Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

The lost colony of Roanoke Island


Still Waters

Recommended Posts

On a fall morning in 1937, an Emory University geologist was walking down a hallway in the alumni building when he bumped into a middle-aged man carrying a rock. The man explained that he was a tourist who had found the 21-pound stone near the North Carolina–Virginia border. He was looking for someone to explain the strange markings on its gray surface.

When a team of Emory scholars deciphered the carved message, they were stunned to find a heartrending plea from a grieving daughter to her father, detailing the bloody murder of her husband and child—and potentially solving the nation’s oldest mystery.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/lost-colony-roanoke-virginia-eleanor-dare-stone-mystery/

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

So, is it still unsure of the rock(s) are forged or not? Frankly, I like to think the missing colony had a better ending.Like take refuge and merged with a friendly Native American tribe.  But, I consider the disappearance a sign that they might now have had a lucky fate. 

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

So, is it still unsure of the rock(s) are forged or not? Frankly, I like to think the missing colony had a better ending.Like take refuge and merged with a friendly Native American tribe.  But, I consider the disappearance a sign that they might now have had a lucky fate. 

The natives killed them. There is no mystery, historically speaking. Chief Powhatan admitted as much. (And the b******* deserved it.) There wasn't any mystery for centuries until the Manteo/Dare County Chamber of Commerce decided it needed to gin up interest in the awful outdoor drama they were producing.

The year they started the play? 1937. You think viral marketing is a new concept?

--Jaylemurph

Edited by jaylemurph
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, jaylemurph said:
5 hours ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

So, is it still unsure of the rock(s) are forged or not? Frankly, I like to think the missing colony had a better ending.Like take refuge and merged with a friendly Native American tribe.  But, I consider the disappearance a sign that they might now have had a lucky fate. 

The natives killed them. There is no mystery, historically speaking. Chief Powhatan admitted as much. (And the b******* deserved it.) There wasn't any mystery for centuries until the Manteo/Dare County Chamber of Commerce decided it needed to gin up interest in the awful outdoor drama they were producing.

The year they started the play? 1937. You think viral marketing is a new concept?

--Jaylemurph

Well, is that a confirmed theory? I have read that was a possibility. (I actually wouldn't be surprised.) But, I also thought it wasn't a totally credible theory. 

Quote

No firsthand evidence of Powhatan’s self-reported executions has turned up. No eyewitness accounts survive. The reports about survivors are intriguing but are not absolute proof of Powhatan’s claims. The lack of any trace of the colonists, however, makes his story seem possible.

From this site.

I'm a bit unsure on this, considering from various sources, it seems it might just be boasting from Powhatan. And it might not, but when I read the various sources, it seems each theory of what could have happened to them is not entirely a surety in my mind. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The history of and the fate of the colony is a tangled mess, involving not one group of colonists but at least three. Colonizing the American wilds at that time was far from a science. Most people were chosen simply by their willingness to go and were ill-prepared for the rigors they would endure.                                                     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony    

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always found this facinating..I hope to read one day the conclusions they come to after they analyse the stone some more. As for the story of assimilation with the natives, are their any descendants they could do some sort of DNA test on?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

Well, is that a confirmed theory? I have read that was a possibility. (I actually wouldn't be surprised.) But, I also thought it wasn't a totally credible theory.

Well, no. It's not confirmed, in that in the historical sense, it'd would only be confirmed with direct observation and recording and the whole point of the "Lost" Colony is that there is no direct observation. From the first-hand sources that survive, it *is* clear the English were thieving, murderous gits. Their last recorded action was to murder a group of friendly natives bringing them food. This group included the chieftainess of the tribe, the mother of the friendly native helping the colonists, Manteo. 

That, coupled with the actions of the first colony (there were two -- one in 1584/5 and the "Lost" one from 1587 -- not three, as above) makes their demise fairly clear. That first colony stole from the natives left and right, particularly food. The English then tried to frame them for the theft of a silver chalice, precipitating an attempted massacre. The English of the first colony were apparently too stupid to count and to realize they were grossly out numbered. When a rescue ship finally came, they tore out in such a hurry they left two men who were out crabbing.

