The Lost Colony of Roanoke

by Fullam, Brandon

  The Sentinel article theorized that the CORA inscription was left by Lost Colonists who vacated Croatoan and dwelt among the Coree or Coranine Indians near the Neuse River. If that were the case, of course, the CORA inscription would represent the most important clue in the more than four-centuries-old search for the Lost Colony. Nevertheless, possibly because of its association with the fanciful and popular Cora-witch legend, or perhaps because it simply seems improbable, the CORA tree has been generally ignored in the body of Lost Colony literature. It is also possible that it has remained just beyond the peripheral vision of most Lost Colony authors because it does not conform to their mainstream theories about where the colonists relocated after leaving Roanoke. The CORA tree hypothesis does happen to be compatible with the argument proposed in the previous chapters—that the colonists relocated to the mainland south of Roanoke somewhere directly across Pamlico Sound from the Wokokon inlet. That argument, however, stands upon its own merits and in no way depends on the CORA tree, which may either be a legitimate Lost Colony clue or just another fanciful fable.

  The most immediate challenge to its legitimacy is the age of the tree itself. In order for the CORA tree to have any possible connection whatsoever to the Lost Colony, it obviously must have stood there long before the Roanoke voyages. The larger point to be considered in this regard is the age of the CORA tree’s habitat itself in the ever-changing Outer Banks environment.

  It is estimated that the location and extent of the maritime forests on the barrier islands were well-established approximately 5,000 years ago.6 It is difficult to determine precisely how much of the Outer Banks was originally forested five millennia ago, but it is certain that the unique maritime forests were far more extensive than today. Today there are just remnants of those original forests on the barrier islands where ancient trees have indeed stood for many centuries. Fortunately, the largest of these remaining forests is Buxton Woods7 on present-day Hatteras Island, where the CORA tree is located.

  The CORA tree itself is one of the many southern live oaks (Quercus virginiana) native to the southeastern United States. The southern live oak has a deep tap-root that anchors it when young and develops into an extensive and widespread root system. This, along with its low center of gravity and other factors, makes the southern live oak resistant to strong sustained winds of hurricane force. Southern live oaks are also impervious to the salt spray of a coastal environment.8 These hardy trees are fast growing at first and may reach their maximum trunk diameter within 70 years, after which their growth rate slows with age.9 According to the National Wildlife Federation “the oldest live oaks in the country are estimated to be between several hundred to over a thousand years old.”10

  Among the oldest existing southern live oaks are the “Seven Sisters Oak” in Mandeville, Louisiana, estimated to be 1,500 years old11; the “Angel Oak” on John’s Island in South Carolina, also said to be 1,500 years old12; and the “Goose Island Oak” near Lamar, Texas, estimated by the Texas Forest Service to be over 1,000 years old.13 It should be noted, however, that live oak age estimates are not universally shared within the scientific community. Dr. Kim Coder of the University of Georgia wrote, “The largest [live oak] trees of the native range, especially along the Atlantic coast … [have] a maximum expected lifespan of 500 years…. Many large live oaks are not as old as people believe.”14

  The Sentinel article refers to the CORA tree as “a 1,000-year-old water oak,” but offers no evidence for that claim. Charles Whedbee wrote, “botanists estimate [the CORA tree] must be at least a thousand years old,” and noted that “there are other live oaks in that forest … which almost certainly are as old.” Whedbee, however, wrote these statements as part of his introduction to the Cora-witch fiction, and the botanists he referenced are not identified.

  In 2009 the Lost Colony Research Group attempted to determine the actual age of the tree. A dendrologist was employed to take a core sample in an effort to establish the tree’s age through tree ring analysis. Unfortunately, the CORA tree’s trunk is completely split and partially hollow, the combined result of a lightning strike and a decay column—sometimes found in older live oaks15—and consequently a valid core sample could not be obtained. The actual age of the tree could not be scientifically verified, but there seems to be little doubt that the CORA tree is certainly centuries old. Given the National Wildlife Federation’s estimate of seventy years for a live oak to reach its maximum trunk diameter, and assuming for a moment that the inscription was carved at about the time the tree reached that maximum diameter, the CORA tree’s current age would have to be about 500 years. It seems possible, then, that the CORA tree could have been well-established in the maritime forest of present-day Hatteras by 1588, when the colonists abandoned the outpost at Croatoan. Whether or not the inscription was carved at that time, however, is another question entirely.

