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| Sir Walter Raleigh |
January 6,
1585 - Sir Walter Raleigh is knighted by Queen Elizabeth who appoints him Lord
of the new territories he will discover in North America.
February,
1585 - Queen Elizabeth grants a charter to Adrian Gilbert, the young brother of
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, allowing him to sail to the north, northwest and
northeast with so many ships as he could, with the aim of colonizing all the lands he would discover to set up a trade monopoly.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Martin Frobisher's
failures had not appeased the enthusiasm of those who sought to find the
Northwest Passage. Adrian Gilbert, philosopher John Dee and Secretary of State
Sir Francis Walsingham had joined for further research. They will organize
several expeditions in this purpose but none would achieve results.
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| Sir Richard Grenville (1542-1591) |
April 9,
1585 - the 5-ship expedition commanded by Sir Walter Raleigh’s cousin, Sir
Richard Grenville, newly appointed General of Virginia, leaves Plymouth with a
group of 600 would-be settlers and sets sail to Roanoke, North Carolina.
With its 140 tons, the Tiger, commanded by Sir
Richard Grenville himself was also the biggest ship, the others being the
Roebuck (140 tons, John Clark captain), the Red Lion (100 tons, owned and
captained by George Raymond, a merchant-adventurer from Chichester), the
Elizabeth and the Dorothy. Among the present officers were both veterans Phillip
Amadas and Simon Fernandes, but also Thomas Cavendish who will later become the
third sailor to perform a full world tour, John Arundell, Grenville's half
brother and John Stukeley his brother-in-law.
There were also cousins and friends of Raleigh
including Richard Gilbert, a Courtenay, a Prideaux, Ralph Lane and Anthony
Rose. There were finally an illustrator, John White, two scientists, Thomas
Hariot and Robert Hues, and among the most humble, an Irishman named Darby
Glande. Both Indians Winchese and Manteo were part of the trip.
The chosen route was to pass Canary Islands and
the Spanish West Indies.
May 12,
1585 - After suffering a storm in the Bay of Portugal, Grenville's fleet casts
anchor in Mosquito Bay, Puerto Rico. The Roebuck and the Red Lion have followed
other routes. Grenville orders the building of a fort and the fitting out of a
small smithy. He aks also his men to build a new rowboat intended to replace
the one lost in the gale.
Got tired of waiting in vain the missing ships,
the members of the Raleigh expedition left Puerto Rico late May, taking care
to burn previously the fort and the neighboring woods and not forgetting, by
the way, to loot two Spanish frigates, reminding that England and Spain were
virtually at war. The open conflict was going to burst only three years later
but, at that time, the British felt involved in a sort of "cold war" from the fact that based in Florida, Spain saw as a bad thing the English
colonial attempts in North America. Their ambitions went against
the Spaniards' interests who feared that they would directly affect their trade
with the New World. And it was obvious that such possibility was by contrast essential
for Raleigh and Grenville who hoped seriously to finance their colonial program
by piecemeal privateering against the Spanish galleons.
June 1,
1585 - having reached the island of Hispaniola, the English fleet drops anchor
in the port of La Isabela where Grenville invites the residents to board the Tiger.
June 3,
1585 - the Spanish governor agrees Grenville's invitation to have dinner at his
table and climbs aboard the Tiger.
This one felt flattered of this attention and
allowed back Grenville and his men to get all the supplies required for their
settlement: horses, mares, cows, bulls, goats, pigs, sheep, sugar, etc....
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| Hispaniola (S. Domingo) |
June 8, 1585
- Grenville and his men leave La Isabela to the Bahamas from where they have to
set sail to North American coasts.
June 16,
1585 - The Red Lion captained by captain George Raymond arrives at Cape
Hatteras. About thirty men are landed on Croatoan Island looking forward to the
other boats of the Raleigh expedition while Raymond decides for his part to
leave to Newfoundland for a privateering campaign.
Grenville's fleet had been dispersed further to a storm off the Bay of Portugal and the Red Lion had since followed another route.
June 20,
1585 - the Raleigh expedition sails along the coast of Florida.
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| Map of Virginia |
June 23, 1585 - the English arrive off Cape Fear.
June 26, 1585 - the expedition reaches Wococon Island (today Ocracoke) south of Cape Hatteras.
June 29,
1585 - Despite his pilot's skills, Simon Fernandes fails to steer properly the
Tiger when crossing the Wococon inlet and causes an important waterleak
damaging most of the supplies.
This incident was even more disastrous than
while provisions had initially to allow the colony to survive for a year, what
was left ensured its livelihood for barely a month. Fernandes caused
accordingly a lot of resentment among the colonists.
July 3,
1585 - Grenville sends Winchese and a small company to inform king Wingina of
their arrival.
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| An old man of Pomeiooc |
Unlike Manteo who was rather well accustomed to
the English manners, Winchese had never really agreed to be hauled despite him
to England and just arrived at Dasamonquepeuc, he hastened to chase away his
accompanists and informed his tribe that the newcomers were not as trustworthy
as they believed.
July 6,
1585 - John Arundell is sent with Manteo to Croatoan Island where they find the
men landed shortly before from the Red Lion.
July 11,
1585 - Grenville leaves for exploration in mainland, accompanied with about sixty men and the
Indian Manteo.
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| The village of Pomeiooc |
July 12, 1585 - They visit the village of Pomeiooc where lives Pemiacum, Wingina's rival. John White paints on this occasion spectacular watercolor sketches of the town with longhouses and palisade around it.
July 13,
1585 - the settlers go to Aquascogok.
July 15, 1585 - Grenville and his men are welcomed at Secotan.
