May, 2011

Issue #20

The Lost Colony
By Ken Sieben

Just before sunset on a humid, stifling 22 of July, 1587, I, along with thirty-nine other armed male colonists led by Governor John White of the second English colony in Virginia, were rowed ashore in small boats from our transport ships, the Lyon and a pinnace, to Roanoke Island where the first failed colony had been established two years earlier.

We were accompanied by Manteo, a Croatoan native who had spent a year in England, helped guide the first colonial attempt, returned to England to begin a new life, then agreed to guide the second attempt. The Governor hoped to contact the fifteen colonists who, a year before, had been left behind to guard the fort by Sir Richard Grenville. Grenville's supply ship had reached the colony three weeks after it had been abandoned by the ninety-six starving surviving colonists who chose to return to England with Sir Francis Drake's fleet.

Mr. Thomas Smart and I found the bones of one person but no evidence of the others. We all set up camp for the night and, early the following morning, after observing smoke at the northern end of the island, trekked to the area where Master Ralph Lane, the first Governor, had ordered the construction of a fort and cottages for his colonists. We found the fort razed, but most of the cottages still standing, though without roofs, obviously uninhabited because deer were eating the melons and blossoms that flourished within.

Convinced that the remaining fourteen men had been either adopted by the Croatoans or enslaved by the Roanokes, the Governor led us back to the sandy protected beach to continue our journey to a site with a broader inlet and a deeper harbor on the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay chosen by Lane as a superior colonial site the previous year. However, Simon Fernandes, the Portuguese pilot of White's ship and Admiral of the fleet of three ships that had left England on May 14, had sent a single boat with a dozen armed sailors to meet White and escort him alone back to the ship. White insisted on a witness and Fernandes agreed to me because I was just a boy—though, unknown to me then, not for long.

"The savages in the Chesapeake are murderous," Fernandes explained when they met face to face in the officers' dining cabin. "You're better off staying here where the local savages at least know who you are."

To me, the Admiral did not seem convinced of the truth of his words, and the Governor's response suggested that he agreed: "But Lane's men killed the Roanokes' weroance—their king—last year."

"You have Manteo to serve as your good-will ambassador," the Admiral retorted. "He's a smart savage, smart enough to know that our European civilization is better than his. He even dresses like an English gentleman. He has the highest planter's broad-brimmed black hat I've ever seen."

White grew livid. "As Governor, I demand that you row my men back and deliver us all safely to the Chesapeake."

"Mister White," Fernandes retorted, "You govern the colonists and planters ashore, but I command the fleet and my sailors. I will remain in these waters for one month while your people unload their supplies, but we sail on August 22—without them."

"So you can hunt down Spanish treasure ships? Is that the real reason why you agreed to deliver the colonists?"

"What I do with my fleet, sir, is my business and not yours. I have carried out my duty by delivering you to Roanoke Island and informing you that you are safer here than farther north. I suggest that you waste no more time arguing and set about organizing the unloading of the ships. Good day to you." With those words, Fernandes abruptly turned his back to the Governor and entered his private cabin. I followed the Governor back to the boat at a respectable distance.

As we colonists unloaded our supplies—tools, lumber, fasteners, furniture, stoves, cooking utensils, tin plates, and flatware—we discovered that nearly all of our food staples had been stored aboard the flyboat that had apparently been lost off Portugal. Miraculously, the flyboat, commanded by Captain Edward Stafford, appeared in the harbor two days after the Lyon and the pinnace had arrived. But the bad news was that it had been severely damaged in the storm, and most of the foodstuffs had been ruined by salt water that had leaked into the hold.

The Governor immediately ordered two of his twelve Assistants, including my beloved father, George Howe, Jr., to organize two groups of colonists to hunt for game and fish while the rest of us continued to unload the three vessels and re-roof the cottages. On the 28 of July, my father went crabbing by himself in a shallow cove while his men were fishing from small boats. When they returned, they found him dead, sixteen arrows penetrating his body and his head crushed almost beyond recognition. The Governor conducted a funeral service the next morning. I was an orphan now, my mother having died of consumption two years ago.

Governor White sent Manteo to arrange a meeting with all of the local weroances to discuss how to prevent further hostilities, but they refused to deal with him. On the night of the 2 of August, the Governor ordered an attack on the mainland village of Dasamonquepeio. Twenty men, led by Captain Stafford, surprised the natives as they were gathering food, killing three of them. Manteo cried out that these were his people, Croatoans, not Roanokes, and Stafford ordered a cease-fire. Manteo quickly learned and explained that the Roanokes had fled the area in anticipation of a retaliatory attack for my father's murder, and the Croatoans had come to gather as much abandoned food as they could because their own supplies were insufficient to get through the winter. He also reported that, earlier in the year, several of Grenville's men had been killed in an attack by the Roanokes and the others had fled in a small boat.

On the 13 of August, the Governor ordered the carpenters to construct a small platform for formal ceremonies, complete with a lectern to hold the Bible, prayer-book, and a Holy Water font. He assembled all of us colonists as soon as it was completed, then said, "Manteo, please step forward and kneel before me." The young weroance—his mother had died during his absence in England and he was chosen to succeed her on his return—did as commanded.

