The Garitans: The Mystery Of Roanoke Colony

One hundred and fifty-five English settlers, men, women, and children landed on an island off the coast of what is now called North Carolina. Three years later, all that was left was a few fence posts and the word “Croatoan”: everything was gone. This is known as the mystery of Roanoke. Today what happened more than 400 years ago still hooks historians about where this colony went. Many people believe that they disappeared by moving to another location. It is also believed that the colony could have been destroyed by a natural disaster like a hurricane. Roanoke has many well-known theories about the not-so-forgotten colony; the most foreseeable theory is that they were killed off by the Native Americans surrounding the isolated colony

They were there for a little while and then their governor John White went back to England to talk to leaders about what was going on in the new colony. During this time a war broke out between England and Spain. In a result, Governor John White was kept in England because all the ships were used in battle. This war between Britain and Spain lasted three years. When Governor John White returned to Roanoke everyone and everything was gone. "What was left behind were some small cannons, an open chest, a tall fence built around the perimeter of the former village site, and a single word inscription carved on a fence post, 'Croatoan '" (JG). When Governor White returned to the islands all he had of his family, wife, daughter, and granddaughter, were the nails, coffins, and the word Croatoan. “He found no trace of its colony or its inhabitants” (History.com). The simple eight letter word that was etched into a fence post and tree proves that this tribe was the last inhabitants to be in the

[The colony] had been deprived of its leader for three years. The ‘Indians’ had a sufficient amount of time to tear down the buildings too” (JG). With the Native Americans was able to cover all evidence of this massacre. On one hand of this also, there had only been fifteen men to defend a colony against a group of fifty, one hundred Native Americans.
Where this colony was located, in the newly discovered world, may also be a factor in this theory. Roanoke was sandwiched between Native American tribes who have had much conflict in the past dealing with sociopolitical friction. According to Tanya Basu from National Geographic she says, “Tensions were especially high between the colonies and the Secotan tribe” (Basu). Even though the colonies may have had some good relations with some tribes, those tribes still had conflicts with other Native American