Part 1

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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_

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._

_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

_The true and lively portraiture of the honourable and learned Knight S^r. Walter Raleigh._

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.

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.

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."

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.

_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.

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.

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.

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.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COLONY.

An island south of Cape Hatteras, now known as Ocracoke, was reached on June 26. The remainder of the month and most of July were spent in exploring the coastal islands and the adjacent mainland. During one of these expeditions, Grenville sought to strike terror into the hearts of the Indians by burning the Indian village of Aquascogok in retaliation for the theft of a silver cup stolen by one of the Indians. Not until July 27 did Grenville anchor at Hatoraske, off the barrier island, a short distance southeast of Roanoke Island. Here at a break in the barrier reef, almost due east of the southern tip of Roanoke Island, Simon Ferdinando discovered a port, named Port Ferdinando in his honor and considered the best port along that stretch of coast.

A colony was established on the "North end" of Roanoke Island, and Ralph Lane was made Governor. From Port Ferdinando, and later from Roanoke Island, letters were written by Lane to Secretary Walsingham informing him of the successful founding of the colony. Still another letter was written to Sir Philip Sidney, son-in-law of Walsingham, who was interested in western discovery. A letter to Richard Hakluyt, geographer and historian, written by Lane from the settlement on Roanoke Island indicated that the Governor of Virginia was impressed by the "huge and unknowen greatnesse" of the American continent. He added that if Virginia only had horses and cows in some reasonable proportion and were inhabited by Englishmen, no realm in Christendom would be comparable to it. The Indians, he said naively, were "courteous, and very desirous to have clothes," but valued red copper above everything else. Wingina, chief of the Roanoke Island Indians, had received the white men hospitably and had cooperated with them in the initial phases of the founding of the settlement. This is clear from Grenville's account as well as Lane's.

Grenville lingered a short while after the founding of the settlement, then returned to England for supplies. On the way home he captured a richly laden Spanish ship, which must have repaid him handsomely for his western trip. On his arrival in England, he too reported to Walsingham, thus acknowledging the interest of the Queen and emphasizing the seminational character of the Virginian enterprise.

Lane built a fort called "The new Fort in Virginia," where the present Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is situated and where the remains of a fort were still visible as late as 1896. The fort was located near the shore on the east side of Roanoke Island between the "North Point" of the north end of the Island and a "creek." The mouth of the so-called creek was big enough to serve as the anchorage for small boats (Shallow Bag Bay, known as late as 1716 as "Town Creek").

Lane's fort on Roanoke Island resembled in some noteworthy respects the fort which he had built on St. Johns Island, Puerto Rico, in May 1585, when he seized the salt supply. Both forts seem to have been roughly shaped like a star built on a square with the bastions constructed on the sides of the square instead of at the corners, as was common in later fortifications. Copies of the plans of these forts may be seen in the Fort Raleigh museum.

The dwelling houses of the early colonists were near the fort, which was too small to enclose them. They were described by the colonists themselves as "decent dwelling houses" or "cottages" and must have been at least a story and a half or two stories high, because we have a reference to the "neather roomes of them." The roofs were thatched, as we learn from Ralph Lane's statement that the Indians by night "would have beset my house, and put fire in the reedes that the same was covered with." The chimneys and the foundations may have been of brick, because Darby Glande later testified that "as soon as they had disembarked Roanoke they began to make brick and fabric for a fort and houses." Pieces of brick were reported found at the fort site as late as 1860, and recent archeological work at the fort turned up a few brickbats, possibly of the Elizabethan period.