Roanoke Colony The mysterious disappearance

There is nothing the world loves more than a good mystery, and there's few mysteries quite as tantalizing as the tale of the in famous lost colony of Roanoke Colony.

Originally a settlement of over a hundred colonists, the English returned three years later to their North American rokane colony only to discover it a mess of overgrown weeds. Curiously, farm implements and even rifles were left laying on the ground, and strangest of all were the words Cro and Croatan carved into a tree.

But what exactly happened to this near-my thological lost Roanoke colony? Let’s travel back in time and find out.

Lost colony the Roanoke colony

The year is 1587, and governor John White makes landfall on the northern tip of modern day North Carolina with 117 colonists - 97men, 17 women, and 9 young boys. This site is not White's first choice however,as he originally planned to land on Chesapeake Bay further north which would eventually becomethe site of the first successful British colony, Jamestown. Ship Captain Simon Fernandez though, refusesto sail north, and forces White and his colonists to set up shop here in Roanoke aka Roanoke colony.

Originally meant to be a pit stop so the shipcould pick up a previous fifteen men left there two years ago, the location becomes permanent when the colonists are forced to offload. As far as the fifteen men they had plannedto pick up, there's no sign of them, and instead the colonists find signs of a massacre- aninauspicious start for the new colony. For White, this is his second trip to Roanoke,and for the British it’s one of several faltering attempts to settle the new world.

In 1578 Queen Elizabeth I tasked Sir Humphrey Gilbert to sail to the new world and discover lands that had not been claimed by the Spanishin order for England to make her stake. On an initial expedition Gilbert located somesuitable sites for a permanent colony, but on his second expedition his ship was lostin a shipwreck. After his death, his half-brother Walter Raleighthen took over the task of finding lands to colonize and planned to scout for location sranging from Spanish Florida to the Arctic. Would-be governor John White is on Raleigh'ssecond expedition, which makes landfall with a garrison of troops in Roanoke in 1585. Their job is to set up a fort from which Britishpower in the new world could be consolidated, and after making contact with local NativeAmericans, relations are initially good. The Roanoke colony and Croatan tribes both proveto be friendly to the British, and representatives from their tribes sail back to England withJohn White and are introduced to Queen Elizabeth's court.

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These men would be given the English names of Wanchese and Manteo, with Manteo becoming the first baptized Protestant Native American. Unfortunately back in the new world, the commanderof the British garrison quickly soured relations with other native tribes, and led two separate campaigns against native villages within a matter of months. Having thrown the proverbial stone into thehornet's nest, the British fort soon found itself under constant attack, and when Sir Francis Drake passed by the area on one of his explorations of the New World, the menin the fort rushed to the ship to be rescued. So great was their haste to board that they left three men behind who had been on an expedition out in the woods. When the British finally returned back to the colony later in the year they discovered the fort completely abandoned, and the three men who had been left in the woods were nowhere to be found. Sir Richard Grenville, who had been in commandof the first expedition, then decided to leave another fifteen men behind to guard the remainsof the fort, he gave them two years worth of provisions and then promptly left for England again.

It was at this time that John White made landfallin Roanoke, hoping to link up with the fifteen men who had been left behind two years earlier. To the surprise of nobody, the men were missing and they too would never be heard from again, having likely been killed by the natives. Despite the hostile locals, ship Captain Simon Fernandez none the less forced the colonists to stay where they were, and nine days afterlanding colonist George How was killed by American indians while crabbing along theshore. White did not wish to further antagonize the locals however, and he went to great lengths to repair relations. He did this by using Manteo to help him makepeace between the colony and the Croatans, who lived nearby on Hatteras Island. Unfortunately though Wanchese had soured onthe British during his time in England, and saw the future arrival of British colonistsas an invading force- legend says that he had participated in the attack on the fifteen 

men left behind the second time on Roanoke. Needless to say, relations with the localswere tumultuous, though the Croatans proved friendly enough thanks to Manteo's intervention. Where the previous two colony attempts hadfailed though, the third began to flourish. Rather than bringing along employees or military troops, White had brought families who had a personal stake in the land they were fightingto cultivate.

So in the article Roanoke colony The success or failure of the Roanoke colony wouldmean their own personal success or failure, and thus they had ample motivation to makethe attempt work. Soon, the first English baby born in the new world arrived, when on August 18th, 1587, Virginia Dare was born to Eleanor Dare andAnanias Dare, John White's daughter and her husband. The colonization attempt was hopeful, andthings seemed to be going well enough. There was one major problem though - the colonistshad arrived too late to plant crops and were in dire need of fresh supplies. In order to secure the colony's future, John White left the New World behind to sail for England, hoping to be back by the new year with supplies. Yet when he arrived back home in England,John White returned to a world on the verge of war. England was facing off against the SpanishArmada, and every available ship was needed to fend off the far superior Spanish navy. For three long years White was unable to returnto Roanoke, but finally in 1590 he made the voyage back across the Atlantic.

