by Lee Miller
Instead, the picture the country presented was one of massive depopulation. The land was fertile, yet the people few, the country most overgrown with pines.9 Villages were gone, old fields reverted to stands of pine, one of the first trees to reestablish. Since Sicklemore reported that the river was narrow, he could not have penetrated farther south than the town of Choanoke, where the channel widened considerably. Yet even here, the very town itself, Lane said, is able to put 7oo fighting men into the field, beside the forces of the Province itself10
How could two accounts be so different? The answer lies in Hariot’s own journal. The people began to die very fast, he wrote of the Secotan, and many in short space; in some towns about twenty, in some forty, in some sixty, and in one six score, which in truth was very many in respect of their numbers.11 Disease. Contagion occurred everywhere in the Americas that Europeans made contact. In New England attrition rates soared to a horrendous 90 percent among the Wampanoag and their neighbors. In the south, Spanish soldiers in Luna’s expedition could not even recognize the ravaged terrain before their eyes as the same rich, thriving land they had encountered twenty years earlier with de Soto. They thought they had been bewitched. It pleased Almighty God, South Carolina’s John Archdale croaked, to send unusual sicknesses among them, as the smallpox, etc. to lessen their numbers.n
Disease struck the Powhatan. / have seen the death of all my people thrice, Wahunsonacock lamented to Smith at the founding of Jamestown, and not any one living of those three generations but myselfu A Virginia colonist noted Powhatan faces riddled with pock marks, full fraught with nodes botches and pulp able appearances in their foreheads}* The illness may well have spread north from the Chowanoc country. Menatonon traded with the Powhatan.
Suppose the explanation was as follows: the main body of White’s colonists separated and moved inland to the Chowan River. The Powhatan confirmed this, claiming that they had settled at Ohanoac — slightly farther than fifty miles from Roanoke — but well within Chowanoc territory.15 And there it must have happened. A sudden and precipitous population decline would account very well for the situation Michael Sicklemore encountered. Few people, few villages, old fields overgrown with pines.
Political Upheaval
But where were the Lost Colonists? Given this situation, we might expect Sicklemore to have found them quite easily. After all, they would have been immune to many of the European diseases that were crippling Indian populations. If an epidemic struck the Chowanoc, it might well have left White’s people unscathed. Yet Smith reported that Sicklemore found little hope and less certainty of finding them alive. Could this mean they were not immune? Or had something else happened?
Very likely. To understand what it might have been, we must look again at the early accounts. At the friendships and animosities. The layout of the land. And when we do, we discover that Raleigh’s men, in their haste to settle the country, completely ignored warning signs that should have been evident to all. The King, Barlowe had said, is called Wingina and his capital Secota.16 During Lane’s tenure he shifted residence first to Roanoke Island, then to Dasamonquepeuc on the mainland. John White’s map refers to the whole region — including Aquascogoc and Pomeioc — as the Secotan country. The Weapemeoc and Chowanoc to the north, along the upper edge of the sound, were Wingina’s allies. Enemies completely surrounded them.
Granganimeo had a great liking of our armour, recalled Barlowe, a sword and diverse other things which we had: and offered to lay a great box of pearl in gage for them. Their wars, he reported, are very cruel and bloody, by reason whereof and of their civil dissensions, which have happened of late years amongst them, the people are marvellously wasted, and, in some places, the country left desolate.17
Why didn’t the English pay attention to this? Raleigh’s men were blundering into an area racked by internal strife! No one thought it important enough to matter. And perhaps it wasn’t, then. The Secotan-Chowanoc-Weapemeoc alliance was formidable. Strong enough to survive enemy attack and keep trade relations on an even keel. But what would happen if the demographics changed?
