In addition, the territory occupied by the Weapemeoc tribe was largely swampland and would have been a poor choice for a settlement, particularly one that was intended to be agricultural in nature. The Weapemeoc were also a small tribe that seemed more interested in keeping clear of the English than aiding them. While it is true that Okisco, chief of the Weapemeoc tribe, pledged his allegiance to Queen Elizabeth during the previous Grenville-Lane colonization attempt, he did that only because he was so ordered by his more powerful neighbor, Menatonon. When hostilities between Lane’s colony and Wingina/Pemisapan’s followers were intensifying in 1586, the Weapemeoc did not offer aid to the English, but rather retreated farther inland away from them. Another problem, to be addressed below, is Parramore’s possible misinterpretation of White’s fifty mile designation, which would have eliminated Weapemeoc as a settlement possibility.
The “Chesapeake,” “Chowanoke,” “Weapemeoc,” and other similar theories claim that when John White departed Roanoke on August 27, 1587, his colony was left in a desperate state. It is asserted that the colonists were hopelessly ill-provisioned and that they had failed to obtain essential provisions in the West Indies. As historian James Horn wrote, “the failure to obtain cattle, salt, and supplies in the West Indies would necessitate short rations through much of the winter and spring.”6 Given such a bleak scenario, these theories continue, the colonists could not have survived the winter at Roanoke and therefore were forced to seek refuge and sustenance among the Indians at one of the aforementioned locations. These included the Chowanoke tribe about sixty miles or so across Albemarle Sound to the west of Roanoke along the Chowan River, where Ralph Lane had experienced some degree of cooperation during the previous 1585–6 expedition. Horn, Miller, Parramore, and Quinn all suggested that the main body of White’s colonists abandoned Roanoke shortly after White’s departure on August 27, 1587.7
The key premise of the these theories—that the colony was in desperate need of provisions in August of 1587—is once again based entirely on the dubious credibility of John White’s account, and in particular his biased allegations against Simon Fernandez. White did accuse Fernandez of failing to obtain salt and other provisions during the voyage, but it is curious that he did not cite any problem whatsoever about a shortage of provisions once they arrived at Roanoke on July 22. White certainly would not have missed the opportunity to add a desperate food shortage at Roanoke to the list of complaints against Fernandez, if one had actually existed. White’s silence on this point after their arrival at Roanoke is at odds with his previous accusations made during the voyage. In fact White did not even mention any need for “supplies”—and at that, not food stores or provisions in particular—until a month later on August 22, when the controversy arose about who “should goe backe as factors for the company into England.”8
The most blatantly fictitious of White’s allegations concerned the flyboat, the vessel used primarily for the purpose of transporting cargo and supplies, the very items White claimed Fernandez failed to obtain. On May 18 White made the preposterous claim that Fernandez “lewdly forsook our Fly-boate, leauing her distressed in the Bay of Portugal.”9 White not only would have his readers believe that the flyboat was intentionally abandoned in the Bay of Portugal only eight days after leaving Plymouth on May 8, but also that its whereabouts were unknown until July 25, when it arrived at Roanoke three days after the Lyon. Note White’s remarkable entry for July 25:
The 25 our Flyboate and the rest of our planters arriued all safe at Hatoraske [the inlet at Roanoke], to the great ioy and comfort of the whole company: but the Master of our Admirall Ferdinando grieued greatly at their safe comming: for hee purposely left them in the Bay of Portugal, and stole away from them in the night, hoping that the Master thereof, whose name was Edward Spicer, for that he neuer had bene in Virginia, would hardly finde the place, or els being left in so dangerous a place as that was, by meanes of so many men of warre, as at that time were abroad, they should surely be taken, or slaine: but God disappointed his wicked pretenses.10
In this passage White unequivocally charged Fernandez with intentionally abandoning the flyboat in the Bay of Portugal on May 16 in the hopes that the passengers and crew would be captured or killed. It was a virtual miracle, according to White, that the flyboat appeared once again at Roanoke on July 25.