  Native villages were positioned on the sound side of the barrier islands, which provided better protection from the elements and a canopy for shelter in the maritime forest. It is widely accepted in archaeological circles that the principal native Indian village on Croatoan in the late 16th century was located at the H1 Cape Creek Archaeological Site near the present-day community of Buxton,16 but there was also a village at present-day Frisco, where the CORA tree is situated. That area is still called “Indian Town” by the locals today.

  Frisco would have been an ideal choice for an outpost to allow for an early sighting of ships sailing up the coast along the Outer Banks. On the ocean side at Frisco there is an elevated bluff, the highest point in the area, and an excellent position from which to sight and identify any ship approaching along the usual route from the south. It would have made an ideal spot for a lookout position awaiting White’s return. The Indian village at Frisco was on the sound side in the maritime forest and could have provided convenient, nightly shelter for the contingent of colonists watching for White’s return. The village was not only about a quarter mile walk to the oceanfront bluff, but it also would have offered easy access from the mainland settlement across Pamlico Sound for periodic re-supply and relief of the colonists at a lookout station.

  There is some hard, though limited, evidence to suggest the possibility of a Lost Colony-Frisco connection. Archaeologist William G. Haag noted that a local resident recovered a number of coins and “a counter” at the H7 Archaeological Frisco Dune Site.17 “Counters” or jetons were coin-like tokens used particularly in England during the 16th and early 17th centuries in conjunction with a counting board or cloth for making mathematical calculations. At that time most of these counters were made in Nuremburg by a wide variety of manufacturers and sold in sets to the English market. The counters were made of thin malleable metal, hand produced with a hammer and dies, and each manufacturer had his own designs and inscriptions imprinted on each side.18

  In 1950 three counters were also found in the archeological digs at Fort Raleigh on Roanoke Island. What it particularly remarkable about this find is that two of the three counters found at Roanoke are identical to the one found at the Hatteras site. Not only do all three have the same designs, markings, and wording, but the three bear identical irregularities, indicating that all three were stamped by the same die.19 Although this is not conclusive evidence, it presents the possibility that the owner of this particular set of counters at Roanoke later spent time at the Frisco Dune site. Of course it is possible that this Englishman was a member of the 1585–86 colony and not the Lost Colony, but it seems more likely that the three identical counters would have belonged to one of the 1587 Lost Colonists. There is no indication in the accounts of the 1585–86 colony that an outpost or a presence of any kind was ever established at Frisco, nor does there seem to have been a reason to do so. The 1587 colonists, on the other hand, had good reason to establish a lookout position specifically at Frisco, across the sound from the mainland settlement, as they waited for White’s return with the supply ships in the summer of 1588.

  As ment
ioned earlier, the colonists were instructed to “write or carue on the trees or posts of the dores the name of the place where they should be seated….” White found the first “CRO” message carved into a tree as he approached the old settlement at Roanoke in 1590. At the entrance to the settlement he discovered “CROATOAN” carved into one of the posts. White also wrote that the CRO carving was discovered on the approach to the settlement “vpon a tree” and done in “faire Romane letters.” The full CROATOAN inscription was found shortly thereafter on one of the “postes at the right side of the entrance” to the fortified settlement. That post “had the barke taken off, and 5 foote from the ground in fayre Capitall letters was grauen CROATOAN.”20

  The placement and form of the CORA inscription correspond with what little is known about the CRO carving at Roanoke. Both were carved “vpon a tree” and were written in “faire Romane letters.” White provided slightly more detail about the CROATOAN message found on the entry post. That carving was placed five feet from the ground and again written in “fayre Capitall letters.”