July 16,
1585 - Sir Richard Grenville sends Admiral Phillip Amadas to Aquascogok to get
back a silver cup stolen during his visit. The Indians not being decided to do
so, the order is given to chase away all the inhabitants and to burn the
village and the corn crops.
Grenville triggered the Secotan's anger by not
hesitating to sack and make burn down the whole village of Aquascogok for the
simple theft of a silver cup. What ordered Grenville reflected that the English
culture was unable to consider the Natives otherwise than as savages and treat
them on an equal footing.
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| Burning Aquascogock |
July 21, 1585 - Leaving Wococon, Grenville sets sail following the outer banks northbound up to Roanoke. He meets King Wingina's brother Granganimeo in Dasamonquepeuc, asking him to allow his group to settle in the north of the island.
July 27,
1585 - Grenville anchors at Hatoraske, not far from the strip of coastal dunes,
at a short distance from Roanoke.
There was then a real tension between officers and gentlemen and mainly between Sir Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane, a veteran allied to Sir Francis Walsingham who was less concerned with the founding of a colony than to engage fight against the Spaniards of whom he judged the strengths rather weak. The colony finally settled in the northern end of Roanoke Island and Ralph Lane was appointed the first governor. He sent a letter to Sir Phillip Sidney, the son-in-law of Walsingham who closely followed the New World's exploration, informing him about the success of the expedition. In another letter to Richard Hakluyt, geographer and historian, the new governor of Virginia pointed out that he was really impressed by the immensity of this unknown continent. He added that if the colony had horses and cows in reasonable quantities and was inhabited by Englishmen, no realm of Christendom would be comparable to it.
The Indians he described naively as courteous
and eager to wear clothes, seemed chiefly interested in red copper. Their
leader Wingina received the English with hospitality and cooperated with them
at the beginning of their settlement.
August 25,
1585 - Grenville returns to England for provisions. He leaves on Roanoke 107
men led by new governor Ralph Lane.
On the way back, Grenville seized a Spanish
galleon the booty of which was used to pay off generously the costs incurred
during the expedition. Upon his arrival in England, he reported to Walsingham
who confirmed him all the interest of the Queen to his project and insisted on
the "national" character of the Virginian venture. According to Ralph
Lane, as General of Virginia, Grenville distinguished himself especially by his brutality
and tyrannical conduct. He relied on the foresight of Sir Walter Raleigh to
move him aside from the project of colonization for his pride and immoderate
ambition had more endangered the settlement than contributed to its safety.
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| The Roanoke Colony Mural painted in 1954 by Francis Vandeveer Kughler in the North Carolina Institute of Government's Assembly Hall. It includes especially Ralph Lane, Thomas Hariot, John White, Manteo and Winchese. |
Lane built a small fort he called Fort Raleigh the remains of which were still visible in 1896. It was located near the shore, on
the East Coast of Roanoke between the northern point and a rather wide cove
used as mooring for small boats. The fort looked like the one previously built
in Puerto Rico forming a square strengthened by fitted out bastions in the
middle of each side.
The houses of the first settlers were nearby.
They were, according to their occupants, simple but decent. Roofs were thatched
and chimneys, as foundations, were to be brick-built, according to Darby
Glande’s testimony. Vestiges discovered nearby in 1860 and recent excavations
have indeed unearthed the remains of bricks probably going back up to the
Elizabethan time. Thomas Hariot found that there was no stone on the island
but the presence of clay could serve to make bricks and it was possible to
obtain lime from oyster shells deposits, as were particularly in England on the
islands of Tenet and Shepy.
As the searches were not however able to
highlight the significant use of the brick, it is reasonable to assume that the
main construction material was wood. Richard Hakluyt, in his "Discourse of
Western Planting" wrote that the will of Sir Walter Raleigh, dictated in
1584, one year before the expedition started, was to have it mostly composed
with expert hands in the art of fortification, people knowing to manufacture
blades and shovels, shipwrights, carpenters, brickworkers, tile makers,
whitewashers, masons, roofers, thatchers, etc.... It is assumed that the
buildings erected at Roanoke by the craftsmen were widely inspired by
traditional English cottages.
Relationship with the American Natives was
initially friendly although the English settlement was not to everyone's taste
at the tribe's Council. The Indians made sowings and laid fishtraps while the
colonists used their diplomatic skills to convince their leader Wingina to farm
at the same time his lands on Roanoke and those around Dasamonquepeuc, so that
they could supply them if their settlement grew.
The coast was explored to the south until
Secotan (c. 80 miles) and to the north until Chesapeake (c. 130 miles). Thomas
Hariot gathered information on plants, animals and stones. John White made
inimitable watercolor paintings of the Secotan life in Roanoke and the coast.
The settlers also learned to smoke tobacco by using Indian pipes.
It is
unclear to what extent the first settlers conformed to the criteria laid down
by Richard Hakluyt but records tell that there were experts in fortification,
brickmakers, carpenters and roofers. We also know the name of the colonists.
Thomas Hariot teaches us that some of them were highborn citizens who became
fast nostalgic of their cosy bed and delicate food. Others, according to Lane's
testimony, were excellent soldiers. There were also people of humble condition
of whom Darby Glande had to be the representative and who, although Irish, had
certainly taken part in the expedition without having really chosen.
This
expedition looked more like a military campaign than a genuine settlement.
The season
progressed and it was not only late to plant but none of the colonists was more
a farmer. Accordingly, they depended on both Indians and England for their
supplies. Staples such as salt, horses, cattle had been mostly acquired from
the Spaniards, through negotiation but also by force. Especially, it appeared
that there were no women in the group to imagine a real future to the colony.
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