Column: Legends, Lore, Superstitions, and More
The lost colony of Roanoke is an unsolved mystery from early America, or is it? It’s largely believed that no one knows what happened to the Roanoke colony, but maybe we haven’t thought about it hard enough.
In August 1587, settlers from England established a colony on Roanoke Island. John White, the governor of the colony, sailed back to England later that year to retrieve supplies, but when John returned to the island in 1590 there was no trace of the colony at all. The only thing he found was the word “Croatoan” carved into a wooden post. It was like the colony of Roanoke had disappeared into thin air.
People often theorize that the settlers were killed by the Croatoan tribe, or the settlers tried to sail back to England and got lost at sea. None of these theories seemed to be true, but maybe the clues weren’t looked at hard enough.
It could be that the post with the word “Croatoan” did not actually mean they were all killed by the Croatoan Tribe in a bloody ambush, it meant they went to go live on Hatteras Island with them.
Artifacts that can be traced back to Europeans were found on Hatteras Island to prove the Roanoke colony went to live there.
In conclusion, the Roanoke Colony was never lost, John White just couldn’t find it.
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