"CROATAN- Fate of Roanoke Colony Solved?" Topic

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Interesting piece, and a nifty bit of archaeology and analysis.

Yeah. Probably true, too. Those tales of blue-eyed Indians go 'way back, and some surnames match up. But I'm always a little suspicious when the interpretation of some piece of archeology lines up with current cultural fashion. After all, the hammerscale by itself doesn't mean a happy blending of diverse cultures: It may just mean someone's managed to capture and enslave a blacksmith.

(Ever wonder about those lame European craftsman gods? Think about Hittite ironworkers, hamstrung by their new masters so they don't run off.)

I think it has been far well accepted that the settlers went to live with nearby Indians. The real question is what happened that. As Robert states, were they then taken prisoner, were they killed later on or did they assimilate.
That is what we will likely never know. They were not killed at Roanoke as there were no bodies. They didn't starve to death or, again, there would have been bodies.

As was SOP with the tribes inhabiting the New World the women were probably enslaved, the children if young enough were raised as tribe members, and the men probably became "the other white meat" long pig.

Except who did the smithying?

If a blacksmith is going to generate enough tiny bits of hammerscale to be discovered 400 years later in an Indian trash pile, he's gonna be hammering things for a while. And in the 16th century, the smith is a man, not a woman. Also, who carved the message in the tree trunk? If they were all carted off in a raid, why did the Indians let somebody do that? Why weren't their dead bodies on the site of the colonists who resisted the raid? In fact, the actual message was pre-arranged in the case of relocation, and a Maltese Cross was supposed to be included if an evacuation was forced by hostile action— there was no cross on the tree (and undoubtably, it would have been carved first!).

The only conclusion is that there was no raid, that the colonists went with the Indians willingly, and left a message that would survive three years (they might have left others that didn't survive— a paper missive would be gone after three years of rain and wind and storm— it's the Cape Hatteras area, after all!)

So a peaceful evacuation, never any sign of European skeletons with marks of cannibalism on them (if the local tribes were cannibalistic, something I've never heard (though still possible)), no mass grave, no sign of a massacre or any violence at all… just gone. There is no way a primitive Indian tribe could have covered that up, even for the limited ability of Raleigh's men to find. Nor would hostile actors have allowed anything to be carved in a tree, even if they had no concept of literacy. They would at least understand the idea of making marks on trees or stone to indicate presence, path, ownership… none of which hostiles would permit. Plus, even a single word like that takes time to carve effectively for long-term discovery. Again, too long to fit a "raid for slaves" event.

As for descendants, yes, no adult European woman would have willingly given herself to an Indian (well, maybe. Women can get a bit nutty about a "bad boy" that upsets their parents), but a European man would have eagerly mated with anyone available— let's be real, here— and Indian women did not have a social standing better than European women (especially the sort of women who wound up sailing to a savage world to start a colony— we're not talking members of the nobility). So "intermarriage" (if the Croatan Indians had such a concept) would have been highly likely, as would death from disease and childbirth over the course of three years. And how long did Raleigh and White search? How long could they? As for the colonists, White was supposed to have returned in a matter of months… yet was delayed by the Spanish Armada and war with Spain (which the colonists of course knew nothing about). Is it surprising that the colonists may have decide that White and his resupply were never coming? That White may have been lost at sea (an all too common fate of the small vessels of that say)? Maybe for a year or so someone might return to see if anyone showed… but three years of nothing in that day and age would have cemented the idea they'd been abandoned.

So I don't think the evidence supports any hostile cause or bad treatment. More likely just succumbing to disease, or willingly assimilating into the Indian tribes by survivors. It would be at least six decades— an entire generation— before Englishmen would try to colonize the Carolinas again, and succeed. By that point the Roanoke colonists would have been long dead, if only of old age, and their descendants thoroughly absorbed into the local native culture. England would be forgotten, and the technology of Europe recalled only as distant "magic," if remembered at all.

According to one site, the Governor White (grandfather to Virginia Dare) also found his own possessions carefully buried at the original colony site— so he naturally assumed that his family and the other colonists willingly left the location and made certain his personal belongings would be immediately available for him when he returned.

All reasonable, Parizival, and I agree with most of it. Almost certainly the colonists left willingly. Probably some or all of the present-day tribe are descended from them. What I was suspicious of in the article and similar videos was the conclusion of a happy blending of different mutually respectful cultures. That's well beyond what the evidence given could support. Worse, it's the sort of thing a well-brought up, right-thinking 21st Century archeologist would want to have happened. That makes it doubly suspect.

Still MIGHT have happened that way, of course.