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[Illustration: U. S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, March 3, 1849]
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Stewart L. Udall, _Secretary_
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Conrad L. Wirth, _Director_
_HISTORICAL HANDBOOK NUMBER SIXTEEN_
This publication is one of a series of handbooks describing the
historical and archeological areas in the National Park System
administered by the National Park Service of the United States
Department of the Interior. It is printed by the Government Printing
Office and may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents,
Washington 25, D. C. Price 35 cents.
_Fort Raleigh_
NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
North Carolina
_by Charles W. Porter, III_
[Illustration: RALEIGH]
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HISTORICAL HANDBOOK SERIES NO. 16
Washington, D. C., 1952
(Revised 1965)
_The National Park System, of which Fort Raleigh National Historic Site
is a unit, is dedicated to conserving the scenic, scientific, and
historic heritage of the United States for the benefit and inspiration
of its people._
[Illustration: NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR]
_Contents_
_Page_
GILBERT AND RALEIGH 3
EXPLORATION OF ROANOKE ISLAND, 1584 4
RALEIGH'S FIRST COLONY, 1585-86 6
The Voyage 7
The Establishment of the Colony 10
Life in the Colony 14
Abandonment of the Colony 15
Grenville's Fifteen Men 18
THE LOST COLONY OF 1587 18
The Second Colony Established at Roanoke 21
Governor White's Return to England 22
Attempts To Find the Lost Colony 25
CONNECTING LINKS WITH JAMESTOWN AND NEW ENGLAND 27
LATER HISTORICAL INFORMATION ON FORT RALEIGH 28
RECENT HISTORY OF FORT RALEIGH 30
GUIDE TO THE AREA 30
THE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE 38
HOW TO REACH THE SITE 38
ADMINISTRATION 38
RELATED AREAS 38
ABOUT YOUR VISIT 39
SUGGESTED READINGS 40
[Illustration: _Sir Walter Raleigh. This portrait was engraved
shortly before his last voyage and is the only one published during
his lifetime._]
_The true and lively portraiture
of the honourable and learned Knight
S^r. Walter Raleigh._
[Illustration: Sailing ship]
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site directly connects the American
people with the Court of Queen Elizabeth and the golden age of English
art, literature, and adventure. The figures who play the chief roles in
the story of the exploration and attempted settlement of the island are
the epic figures of English history: Queen Elizabeth, after whom the new
land was named "Virginia," is easily the premier sovereign of England;
Sir Walter Raleigh, poet, soldier, and statesman, and the inspiration
and financial mainstay of the Roanoke Island project, is the best
remembered of gallant English courtiers; Sir Richard Grenville, of the
_Revenge_, who brought the first colony to America in 1585 and left
another small group there in 1586, is the Elizabethan hero who in 1592
taught English sailors how to dare and die in the face of overwhelming
odds; Sir Frances Drake, who rescued the first colony from starvation,
is famous as the first English circumnavigator of the globe and as the
preeminent seadog and explorer of English history.
As Plymouth and other early New England sites connect the United States
with the great European movement known as the Reformation, so the scene
of Raleigh's settlements connects the American people with the powerful
activating force known as the Renaissance. When energized by the
Renaissance movement, the human spirit knew no earthly bounds nor
recognized any limits to intellectual or physical endeavor. Thus,
Raleigh, who was born a gentleman of only moderate estate, willed to be
the favorite of a Queen, aspired to found an empire across the seas in
the teeth of Imperial Spain and undertook in prison to write the history
of the world! For the glory and enrichment of England, Sir Francis Drake
pillaged the cities and mighty galleons of Spain and dared to sail
around the globe. Sir Richard Grenville, shortly after his memorable
voyages to Roanoke Island, gave the British Navy an immortal tradition
by duelling for a day and a night with one small ship against a Spanish
fleet of 53.
[Illustration: _Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen after whom the
whole territory in America covered by Raleigh's patent was named
"Virginia."_ From an engraving of 1596 which refers to Elizabeth as
"Queen of England, France, Ireland and Virginia."]
Truly heroic was the Roanoke Island colonial venture. Here, despite the
hostility of Spain and Spanish Florida, the greatest naval and colonial
power of that day, the agents of Sir Walter Raleigh and the subjects of
Queen Elizabeth suffered, or died, in the first serious effort to begin
the conquest of the larger part of the North American continent by the
slow process of agriculture, industry, trade, and natural increase. The
hardships of the first colony under Governor Lane, 1585-86, and the
disappearance of the "Lost Colony" of 1587 taught the English the
practical difficulties that would be attendant upon the conquest of the
continent and enabled them to grow in colonial wisdom. Thus, the birth
of Virginia Dare, in the "Citie of Raleigh in Virginia," August 18,
1587, first child of English parentage to be born in the New World, was
a prophetic symbol of the future rise of a new English-speaking nation
beyond the seas.
Jamestown, Va., commemorates the successful settlement of English
America growing out of the dreams of Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, his elder half-brother. Fort Raleigh, because of the tragic
mystery of the "Lost Colony," memorializes better than any other site
the cost of early English colonial effort. To a certain degree it also
commemorates a forgotten part of the price that England paid for English
liberty. The colonists at Fort Raleigh were, in a sense, sacrificed that
England might employ all her fighting strength against the juggernaut of
Spain in the battle against the Armada. To relieve the Roanoke colony in
1588, in the place of Grenville's warships, only two small pinnaces
could be spared, and these did not reach Roanoke. For the glorious
victory over the Armada and for the gradual emergence of British sea
power after 1588, England gave her infant colony in America.
_Gilbert and Raleigh_
The statesmen, merchants, and ship captains of Elizabethan England
shared the adventurous and speculative spirit of the Spaniards and
Portuguese who had established empires in the West after 1492. Religious
zeal and both personal and national interests impelled Englishmen to
compete with Spain and Portugal for a share in the exploration and
development of the New World. Englishmen wondered if they could not find
a northwest passage through the American continent which would divert
the wealth of the Indies to England, or if they could not translate the
mineral and agricultural wealth of North America into English fortunes
as Spaniards had grown rich from the gold of Mexico and Peru.
On June 11, 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained from Queen Elizabeth a
charter to discover and colonize "remote heathen and barbarous lands"
not actually possessed by any Christian prince. In 1583, he ventured
almost his entire fortune, as well as that of his wife, Anne Aucher, in
an attempt to explore the northern part of North America and found a
colony in the New World. The Queen herself displayed interest in the
enterprise by giving Raleigh a good-luck token to send to Gilbert just
before the expedition sailed. Gilbert landed at St. John's,
Newfoundland, which he claimed for England, but on coasting southward he
met with repeated misfortunes, turned away, and was himself drowned on
the return voyage to England. He had insisted on sailing in one of his
smaller ships. "I will not forsake my little company going homeward,
with whom I have passed so many stormes and perils." Among his last
recorded words was the famous cry to his men in the larger boat, "We are
as neere to heaven by sea as by land." His last will and testament,
dated July 8, 1582, makes clear that his ultimate purpose had been to
found an English empire beyond the seas to be colonized by English
people.
[Illustration: _Sir Francis Walsingham._ Courtesy National Portrait
Gallery, London.]
[Illustration: _Sir Humphrey Gilbert._]
Gilbert's heroic death must have deeply moved his half-brother, Sir
Walter Raleigh. The latter had voyaged with Sir Humphrey Gilbert in an
expedition of 1578 and had fitted out a ship intended to participate in
the great voyage of 1583 to Newfoundland. In 1584, when the Gilbert
patent was to expire, Raleigh stood high in the favor of the Queen and
received from her a charter which confirmed to him the powers formerly
enjoyed by Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
_Exploration of Roanoke Island, 1584_
On April 27, 1584, Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe left the
west of England in two barks "well furnished with men and victuals," to
explore the North American coast for Sir Walter Raleigh. Among the
company of explorers was the enigmatical Simon Ferdinando, formerly the
master of the ship _Falcon_ under the captaincy of Raleigh, but also
known as the "man" of the Queen's Secretary of State, Sir Francis
Walsingham. Ferdinando had sailed to the coast of America and back in 3
months' time in 1579. His knowledge of navigation was to make him a key
figure in many of the Roanoke Island enterprises.
The party of explorers landed on July 13, 1584, on the North Carolina
coast, about 7 leagues above Roanoke Island, and took possession of the
country for Queen Elizabeth "as rightfull Queene" with the further
proviso that the land was to be for the use of Sir Walter Raleigh,
according to the Queen's charter. Despite the passing of more than 350
years, Barlowe's description of the country is still basically true, if
pardonably exuberant. They found it "very sandie and low toward the
waters side, but so full of grapes [scuppernongs] as the very beating
and surge of the Sea overflowed them, of which we found such plentie, as
well there as in all places else, both on the sand and on the greene
soil on the hils, as in the plaines, as well on every little shrubbe, as
also climing towards the tops of high Cedars, that I thinke in all the
world the like abundance is not to be found."
[Illustration: _The shore line of Roanoke Island as it looks
today._]
From their landing place they proceeded along the seashore toward the
"toppes of those hilles next adjoining" (perhaps the big Nags Head Dunes
or hills in the Nags Head woods), from the summit of which they beheld
the sea on both sides and came to realize that they were on a barrier
island. After admiring the scene, they discharged an arquebus shot,
whereupon "a flocke of Cranes (the most part white) arose ... with such
a cry redoubled by many ecchoes, as if an armie of men had showted all
together." On the fourth day they were visited by Granganimeo, brother
of Wingina, chief of the Roanoke Island Indians. After a short period of
trading, Barlowe and seven others went by boat to Roanoke Island at the
north end of which they found a palisaded Indian village. Here they were
entertained with primitive but hospitable Indian ceremony. The Indians
appeared "gentle, loving, and faithfull." The explorers described
Roanoke Island as "a most pleasant and fertile ground, replenished with
goodly Cedars, and divers other sweete woods, full of Corrants [grapes],
flaxe, and many other notable commodities." Game and fish were to be had
in abundance.
The picture that Amadas and Barlowe took back to Sir Walter Raleigh was
a rosy one, for they had seen Roanoke Island in midsummer. The Indians
were generous, because at this season of the year they had plenty of
everything in contrast to the scarcity of their winter fare; and the
white man was new to them, though they had heard of others wrecked on
the coast years before. Two Indians, Wanchese and Manteo, were brought
back to England by Amadas and Barlowe that Raleigh might learn, first
hand, the character of the coastal Indians. Queen Elizabeth appears to
have been pleased by the western exploit, for she called the new
possession Virginia, perhaps at the suggestion of Raleigh, chief lord of
the new territory, whose poetic gift and courtly tact would prompt him
thus to memorialize the virgin queen.
[Illustration: _The_ Ark Royal _or_ Ark Raleigh. _Somewhat smaller
ships of this general appearance brought the colonists to Roanoke
Island._]
_Raleigh's First Colony, 1585-86_
The next Spring, Raleigh sent a colony of 108 persons to Roanoke Island.
The expedition, commanded by Raleigh's cousin, Sir Richard Grenville,
sailed from Plymouth, England, on April 9, 1585, in seven ships, the
largest of which was of 140 tons' burthen. Included in the group of ship
captains and colonists were Philip Amadas and Simon Ferdinando of the
expedition of the previous year; Thomas Cavendish, then on his first
great voyage but destined to be the third circumnavigator of the globe;
Grenville's half-brother, John Arundell, and brother-in-law, John
Stukeley; and other Raleigh cousins and connections, among them Richard
Gilbert, a Courtenay, a Prideaux, Ralph Lane, and Anthony Rowse, a
friend of Drake's. There were an artist, or illustrator, John White; a
scientist, named Thomas Hariot; and, among the humbler folk, an
Irishman, Darby Glande or Glaven. The two Indians, Wanchese and Manteo,
returned to America on this voyage.
[Illustration: _A pinnace used in the funeral of Sir Philip Sidney,
1587. Small boats such as this were used to transport men and
supplies from the harbor at Hatoraske through the inland waters to
Roanoke Island._]
THE VOYAGE.
The route chosen lay via the Canaries and the Spanish West Indies. They
anchored at "Moskito Bay" in the Island of "St. Johns" (Puerto Rico),
May 12, where they constructed a fort, set up a forge to make nails, and
built a pinnace to replace one lost in a storm. They left Puerto Rico
toward the end of May after burning the fort and surrounding woods and
after seizing two Spanish frigates. Just before departing, Ralph Lane
raided "Roxo bay" in one of the captured frigates, built a fort, and
seized a supply of salt.
[Illustration: _John White's water-color drawing of the fort which
Ralph Lane built in Puerto Rico in May 1585 while the first group of
colonists were en route to Roanoke Island._]
These bellicose activities of the English in Puerto Rico illustrate the
fact that England and Spain were virtually at war at that time. Indeed,
the war was to become an actuality within 3 years. In the meantime, the
English were engaged in what would be called today a "cold
war"--pin-pricking the Spaniard in the West Indies and about to settle
on the American mainland at a spot sufficiently close to Spanish Florida
to constitute both an economic and a military threat to Spain. Growth of
the English colony would circumscribe Spain's own colonial effort; at
the same time, the location chosen for the English colony was close
enough to serve as a base of operations against Spanish new world
shipping. That both possibilities were uppermost in the minds of Raleigh
and Grenville and their supporters at court is obvious. One of the
weaknesses of their colonial program was their persistent thought the
privateering operations against Spanish shipping should, or could, be
made to pay the cost of English colonial effort.
[Illustration: _"The Arrival of the Englishmen in Virginia,"
engraved by Theodore de Bry from one of John White's drawings. The
view is toward the west, and Dasamonquepeuc is shown on the mainland
west of the north end of Roanoke Island._]
The first part of June found the English banqueting the uneasy Spanish
Governor at Isabella on the Island of Hispaniola (Haiti). To impress the
Governor, Grenville treated him to a sumptuous meal served "all in
plate" to the "sound of trumpets and consort of musicke." The Governor
entertained in turn and, subsequently, the English traded with the
Spaniards for commodities that would be needed in their colonial
settlement: "horses, mares, kine, buls, goates, swine, sheepe,
bull-hides, sugar, ginger," etc. From the Spanish accounts of
Grenville's actions in Puerto Rico and Haiti are gained some interesting
personal glimpses. The officers and persons of distinction in the
expedition were served upon silver plate which was chased and gilt.
Wanchese and Manteo had learned to speak English, and the illustrator,
John White, was already engaged in drawing pictures of strange plants
and objects.
[Illustration: _Sir Philip Sidney, from a portrait painted about
1577._ Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, London.]
[Illustration: _Sir Richard Grenville in 1571._ Courtesy National
Portrait Gallery, London.]