Upon his arrival White was initially hopeful,from a distance he could see that housing had been established, and the protective wallsmade of pines had been repaired. He became worried as they neared the shorethough, when he saw no signs of activity or smoke from fires. As his rowboat made landfall his worst fearswere confirmed- the colony was abandoned. The entire fort was overgrown with grass andweeds, and guns lay strewn about throughout the village. Chests within which valuables were kept andhad been hidden in holes in the ground, were broken open and their contents of preciousbooks, pictures and personal belongings lay spilled across the floor. Curiously valuables such as jewelry had been left behind, as had been all the extremely valuable guns and farm equipment- whatever happens happened to the colony, looting by natives seemed to be improbable. White had instructed his colonists to leavebehind a sign in case of emergency, a cross carved into a tree. Instead of the cross though White would famously discover two other carvings- the first being the letters C, R, and O etched into a tree,and another being the full word “CROATAN”.

Upon discovering the carvings, White believed that the settlers had been forced to abandon the colony and moved with Manteo's people,the Croatans, on Hatteras island- a theory he was unfortunately not able to prove whenan approaching storm forced him to set sail back to England. With failing health, White never got a chanceto return and rescue his colonists, and he died three years later. Theories abound as to what fate befell thecolonists, but most believe that John White's original hunch that the entire Roanoke colony hadmoved to Mateo's people are probably correct. This is because as part of White's secret code, the colonists were to etch the location of their travel in case they had to leavedue to an emergency, and the addition of a cross would signal that the move was in responseto a dire emergency. The word Croatan was however discovered carvedinto the wood of a defensive palisade that had been erected to supplement the Roanoke colony 'sdefenses, meaning that the colonists had clearly been under some threat and preparing for attack. In 2013 an expedition to the native american settlement on croatan island discovered the remains of a European rapier along with thebarrel of a gun, lead shot, scraps of copper, and a piece of drawing slate with a lead pencil. This would lend a great deal of credence tothe theory that the colonists had simply moved south with the Croatan people and assimilatedinto their population. In the 1700s the discovery of Native Americanswith gray eyes who claimed to have been the descendants of white settlers helped to confirmthe original version of events.

While the British artifacts could very wellhave been the results of trading with english colonists later on, the discovery of buriedtrash pits also lends credence to the theory that the Roanokan aka Roanoke colony settlers made their movehere rather than starve alone in the cold winter or face innumerable hostile tribesalone. The trash pits showed an abrupt change indiets from fish and turtles to deer and birds, which could hint at the natives hunting usingEuropean guns which the colonists provided. Despite hostilities against the first two settlements, native tribes were well known to be extremely accepting of outsiders, andover the centuries of the New World's colonization, many former English colonists who joined withnative tribes refused to return home and chose to stay with their tribes. The theory that the Roanokans had simply beenabsorbed into the Croatan tribe is the most likely to be true, and the most plausible,while other theories claiming that they were simply massacred could also be true but ismore unlikely.

There been a massacre then upon White'sreturn there should have been remains to be found, and yet White and his men discovered none. The disappearance of the Roanoke colony of Roanokeis likely far more mysterious than it ought to be. All the evidence points to the fact that thecolonists simply faced starvation and hostile neighbors, and so they moved to the only friendlytribe in the area, and made their home with the natives there. Wild theories however continue to abound,and our favorite, as usual, involves aliens because of course it does. In the alien theory the entire colony- toa man- was abducted by aliens. During our own investigation into the alientheory on Roanoke we were unable to discover any plausible motivation for why the entirecolony was spirited away by alien forces, and whatever the alien's motivations it was definitely not because human brains are delicious to eat. So rest easy and don't worry because the mystery of Roanoke colony is nothing more than a bunch of settlers deciding to move in with friendlynatives rather than face starvation, and definitely not that they were abducted by brain-eatingaliens from the Zeti Reticuli star system.

Conclusion about Roanoke colony

Trust us, there's no pending alien threatto harvest your tasty, delicious brains and to get your mind off it you should go campingalone in the wilderness and tell no one where you're going. What do you think happened to the lost settlers of Roanoke colony ? Let us know in the comments! And as always if you enjoyed this video don'tforget to Share, and Subscribe for more great content!