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Course: US history > Unit 2
Lesson 1: Early colonization projects- French and Dutch colonization
- French and Dutch exploration in the New World
- Lesson summary: French and Dutch colonization
- England in the Age of Exploration
- Motivations for English colonization
- The Lost Colony of Roanoke - background and first attempts
- The Lost Colony of Roanoke - settlement and disappearance
- Early colonization projects
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The Lost Colony of Roanoke - settlement and disappearance
The Lost Colony of Roanoke, led by Sir Walter Raleigh and John White, faced hardships due to poor diplomacy and weather conditions. After White returned to England for supplies, he found the colony abandoned with the word "Croatoan" carved into a tree. The colonists likely dispersed, joining different Native American tribes.
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- 7:31
Just to clarify, I'm pretty sure the men weren't completely innocent when they were ambushed by Pocahontas' tribe, right? According to multiple recent studies and articles, many people of their tribe were killed, kidnapped and raped by the white men, and Pocahontas was kidnapped for ransom. Did the ambush happen before or after all this allegedly took place?(24 votes)- The ambush by Pocahontas' tribe likely occurred within a broader context of ongoing conflict between the Powhatan Confederacy and the English settlers. These tensions were marked by violence and mistrust on both sides, including instances where English settlers kidnapped, killed, and mistreated Native Americans, and Pocahontas herself was kidnapped for ransom in 1613. Such ambushes and attacks happened before and after these events as part of a continuing cycle of retaliation and conflict during the early years of English colonization in Virginia.(1 vote)
- It was, like later English colonies, poorly supplied, and the first colonists were actively hostile toward local Native people(7 votes)
- Yes. The English were certainly guilty of these things, as were the French, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Swedish.(5 votes)
- OK, informational? VERY. But I'm still kinda confused as to why they would ever go on a rampage over the POSSIBLE theft of a SINGLE silver cup. And more so how we know that's why the rampage happened?(5 votes)
- I think you should keep in mind that there had been struggles between the natives and the colonizers. When civilians came there, the Native Americans were not happy. They didn't want the Europeans to stay there. Although no one knows if a silver cup was really stolen from the colonizers, nevertheless they thought so. Their tempers rose and they rampaged.
To answer your second question, that's the most interesting thing! No one knows if that's really how the fight started.
Hope this helped :)(6 votes)
- why didn't john white ever go back?(5 votes)
- It's because back in England they were in a war with Spain. Queen Elizabeth said they couldn't use any ships for supplies because they needed them for the war.(5 votes)
- At8:24What was the date of the archaeological dig?(5 votes)
- According to a National Geograpic article, it seems like there were a couple digs from the 1990s to the 2000s. You can read more here: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150807-lost-colony-roanoke-hatteras-outer-banks-archaeology/(4 votes)
- Why didn't John Whites go to the Bahamas to get more supply?(3 votes)
- Let's think about that. Could it be that it was the wrong time of the year to sail south, against the gulf stream current? Could it be that they didn't have anyone experienced enough among them to navigate a sailing ship that far? Could it be that the boats they DID have wouldn't carry enough stuff anyway? Could it be that the winds at that time of the year were unfavorable? Transport doesn't happen very easily in sailboats.(7 votes)
- OK, informational? VERY. But I'm still kinda confused as to why they would ever go on a rampage over the POSSIBLE theft of a SINGLE silver cup. And more so how we know that's why the rampage happened?(4 votes)
- Why would somebody steal a SINGLE SILVER CUP? There had to be something inside of the cup if they did go after the thief. THis is my opinion.(3 votes)
- Did john white ever find his way back?(5 votes)
- Why did they seperate and also, how did they survive the 2 years of being totally isolated without reinforcements?(3 votes)
- Communities separate for many reasons, not all of them reflecting well either on those who "stay" or on those who "leave". I can easily imagine that in something as tightly knit as a colony. I've seen it is communities as tightly knit as churches, where the split is for one rather human reason, but gets a "spiritual" or "doctrinal" fig leaf to make it seem not to have just been human perversity.(5 votes)
- The English people that settled all fled when one of the natives killed one of English.The theories where now are that the English people separated and some went to the north and some went to the village Croatian.(4 votes)
Video transcript
- [Kim] So that takes us to our third and what will be final
expedition to the New World. - [Man] And this is where
the spooky part comes in. - [Kim] This is where
the spooky part comes in. Sir Walter Raleigh and John White realized that a whole group
of soldiers was probably not the right group to
send to the New World. Instead he thinks, alright,
this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna send civilians. - [Man] Okay. - [Kim] We're gonna send families. So they send about 90 men, about 20 women, and
maybe about 10 children. And say okay, you are
going to start a colony and a settlement in the New World. So it's not just a trading post. - [Man] Yo, but back up,
like still on Roanoke Island next to the Native Americans that hate them?
(laughing) Is that where they're
still putting the colony? - [Kim] Well, they were really hoping since they've discovered
that this is a terrible place to sail-- - [Man] Uh huh? - [Kim] That they can actually head up to the Chesapeake Bay and make that their place of operations. - [Man] Why not just make landfall there? - [Kim] Well, they usually started by going from England all
the way down to Bahamas. - [Man] Mm hmm. - [Kim] Where they could refuel. So this was an area where
they already had power. So instead of going to
the unknown land first, they would go down to
the West Indies, meet up, - [Man] Get fresh water, get food. - [Kim] Get fresh water and
supplies and then come up to Virginia, AKA North Carolina. Unfortunately, as the weather worked out, they couldn't make it
farther than Roanoke Island. - [Man] Oh. - [Kim] So they are hanging out with what they hope are
their friends, the Secotans, and right after they get there one of the English colonists is murdered by probably a Secotan person, and it's because they
say to their translators, we don't have enough food,
you're gonna steal more food and we just can't have you here. It's obvious that they
brought women and children, they're intending to stay, and the Native Americans have decided that the English are not to be trusted. - [Man] So this is just a whole series of tragic diplomacy by
ultimatum movements, right? - [Kim] Yeah, it's really interesting because I think there are
a couple of places here where things might have
gone very differently. - [Man] You can see the inflection points if both sides decided not to play hardball with each other so much. - [Kim] Yeah, I think there
are so many places here where ships get lost or they get grounded on the shoals outside North Carolina so they can't get more supplies. Or later storms will
prevent reinforcements. Weather and a silver cup
are kind of the things that keep the Roanoke
Colony from succeeding. So right away after this new
group of colonists arrives, one of them is murdered and so they ask their
governor, John White, to go back to England and
get them more supplies. - [Man] John White, the illustrator who made these images on the right. - [Kim] And he's now governor. - [Man] Okay. - [Kim] He's the only one
of the original Raleigh's 11 who's still part of this venture. So he's now moved up in the ranks. So John White sails back to England, and then he runs into a big
problem, the Spanish, basically. He wanted to get supplies. Some of these colonists,
including the Dares, are actually John White's children. - [Man] Oh, snap. - [Kim] So this is his
actual family that's here that he's trying to protect. So he goes back to England and he says, Sir Walter Raleigh, I
need more reinforcements. But all English shipping is cut off because of the threat of the Spanish. The Spanish Armada is coming
to England at this time period and so not a single ship can be spared to go try to bail out these
colonists in the New World. - [Man] Oh, wow. So they're alone and entirely isolated on this new continent among
people that do not like them because of stuff that
people before them did. - [Kim] Exactly, yeah,
that's about the size of it. So it's like 1588 when John White sails back to England and because of the Spanish
Armada it's not until 1590 that he can finally get back and try to find these
colonists including his family. - [Man] Right. - [Kim] When he gets there
this is all he finds, the word, Croatoan, carved into a tree. - [Man] What do you mean all he found? What happened to their town? - [Kim] It was completely abandoned. - [Man] Whoa. - [Kim] So it looks as if they'd
left of their own volition. - Okay.