  In February 2014, members of the Lost Colony Research Group took measurements of the message on the CORA tree. The inscription itself is five feet six inches from the base of the tree at ground level. The letters in the CORA inscription measure four inches in height and the entire word is seventeen inches in length.21 It goes without saying that the messages—especially the abbreviated carving on the approach to the Roanoke settlement—had to be large and conspicuous enough to assure that White would notice them upon his return. A seventeen-inch-long inscription containing four letters, each four inches tall, would certainly seem to meet that requirement. From what can be ascertained, the physical characteristics of both the CRO and CORA inscriptions appear to be very similar.

  Assuming for a moment that the CORA tree inscription is a legitimate message left by the 1587 colonists, it is likely that the same methodology used at Roanoke would have been repeated at Croatoan. The CRO inscription on the tree at Roanoke was an abbreviated form of the CROATOAN inscription on the entry post at the fort. It is possible, then, that the CORA inscription left on the tree at Croatoan was also an abbreviated form of a more complete message, perhaps left on a post originally located near the CORA tree in the Indian village at present-day Frisco. If so, then CORA could be an abbreviated form of CORANINE, as suggested in the Dawson article.

  Coranine was the name of the territory, the tribe, and probably the principal village of the Coree or Coranine tribe, who once occupied the peninsula and coastal area south of the Neuse River in present-day Carteret and southern Craven counties. As will be noted later, they may have ranged even farther south along the coast. At some point prior to the outbreak of the Tuscarora War in 1711, they may also have occupied a village called Core Town near the site of present-day New Bern.

  Another potential problem with the CORA tree–Coranine connection, however, is the fact that in 1588 the Coree/Coranine tribe was known to the English only as the “Cwareuuock,” as illustrated on the portion of the 1590 White/de Bry map below. The word was later spelled “Cawruuock” on John Smith’s 1624 map.

  “Cwareuuock,” located on the peninsula south of the Neuse River on the White–de Bry map.

  Since there are no records indicating that any of the Roanoke voyagers ever visited the Cwareuuock, it is almost certain that White learned about the tribe and its territory from the Algonquian Manteo, in which case “Cwareuuock” was a phonetic transcription of what the Croatoans called that tribe. Linguist Blair Rudes wrote that “-euuock” (“-uuok”) was an Algonquian suffix that translates as “people of” and therefore the name means “people of the Cwar (Cawr).”22 As was common in the 16th century, White used formal English spelling on maps including the classical digraph “double-u” (uu), which was written as “w” in less formal text (this topic will also have relevance in a later chapter). Considering the fact that Elizabethan spelling was notoriously inconsistent, it is conceivable that “Cwareuuock” may have been pronounced “corahwock” in 1588. Blair Rudes suggested that “Cwareuuock” was pronounced “kwarewok,”23 either one of which might account for the abbreviated CORA inscription.

  The question of the CORA tree aside, there is some independent evidence suggesting that the Coree/Coranine Indians were at least familiar with the Lost Colonists and perhaps had contact with them. There are those who believe that the Hatteras (Croatoan), Corees, and Neusioks may already have been intermixed to some degree by the time of the arrival of the English and that elements of these three groups had contact with the Lost Colony after 1587.24 Some also claim an ancestral connection to this mixed Croatoan/Coree/colonist group, but, like most assertions of this sort, they are based entirely on early Carolina legends and old family or native traditions, which may or may not have some basis in historical accuracy. Nevertheless, as suggested earlier, it is conceivable that there could have been interaction or even alliances among the Croatoans, Corees, Neusioks … and the 1587 colonists.

