by Lee Miller
The China Box
The Trading Path was a debris field. Wahunsonacock himself showed the English a musket barrel, a brass mortar, and pieces of iron from the diaspora that marked the end of White’s colony.80 A road ran directly from the Powhatan to the Trading Path at Occaneechi Island. In fact, the Powhatan were so rich in copper from this trade that Jamestown initially believed that the mines must exist at their very own back door.
1621. Edward Waterhouse records the expedition of Marmaduke Parkinson, who traveled north from Jamestown to the Potomac River. The nations here, though autonomous, are within the Powhatan sphere of influence. At one of the King’s houses where they mere, Waterhouse spies a China box. Being demanded where he had it, the King made answer, that it was sent him from a King that dwelt in the West, over the great hills, some ten day’s journey away, he having that box from a people, as he said, that came thither in ships, that wear clothes, crooked swords and, somewhat like our men, dwelt in houses, and were called Acanack-China.81 It is tempting to see in this word Lederer’s Akenatsy — the Occaneechi and their trading mart, away across the hills.
The China box is perhaps our final image of the Lost Colonists, more poignant than any words. A delicate enameled keepsake, a personal luxury, brought from England by one of eleven women who sailed with White to find a new home.
26 EPILOGUE
As in a country strange without companion,
I only wail the wrong of death’s delays,
Whose sweet spring spent, whose summer well nie done
Of all which past, the sorrow only stays.
Sir Walter Raleigh1
Farewell
With a sense of utter desolation, White’s colonists stand alone on the shore on an August afternoon and watch White’s boat slowly recede from view. Leaving them forever. Birds pass quietly overhead, adrift on the breeze, as a cold horror descends on those who wait — cut off, as they are, without the means of rescue. Eleanor stands in the surf, her legs heavy as lead, water rushing around her dress as the shadows lengthen across the quiet fringe of trees. They are, each of them — every man, woman, and child — consumed by dread. John White’s chances of success are slim.
Far away, thousands upon thousands of miles away, beyond the horizon, lies a country never to be seen again. Lies London, with its bustling trades and market fairs and multitudes who have long forgotten about Roanoke Island and the colonists huddled on its shore. Who never knew they even existed. Far away lies a world as in a dream.
Power lurks in the corridors of Whitehall amid weighty affairs of state. Power hides in secret machinations and decrees, in jealousies and deceit. There is power in ambition, power in a churning European caldron of alliances and gain. It is this power that destroys the hopes and dreams of Raleigh; of 116 men, women, and children; of John White; and of the Secotan. Someone orders a sabotage and the innocent are ground down in the maw of power and corruption. On Roanoke, a cry fades into despair.
The colonists raise a rough palisade for protection, while the houses on Roanoke Island are disassembled. Lumber is stacked aboard the pinnace, along with bricks and tiles and furnishings. Even the nails are taken away. A trench is dug in the soft sand, and White’s trunk — his maps and drawings — are carefully laid inside and covered over. On the palisade post someone carves the word “Croatoan,” a message for John White, should he ever return. With fearful eyes, they pass George Howe’s grave and step into the boat that will carry them inland — away from the threat of Spain on this unprotected coast, away from Roanoke, where so much wrong was done. Lane’s rage here has doomed them all. The Secotan, too, are reeling from horror. And yet they are very like the colonists: the innocent, struck down without discretion, victims of an overarching power in which human life is insignificant.
The pinnace disappears into the interior and someone on the island — Eleanor, perhaps — urgently carves another message for her father. “CRO,” in the bark of a tree. He must, he will see it! The colony separates and a much smaller party finds its way to Croatoan. Neither group imagines that they will never see each other again.
In a lonely house in Kilmore, before a flickering fire, John White dips a quill into ink and pens a letter to Richard Hakluyt. February 1593: To the Worshipful and my very friend Master Richard Hakluyt, much happiness in the Lord.2 But what can the letter say? Six years have passed since he last saw his colony; he can but detail the sad events of his fruitless search for them, and that is all. What can he write of pain? He does not even attempt it.
John White posts his letter. It is finished. He can never tell Eleanor that he had tried to come back, that he had struggled so hard to reach her. The forces against him were simply too great. White stands alone on the cliffs overlooking the sea and imagines Roanoke. He is never heard from again.