Catastrophic population loss seriously disrupts the balance of power. In New England, when disease crippled the Wampanoag, it left the neighboring and enemy Narragansett unscathed.18 Under pressure, the Wampanoag welcomed a Pilgrim alliance to guarantee their own survival. In the short term, they were saving their lives. Likewise, the Westo and Savannah of South Carolina broke out into an unusual civil war and thereby reduced themselves to a small number. In North Carolina, I was told… of a great mortality that fell upon the Pamlico Indians, reported John Archdale, as also, that a nation of Indians called the Coranine, a bloody and barbarous people, were most of them cut off by a neighbouring nation: upon which I said, that it seemed to me as if God had an intention speedily to plant an English settlement thereabouts. … It is a pity they should be further thinned with civil quarrels… and indeed I myself their late Governour, prevented the ruin and destruction of two small nations.19 The great chiefdoms of the Deep South, following epidemics spread by de Soto’s men, fell to civil strife.20
Chaos and political upheaval marched hand in hand with pandemic disease. It could hardly be otherwise. If we are right in assuming Chowanoc numbers drastically diminished, then the political ramifications would be grim. The Secotan were already weakened. Wingina’s men reduced to a remnant.11 By now the political situation would be getting shaky. The region had been a war zone from the very beginning.
Enemy Nations
We know that the Secotan were defensively allied with the Chowanoc and Weapemeoc. But why? Who were the enemy nations they guarded against? Barlowe identified two who lived to the south and west: the Pamlico and Neusiok. Both small, they were in league with the next king adjoining towards the setting of the sun. At least three nations lived in that direction. Which one was it? Tuscarora? Woccon? Coree, whose land may have extended west of the Neusiok? Whoever they were, the Secotan evidently held their own against them, though they engaged in mortal war.11There was, however, another region whose terrors were far greater.
Beyond the dark and gloomy swamp forests looming behind the Carolina Outer Banks, the land rises steadily into drier ground. A country of hills and dense hardwoods, a different world altogether. It will be the mid-eighteenth century before Europeans penetrate this vast wilderness, whose forested trails were dappled by only the scantiest light. In Lane’s day, it was a country few cared to enter, for in it lurked a powerful people, whose very names were terrible unto them. So terrible, that no one dared to guide Lane there. He had to haul a young boy in a handlock to show him the way. Their name was Mandoag.23
Slightly to the north, Jamestown learned of another nation called Monocan, who inspired a similar dread among the Powhatan. They and the Mandoag may have been allied. They have many enemies, Smith noted of the Powhatan, namely all their westerly countries.24” Here, too, guides steadfastly refused to conduct Smith’s men into the interior beyond the fall line. When Newport’s party neared the western outskirts of Powhatan territory on the James River, their Arrohattoc guide suddenly began spending the night aboard their boat. A request for conduct over the cataracts to the Monocan towns visibly upset the weroance Parahunt, who sought by all means to dissuade our Captain from going any further, said Archer, also he told us that the Monanacah was his enemy and that he came down at the fall of the leaf and invaded his country. Each autumn the Monocan descended the rapids to raid the Powhatan towns. Newport, out of his discretion, wisely returned to his boat.25 The Monocan and their friends, agreed Thomas Jefferson years later, waged joint and perpetual war against the Powhatans.26
These nations of the Piedmont are not to be taken lightly. We now remember what Richard Butler said — or tried to say — in 1585.27 Sent to Hatorask by Grenville, he landed and journeyed inland some sixty miles into enemy terrain. A skirmish followed; Butler says he fought on behalf of the people of Hatorask. The account is confused; it is difficult to make out what region he was
in. What Butler tells us, however, is that the Secotan had near neighbors with whom they were in a state of war. These were very likely the Mandoag.
When we turn again to the Roanoke journals, we find ominous news. The disease that ripped apart the Secotan country never touched their neighbors. Whenever any of their enemies had abused us in our journeys, Hariot reported of the Secotan, hearing that we had wrought no revenge with our weapons, and fearful that that was how the matter should so rest, they begged that those who had dealt ill with us might in like sort die2STheir fear was very real. To tip the balance meant death.