There might have been some survivors from the second colony, but as Hammerclaw says, they would have not been prepared for the rigors of colonial life. The first colony was such a failure (there's written evidence of one of the survivors comparing the taste of native dog versus English dogs), they couldn't find volunteers in the same rural area in the southwest of England, so they just took willing city folks from London. You know, the one with zero experience with farming and livestock. Not your first pick for colonizers, if you want the colony to succeed.

Again, there is no mystery here. Failing colonies are not mysterious, particularly when they were populated with people vastly under-experienced and in active conflict with the established civilisation already present. The only people out there trying to convince you there IS a mystery have something to sell you, or are wide-eyed naifs who don't actually know what they're talking about.

--Jaylemurph

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, jaylemurph said:
15 hours ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

Well, is that a confirmed theory? I have read that was a possibility. (I actually wouldn't be surprised.) But, I also thought it wasn't a totally credible theory.

Well, no. It's not confirmed, in that in the historical sense, it'd would only be confirmed with direct observation and recording and the whole point of the "Lost" Colony is that there is no direct observation. From the first-hand sources that survive, it *is* clear the English were thieving, murderous gits. Their last recorded action was to murder a group of friendly natives bringing them food. This group included the chieftainess of the tribe, the mother of the friendly native helping the colonists, Manteo. 

That, coupled with the actions of the first colony (there were two -- one in 1584/5 and the "Lost" one from 1587 -- not three, as above) makes their demise fairly clear. That first colony stole from the natives left and right, particularly food. The English then tried to frame them for the theft of a silver chalice, precipitating an attempted massacre. The English of the first colony were apparently too stupid to count and to realize they were grossly out numbered. When a rescue ship finally came, they tore out in such a hurry they left two men who were out crabbing.

There might have been some survivors from the second colony, but as Hammerclaw says, they would have not been prepared for the rigors of colonial life. The first colony was such a failure (there's written evidence of one of the survivors comparing the taste of native dog versus English dogs), they couldn't find volunteers in the same rural area in the southwest of England, so they just took willing city folks from London. You know, the one with zero experience with farming and livestock. Not your first pick for colonizers, if you want the colony to succeed.

Again, there is no mystery here. Failing colonies are not mysterious, particularly when they were populated with people vastly under-experienced and in active conflict with the established civilisation already present. The only people out there trying to convince you there IS a mystery have something to sell you, or are wide-eyed naifs who don't actually know what they're talking about.

--Jaylemurph

Yes, I feel it is very understandable if the lost colony's fate, was that they lost their lives, and probably either to some of the native population, and some to starvation and illness, and such. That's why, I pretty much feel that the majority of the lost colony perished. And that is despite my wish that they survived, and I'm slightly considering it due to certain 'clues' found here and there along the way. 

I still feel that it's a mystery of how the colony suddenly was gone, and not much was found, like remains and such. (I am entertaining the thought that at the time, it was hard to search for such, and even with technology today, there was about hundreds of years for remains to disappear within time due to elements and scavengers.) And with my thinking of the mysterious disappearance of the colony, (among three I'm reading, it seems), all I can get from finding out the possibilities of it's fate, are numerous findings in various areas. *shrugs*  

But, yes, I do feel also, it's more than likely they all, if not most of them, perished. Virginia Dare, the first child born in America, probably didn't survive infancy. I know, a lot of infants didn't survive those days. (very aware of the high infant mortality rate during then) But for me, I like to entertain the possibilities. ;) 

I think it's practical and sensible to assume they didn't survive. I think it's still a mystery of what really happened to them, due to a lack of clues and remnants of them according to accounts back then. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

Yes, I feel it is very understandable if the lost colony's fate, was that they lost their lives, and probably either to some of the native population, and some to starvation and illness, and such. That's why, I pretty much feel that the majority of the lost colony perished. And that is despite my wish that they survived, and I'm slightly considering it due to certain 'clues' found here and there along the way. 

