| Dictionary: Roanoke Island |
An island of northeast North Carolina off the Atlantic coast between Albemarle and Pamlico sounds. Colonists dispatched by Sir Walter Raleigh founded the first English settlement in North America in August 1585 but returned to England the following year. A second group of colonists organized by Raleigh landed on the island in July 1587 but vanished sometime before 1591.
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The English navigators Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, exploring for Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, brought back such glowing accounts that Raleigh dispatched a colonizing expedition under Sir Richard Grenville and Sir Ralph Lane. The colonists landed on Roanoke Island in Aug., 1585, and built the “Citie of Ralegh” (or New Fort), but they returned to England the next year. In 1587 Raleigh sent another group under John White. Forced to return to England for supplies, White was unable to return until 1591, when he found the colonists gone and the letters CROATOAN carved on a tree. This gave rise to a theory that the settlers had moved to Croatoan Island or had joined the Croatoan or Hatteras Native Americans.
Another theory was later advanced with the discovery (1937–40) of some 40 stone tablets inscribed with what some believe to be the history of the “lost colony.” The inscriptions tell of the death of many of the colonists (including Virginia Dare) from disease and Native American attacks and of the migration of others into the country's interior, as far away as Atlanta, Ga. The stones' authenticity, however, is questionable. In 1998 scientists said that a study of tree rings showed that the colonists had faced one of the worst droughts in the area's history.
Archaeologists at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site (see National Parks and Monuments, table) uncovered many artifacts of the colony during the late 1940s; Festival Park in Manteo recreates the failed first settlement. In 1937 Paul Green's symphonic drama The Lost Colony was presented to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the landing of White's colony; it is now staged annually.
Bibliography
See K. O. Kupperman, Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony (1984).
| Wikipedia: Roanoke Island |
Coordinates: 35°53′N 75°39′W / 35.883°N 75.65°W
Roanoke Island is an island in Dare County near the coast of North Carolina, United States.
About eight miles (12 km) long and two miles (3 km) wide, Roanoke Island lies between the mainland and the barrier islands, with Albemarle Sound on its north, Roanoke Sound at the northern end, and Wanchese CDP at the southern end. Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is on the island. There is a land area of 17.95 square miles (46.48 km²) and a population of 6,724 as of the 2000 census.
Located along U.S. Highway 64, a major highway from mainland North Carolina to the Outer Banks, Roanoke Island combines recreational and water features with historical sites and an outdoor theater to form one of the major tourist attractions of Dare County.
Roanoke Island is best known for its historical significance as the site of Sir Walter Raleigh's attempt to establish a permanent English settlement with his Roanoke Colony in the late 16th century. The fate of the final group of colonists has yet to be ascertained, leading to the continuing interest in what became known as the "Lost Colony" for over 400 years. In the 21st century, even as archaeologists, historians and scientists continue to work to resolve the mystery, visitors come to see the longest-running outdoor theater production in America: "The Lost Colony."
Roanoke Island is one of the three oldest surviving English place-names in the U.S. Along with the Chowan and Neuse Rivers, it was named in 1584 by Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, sent by Sir Walter Raleigh. [1]
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Roanoke Island was the site of the 16th century Roanoke Colony, the first English colony in the New World in what was then called Virginia, in honor of England's ruling monarch, Queen Elizabeth I. There were two major groups of settlers who attempted to establish a permanent settlement at Roanoke Island, and each failed. The first attempt to establish the Roanoke Colony was run by Rodney Lane after Sir Richard Grenville, who had transported the colonists to Virginia, returned to England for supplies as planned. Unfortunately for the colonists, who were desperately in need of supplies, Grenville's return was delayed. As a result, when Sir Francis Drake put in at Roanoke after attacking the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, the entire population of the colony returned with Drake to England.
In 1587, the English again attempted to settle in Roanoke. John White, father of one of the colonists Eleanor Dare, and grandfather to the first English child born in the New World, Virginia Dare, left the colony to return to England for supplies that he felt would help the colonists to survive, expecting to return to Roanoke Island within three months. Instead, he found England at war with Spain, and all ships were confiscated for use of the war efforts. His return to Roanoke Island was delayed until 1590. When he finally returned, the colonists had disappeared. The only thing he found were the letters "CRO" carved into a nearby tree and the word "CROATOAN" carved into a fencepost. Before leaving the colony for England three years earlier, White left instructions with the colonists that if they were forced to abandon their settlement on Roanoke, that they were to carve out the name of the place where they were going and a Maltese cross under the carving if they left due to danger.
"CROATOAN" was the name of an island to the south (modern-day Hatteras Island), where a friendly native tribe was known to live, and it was thus reasonable to assume that the colonists had left the Roanoke settlement bound for that island. However, foul weather would keep White from venturing south to search on Croatoan for the colonists, and they returned to England. White would never return to the New World. The fate of the colony has never been authoritatively ascertained, and consequently it became known as "The Lost Colony".
Later, in 1880's, a man living in North Carolina wrote about what the Natives looked like there. He wrote he noticed some had "fair skin and light eyes and hair, with Anglo bone structure." These are not found among Native Americans normally, so some believe that the Roanoke colonists assimilated into the Croatoan Indian tribe.
During the American Civil War, the island was first fortified by the Confederacy. The Battle of Roanoke Island (February 7–8, 1862) was an incident in the North Carolina Expedition of January to July 1862, when Brigadier General Ambrose E. Burnside landed an amphibious force and took Confederate forts on the island. Afterwards, the three Confederate forts on the island were renamed for the Union generals who had commanded the winning forces: Fort Huger became Fort Reno; Fort Blanchard became Fort Parke; and Fort Bartow became Fort Foster. This incident would eventually lead to the resignation of Confederate Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin. Roanoke Island remained under Union occupation for the duration of the war.
Slaves from the island and the mainland of North Carolina fled to the occupied area with hopes of gaining freedom. By 1863, a substantial number of these former slaves, known as "contrabands," were living on the fringe of the Union camp. They had built churches and opened what was most likely the first free school for blacks in North Carolina. Fearing that this freedmen's camp might lead to problems related to sanitation and soldiers' discipline, the Union Army established an official freedmen's colony on the island. In addition to its original residents, it was to serve as a refuge for the families of black soldiers who enlisted in the Union Army. The superintendent of the colony, Horace James, had great hopes for the colony, viewing it as a grand social experiment. Northern missionary teachers, mostly women, journeyed to the island to help with the experiment.
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| Dare, Virginia (child of English parents) |
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Roanoke Island". Read more |
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