"By the power vested in me to carry out the orders of Sir Walter Raleigh, Proprietor of the Virginia Colony," the Governor declared, removing his sword from its scabbard and laying the blade on Manteo's right shoulder, "I hereby elevate you to the position of Lord of Roanoke and Dasamonquepeio."

Then he addressed the assemblage: "Manteo is now a titled Englishman." We colonists all cheered heartily because we were all fully aware of our obligations to the noble native as guide, translator, and diplomat. "Also," the Governor continued, "at Lord Manteo's request, and because he has fully satisfied me that he knows the entire Book of Common Prayer and has read both Old and New Testaments, I hereby baptize him a Christian." He made the Sign of the Cross on Manteo's head, then reached into the font and sprinkled a few drops of Holy Water and added, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

"Amen!" we shouted in approval.

A week later, the Governor baptized Virginia Dare, his new granddaughter, the first child born to English parents in the New World.

It was much too late to plant crops, and Manteo, after visiting his people, reported that they had no extra food because of a drought, so the Governor and his eleven surviving Assistants met to try to figure out a way to avoid starvation. The only solution they could manage was for White to return to England with Fernandes and ask Sir Walter to replace the food that had been spoiled. White tried to persuade several of his Assistants to go in his place so he could govern the colony and supervise a planned move fifty miles inland where there was sufficient fresh water and better soil. He also did not want to desert his daughter Elinor, his son-in-law Ananias Dare, and his infant granddaughter.

On the morning of the 25 of August, we all presented him with a signed pledge not to hold him accountable for anything that went wrong in his absence and to protect his personal property if we decided to go ahead with the move.

The Governor reluctantly agreed, then ordered, "If you choose to move elsewhere, carve your destination in a tree near the old fort. If you are forced to leave by hostile savages, carve a Maltese cross above it." He, along with five Assistants, left for England that afternoon, assuring his son-in-law, whom he left in charge of the colony, the planters, and their families to return as soon as possible. He asked me to accompany him as his personal servant, but treated me more like the daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter he feared he'd never see again. I became the Governor's family; I no longer felt myself a fourteen-year-old orphan.

Governor White chose to sail on the flyboat piloted by Edward Spicer rather than Simon Fernandes' Lyon, because he knew Fernandes would spend months pirating Spanish treasure ships. But the weather was terribly stormy and sent the flyboat many leagues off course. Because of further damage which rendered the ship unseaworthy, Spicer chose to land in western Ireland. It was November before the Governor and I got back to London. By March, Sir Walter Raleigh managed to organize a fleet of four ships loaded with food for the Roanoke colonists. But they were ordered by Queen Elizabeth not to leave the English Channel; the Spanish Armada was expected to attack soon.

Shortly after the defeat of the Armada, the Queen authorized the Governor to return to Roanoke with two small pinnaces. But we were attacked by the French fleet and scarcely managed to limp back to England. Finally, on his granddaughter's third birthday, Mr. White and I returned to Roanoke Island as unwelcome passengers aboard HMS Hopewell, one of a fleet of five English ships and four Spanish prizes. We found the word Croatoan carved into a tree and, because there was no cross above it, the Governor assumed the colonists had moved to Croatoan Island by choice, probably at the invitation of Manteo. He tried to persuade Captain Abraham Cocke to sail to Croatoan Island, but a hurricane causing the loss of a third anchor and cable out of four—and a desire to seek more prizes—led the Captain to refuse.

"Well," Mr. White mused, "the Indian Manteo has become a Christian Englishman, and, apparently, the English Roanoke colonists have become Indians."

"It would seem so, sir," was all I could say in return. He was right. Sir Walter's dream of establishing permanent English colonies in the New World had failed.

But the failure was temporary. In 1607, at the age of thirty-four and the only experienced colonist in the crew, I sailed with Captain John Smith to help establish the Jamestown Colony. Within the first year, a rumor circulated that several Englishmen were living with local tribes as slaves.

The Captain refused to give the rumor credence, though I am convinced his bravado was aimed at quelling the fears of his colonists of eventually winding up at the mercy of the Indians. Still, I remembered that ten or a dozen of Grenville's 1586 men had fled Roanoke in a small boat to avoid murder. Surely, they could not have disappeared. Yet I could not imagine my 1587 mates, a stalwart group of familymen and -women determined to make their way in the New World, permitting themselves to be enslaved. Manteo, a titled English Lord, would never have stood for it.

Around 1640, when I was too old to travel but still longed for a better final resting place than the crowded, slave-infested, tobacco-poisoned Virginia coast, two of my grandsons asked my permission to head south to the mainland village once known as Dasamonquepeio, site of the Roanoke tribal homeland. I agreed and advanced them twenty pounds sterling to cover expenses and perhaps purchase land if they found it suitable. When they returned three months later, they reported the land infertile and the area occupied by a tribe who called themselves the Lumbee. Several Lumbee claimed to be descended from Manteo's tribe, the Croatoans. According to my grandsons, those who insisted on Croatoan origins spoke fluent English, dressed like Englishmen, and had blue eyes.

Perhaps they were the children and grandchildren of Virginia Dare and the other lost colonists.

Perhaps not.

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