Roanoke Colony

May 8th, 1587, a colony led by John White landed on Roanoke Island from England. They arrived sometime in July 1587. There were some small attacks from Native Americans in the first month. Colonists desperately wanted John White to go back to England and retrieve more supplies from them such as food, weapons and more people. So, on August 25th, 1587, White sailed back to England to retrieve more supplies for them, leaving behind 115 colonists (87 men, 17 women and 11 children, including his daughter). Unfortunately, White's timing was poor. England was on the verge of going to war with Spain which had a particularly strong armada, so he was unable to return for sometime. It wasn't until August 1590, when White would make his way back to the island. To his shock, he found that the entire colony had vanished with a trace. The only clue he found was the word Croatoan carved into a fence post and Crow carved into a tree.

White sailed to a nearby island called Croatoan Island but failed twice due to the storms. But since the boat he was using was privately owned, he couldn't go looking for a 3rd time. He then moved to Ireland, Europe where he died in 1593 without knowing what happened to the colonists. To this day, no one knows what happened to the lost tribe of Roanoke. Adding to that, no signs of bodies or graves were ever found. With that, lets jump into the theories.

#1 They got murdered by a local Native American tribe. In fact, the natives did make a previous attempt on colonizing the island but were unable to due to the shortage of food and other reasons. The 1st governor of Roanoke, Ralph Lane, was not known for his diplomacy with the native Americans. In fact, he would go on to kill their king in order to prevent the natives from rising against the colonists. But no mass graves were ever found that might suggest that over a hundred people had been murdered as revenge.

#2 They joined a friendly native American tribe. A man named Manteo travelled with John White a lot. John declared Manteo the chief of Croatoan and Roanoke island after getting to know him. He would have said "My friend, Manteo, I declare you the chief of the Roanoke and Croatoan. I'm a white man, I can do whatever I want!" But Manteo was only from Croatoan, meaning he could not lead both Croatoan and Roanoke island. Manteo returned to Croatoan. This theory says that he went back to Roanoke island and took the people there with him to Croatoan. When searching the grounds where the Croatoan lived, people found some tools which were said to be used by only the Roanoke colony. This could explain why there was Croatoan written on a fence post, hinting to the colony's whereabouts.

#3 The moved to England. John White was from England too. White created a detailed map called "La Vrginea Pars" that shows both Roanoke and Croatoan island which are colored red. It's cartography is said to be "very detailed and extremely accurate". At one look, this maps seems normal and boring but upon closer inspection, this map seems to hide some secrets. Using some imaging techniques such as x-ray spectroscopy and infrared light, it was found, by the British Museum, that a small patch was covering a 4 pointed star. It's said that this represents a fort or fortification.

#4 They got abducted by "Aliens". You might or might not be disappointed. Let me add by saying, what if the 4 pointed star on the map wasn't pointing to a fort/fortification but rather, a space craft signifying a landing spot. After all, aliens is not a really crazy theory. But 1 question is how John White ever found out about this.

The End!

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