- Because it doesn't look like there was an attack there. And they had agreed beforehand that if they decided to go somewhere else, remember, they already knew that they were in unwelcome territory, so they thought maybe
they'd go farther inland, they would leave traces, they would carve something in a tree to say where they had gone. Unfortunately, another storm hit, and so John White was forced to leave and go back to England without ever going to see the Croatoans, this
other Native American tribe, along with their town called, Croatoan, to see where the rest of his family and the rest of the colonists were. - [Man] Did he ever
return in his lifetime? - [Kim] No he did not. - [Man] Oh, that's heartbreaking. - [Kim] So he never found out
what happened to his family, and technically we never
found out what happened to the Lost Colony at Roanoke, but there's some pretty good evidence about what might have happened to them. - [Man] Tell it to me, Kim. - [Kim] Alright, so here's what
we think may have happened. So there are about 130 people, right? - [Man] Right. - [Kim] Assuming that none
of them died from disease. - [Man] That's a charitable assumption. - [Kim] Yeah. Not all of them could have gone to see and live with the Croatoans. - [Man] Okay. - [Kim] Right, because they were a much smaller tribe than that. So they could never have been
all supported by these people. What we think happened
is that some of them went to live with the Croatoans
who are along the coast. So if John White comes back then they can connect up with him again. So that's what we think
happened to some of them. We also think that some of
them went further inland to a more stable environment around what is maybe called, Merry Hill. So about 15, oh sorry, about 50 miles
inland from Roanoke Island. - [Man] Okay. - [Kim] Today Merry Hill, North Carolina. And we think some of
them may have gone north. So here's the evidence
about these various things. - [Man] How do we know that
these colonists went there? - [Kim] So when John White
was sailing to Roanoke he saw big fires along the
coast where the Croatoans lived. So we think the English
may have been there trying to signal them, but
he went straight to Roanoke, and then because of his
troubles with his ship had to go back to England. So there's strong evidence there. Also, later an Englishman heard a legend from the people who lived in that region that some of their ancestors
had been White people, and they had English coins. So I think it's probably safe to say that some of them did actually
intermarry with Croatoans and lived there for most
of the rest of their lives. The ones who went north we know about because John Smith, the captain of the
Jamestown Colony in 1607, met up with some Native
Americans who told him that there had been White
people living in the area who had lived peacefully
among the Native Americans until just recently
when they were massacred by the Powhatans. Powhatan was the father
of Pocahontas, right? So there's some overlap here. - [Man] So he was trying
to get the lay of the land, how the local people
felt about the English, and the intelligence that he got was, oh, everyone's cool with the English except for the people that
you're living right next to. - [Kim] (laughs) I think it
was probably intended, yeah, to be maybe a warning. - [Man] Yeah. - [Kim] We think what might
actually have happened was that the people from
Roanoke had intermarried with another Native American tribe and had become kind of
indistinguishable from them, and then the Powhatans, who
were kind of a larger empire, actually attacked them. So they were killed off in a raid against other Native American groups. - [Man] I see. - [Kim] And the last thing that we think that they probably went inland is from a recent archaeological dig which has discovered, it's
called English Border ware. - [Man] Okay. - [Kim] In this town near
Merry Hill, North Carolina, and it was only made in this time period before these English colonists left. So we know it has to have dated before 1588.
- [Man] 90 or so, okay. - [Kim] Yeah, so it's highly
likely that at least some of those people had
been living in this area because we have an
archaeological record of them. - [Man] That's so cool. - [Kim] What I think is
really interesting about this is we actually know a lot more about this than I think popular
legend says that we do. - [Man] Yeah, I always thought that the Lost Colony at Roanoke was one of those unsolvable
secrets of history. - [Kim] I think it tells us a lot about the historical process. In some ways we know a lot about this. In other ways we don't know much at all. There are some things in history that we don't have records
about, and perhaps never will. But if I had to say that there's one thing that's really haunting
about this Colony at Roanoke is just how different
things might have been had they chosen to be friendly about the theft of a silver cup, that may or may not have happened, rather than angry and violent. We could be talking about
the Colony of Roanoke as the very first
successful English Colony in the New World. - [Man] You and I could have been speaking an Algonquian-English dialect right now. - [Kim] Quite possibly. So it shows us just how important even the smallest events in history can be to the way that things turn out, and how much people's
choices really do matter.