Deep in the woods, far in the interior of a country called Mandoag, where the tall trees close in the darkness, melted copper runs in rivulets. Ralph Lane should be here, Ralph Lane who wreaked misery in this land in his quest to find it. Cut off from any communication, dispersed one from the other, four men, two boys, and a young girl work the copper. Men have come looking for them. Englishmen, stumbling through the interior, from faraway Jamestown. Steam rising up from the fires of the melting copper reflects a sudden spark of hope in eyes dulled from drudgery — if only they can speak to the search party, if only they can cry out, “We are here! We are here!” But the Mandoag won’t allow it. Through stinging tears, a man carves a cross on a tree, and another. And another. A forest etched with crosses.
Power and politics are in Jamestown. No one understands the message. The search for White’s colonists is called off and a story fabricated. All hope is gone.
1701. Surveyor John Lawson travels to Croatoan and is greeted there by the Hatteras Indians, who either then lived on Roanoke Island, or much frequented it. Observing him jotting down notations, they tell him that several of their ancestors were white people, and could talk in a book as we do. Astonished, Lawson scrutinizes them and is stunned: the truth of which is confirmed by grey eyes being found frequently amongst these Indians, and no others. They value themselves extremely for their affinity to the English, and are ready to do them all friendly offices? Lawson believes they are descendants of White’s Lost Colonists.
The Croatoan people, he says, relate a pleasant story that passes for an uncontested truth among them all. On certain clear days, the ship which brought the first colonies does often appear amongst them under sail, in a gallant posture, which they call Sir Walter Raleigh’s ship? Ghost ships. The rescue parties sent out by Raleigh have become the stuff of legend.
Thus may you plainly perceive the success of my fifth & last voyage to Virginia, which was no less unfortunately ended than forwardly begun, and as luckless to many, as sinister to myself. But I would to God it had been as prosperous to all, as noisome to the planters, & as joy full to me, as discomfortable to them. Yet, seeing it is not my first crossed voyage, I remain contented. And wanting my wishes, I leave off from prosecuting that whereunto I would to God my wealth were answerable to my will. Thus committing the relief of my discomfortable company the planters in Virginia to the merciful help of the Almighty, whom I most humbly beseech to help & comfort them, according to his most holy will and their good desire.
Your Most Well Wishing Friend,
John White5
APPENDIX A: WINGINA AND THE SECOTAN
William Gerard (Hodge, Handbook, n, pp. 392-3) was the first to advance the theory of a separate Roanoke tribe centered on Roanoke Island with Wingina at its head, as distinct from the Secotan. Few of his contemporaries agreed. James Mooney, the preeminent southeastern ethnologist, dismissed Gerard’s claim (ibid., pp. 494-5), identifying the Secotan as a nation embracing present-day Albemarle Peninsula (Washington, Tyrrell, Dare, Hyde, and Beaufort Counties) and adjacent islands, an area synonymous with Barlowe’s “Wingandacoa.” Frank Speck (“Ethnic Position,” p. 188) and Maurice Mook {Algonkian Ethno-history, p
p. 213-17, and map, p. 183), both distinguished southeastern scholars, concurred that the Secotan territory encompassed Roanoke Island. Both identified Wingina as the Secotan leader. Swanton (Indian Tribes, p. 81) focused on the nation’s later identity as Machapunga, and placed it in the same location as Mooney’s Secotan, that is, in Hyde, Washington, Tyrrell, Dare, and Beaufort Counties.
In recent years, Quinn (Roanoke Voyages, 1, pp. 99, n. 2, 100, n. 1; 11, p. 862) has followed Gerard in rejecting Wingina as the leader of the Secotan and in postulating the existence of a separate “Roanoke Tribe” encompassing the villages of Roanoke Island and Dasamonquepeuc (on the mainland in Dare County). Although he asserts that “the bulk of the evidence” supports this claim, he offers none, other than “Lane’s experience,” and concludes that “the extent of Wingina’s dominion must therefore be ascribed to Indian boasting.” Even more remarkable is his contention (Set Fair, p. 44) that the Secotan were actually hostile to Wingina and that it was they who had shot him before Barlowe’s 1584 arrival (see below). It is clear, however, that the primary accounts support the conclusion of Mooney, Speck, and Mook that Wingina was the head of the Secotan nation and that the existence of a separate “Roanoke Tribe” is not warranted by the available evidence.