This allegation is patently false. White’s entire claim, in fact, is refuted by a detail he apparently overlooked in his own entry for June 19–21 when he wrote, “we fell with Dominica, and the same euening we sayled betweene it, and Guadalupe: the 21 the Fly-boat also fell with Dominica.”11 The flyboat was clearly in contact with the Lyon on June 21, which obviously contradicts White’s allegation of its abandonment on May 16 and its seemingly miraculous appearance at Roanoke more than two months later on July 25. This inconsistency is persuasive evidence of White’s intention to fabricate a false narrative about Fernandez.
It is probable that White kept an abbreviated journal during the 1587 voyage, logging the dates and location of the Lyon and perhaps a few brief notes during and after crossing the Atlantic. His expanded account of the voyage, containing the multiple allegations against Fernandez, must have been completed not long after his return to England on November 5, since he dated the account with “An. Dom. 1587.” It would appear that in the rewriting and preparation of his manuscript, during which White gave vent to his personal animosity toward Fernandez and attempted to blame him for the colony’s dilemma, he failed to delete the original June 21 detail from his original daily journal concerning the flyboat’s arrival at Dominica. The final manuscript he delivered to Hakluyt contained the telltale contradiction, and it was eventually published by Richard Hakluyt in 1589,12 along with the self-incriminating discrepancy.
Dominica is an island in the Lesser Antilles, the first island chain voyagers encountered in the West Indies after an Atlantic crossing. The Lyon arrived at Dominica on June 19 after the 3,000 mile trans–Atlantic voyage from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean, and remained in the area for several days. Two days later, on June 21, the flyboat arrived at Dominica. If Fernandez had intentionally stranded the flyboat in the Bay of Portugal, hoping that “they should surely be taken, or slaine,” or to sabotage the expedition as Miller proposed, his delay at Dominica until the flyboat arrived would be inexplicable. Unless this meeting at Dominica had been charted and planned prior to the ocean crossing, the chances of Edward Spicer showing up in the flyboat at this particular island in the Caribbean more than a month later, while the Lyon just happened to be waiting there, would be infinitesimal. White’s allegation about the flyboat was an intentional deception, the most serious in a succession of allegations motivated in part by his obvious hostility toward Fernandez and also by his intention to place the consequences for the colony’s predicament at Roanoke squarely on Fernandez’s shoulders.
A far more plausible scenario is that Edward Spicer and the flyboat were never abandoned at all. The recorded contact between the Lyon and the flyboat at the island of Dominica on June 21 was a pre-arranged and pre-charted rendezvous, common practice involving multiple vessels on voyages to the New World. As mentioned earlier, Dominica—the first landfall after crossing the Atlantic—was the traditional rendezvous point.”13 The Grenville/Lane colonization expedition had stopped there in 1585 and, in fact, the three-vessel fleet—which included White aboard the Hopeful—would also rendezvous at Dominica en route to Roanoke three years later in 1590.
Having rendezvoused safely with the Lyon at Dominica, the flyboat—whose essential function, as mentioned, was the transportation of the very cargo and supplies White claimed Fernandez neglected—would then have acquired the salt and whatever additional cargo was deemed necessary for the colony. The time it took to acquire this cargo would also explain the flyboat’s arrival at Roanoke on July 25, three days after the Lyon. As explained previously, because the Spanish knew of the English plans to settle at the Chesapeake, the decision to abort the final
leg of the voyage and leave the colony at Roanoke must have been made at this time. During the rendezvous, furthermore, the change of plans had to have been discussed with Edward Spicer, who otherwise would not have known to proceed to Roanoke rather than the Chesapeake with the flyboat loaded with supplies and the rest of the colonists.
White’s accusations against Fernandez do not survive a close examination of the text, and therefore conclusions drawn from those accusations—such as the assumption that the colony was in a perilous state because of Fernandez’ failure to obtain provisions in the West Indies—must be considered questionable as well.