I still feel that it's a mystery of how the colony suddenly was gone, and not much was found, like remains and such. (I am entertaining the thought that at the time, it was hard to search for such, and even with technology today, there was about hundreds of years for remains to disappear within time due to elements and scavengers.) And with my thinking of the mysterious disappearance of the colony, (among three I'm reading, it seems), all I can get from finding out the possibilities of it's fate, are numerous findings in various areas. *shrugs*  

But, yes, I do feel also, it's more than likely they all, if not most of them, perished. Virginia Dare, the first child born in America, probably didn't survive infancy. I know, a lot of infants didn't survive those days. (very aware of the high infant mortality rate during then) But for me, I like to entertain the possibilities. ;) 

I think it's practical and sensible to assume they didn't survive. I think it's still a mystery of what really happened to them, due to a lack of clues and remnants of them according to accounts back then. 

Considering they initiated violence against the Indians(Burnt down a village over a silver cup someone left lying around for Chrissakes!)it's little wonder the colony failed.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Stubbly_Dooright said:

But, yes, I do feel also, it's more than likely they all, if not most of them, perished. Virginia Dare, the first child born in America, probably didn't survive infancy. I know, a lot of infants didn't survive those days. (very aware of the high infant mortality rate during then) But for me, I like to entertain the possibilities. ;)

First white, English child.

There was a child born to Scandinavian settlers c. the year 1000 who was white and the first "European" child born in North America.

There were plenty of what we call now Lantinx children born in the Spanish-controlled areas of America well before the Dares.

And of course, there were millions of native children already present.

Virginia Dare isn't of much importance, unless you (and this is the general you, not Stubbly specifically) define history as solely middle class, white and English-speaking. It suits us all to be more broadminded and cosmopolitan than that.

--Jaylemurph

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

Considering they initiated violence against the Indians(Burnt down a village over a silver cup someone left lying around for Chrissakes!)it's little wonder the colony failed.

Well, like I said, I wouldn't be surprised of the mortality rate for them. I did feel that it would be practical and understanding to assume their colony didn't survive and most perished. :yes:  

5 hours ago, jaylemurph said:

First white, English child.

True, true. I understand the correction. :) 

Quote

There was a child born to Scandinavian settlers c. the year 1000 who was white and the first "European" child born in North America.

****! I forgot about the Vikings and such. You mean Snorri Thorfinnisson, right? (I was going to asked you for links and sources, but I enjoy doing searches. ;)  :D  ) 

Quote

There were plenty of what we call now Lantinx children born in the Spanish-controlled areas of America well before the Dares.

That too. I have read and enjoy Native American historical fictions. With doing that, I end up researching about the time, the places, the people, and the history. There are a couple of authors who I enjoy reading, and I remember reading, ( and trying to find info later on) about other races have possibly come over to North America and possible Caucasian genes showing up in the Native population. And yes, I forgot the Spanish and their trek and discovery of here. 

Quote

And of course, there were millions of native children already present.

Virginia Dare isn't of much importance, unless you (and this is the general you, not Stubbly specifically) define history as solely middle class, white and English-speaking. It suits us all to be more broadminded and cosmopolitan than that.

--Jaylemurph

 It always seems to get rewritten a lot, through out the years, yes, I agree with you. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
On 5/30/2018 at 10:17 AM, Stubbly_Dooright said:

So, is it still unsure of the rock(s) are forged or not? Frankly, I like to think the missing colony had a better ending.Like take refuge and merged with a friendly Native American tribe.  But, I consider the disappearance a sign that they might now have had a lucky fate. 

Maybe or not.  I think Benjamin Franklin said something to the effect that whenever we take an Indian youth and expose him to our society and make him one of us, he tries to escape and run back to his people at the first opportunity.  Whenever we free a white settler from Indian captivity, as often as not they try to flee back to their Indian community at the first opportunity.  Maybe it is romanticism. Piney probably knows the context better.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Not really anything new.   

Quote

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/06/11/roanoke-mystery-could-this-strange-rock-reveal-lost-colonys-fate.html

Scientists are planning to take a fresh look at an engraved rock purported to hold the key to the mysterious “lost colony” of Roanoke.

Described as “the coldest case in American history,” the fate of more than 100 16th-century English settlers on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, has long baffled historians. The settlers’ disappearance has been shrouded in mystery for centuries.

The settlers, who included women and children, arrived on Roanoke Island in 1587 to help establish America’s first English settlement. By 1590, however, the group was nowhere to be found, fueling ongoing speculation about their mysterious disappearance.

 

Edited by Still Waters
Trimmed for length. The rest can be viewed in the source link.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.