  A more acknowledged Coree–Lost Colony connection is found in John Lawson’s A New Voyage to Carolina. During his 1700–01 expedition through Carolina, Lawson learned that his Indian Guide, Enoe-Will, was a Coree by birth and lived as a boy perhaps fifty or so years earlier on the coast near the mouth of the Neuse River. Enoe-Will expressed an interest in a book Lawson had and knew that the English “whom he loved … extraordinary well” could “talk in that Book, and make paper speak, which they call our way of writing.”25

  Enoe-Will was also familiar with Christianity. He declined Lawson’s offer to become a Christian himself, admitting “their [the English] Ways to be very good for those that … had been brought up therein. But as for himself, he was too much in years to think of a change, esteeming it not proper for Old People to admit of such an Alteration.” He did, however, offer to place his fourteen-year-old son under Lawson’s tutelage.26 Some conclude that Enoe-Will’s familiarity with reading and writing as well as Christianity must have been acquired about 1650 when he was a very young Coree boy living near the mouth of the Neuse River. Since there were no English settlements in that area at that time, it is thought that the only contact Enoe-Will and the Corees could have had with reading, writing, and Christianity would have been from traditions retained by admixed descendants of White’s 1587 colony.

  A more direct reference suggesting familiarity or possible contact between the Coree and the Lost Colony can be found in James Sprunt’s 1896 Tales and Traditions of the Lower Cape Fear. Sprunt wrote, “The Cape Fear Coree Indians told the English settlers of the Yeamans colony in 1669 [actually 1664–7] that their lost kindred of the Roanoke Colony, including Virginia Dare, the first white child born in America, had been adopted by the once powerful Hatteras tribe and had become amalgamated with the children of the wilderness.”27

  Sprunt’s mention of the “Yeamans colony” is a reference to a settlement at the Cape Fear River established by English settlers from Barbados, probably in May of 1664.28 Sir John Yeamans was appointed governor of the colony. It is known that these settlers purchased a thirty-two square mile tract of land on the Cape Fear River from the local Indians, whom Sprunt identified as “Cape Fear Coree.” The name “Cape Fear” Indians, though, did not indicate a particular tribe, per se. It was simply the name given by the English to the natives living in the area of the Cape Fear River. Like the Coree/Coranine, little is known about them. If these Indians were actually part of the Coree tribe, then the range of Coree territory must have extended much farther south than is generally recognized. In any event, if Sprunt’s claim is essentially true, it would seem that the Indians in the Cape Fear area—whoever they were—apparently knew particular details about the assimilation of the Lost Colonists.

  It is unfortunate that so little is known about the Coree/Coranine, a tribe that very well could have had connections with the 1587 Lost Colony. Even the Coree/Coranine language affiliation has defied positive identification. Some theorize that because of their proximity to t
he Iroquoian Tuscarora to the north and west, and their alliance with that tribe in the Tuscarora War, the Coree/Coranine may have spoken an Iroquoian dialect. However, there were also known Algonquian tribes, such as the Machapunga and Pamlico, who were allied with the Tuscarora in the war. Others hold that the Coree or Coranine were Algonquian since they occupied coastal territory that was historically Carolina Algonquian. As noted above, the word “Coree” itself may be derived from the plural Algonquian word transcribed phonetically as “Cwareuuock” on the Mercator/Hondius and White/de Bry Maps.29

  Finally, Blair Rudes noted that the ethnic identity of the Coree is a complete mystery and that the few known Coree words were neither Algonquian nor Iroquoian,30 perhaps suggesting that their language could have been a linguistic blend understood to some extent by the surrounding tribes, including the Croatoans. Much of the obscurity surrounding the Coree/Coranine derives from the fact that the area south of the Pamlico River remained largely unknown and unexplored for a century after the Roanoke voyages. Settlement did not begin at the upper reaches of the Pamlico River until at least 100 years after White’s 1590 voyage, and it was not until the early 1700s that settlement started in present-day Craven and Carteret counties, traditional lands of the Coree/Coranine.

  Likewise, early maps of that area are of little or no help. For virtually all of the 17th century the most influential map of present-day North Carolina was the Virginiae Item et Floridae, first published in 1606 by the London firm of Mercator/Hondius. The “Virginiae” portion of that map, however, was nothing more than a close rendition of the 1590 White/de Bry map. Consequently informative maps of the territory occupied by the Coree/Coranine, present-day Craven and Carteret counties, did not appear until the first explorers and settlers arrived in the early 18th century.