It should also be remembered that the two previous Roanoke voyages started off well-provisioned with stores intended for the colony or expedition upon arrival at Roanoke. The three ships of the 1587 voyage were fitted out in Portsmouth and Plymouth where the food stores and supplies for the colony were stowed on board. Although White’s account of the voyage says nothing about these preparations, some instruction can be taken from the previous expedition. The Grenville-Lane expedition of 1585, properly fitted out in England, had been crippled upon its arrival at the Carolinas when the Tyger ran aground at Wokokon and a major portion of the food supplies was ruined by seawater. This accident consequently forced the colony to rely more heavily on the native Indians for food.
White’s 1587 voyage suffered no such misfortune. The crew, in fact, took weeks to unload supplies for the colony and it was not until mid to late August that “our ships had vnladen the goods and victuals of the planters.”14 It appears that there was a sizable supply of “goods and victuals” and that everything was unloaded without any difficulty or loss whatsoever. White would certainly have mentioned it and blamed Fernandez had such a problem occurred.
In addition, contemporary accounts cited an abundance of natural food sources to be had at Roanoke and its environs. The Amadas-Barlowe expedition of 1584 reported that Roanoke and the nearby islands were “replenished with Deere, Conies, Hares, and diuers beasts, and about them the goodliest and best fish in the world, and in greatest abundance.”15 White’s 1587 colony found Lane’s old fort and settlement “ouergrowen with Melons of diuers sortes, and Deere within them.”16 White also noted that Indians sometimes came from the mainland to Roanoke “to hunt Deere, whereof were many in the Island.”17 And then, of course, the colony had the assistance of the steadfastly loyal Manteo and his Croatoans, who would certainly have helped the colonists build weirs for a continual supply of fish.
It is noteworthy, too, that the colony’s provisions were amply supplemented on August 9 after White’s ill-advised attack at Dasamonguepeuk. The hostile natives “had fled immediately after they had slaine George Howe, and for haste had left all their corne. Tobacco, and Pompions…” and “…we gathered al the corne, Pease, Pompions, and Tobacco that we found ripe….”18 The confiscation of Dasamonguepeuk’s ripened harvest would have represented a major enhancement to what apparently was an already adequate food supply.
It appears that White’s colony was not desperately short of food by any means, and therefore they would not have been forced to abandon Roanoke soon after White’s departure and seek sustenance with the Chowanoke or any other tribe. On the contrary, if they had a sufficient food supply, there would have been no reason to winter any place other than Roanoke, where they already had the availability of “all the houses standing vnhurt” from the previous Grenville-Lane expedition. And furthermore, all the men were “…employed for the repayring of those houses, which wee found standing, and also to make other new Cottages, for such as should neede.”19 These activities seem more attuned to a colony preparing for an extended stay rather than a colony supposedly compelled to make a hasty departure in order to seek refuge among the Chowanoke tribe or elsewhere. Moreover, when White finally returned three years later, he discovered that the settlement had been “very strongly enclosed with a high palisado of great trees, with cortynes and flankers very Fortlike.”20 Apparently the colonists took the time and effort to fortify the Roanoke settlement after White departed in August 1587, and therefore must have spent the winter there.
Furthermore, finding refuge and sustenance with the Chowanoke tribe would not have been as promising a prospect as some suggest. The Indians had to depend upon their own food stores for sustenance through the winter. Even under the best of circumstances, mid to late winter through early spring was always the leanest time of year for the Indians, when the previous fall’s stores of corn were gone and the spring berry crop had not yet ripened.21 It seems very doubtful that the Chowanokes could have been persuaded to provide the colony with food through the winter, because an additional hundred-plus mouths would have placed an impossible strain on the tribe’s own winter food stores. Moreover, as mentioned previously, the fragile “cooperation” Lane had received from the Chowanoke king, Menatonon, was hardly offered out of friendship towards the English. Lane had captured both Menatonon and his son Skiko, and after obtaining a ransom for the release of Menatonon, he guaranteed the king’s cooperation because, as Lane noted, “I had his best beloued sonne prisoner with me.”22 It is unlikely that the Chowanokes would have been either willing or able to feed the 1587 colony.
