A Kingdom Strange

by James Horn

  WHITE KNEW it was essential to find out who had killed Howe and the extent of the threat as soon as possible. The day after Howe’s burial, Captain Edward Stafford set off in the pinnace with Manteo and twenty armed men to visit the Croatoans, about fifty miles to the south, who the English hoped were still friendly. When they reached Croatoan Island, a group of warriors who were gathered on the shore appeared ready to fight. When the Englishmen began to march toward them with their muskets primed, the warriors turned to flee, at which point Manteo called out to them in their own language. They had not recognized him, possibly because he was dressed as an Englishman, but to Stafford’s relief, when the Indians realized who Manteo was they immediately threw down their weapons and went to embrace him. They asked him to plead with the Englishmen not to take their corn because they had little. Manteo answered that they had not come to take their corn or anything else, only to “renew the old love, that was between us, and them, at the first, and to live with them as brethren.”

  Pleased by this response, the warriors invited the men to their town, where they were welcomed by the people and invited to feast with them. The next day, in conference with the town’s elders, Stafford learned that Howe had been killed by Secotan warriors, a “remnant” of Wingina’s people, who lived at Dasemunkepeuc. The Croatoans told him that Wanchese was one of this group, but whether or not he had been involved in Howe’s killing was not mentioned. Perhaps anticipating that the English would seek out the Secotans to take revenge for Howe’s murder, the elders requested that their own people be given some badge or token by which the English would recognize them when the Indians left their island. They told Stafford that the year before several Croatoans had been badly hurt by Ralph Lane’s men in the fighting at Dasemunkepeuc. The elders understood that the English had mistaken them for Secotans and wanted to prevent similar confusion in the future.

  Discussions between Stafford and the Croatoans solved another mystery: the fate of the fifteen men left by Grenville on Roanoke Island. The English learned that the men had been attacked by thirty warriors from Secotan, Aquascocock, and Dasemunkepeuc. Two Secotans had approached the English settlement and, feigning friendship, invited a couple of the Englishmen’s leaders to meet with them unarmed. Foolishly the Englishmen agreed, whereupon the Indians struck one of the men over the head with a club, killing him outright. The other ran back to his company, pursued by the Secotans, shooting at him with their bows and arrows. The English took shelter in their storehouse, which the Indians set alight, forcing the men to run out to escape the flames. After more than an hour of vicious fighting a second Englishman was killed, shot in the mouth with an arrow. The rest of the Englishmen, together with four others who had been outside the settlement when the Indians attacked, escaped by boat and headed toward Hatarask. They had lived for a short time on a small island near the entrance to Port Ferdinando, but after a while had left. They had not been seen or heard of since.

  The news was grave. Stafford was now aware that the killing of Howe was not an isolated incident perpetrated by a small group of warriors from Dasemunkepeuc. The attack on Grenville’s men had been ruthlessly executed after careful planning by the leaders of three Secotan towns. Nevertheless Stafford, on behalf of White and the setters, told the Croatoans that they were willing to put past wrongs, even Howe’s murder, behind them. He may have believed, as White possibly did, that the Secotans’ aggression had been justifiably provoked by the violence of Lane’s soldiers. Stafford informed the elders that if the Secotans would accept the settlers’ friendship, they in turn would “willingly receive them again.” To that end, the chiefs and elders of the mainland peoples should be notified by the Croatoans to visit John White on Roanoke Island or give their answer to the Croatoans within seven days. The elders agreed to send the message, and Stafford and his men departed.2

  After a week passed with no word from chiefs on the mainland or from the Croatoans about a meeting, White concluded reluctantly that there was no other option than to launch a raid on Dasemunkepeuc. The decision was not made lightly. In 1585 White and Thomas Hariot had considered Pemisapan and his people firm friends. The Secotans had helped the English establish themselves on the island and provided them with food and vital information about the region. Hariot had told White about the many occasions on which the Indians had joined the English at their prayers and singing of psalms. White and Hariot had developed a genuine affection for Pemisapan’s people, and when White returned in 1587 he hoped it would be possible to reestablish their friendship. Yet the safety of his own people was paramount, and he knew he could wait no longer for a conciliatory gesture from the Secotans.3

  White, Captain Stafford, and Manteo, together with two dozen men, crossed over to the mainland in the early hours of August 9, while it was still dark. They quickly made their way to woods adjoining Dasemunkepeuc and launched their attack, falling upon a group of men sitting around a fire. The Indians fled into dense reeds, and the Englishmen followed, shooting one through the body, determined to “acquit [revenge] their evil doing towards us.”

  But White was mistaken. The people they had attacked were not Secotans but Croatoans, who had heard that the Secotans had abandoned the town shortly after killing Howe. The Croatoans had therefore gone to gather corn, tobacco, and pumpkins from the town’s fields. In the darkness, the English could not tell friend from foe, “their men and women appareled all so like the others,” White confessed. Had it not been for one of the Croatoans calling out to Stafford they might all have been slaughtered.

