Introduction

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 dueling 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 south- ward
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 ship- ping.
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 that 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.