Another relocation theory generated considerable excitement and press coverage in May of 2012 when a fort symbol was discovered beneath a patch on John White’s 1585 “Virginea Pars map.” The discovery was made after First Colony Foundation member Brent Lane initiated an inquiry which resulted in the employment of a light table to discover a painted symbol under the patch. In a joint announcement by the First Colony Foundation and the British Museum, the proposal was made that the fort symbol could represent a location where the English intended to establish a settlement.23 Press reports at the time included announcements that the fort symbol “provides conclusive proof that they [the Lost Colonists] moved westward up the Albemarle Sound to the confluence of the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers.”24
There were a few perceptible problems, though, with these conclusions. As mentioned previously, it had become obvious during the 1585–86 Grenville-Lane expedition that the inlet at Roanoke was not adequate and that future colonization efforts would focus on the Chesapeake, not Albemarle Sound. There are a number of references in the contemporary documents supporting this conclusion. Since John White was a member of the party that explored the Chesapeake and drew his Virginea Pars map during the same 1585–86 expedition, he would have known firsthand about the likely prospects of a Chesapeake settlement. It is doubtful, then, that he would have drawn a fort symbol on his map at the western end of Albemarle Sound to designate a location for a future colony.
Moreover, Ralph Lane identified that specific location in his account and provided definitive information about what that location was intended to be used for, and it was not as a site for a future colony. Lane described the location as “very neere whereunto directly from the West runneth a most notable Riuer … called the Riuer of Moratoc. This Riuer openeth into the broad Sound of Weapomeiok [Albemarle Sound].”25 Lane’s plan was to build a sconce—or small fortification—at that location as part of a chain of sconces leading to the Chesapeake where he believed there was “a better harborough” and where King Menatonon reported there was a “greate quantitie of Pearle.”26 Lane added:
And so I would haue holden this course of insconsing euery two dayes march, vntill I had bene arriued at the Bay [Chesapeake] or Port hee [Menatonon] spake of: which finding to bee worth the possession, I would there haue raised a maine fort, both for the defence of the harborough, and our shipping also, and would haue reduced our whole habitation from Roanoak and from the harborough and port there (which by proofe is very naught) vnto this other before mentioned….27
Lane’s plan, which never materialized, was to build a series of sconces starting at the fort symbol location and ending at the Chesapeake where he would have built a “maine fort” and then moved the “whole habitation from Roanoke” to the new location at the Chesapeake.
; The fort symbol location was never intended to be a future settlement site. White may have drawn the fort symbol in 1585 to designate Lane’s intention to build the first of a series of sconces there. The fort symbol was subsequently covered with a patch—the traditional method of making map corrections—because Lane cut short the 1585–86 expedition and the sconces were never built. In that regard it should also be noted that there is a second, larger patch on the Virginea Pars map in addition to the one covering the fort symbol. The purpose of that second patch was the same as the first, to make corrections to the earlier draft. The second patch was added to correct errors in the previously drawn configuration of the coastline and the placement of Indian villages on the mainland south of Roanoke. The patch over the fort symbol was applied for the same reason: to correct—in this case eliminate—the drawing of a structure which was contemplated, but never built.
Perhaps the most logical challenges to the fort symbol theory (and the Chowanoke theory) were the messages the colonists themselves left at Roanoke. The “CRO” and “CROATOAN” inscriptions seem obviously intended to direct White to Croatoan upon his anticipated return in 1588. Croatoan, however, was about fifty miles south of Roanoke. As the map above illustrates, it would have made little practical sense to send White some fifty miles south to Croatoan if the colony had actually settled at the present-day Bertie County or Chowanoke locations at the western end of Albemarle Sound, more than 100 miles from Croatoan. The messages left by the colonists themselves seem to suggest that the 1587 colony headed southward from Roanoke down Pamlico Sound to a destination on the mainland across from Croatoan, not westward across Albemarle Sound to the fort symbol location.
The Lost Colony of Roanoke Page 7