  Manteo was greatly distressed by the injuries suffered by his people but ultimately sided with White, telling the Croatoans that if their chief men had sent messengers to the governor at the appointed time, the English could have informed them of their plans and thereby prevented the “mischance.” Nevertheless, White’s return to Roanoke after the raid with the unfortunate Croatoans in tow was not the victorious homecoming he had hoped for. The problem of the mainland peoples’ hostility was unresolved, and even if White could count on the Croatoans’ friendship, somewhat soured by the recent fiasco, the colony remained as isolated and exposed to attack as its predecessor had been under Lane.

  BY MID AUGUST, much of the repair and building work at the colonists’ settlement was completed. The men and boys probably moved into Lane’s old houses, and the Archards, Dares, Harveys, Joneses, Paynes, Powells, Tappans, and Viccarses shifted their possessions into a cluster of new-built cottages more suitable for families; priority being given to the Dares and Harveys because both pregnant women had nearly reached the end of their terms.

  The next two weeks were the happiest that White spent on Roanoke Island. On August 18 his daughter, Eleanor, gave birth to a girl, “the first Christian born in Virginia,” who was given the name Virginia and christened the Sunday following (August 24). The happy event and accompanying celebrations brought a measure of cheer to the settlers after the difficult three weeks following George Howe’s death. The healthy birth of baby Virginia restored the settlers’ numbers and was perhaps a sign that the English would succeed after all in establishing themselves in America. Further good news came a few days later with the birth of a child to Margery, wife of assistant Dyonis Harvey.

  Earlier, on August 13, White had officiated over another important ceremony at the settlement. In recognition of three years of invaluable service to the English, Manteo was christened and given the title of lord of Roanoke and Dasemunkepeuc, by right of Ralegh’s claim to Virginia and Queen Elizabeth’s authority. The granting of the title indicated that after White and the settlers left Roanoke to continue their journey to Chesapeake Bay, Manteo and his people would continue to hold the region for the English. Lord Manteo would be Ralegh’s Indian governor, ruling over both Roanoke Island and the adjacent mainland, which the English deemed they had taken by their victory over the Secotans.

  Manteo was the first Indian admitted into the Church of En - gland on American soil. His baptism marked the beginning
of the colonists’ godly work to convert Indian peoples to Protestantism, a matter of great significance for White. In the spring of 1585 Okisko, chief of the Weapemeocs, had sworn allegiance to Elizabeth and Ralegh and sent his head men to Lane’s fort to declare their fealty. But neither Okisko nor his people had converted to the Church of England. Manteo, on the other hand, was now a Christian lord who was intended to play an active role in winning over Indian peoples of the region to Protestantism and English-ness. The effort to convert the Secotans had failed amid the havoc caused by European diseases and the outbreak of hostilities that followed. Ralegh, who had ordered White to baptize Manteo, believed that the conversion of one of their own was another means of bringing Protestantism to the Indians. Manteo would first win over the Croatoans and perhaps in time the Indians of the mainland.

  Ralegh and White’s assumption that the Indians would convert to Christianity reflected the profound differences in how the English and Indians viewed one another. Whereas White envisioned settlers and Indians living in peace “as brethren,” the Secotans had come to believe that the settlers’ notion of living together assumed Indian peoples would submit to English ways. Wanchese (if he was still alive) and the chiefs of towns on the mainland were convinced that neither White nor any other English leader had in mind a union of equals, but rather expected Indians to willingly renounce their gods and traditions in favor of the strangers’ beliefs. For Wanchese and those who fought with him, the matter could not be clearer: they were engaged in a life or death struggle, the outcome of which would determine their very existence.4

  BY THE THIRD week of August the sailors of the Lion and the flyboat had finished unloading the settlers’ goods and equipment on Roanoke Island and began to prepare for the return journey across the Atlantic. On August 21, however, the ships’ departure was delayed by a fierce nor’easter that pounded the Outer Banks and forced Fernandes, who was on board the Lion, to cut her anchor cables and put out to sea to avoid being driven ashore. Fearing the ship had been cast away or that Fernandes had abandoned the colony, as he had threatened to do when the settlers first arrived, White hastily gathered the assistants together to take stock.

  The settlers had previously decided to send one of their number back to England on the flyboat to report to Ralegh and garner support for a relief expedition. Now none of them wished to go, perhaps because they did not wish to face the return journey without the escort of the heavily armed Lion, or possibly because they did not want to leave their families. Only Christopher Cooper, after much cajoling by White, showed any willingness, but he changed his mind after talking to friends.

  The next day the entire company went to White and “with one voice” implored him to go to England himself. They believed his close association with Ralegh made him by far the best qualified to obtain supplies and additional settlers for the colony. White was aghast and refused point blank, arguing that as governor his abrupt departure would be tantamount to deserting his post. He would be greatly discredited by abandoning the expedition and those who depended on him. He pointed out that critics in England would slander him by accusing him of going to Virginia only to keep in Ralegh’s good graces. They would say that he had led the settlers to “a Country, in which he never meant to stay himself, and there to leave them behind him.” Rather less convincingly, he told them that because they “intended to remove 50 miles further up into the main presently,” his possessions might be damaged or lost in his absence, so that when he eventually returned he would likely be ruined.

