Today in HistoryâAugust 18: The Day the Lost Colony Went Missing
When he sailed back to England, Gov. John White fully expected to return to his North American colony in six months. Heâd bring fresh supplies and fresh faces.
Instead, it took him three years.
His return was hopelessly delayed by Englandâs naval war with Spain, then the most powerful naval force in the world. This kept all English ships at their home ports, at the ready for defense. White was briefly granted an exception, but pirates attacked that attempt, stealing his supplies and forcing him back to England. When the Spanish Armada was finally defeated and English ships were released from service, White returned to Roanoke Island, off whatâs now North Carolina.
He arrived on this day in 1590. It was his granddaughterâs third birthday. Virginia was only about a week old when White had departed.
But instead of celebrating with his granddaughter and his daughter, Eleanor, White found his family gone. The whole colony, in fact, was gone. All 116 people had disappeared. There were no graves, and no signs of violence.
But there were clues. The letters âCROâ were carved on a tree, and âCROATOANâ was carved on a post. Before he left, White and the colonists had agreed that they would leave a carved messageâjust like the ones heâd spottedâif they relocated. If they left under duress, they would carve a cross.
There was no cross.
White figured âCROATOANâ meant that the colonists had joined the friendly local Croatoan people, on an island with the same name (modern Hatteras).
On the journey through the West Indies toward Roanoke, some colonists fell ill after eating manchineel apples (aka âdeath applesâ).
He tried to sail there immediately, a distance of about 50 miles. But he was again thwarted, this time by bad weatherâprobably a hurricane by modern standardsâwhich drove the ships away. Several men drowned, and White was forced to give up.
What happened to the colonists remains unknown, but archaeological findsâincluding otherwise anachronistic English artifacts on Hatteras Islandâgive some support to Whiteâs theory that at least some of the colonists relocated willingly.
As for White, though, he never saw his family again.
- 35 days: Time Governor White spent with the colony
- ~12 miles long, 3 miles wide: Size of Roanoke Island
- April 26, 1587: Date the settlers left England
- 1786: ReykjavĂk becomes the administrative capital of Iceland
- 1920: The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified in Tennessee
- 2017: The wreck of the USS Indianapolis is found more than 70 years after its sinking
