Well it is and it
isn’t.
John White, the colony’s
governor had returned to England in 1587 for badly needed supplies, returning
to the oddly empty fort on August 18, 1590. England’s war with Spain delayed
his return. Among the missing was his granddaughter, Virginia Dare, the first
(documented) European born in North America.
White reported in his
diary that the word in "fayre Capital letters was graven" on one of
the palisades that had been used to build the colonist's fort on Roanoke Island,
not on a tree.
Earlier in the day's
search, White had seen the three Roman letters " CRO" carved into a
tree on the bluff of the sound shore. In neither place did the colonist
returning from England discover a cross, the secretly agreed upon a sign that the
colony, now known as the Lost Colony, was in distress.
White said he took
comfort in the fact that since no cross had been found that the entire colony,
which number about 120 persons, had come across hard times and relocated to
Croatoan, the principal town of the Croatoan (or Hatteras) Indians near Cape
Hatteras and had left the word Croatoan on the fort as had been agreed before
White left for England.
White knew that the
colonists had discussed leaving that sort of simple message for him when he
left for England in 1587, although they had then considered moving 50 miles
into the mainland rather than about 60 miles south to an isolated barrier
island.
Croatoan, White knew,
was the home of an Indian named Manteo, who made two trips to England in the
1580s and seemingly had embraced the English colonial efforts. Manteo's mother
was probably a tribal monarch of the Croatoans.
Or maybe the colonist
hadn’t left the message at all, something that needs to be considered.
Ethnologists and anthropologists believe that the word "Croatoan" may
have been a combination of two Algonquian words meaning "talk town"
or "council town." It is also likely that the colonist simply moved
their fort to another location on the island, but that location, like the
location of the original fort, is now underwater.
White was forced to return
to England, by rough seas and a lost ship's anchor, before he could mount a
search party. A later investigation by the English government concluded that
the colony had been massacred by Indians, but there is no hard evidence to
confirm that story. Further, when White arrived, there was no sign of battle or
withdrawal under duress, although the site was fortified with valuable weapons.
There were no human remains or graves in the area, suggesting that everyone was
alive when they left.
It’s possible that the
colonist tried to return to Virginia, an arduous trip in 1587, and became lost
and gave up, either being killed by hostile tribes or married into local
tribes. Modern research has still not produced the archaeological evidence to
solve the mystery.
John White later
retired to his home in County Cork in Ireland, never giving up hope that his
daughter and granddaughter were somehow still alive in the New World.
at his mother was still alive and locked up in a lunatic
asylum