Have You Heard of New Clues about America's First English Colony?

Question

The mystery of what happened on Roanoke Island's first American colony of English settlers has baffled historians for 400 years--but new evidence now provides some tantalizing clues, as this recent article in National Geographic indicates:

It Was America's First English Colony.  Then It Was Gone.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/06/lost-colony-roanoke-history-theories-croatoan/

 

Comments

It appears that you need a membership to read the  article.

Answer 1

Thanks for sharing this, Cynthia. Being from NC, I was schooled on this beginning in third grade, but it is always great to find out what new evidence or theories folks are working out. I think that the Lumbee tribe has some theories about how they are connected to this bit of history.

Much appreciated!

Answer 2

My brother related that in Eastern Shores Native tribes they pass down stories of bearded men who prayed before eating.

Comments

Wow, that sounds like an important clue and relevant bit of information--thanks for sharing!

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I've heard tales of light skinned blue eyed indians from that region. I just figured the idea was obvious. I didn't know Croatoan was the name of a tribe though. They keep making it sound like they have no idea what the word means.

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Light skinned Indians could also have come from Viking intermarriages.

But it wasn't America's first Colony. It was Britian's First Colony here.

Spain was already in Florida... On September 8, 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed on the shore of what is now called Matanzas Bay and began the founding of the Presidio of San Agustin. Later the settlement would be called St. Augustine, Florida.

The Brits were a bit late to the party.

And according to the map in the link, there was a Spanish settlement just a few miles north along the coast from Roanoke.

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Thanks for pointing that out Lynette! We tend to model our origin story on the British colonization but Spain had been here quite some time.

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Some have pointed out that some east coast ancient stone structures were built by even earlier settlers, suggesting that Celtic (Irish / Scottish) Culdee Monks build beehive stone chambers in New England that are still standing today--with 275 of them in the eastern USA:

Olsen, Brad.  "Sacred Places, North America: 108 Destinations."  CCC Publishing, 2008.  p. 321

https://books.google.com/books?id=l4hTCuby90IC&pg=PA321&dq=stone+chambers+maine&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjb74r2457TAhXILyYKHRE9AXwQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=stone%20chambers%20maine&f=false

Answer 3

Thanks for sharing. Fascinating article.

Answer 4

I can't open that link. Can you cut and paste it so I can read it?

Comments

I’m not able to get past this pay wall, either

Possibly someone else will see this problem and be able to share the information with all of us. It’s been several years since I first posted that, and I guess it was more readily available back in 2018.

Thanks for following up on this!