Book Review: Roanoke Island by David Stick

Roanoke Island: The Beginnings of English America by David Stick

One of the great American mysteries is what happened to the colonists who settled on Roanoke Island in the late 1580s. After settlement, the governor headed back to England in 1587 to gather more resources and colonists. Due to various circumstances, relief ships did not return to the area until 1590. By that time the settlement was abandoned with only some cryptic carvings hinting at the fate of the colonists. Many theories were advance in the subsequent years and centuries.

This book starts with a quick overview of the earliest attempts by Europeans to come to America (including Brendan the Navigator and Leif Erickson). After Columbus's voyages, Spain established a strong foothold and amassed a great deal of wealth from the new lands and people. The English sent some early explorers (such as John Cabot) but made no sincere effort to colonize the Americas until almost a century after 1492. Sir Walter Raleigh obtained an official licence from Queen Elizabeth I to establish a base north of Spain's New World settlements. They planned to have an area which would serve as a legitimate settlement and as a base of operations for privateers to plunder the Spanish treasure ships sailing out of the Caribbean. The 1585 expedition set up a small fort on Roanoke Island. The island is sheltered by the Outer Banks, an the island chain separating the Atlantic Ocean from modern-day North Carolina. The initial English settlers tried both diplomacy and strong-arm tactics with the local tribes. The result was a very uneasy relationship on both sides. In 1587, a larger fleet came with men, women, and children to establish a long-term colony under Governor John White. White's daughter Eleanor gave birth to Virginia Dare at the colony, the first child born of British parents in America. He left his daughter and granddaughter behind to seek aid from Raleigh and Elizabeth, both of whom had many other interests occupying them. They were dealing with Spain on their side of the Atlantic, including the conflict with the Spanish Armada. White's tragic return in 1590 left a mystery that has endured.

Author David Stick does a great job using academic and contemporary resources to retell the story. The English efforts were often hampered by divided goals--often fleets that came to the Americas from England were more interested in plundering Spanish assets than in supporting colonizing efforts. Various leaders had personal conflicts with each other, causing more problems.

The final few chapters of the book are devoted to various theories about what happened to the colonists. Stick debunks quite a few theories out of hand (there were false diaries from Eleanor Dare (mother of Virginia Dare) for example). He admits that no one knows for sure and he endorses a few possibilities as equally likely. Native Chieftain Powhatan claimed to have killed the colonists; he probably did kill some of them. Others claim the colonists took a ship back to England and were lost at sea; the ship they were left with was not large enough to take all of them, though probably some of them did leave that way. Others claim the colonists moved to Croatan further south ("Croatan" was the cryptic carving), possibly joining the tribe there; probably some did since they intended to move in the spring to a more hospitable spot. Others claim they joined other local (or not-so-local) tribes; this also seems likely, though not some of the far away tribes like the Lumbees on the North Carolina/South Carolina border. Such speculations are not mutually exclusive--some colonists could have been killed by Powhatan while others sailed off to England or the Caribbean while still others intermarried with the locals.

This book has a nice blend of breadth and depth. It looks at the big picture and is able to get into enough detail to make it personal and compelling. The final review of possibilities covers a lot in a succinct and fascinating manner. I enjoyed the book a lot and learned a lot too.

Highly recommended.