanoke Island in 1587 and set up a colony/ settlement. The governor of the colony, John White, went back to England for resupplies, and due to the war with Spain in Europe, he could not return for three years. When he returned, there was no trace of the colony; even the houses were gone. All that was left was a mysterious message carved on a tree that said “CROATOAN.” No one has a clue what it meant. Thus, the “lost” colony.

The “lost” narrative has created the legend of the Lost Colony. It is, however, totally false. This legend was created by popular fiction. This book will show you how the colony was never lost but abandoned at Croatoan, modern-day Hatteras Island. What you will discover is the only thing that became lost was the truth.

The story of the lost colony is one of many tied together to weave a larger story of the Anglo-Spanish War. Although the war was chiefly between England and Spain, it also involved the Netherlands, Ireland and Portugal and even spilled into the Caribbean, Florida and North Carolina. The war was the number-one driving force behind the English attempts at settlement in the New World and influenced when and where they did settle. The war that brought the colony was also directly responsible for the resupply of the Lost Colony being delayed for three years and eventually the abandonment of the colony altogether.

Another story within the larger story of the Anglo-Spanish War was the very personal conflict between Queen Elizabeth of England and King Philip II of Spain, the former husband of Queen Elizabeth’s older half sister Bloody Mary. England was extremely divided down religious lines, and Elizabeth constantly had to deal with internal enemies as well.

Also at this time was the often neglected story of the Croatoan Indians and their conflict with the Secotan tribe that the English would get sucked into. All of these stories shape the fate of the Lost Colony. This book will unravel the many moving parts that make up the true history of that colony. Most of what people hear about the Lost Colony is completely made up, as the story has been buried in mythology and fiction stemming from a popular play of the same name. The truth is a far more interesting story, and that is what this book is here to present.

Over twenty years of researching the primary sources surrounding the Lost Colony and over ten years of conducting archaeology on the Croatoan Indian villages have led to an understanding of what actually happened to that colony. If truth is what you seek, you will find it here.

It makes sense that such a historical place as Hatteras would yield interesting archaeology, yet until recently, this historically rich area had been virtually untapped. The full-scale archaeological excavations that are taking place each year on Hatteras Island by the Croatoan Archaeological Society (CAS) are yielding a wealth of artifacts and knowledge. Archaeologist and Professor Mark Horton from the University of Bristol (UoB), England, his team of archaeologists and the volunteers of the Croatoan Archaeological Society have been uncovering and unearthing groundbreaking, history-changing finds for the past ten years. The CAS/UoB digs have provided the most extensive archaeological research ever conducted on Hatteras Island or Croatoan, the stated destination of the “Lost” Colony.

The 1587 colony was the fourth English voyage to North Carolina. Croatoan was an island fifty miles south of Roanoke that all of the English voyages had been to and even lived on for months at a time in previous voyages. The English were very familiar with where Croatoan was and what the message on the tree meant, despite what the mythology of the Lost Colony claims. Croatoan was also the home of Manteo, an Indian the English first met in 1584 who had been to England and back twice, serving as the Lost Colony’s interpreter. In addition, Governor John White told the colony that when they left Roanoke Island they should carve out the name of where they relocated to on a tree and carve a cross under the name if they left in distress.

One of the 1587 colonists, George Howe, had already been murdered by Indians from the adjacent mainland. When this murder happened, the colony actually sent twenty-five colonists to Croatoan with Manteo to get help from the Croatoan tribe. After hosting the English at a feast, the Croatoan agreed to talk to the mainland tribe called the Secotan to try to negotiate peace for the English. Instead, however, the Croatoan sacked a Secotan village/farm on the mainland and gave the corn and pumpkins that were left behind to the English. All of this happened before the governor of the colony left to get resupplies.

When Governor White returned in 1590 with resupplies, three years after he left the colonists on Roanoke, he saw the message of Croatoan and knew exactly what it meant and where the colonists had gone. He and the rest of the crew, including the captain, agreed to go to Croatoan and supply the colony. Unfortunately, a storm, coupled with near mutiny, prevented him from reconnecting with the colony. The governor, who had a daughter and granddaughter in the colony, wrote down that he was greatly joyful to find a certain token (message on the tree) of the colony being at Croatoan, the place where Manteo was born and where the people were friends of the English. Later, new explorers documenting the Hatteras tribe were told that the colony came there, and many of the Hatteras Indians had blue eyes and said their ancestors were white people who could speak out of a book and that they came on Sir Walter Raleigh’s ship.

Today, archaeologists have found some of the artifacts left behind by the colony on Hatteras Island. This book is intended to set the record straight and tell the real story of what transpired on all the sixteenth-century English voyages to the New World. Once you know the facts, you will understand how completely ridiculous the Lost Colony mythology really is and always has been. More importantly, you will learn the incredible real history.

FACTS FROM PRIMARY WRITTEN records, maps and documents help us to make more sense of the past, and archaeology helps fill in some of the blanks left by written records alone. The written history of the Native peoples of the entire North Carolina coastal plain region is limited to how it was seen and recorded by foreigners with unavoidable biases, because the Native peoples themselves had no form of written language. These primary written records from the initial contact period between Europeans and Native peoples are critically important in the study of Native life just prior to European influences. The primary documents and images of when Europeans first encountered the Native people of North Carolina are the only picture that historians have of how these indigenous people were living unmolested by European culture.

Since the written records about the Native people are limited to the period when contact with Europeans began, we must rely on archaeology to tell us about life in the New World long before European contact. Not only is archaeology the only way to study Native life prior to European influence, but archaeology also demonstrates the rate of assimilation between the two cultures. Archaeology gives one a look at the actual tools, weapons, diet, homes and goods people had and used at a particular time in history.

The knowledge gained about the Native Hatteras people, known as the Croatoan, and their way of life has been profound; however, the knowledge gained regarding the English-Native contact period has been astounding. What has been discovered is a story unlike any other between Europeans and Natives—a story of brotherhood and friendship rather than violence and hatred. It is a story that leads to assimilation and family, a joining of two cultures from opposite sides of the ocean and the world. It is a blending of races and culture that was a way of thinking and living far advanced for anyone of that period and even more advanced than some of the people in the world today. Men, women and children from two different worlds and cultures became one family. And while those around them were horrified at their blending of race and culture (and even still to this day there are those who wish to hide this blending of cultures and race in shame), these people were proud of their family. That is what makes this story so unique, so special. It is time we honored them for what they were and are and stop hiding them in shame. It is time to stop saying they were “lost” simply because there are those who don’t want to admit they were the first assimilators, the first cross-cultural, cross-race family in America. We live in a new generation where these people no longer need to be “lost” anymore. We can proudly say they became one family because they did.

THIS BOOK IS HERE to present the finds, answer some questions and bring up some new questions as well. In archaeology, context is everything. In history, it is no different. When studying primary sources, one has to look at the historical context of the period in order to understand the perspective of the person writing down the history as they saw it/experienced it.

This book will explore both the historical context and the archaeological context in which we found the artifacts and how those contexts play a role in understanding and interpreting the finds and how those contexts paint us a picture of life on Hatteras Island through the ages. This book itself is making history in the sense that it is the first book published on any actual archaeological finds from Hatteras and the first book to place the history of Hatteras in the context of archaeology and vice versa.