[Vendek]

Did the colonists move inland? Did they try to sail home and were lost at sea? Did the Spaniards attack Roanoke, capture our first settlers, only to have their own ships swept away? Any ideas?

[cripplecreek]

I’m pretty sure they all died.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Unless a conclusive archaeological discovery gives us more evidence, there is absolutely no way to know.

This is one mystery that has such a finite amount of clues, it can't be solved as-is.

But I'd sure like to know.

[Age of Reason]

Early case of alien abduction.

[xkaydet65]

I posed this to my 7th graders this year. They decided the colonists attempted to move to the Coatoan, as the sign implied, but that the 50 mile distance was to dangerous on foot. The kids posed that the colonists attempted to build a vessel or vessels to take them the 50 miles and were lost in a storm. This would explain why no trace was discovered and why many articles were left behind. I thought it was a pretty good bit of reasoning for 12 year olds form working class Queens.

[Redcitizen]

The sign was misspelled. They meant to say “Croatia”.

[AUsome Joy]

I found the site you referenced fascinating. That would be interesting to read how this author goes about constructing a book.

When I taught fourth grade American history the kids were always fascinated by this mystery.

[count-your-change]

Alien abduction. But don’t worry, they’ll be back presently wondering what happened in the past few minutes.

Or at least that’s what I’ve heard.

[BBell]

ping

[bert]

Of course they all died, but what happened between the time the settlement was abandoned and death is the question.

For the most part, the Lost Colony has been studied alone. The blog points to the fact that there were several other attempts by French and Spanish that also either foundered or were destroyed.

For an excellent read, The Three Voyages, a first hand account by Rene Laudinerre who founded Fort Caroline at what is now Mayport Florida in 1562-64 prior to the Lost Colony. His account is amazing in the detailed description of hoe very petty disagreements and pure arrogance caused the efforts to fail.

My personal belief is that they moved inland and assimilated. Even De Soto came to East Tennessee as early as 1540 where he found a white among the Cherokee. The trade between the inland and coastal people was well established and news of whites followed the trade routes.

The recent resurgence of intense study of the Mullengons points to such a scenario.They are a mixed heritage group with no certain source. They exist however and the origin is very early in the settlement of America

[eleni121]

It seems obvious that the Lumbee Indians are the descendants — they exhibit genetic traces of Europeans and their names are those of the colonists. Their ancestors could read and write too.

The DNA project will help answer once and for all....maybe

[Tijeras_Slim]

They ran out of food and were forced to live on native plants.

Their fondest wish was for something to liven up their diet, so before they perished they carved “Crouton” in a tree.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t spell and created a mystery.

[rollo tomasi]

Theory at the time, back upped by several eyewitness reports from some Indians, is that the colonists found their way to Chesapeake Bay (The original plan by White) and found refuge at a native village. The Indians then reported that they were slaughtered by Powhatan.

[rollo tomasi]

Upon reading the article “...small silver cup was enough cause for burning a thief's village to the ground” was true in theory but if they would have killed Powhatan at that time, 24,000 Indians that made up the 30 tribes the Chief controlled would have rained hell down on the colonists. Both sides would have suffered a lot of casualties..

Eventually the English assimilated Powhatan's daughter which was the last straw for him and decided to make peace agreements (After shrewdly using various tribes to hamper the English).

[kjes73]

I was wondering, If when John white returned and found his group amiss, did he go to the friends they referred to as Croatan? and inquire about his family? or did he siply retrun back to England. For some reason I feel inclined to believe that had they gotten help from allies they would have been able to take all their possessions, but if Indians had captured them the places would have been in a burnt ruin making sure they left no survivors( if the indians were hostile) and Taking into consideration the marking was on a tree five feet from the ground would make me think it was either a woman or a younger male, who wrote it. I wish the answer to this mysrey was found it boggles my mind when people just vanish.