  Not to be dissuaded, a group of settlers, including the assistants, continued to press him. They promised to bind themselves “under all their hands, and seals” to safeguard his goods and to justify his departure in writing. Accordingly, they had a testimonial drawn up and presented it to White on behalf of the entire company:May it please you, her Majesty’s Subjects of England, we your friends and Countrymen, the planters in Virginia, do by these presents let you, and everyone of you to understand that for the present and speedy supply of certain our known, and apparent lacks, and needs, most requisite and necessary for the good and happy planting of us, or any other in this land of Virginia, we all of one mind, and consent, have most earnestly entreated, and incessantly requested John White, Governor of the planters in Virginia, to pass into England, for the better and more assured help, and setting forward of the foresaid supplies: and knowing assuredly that he both can best, and will labor, and take pains in that behalf for us all, and he not once, but often refusing it, for our sakes, and for the honor, and maintenance of the action, hath at last, though much against his will, through our importunacy, yielded to leave his government, and all his goods among us, and himself in all our behalves to pass into England, of whose knowledge, and fidelity in handling this matter, as all others, we do assure ourselves by these presents, and will you to give all credit thereto. The five and twentieth of August.5

  White agonized over the request for the better part of a day. Despite the setbacks since their arrival, the settlers’ unanimous plea showed that they had not lost faith in him.

  They were right about the importance of his connection to Ralegh. He was the only one among them likely to be able to persuade Sir Walter to raise the supplies and ships needed to relocate the colony to the Chesapeake Bay. Perhaps they were also right that no one else could be entrusted with such an important undertaking. Yet the decision was heartbreaking. On the one hand, White was convinced his duty was to remain with the settlers in Virginia, but on the other, the settlers believed he was needed more in London. He would have to leave behind his daughter, newborn granddaughter, kin, and friends to undertake a long and arduous journey with no certainty of ever seeing them again.

  On August 26, White made the decision to return to England. He had little time to prepare for his departure and immediately threw himself into a flurry of activity. The first task was to make arrangements for the assistants to govern while he was away, possibly with Roger Bailey or Ananias Dare in charge. Then he and the assistants had to decide where the colonists would go when they left Roanoke Island. Mindful of the threat of attack by the Secotans, White and the settlers had decided to leave the island and move inland, where they hoped to find friendly Indian peoples to help them. The best prospect was somewhere near the head of Albemarle Sound, where the Chowanocs lived. White knew from discussions with Ralph Lane that both peoples had been loyal allies of the English the previous year. Possibly the aged Menatonon would be equally helpful to his settlers.

  It was also likely that they would find plenty of food in the area. The English still had several months of provisions, but the failure to obtain cattle, salt, and supplies in the West Indies would necessitate short rations through much of winter and spring. Inland there were fish and game, invaluable supplements to the settlers’ diet, as well as fresh water. They also might be able to acquire corn and other provisions from the Chowanocs.

  The problem of how the settlers would transport themselves off Roanoke Island was settled in agreement with Stafford and Edward Spicer. They would leave behind the pinnace and a couple of ships’ boats for the settlers’ use, which would be sufficient to transport them around the sounds and along rivers. The pinnace could be used to skirt the coast to the Chesapeake Bay should the settlers choose to explore that route.

  White also had to consider arrangements for his own eventual return to Roanoke and how to locate the settlers at that time. Neither he nor anyone else had decided on a specific location inland where the settlers would establish themselves, other than possibly near the mouth of the Chowan River. They had not yet scouted the region, although John Wright and James Lasie may have been with Ralph Lane’s expedition to the town of Chowanoc in 1586 and possibly remembered something of the lands along the river.

  The settlers therefore decided to leave a small contingent on Roanoke Island, who would keep in touch with the main group’s movements inland. When White returned to Roanoke they would be able to tell him where the main g
roup had gone. White would then have a couple of options, which would be largely determined by the number of new settlers he recruited while in England. If he returned with only a handful of recruits, he would order the settlers to abandon their temporary quarters inland. They would return to the island in preparation for boarding the ships he expected to bring with him to complete (belatedly) the last leg of the voyage to the Chesapeake. If he returned with a large number of new colonists, he might consider maintaining a small settlement at the head of Albemarle Sound. By this means he could keep an English presence in the area while the majority of settlers relocated to the Chesapeake.

  Finally, White and his assistants made arrangements in case of an emergency. If the settlers had to leave the island or their inland settlement hurriedly, they would carve the name of where they planned to move on prominent trees so White would know where to find them. A cross over the letters would signify they had been attacked and forced to depart.

  White had much to worry about. Besides Indian attacks, he was concerned about Spanish ships finding the colony. Darby Glavin and Dennis Carroll, who had deserted at Puerto Rico, would by now probably have informed Spanish authorities where White’s colony was to be established, raising the strong possibility that the Spanish would soon investigate. In fact, unknown to White, Pedro Menéndez Marqués, governor of Florida, had scouted the Outer Banks and sailed as far as the entrance to Chesapeake Bay in June, only a month before White and the settlers arrived. Finding no sign of the English, Menéndez Marqués had nevertheless recommended that the king order a thorough exploration of the coast as far as St. John’s (Nova Scotia) forthwith.6