Strachey Revisited
If we are right in assuming that sometime during 1587 the Secotan-Chowanoc-Weapemeoc alliance was disabled, what was the consequence? The balance of power certainly shifted; therefore the question we must ask is this: Did the Chowanoc, the nation closest to the Mandoag frontier, come under attack?
Strachey may have had the answer all along, although it is very likely that he misunderstood what he heard. Gates was instructed to find surviving Lost Colonists who escaped from the slaughter of Powhaton of Roano eke.29 But what does that mean? “Powhatan” was a title the English applied to Wahunsonacock and his empire. In reality, however, it was the name of a town. Barbour derives its meaning from two words: otani, or “town,” and pauwau, a “wise speaker.”30 The Powhaton of Roanoke, then, might refer to a main village on Roanoke Island. By extension, perhaps, its leader. Whoever he was, he was not Wahunsonacock.
Strachey’s interpretation of what was a garbled story at best was that the Powhatan — that is, Wahunsonacock — murdered John White’s men shortly before the arrival of the Jamestown colony, and after they had lived peacefully with the Powhatan for twenty and odd years?1 But what if Strachey got it wrong? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time various English expeditions were muddled together as one and the same. For it was true: immediately before White’s colony arrived — twenty and odd years before Jamestown — there was indeed an attack on Roanoke. Grenville’s fifteen soldiers were set upon by Wingina’s men. Someone with an imperfect understanding of the language might well confuse this story and its reference to a Powhaton of Roanoke for Wahunsonacock, Powhatan of Virginia.
But there is yet another possibility to consider, a different interpretation entirely, which bears directly on the Mandoag question — which is that Strachey unwittingly merged two stories: (i) White’s colonists were attacked; (2) but not by the Powhatan of Roanoke Island, or by the Powhatan at all, but by someone else. Wahunsonacock’s officials were right when they insisted that the Lost Colonists were with the Chowanoc, even though search parties found no one there. Reduced by disease, the Chowanoc had been attacked on the frontier. By a lifelong enemy. By the Mandoag. If this indeed happened, the Chowanoc would have lost. White’s colonists would have suffered the same fate.
If this is not the explanation, then we must somehow account for a riddle posed by Smith’s investigators: Why were there English prisoners among the Mandoag?
Captives in War
Before we consider this startling development, let us examine how this would have occurred. If the Chowanoc were attacked by the Mandoag, what specifically would have happened to the Lost Colonists? How were wars conducted? Who lived and who died? Barlowe tells a story that he heard from Manteo or Wanchese while in England. The Secotan, he said, once revenged themselves upon the Pamlico by inviting thirty of their women and divers men to Secota for a feast, and when they were altogether merry, the Secotan came suddenly upon them, and slew them every one, reserving the women and children?2 That was how wars were conducted: women and children survived.
Smith was fortunate enough to witness a mock battle staged by the Powhatan, with half of Wahunsonacock’s subjects posing as Monocan. Only men were “slain.” It was contrary to the law of nations, Opechan-canough explained, to kill women during war.33 Male captives, unless adopted to make up for prior loss or, less frequently, enslaved, were rarely spared. They seldom make war for lands or goods, Smith testified, but for women and children. … Yet the Weroances, women and children they put not to death, but keep them captives?* Strachey recorded that Wahun-sonacock attacked the Piankatank in 1608, killing twenty-four men but taking home the women, children, and their king.35
Males who surrendered to their enemies were also spared. The Powhatan and Monocan issued conditions, reported Smith, that whosoever were vanquished, such as escape, upon their submission, should live, but their wives and children should be prize for the conquerors?6
Michael Sicklemore found no trace of an English presence along the Chowan River — no houses, implements, fence posts or rails. If White’s colony had stayed there for any duration — the twenty odd years Strachey suggested — then we would expect to find something. Instead everything points to long decay. Events therefore must have moved rapidly after the colonists’ relocation, after the sudden shift in the balance of power.
