The Lost Colony of Roanoke Island: Gone Without a Trace
Have you ever heard of the mystery of the Roanoke Colony? This strange historical event began in 1584, during one of the first English expeditions to the New World to establish settlements. The settlers landed on Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina. After only one year, the colony was abandoned due to harsh weather, lack of supplies, and conflicts with the indigenous people in the area. A second attempt at colonization was made three years later.
Led by Captain John White, a group of 117 men, women, and children from England arrived in 1587 to establish a new colony on Roanoke Island. Finding the abandoned settlement from the previous expedition in ruins, they
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According to historians, this is the most probable theory. Although the nearby Native American tribes were perceived as kind and nonviolent (and by the time of John White’s arrival in 1587, simply unwilling to aid the settlers due to previous conflicts with earlier colonists), events during the first attempt at colonization at Roanoke Island indicate that the Natives were capable of committing mass murder and subsequently hiding the bodies. The only strange implication of this theory is the fact that they hypothetically succeeded with the execution and burial of the entire colony, which consisted of 115 colonists at the time of John White’s departure, in less than a two year period. By the time John White returned, the Roanoke Colony had been without its leader for almost three years. This would have given the Native Americans enough time to tear down the houses in the village.
Although there is much evidence to support both of these theories, there are still many unanswered questions regarding the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony. Historians cannot agree on what happened on Roanoke Island between 1588 and 1590, and not enough hard evidence has been found to support any single theory. Therefore, the Lost Colony remains one of the unsolved mysteries of American