Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of England's Lost Colonists

 I had the thought recently that I would like to put some book reviews out into the blogosphere. I enjoy reading, and I enjoy discussing books, and this way I will be able to do both! David would like to get in on the action too, so you may see some of his thoughts too.

I read Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of England’s Lost Colonists because we were studying this event in our homeschool history classes. When we first encountered this topic, four years ago now, I had never heard of the first English colony in North America. It was financed and sent by Sir Walter Raleigh during Elizabeth I’s reign. However, when more English came to check on the colony three years after the colonists were left in what is now North Carolina, the colony had completely disappeared. There were no bodies, no signs of violence, the houses had been dismantled and all that was left were the foundations and the remains of their gardens. In one tree on the edge of the colony the word Croatoan had been carved. (Croatoan was the name of a nearby island.) However, Croataon Island was empty also. Our history book notes that it is a mystery that has still to be solved, and gives a few ideas about what could have happened to the colonists.

I was researching books for the children, and this book came up, by author Lee Miller, published 2000. It is an adult, non-fiction book, but I thought I would take it out anyway – so I could have a bit of background, and also because there are a few pictures and maps that I thought I could show the children.

The day after I took it out of the library, we had 4 extra children to keep an eye on for the afternoon. I took them to the local park, and took Roanoke to give me something productive to do while they played. I sat under a tree and occasionally looked up to make sure all eight were visible and got lost in Elizabethan England. After we had been there an hour and a half, the children asked if we could return home – I was astonished how much time had passed!

Though Roanoke is non-fiction, it is written as a murder mystery (one of my favourite genres). Miller posits the case of the lost colonists as a deliberate act of sabotage and murder, and goes about trying to discover who was responsible. She has used lots of source material in the form of journals, letters and newspapers from Queen Elizabeth’s time, and slowly unravels court intrigue, political posing and international relations (notably with Spain) to point the finger at…. Well, you’ll just have to read it yourself! Miller weaves in the original words from her sources throughout the text as italics which gives the book a sense of really being there. Here is one example:

                “… Raleigh’s flagship, commanded by Howard, thundered thick and furiously. The English vessels sallied forth and charged the enemy with wonderful agility and nimbleness. Raleigh was right. It was a total rout.”

The children, of course, cottoned on to the fact that I was engaged by this book, and kept wanting updates on what was going on! And when we read their history book, they were much more interested in the fate of the colonists, and I was able to give them a lot of background that I had learned.

Miller goes on to hypothesize what actually happened to the colonists in North America, and has some good material to back up her ideas. I hope I won’t spoil the book for you, but she believes they were enslaved by a native tribe during a tribal war against the tribe they had moved to settle with.

The book is worth a read, not just for the gripping mystery, but also for the historical richness that it gives. Sir Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth, Philip II of Spain – these people are much more real and alive to me now I have read their actual words and heard detailed accounts of their plans and activities.

I will leave you with another quote, near the end of the book, where Miller is summing up the case of the colonists. To give some context, the colonists sent their leader, John White, back to England to plead for help after their first summer (in 1587). They arranged to leave crosses carved into their doorposts should they meet with trouble so John White would know what happened when he returned.

“With an utter sense of desolation, White’s colonists stand along on the shore on an August afternoon and watch White’s boat slowly recede from view… In a lonely house in Kilmore (Ireland) before a flickering fire, John White dips a quill into ink and pens a letter to Richard Hakluyt. February 1593. To the Worshipful and my very friend Master Richard Hakluyt, much happiness in the Lord. But what can the letter say? Six years have passed since he last saw his colony; he can but detail the sad events of his fruitless search for them, and that is all. What can he write of pain? White does not even attempt it… Deep in the woods, far in the interior of a country called the Mandoag, where the tall trees close in the darkness, melted copper runs in rivulets. Cut off from any communication, dispersed one from the other, four men, two boys and a young girl work the copper. Men have come looking for them. Englishmen stumbling through the interior, from faraway Jamestown. If only they can speak to the search party, if only they can cry out, “We are here! We are here!” But the Mandoag won’t allow it. Through stinging tears, a man carves a cross on a tree, and another. And another. A forest etched with crosses...”