English Try to Colonize Roanoke
In 1585, England made its first serious attempt to plant a permanent colony in North America, landing on Roanoke Island in what is now North Carolina. The effort is remembered mostly for its mysterious end: the settlers who returned in 1587 had vanished by 1590, earning the site the name "the Lost Colony." Roanoke's failure shaped later English ventures, including the more durable settlement at Jamestown in 1607.
The expedition grew out of Elizabethan ambitions to challenge Spain, which dominated the Americas and drew enormous wealth from them. In 1584 Queen Elizabeth I granted Sir Walter Raleigh a patent to claim lands not held by a Christian power. Raleigh never went to Roanoke himself, but he sponsored a reconnaissance voyage that year, and its captains returned with favorable reports and two Native men, Manteo and Wanchese. Backers hoped a colony could serve as a base for privateering against Spanish shipping, as well as a source of trade goods.
The 1585 expedition, led by Ralph Lane and commanded at sea by Sir Richard Grenville, established a small fort on Roanoke Island. The party was mostly soldiers and few of them were farmers, and they arrived too late to plant crops. Scientist Thomas Harriot and artist John White documented the region's plants, animals and Algonquian peoples, producing some of the earliest English records of Native American life. Relations with local communities, initially cooperative, deteriorated as the colonists demanded food. Lane's men killed the Roanoke leader Wingina in 1586, and when Francis Drake's fleet called at the island that summer, the discouraged colonists left with him.
Raleigh tried again in 1587, sending about 115 men, women and children under John White, who was appointed governor. White's granddaughter, Virginia Dare, was born soon after arrival and is traditionally considered the first English child born in the Americas. White sailed back to England for supplies, but the war with Spain and the Armada crisis delayed his return until 1590. He found the settlement dismantled and the word "CROATOAN" carved on a post, with no sign of a struggle.
What happened to the colonists remains unresolved. Croatoan was the name of a nearby island and its people, and the most common theory holds that some settlers relocated there or merged with neighboring Native communities. Others may have tried to sail north toward the Chesapeake Bay. Archaeologists continue to search for evidence, but nothing conclusive has emerged.
Roanoke taught the English hard lessons about supply, timing and relations with Native peoples. It also became a lasting American legend, a reminder of how fragile early colonial efforts were.