Arthur Barlowe was the first to document the people of the Outer Banks in 1584 (Hakluyt, Principall Navigations, 1589, pp. 728-33). The King’s name, he said, was Wingina and the country called Wingandacoa. Wingina had been wounded in a fight “with the King of the next country” and was recovering “at the chief town of the country,” which was “six day’s journey off,” or roughly sixty miles from Barlowe’s landing at Woco-con. Later, he tells us that Secotan (Secota) was the westernmost town of Wingandacoa and that a country called Ponouike (Pomouik) adjoined it to the west, whose King maintained “mortal war with Wingina, King of Wingandacoa.” We might conclude, therefore, that Wingina was wounded by the Pomouik and was recovering at his own capital of Secota. Barlowe next tells us that the three kings of Wingandacoa, Chowanoc, and Weape-meoc were “in league” together. The King’s brother was called Granganimeo. He resided in a village of nine cedar houses on Roanoke Island and, given Barlowe’s account of the commands his wife issued there, it is logical to assume that Granganimeo was a Roanoke weroance, or leader.
Barlowe composed a narrative of his expedition for publication. While describing the political geography, he wrote, “adjoining unto this town aforesaid called Sequotan….” Significantly, this wording was amended in the next addition of the work (1600, m, p. 250) to read, “adjoining unto this country aforesaid called Sequotan….” His statement that the King of Wingandacoa was Wingina, however, was not changed. This is significant, for Barlowe lived with Wanchese and Manteo in Raleigh’s house, and presumably they had every opportunity to correct him had he been wrong, just as the second edition of his narrative was corrected.
When we turn to the second Roanoke expedition, additional information is provided. On John White’s map the entire area now known as the Albemarle Peninsula (Washington, Tyrrell, Hyde, Dare, and part of Beaufort County) is labeled “Secotan,” implying that White and Hariot understood Wingina’s country to encompass the area including, at the very least, the towns of Secota, Aquascogoc, Pomeioc, Dasamonquepeuc, and Roanoke. This was the conclusion reached by Mooney, Speck, Mook, and Swanton.
Hariot (A Briefe and True Report) wrote, “in some places of the country, one only town belonged to the government of a Wiroans or chief Lord; in other some two or three, in some six, eight, & more; the greatest Wiroans that yet we had dealing with had but eighteen towns in his government, and able to make not above seven or eight hundred fighting men at the most.”* According to Lane (Hakluyt, Principal! Navigations, 1589, pp. 737-47), the Weapemeoc possessed six towns. Chowanoc, he said, “was the greatest ‘province’ on the river. Its capital could muster 700 fighting men.” From this, we might infer that Chowanoc was the nation Hariot mentioned as having eighteen towns. Secotan territory, then, was not as large as this, but it is not difficult to believe that six or eight towns might have been theirs. Quinn’s argument for a separate Roanoke tribe on the sole basis of “Indian boasting” is therefore unreasonable. Once Quinn based his argument upon this foundation, however, he had no choice but to assume that since Wingina (as leader of the Roanoke tribe) was at war with the adjoining king, he must have been at war with the Secotan. This, however, must suppose that the primary source material is faulty: Barlowe would have to be wrong, as would White’s map. We would have to assume that Hariot, who annotated White’s map and drawings for De Bry, would not have caught the error, nor would subsequent editions of Hakluyt’s Principall Navigations, and that the Secotan disappeared from view by the time trouble erupted with Lane — for Lane doesn’t mention them in his list of Wingina’s allies — only to reappear a year later in close alliance with the “Roanoke” town of Dasamonquepeuc avenging Wingina’s death.
Barlowe had said that Wingina was recuperating at the “chief town” six days’ travel from Wococon. Combining this with Hariot’s information that the tombs of “their kings and princes” were located at Secota, we might postulate that Secota was the “chief town” of Wingina’s country. Nevertheless, six days after Grenville’s arrival at Wococon, he sent words of greeting to Wingina at Roanoke. This has been taken to mean that Wingina’s capital was on Roanoke Island after all, and “proof” that the Secotan were another nation entirely. However, ample evidence to the contrary is furnished by the related Powhatan to the north.
