The Lost Colony

                                    

                                        After Christopher Columbus came back to England in 1492, the race to claim land in this “New World” was on. Sir Walter Raleigh was one of these dreamers and when he heard about this discovery, he raced out the front door and rode to the castle to plead Queen Elizabeth for a charter. In 1587, Raleigh sent 150 colonists to present day North Carolina in the “New World” where they would colonize. Bad luck struck them as they were coming though, the ship that held their food supply collided with a sandbar and the supply was ruined. However, the colonists believed that Roanoke Island would provide them with the natural resources that would satisfy their stomachs. John White, a friend of Raleigh and the new appointed governor, soon realized that they were in desperate need of supplies. Another mistake. Reluctantly, White went back to England, he didn’t want to leave his newborn grand daughter, Virginia Dare, the first child to be born in the New World.. White’s voyages were canceled due to violent nature and the war between Spain and England but finally on August 18, 1950, he successfully landed on Roanoke Island. But  something was terribly wrong. All the colonists were gone! All that was left was carvings on a tree that said “CRO” and a couple of trees after it, “CROATOAN”.

                       To this very day, the disappearance of this colony is still a mystery that is why it is called “The Lost Colony”. Scientists have been pulling their hair out to figure out this mystery but no luck yet. They did come up with numerous hypotheses that could explain the colonists’ disappearance. Here are three that that we think are the most logical. The first hypothesis is that they were killed by neighboring Indians. The Indians were told to be friendly but one of Roanoke colonists killed a tribe’s chief years before, so that could be the reason. The second hypothesis is that the colonists attempted to sail back to England on a small boat left to them by White in case of an emergency and needed to evacuate. The results of the trip might have been being ended up lost at sea then died of starvation, or it’s possible that the colonists landed on a deserted island and started a colony there. Finally, the last hypothesis is that the colonists moved in with the Indians and started a new generation. As you can see, there are numerous possibilities and no confirmed answer yet.

Scientists aren’t the only ones with hypothesis, Sueanne and I have a hypothesis of our own.  My (Angela) hypothesis is that the colonists went to Crotoan Island. Before John White left to go to England, he told the colonists that if they were ever in danger, they should carve a message on a tree so John could have a clue of what has happened when he returned. That would actually make sense because due to dangerous weather out at sea, White never had the chance to search the island for the colonists. My (Sueanne) hypothesis is that the neighboring Indian tribes had taken them in. In a search conducted to find the missing colonists several years after they were gone, John Lawson had met descendants of the Indian tribes that were the then neighbors of the Roanoke colonists, now known as the Hatteras tibe, he noted that these Indians already spoke English fluently and some of their ancestors were white skinned with light eyes. In the 1800s, Hamilton MacMillian proposed the theory of the colonists were absorbed in to the Indian tribes. He lived near Pembroke, the home of the Lumbee Indians, who claimed their ancestors came from the Roanoke colonists. MacMillian said that the Lumbee could speak English and had the initial last names of the original colonists. So what do you think happened? Leave us a comment below!

Bibliography

www.wikipedia.com

 www.images.google.com

Bibliography

http://www.wikipedia.com/

http://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi