Roanoke: The Lost Colony

[JiveTurkey]

While this many not really fit here, I want to get master mojo's opinion on this.


To quote wikipedia (since I'm in a lazy mood)



The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in Dare County in present-day North Carolina was an enterprise financed and organized by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 16th century to establish a permanent English settlement in the Virginia Colony. Between 1585 and 1587, groups of colonists were left to make the attempt, all of which either abandoned the colony or disappeared. The final group disappeared after a period of three years elapsed without supplies from England, leading to the continuing mystery known as "The Lost Colony." The principal hypothesis is that the colonists disappeared and were absorbed by one of the local indigenous populations, although the colonists may possibly have been massacred by the Spanish. Other possibilities include a massacre by some of the hostile local tribes.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony#Hypotheses_regarding_the_disappeara nce_of_Roanoke




What are you opinions in regards to Roanoke?


It's not a subject I'm incredibly familiar with, though, it does fascinate me.


Jasn

[Yo Mama]

At one point, I'd read or seen a documentary on the speculation that it may have been cannibalism, disease, and then attrition by either being killed off or joining local tribes.

Can't remember offhand where I got this information from, though, sorry.

[JiveTurkey]

Yea. I think the most "popular" theory is that they merged with surrounding tribes.


Still, who knows?




Sounds like a case for Robert Stack (yea, that's an Unsolved Mysteries reference)......................too bad he's dead now.

[Yo Mama]

Well, there's always In Search Of ...

Nimoy's not dead yet. :D

[JiveTurkey]

w00t!


Indeed!


BRING BACK "In Search Of..."!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



There's a guy on youtube who has several episodes up, including the old favorite "The Man Who Would Not Die"


Jasn

[mojo]

though it's not one of the area's of my particular interest i do recall reading that there was some dna evidence that pointed towrds the assimilation theory. from memory there is some more work being carried out there currently. let me do some digging (pun intended) and i'll get back to you.

mojo

[JiveTurkey]

Let me get this straight.


Mojo is not only a cool motherfucker, he's also a pun machine?



SWEET!

[mojo]

Let me get this straight.


Mojo is not only a cool motherfucker, he's also a pun machine?



SWEET!

lol, you did say pun didnt you?

my 2 year old is a poo machine!

maybe thats what did the roanoke colony in, severe constipation.

:twisted:

[mojo]

Well ive found some different theory's as you would expect relating to the lost colony.
Here are the ones that i believe probably have the most merit, though i wouldnt
totally discount the other more 'out there" theory's.

www.archaeology.org (http://www.archaeology.org/9809/newsbriefs/colonial.html)


Tree-ring data suggest that a prolonged drought during the early colonial period in Virginia may have caused the collapse of the so-called Lost Colony of Roanoke and the near failure of the Jamestown settlement. Studying the rings of bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum), a team of scientists led by David W. Stahle of the University of Arkansas has analyzed the severity of droughts in Virginia and North Carolina for the past 800 years. Stahle describes the trees as "natural archives of environmental variability," which show that the periods during which the infant colonies at Roanoke and Jamestown suffered most gravely coincided with the driest spells that part of the continent had experienced in nearly a millennium.



Perhaps due to a lack of resources caused by the drought the colonists moved to Croatoan island to live with the natives there.

Croatoan island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatoan_Island)


It is speculated that the Roanoke colonists might have fled there. Reasons given for this include the colonists' friendship with Manteo, a native of Croatoan Island, and a carving of the word "C-R-O-A-T-O-A-N" into a post of the fort (and "C-R-O" into a nearby tree), ostensibly to let John White know where they had fled when he returned in 1590. White was unable to search Croatoan Island because a hurricane hit the outer banks of North Carolina and blew his fleet to sea. After the storm abated, the fleet was low on provisions and their ship's anchor had been lost, so they decided to return to England.
Upon returning to England, White was never able to raise sufficient funds or provisions to return to America again. In 1709, English explorer John Lawson visited the Hatteras Indians, descendants of the Croatoan Indian tribe. Lawson had written a book where he described several of their ancestors were white people with light eyes and could "talk in a book as we do". In the 1880s, Hamilton MacMillan of North Carolina suggested another theory; he lived near Pembroke, home of the Lumbee Indians, who claimed their ancestors came from "Roanoke in Virginia". According to MacMillan, the Pembroke Indians could speak Anglo-Saxon English and many of them had the same last names of the initial colonists. MacMillan's findings were published in an 1888 pamphlet.
Many historians now lend credence to yet another theory: After White departed, the colonists split into two factions with one faction moving into Chesapeake Bay to live in the southern side of the bay with the friendly Chesapeake Indians. Threatened by the presence of white men, chief Powhatan (it is unclear whether or not Powhatan was from a neighboring tribe of the Chesapeake) claimed to have killed most of the colonists, offering proof to White in the form of objects the colonists possessed. Some scholars believe the remaining faction was assimilated into the Croatoan tribe of Indians.



National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov/archive/fora/search.htm)

I was unable to find the article on the dna testing that id seen, im sure i read it somewhere though.
I think all things considered that due to the drought at the time and the supply ships not returning for the colonists when they said they would the colonists either picked up and moved to Croaton to live with the natives there or split up with one of the groups staying on Roanoke while the others left.
Those that stayed in all likelihood were killed, the other group assimilated.
My best guess.
i'll keep hunting for some more info though as it is interesting.

[Yo Mama]

Ha! On my grandfather's side, we're Powhatan, which is a separate tribe. I wonder if the chief was named after them, or was a member of the tribe.

That'd be funny if some of my native ancestors had British ancestors.