By the time the Jamestown chroniclers met the Powhatan, they were an “empire” of more than thirty independent nations (consisting of one, or more than one, town each) ruled over by a paramount chief named Wahunsonacock. According to Smith (Map of Virginia, p. 173) his authority extended “over many kings and governors.” Many of these were high-ranking kinsmen placed in positions of authority at key towns in the territory. For example, Opechancanough, Opitchapam, and Kekataugh — Wahunsonacock’s brothers — were introduced as “kings” of the Pamunkey, the most powerful member nation in the empire. Parahunt, Tatahcoope, and Pochins — his sons — held leadership positions over Powhatan, Quiyoughquohanock, and Kecoughtan, respectively. Furthermore, leaders of nations within the Powhatan confederacy in turn appointed relatives over smaller towns, as Strachey noted in 1612. Opussoquionuske was “Queen” of a small Appamatuck village, while her brother Coquonasum ruled over the Appamatuck proper. The “great king” of the Patawomeck placed his brother lopassous over the allied town of Pastanze (Historie, ch. 2 and 4).
Evidence that Granganimeo’s brother was weroance of Roanoke is consistent with this pattern. We know nothing of Wingina’s other arrangements, except that his sister’s husband, Eracano, was sent with Lane to the Chowanoc. Osocan was another individual mentioned as a weroance close to Wingina, but the nature of the relationship was not recorded. Although we have no proof, it is likely that the leaders of the intermediate towns of Pomeioc and Aquascogoc may have been related as well. It is interesting, in this connection, that Wahunsonacock initially sent his brother Opechancanough, as proxy, to deal with the English at Jamestown, just as Wingina sent his brother Granganimeo to treat with the first Roanoke expedition of 1584.
However, if Wingina were the head of the Secotan nation, living in 1584 at his “chief seat” of Secota, why was he at Roanoke six days after Grenville’s arrival on the Outer Banks? Again, the Powhatan supply the answer. In 1607 John Smith was received by the Powhatan leader Wahunsonacock at his capital at Werowocomoco on the York River. Two years later, he moved his capital to Orapax on the Chickahominy River (Map of Virginia, pp. 34-5). In 1614 the capital was shifted again to Matchot on the Pamunkey River (General Historie, p. 115). Some of the movement was due, as Smith thought, to the English presence and Wahunsonacock’s desire to be closer to them, or farther away, as occasion demanded. However, Wahunsonacock was traditionally in the habit of traveling from town to town throughout his territory (much as Elizabeth I
embarked on summer progresses). According to Smith (ibid., p. 34), statehouses were maintained for Wahunsonacock’s use in six of the principal towns, and Strachey (Historie, ch. 3) said that he moved “from house to house” during his “visitation of his several houses.”
When we return to Roanoke, we see that a month after Grenville’s arrival, Lane met Granganimeo — presumably the weroance of Roanoke — to work out the conditions incumbent upon his troops’ residence on the island. It is clear that Wingina himself moved to Roanoke Island to buffer the English presence for reasons both positive (trade) and negative (for example, the burning of Aquascogoc). In effect, he wanted to keep an eye on them. Hariot’s remark that Wingina accompanied the survey team to villages around the country might have been expected from the leader of those villages who, like Wahunsonacock, probably had dwellings in each one. Later, when relations deteriorated and Pemisapan (Wingina) conscripted his allies to eradicate the English, whom did he summon? The Chowanoc and Weapemeoc (the very allies Barlowe mentioned), along with hired Mandoag and Chesepioc mercenaries. Where were the Secotan? If enemies, they might have helped the English. If allies, and separate from the “Roanoke Tribe” as Quinn proposes, then why were they absent when Wingina needed help? The answer is they weren’t absent. They were there, precisely because Wingina himself was their leader.
Evidence for this comes from the third Roanoke expedition of 1587, when White was told that Grenville’s fort had been “set upon by 30 of the men of Secota, Aquascogoc and Dasamongueponke.” These towns were certainly in alliance. Later, White waited for peace overtures to be accepted by the “Wiroances of Pomeiok, Aquascoquos, Secota and Dasamonguepeuke,” the village on Roanoke having, by that time, been abandoned.