John White’s original company included seventeen women and eleven children. At the very least, three adult women and their babies must have remained behind at Croatoan. Provided that those who moved inland to the Chowan River survived the first winter without succumbing to disease, starvation, or accident, and no additional children were born, then we might expect a maximum of twenty-two female and child captives to have been taken by the Mandoag.
Of the original eighty-seven males, we do not know how many stayed at Croatoan, or what the attrition rate was before the attack on the Chowan. Neither are we supplied with details of the encounter, nor figures for how many died in their own defense. Male prisoners were customarily put to death, though even this was not necessarily the case. A number may have surrendered, been adopted, spared because (as Assistants) they were leaders, or preserved for the value of their labor. Perhaps two dozen survived; the figure is pure guesswork.37 In any case, we might suppose that a rather large number of English men, women, and children were whisked away into the interior, possibly around thirty-five, though it easily could have been more, and certainly less.
It is important to remember that the Chowanoc interrogated by Michael Sicklemore did not tell him that the Lost Colonists were dead. Their answer was deliberately vague, for they truly did not know what had become of the captives. They were absolutely correct when they said that there was little hope and less certainty of their fate. The English were, after all, prisoners of the Mandoag. We recall that this was precisely the place that the Powhatan indicated Smith should look if he failed to discover the Lost Colonists in any of the Chowanoc towns. Accordingly, Nathaniel Powell and Anas Todkill were dispatched to the Mandoag. But nothing could we learn, Smith had said, but the colonists were all dead. This statement is absolutely false. It is time to come at the truth of Smith’s report.
Powell and Todkill
It was never the case that Jamestown investigators failed to find evidence of the Lost Colonists. They simply did not disclose their discoveries to the public. What their probe actually uncovered is revealed in confidential instructions issued to Sir Thomas Gates in May 1609. The directive reads like a treasure map: Four days’ journey from your fort southwards is a town called Ohonahorn seated where the River of Choanocki divideth itself into three branches andfalleth into the sea of Rawnocke in thirty-five degrees. Here, two of the best rivers will supply you, besides you are near to the rich copper mines ofRitanoc and may pass them by one branch of this river, and by another Peccarecamicke, where you shall find four of the English alive, left by Sir Walter Rawely which escaped from the slaughter. They live under the protection of a wiroane called Gepanocon, enemy to Powhaton, by whose consent you shall never recover them, one of these were worth much labour.^
This is the information that Powell and Todkill returned in their report to John Smith! It is this chilling fact — that Lost Colonists were held by the Mandoag as slaves — that must have panicked company officials to the core and that they didn’t want the English public to hear. Instead of publishing the report, therefore, bot
h they and Smith covered it up and declared the colonists dead. The truth is that Jamestown was simply unable to repatriate White’s planters; disastrous publicity for a struggling colony to bear. Circulating the story that the Lost Colonists were dead took the pressure off officials to mount an expedition — doomed to fail — to retrieve them, and lent an unexpected boost to the propaganda campaign against the Powhatan.
Yet we know that, in addition to the four colonists held by Gepanocon, others were confined elsewhere in the interior. The Smith/Zúñiga map, as we shall see, pinpoints their locations. Reports were duly forwarded to London. And then the Virginia Company entered something horrible in the Stationers’ Register, December 14, 1609: Intelligence of some of our nation planted by Sir Walter Raleigh, (yet alive), within fifty miles of our fort… as is testified by two of our colony sent out to seek them, who, (though denied by the savages speech with them) found crosses & letters, the characters and assured testimonies of Christians newly cut in the barks of trees?9
So Powell and Todkill had indeed tried to speak with them! Without success. White’s company, too, had struggled desperately to make contact. Held out of sight, they nevertheless communicated. The Virginia Company found for certain, reported an incredulous Emanuel van Meteren, that some English are still alive there … they have had word and have found crosses carved on trees.40