The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1957-07-19
BIZ HARRY EVANS
{ In the News and Observer)

NIH the news ana ODSerVef)
They landed here $40 years ago,
lie brave men of Raleigh's Eng
land-and disappeared from the
face of the earth. They landed
here on this very sandy beach,
with musket and spade to found a
new English-speaking nation
across seas-and persisted without
a sound.
What became of these first
English colonists in America T?
This is the mystery that has
brought me to Roanoke Island.
For me, it has been a pleasant
mornings drive along. the skeleton
finger of sand of the North Caro-
lima Outer Banks, and over a
brand-new causeway to the woods
and beaches of the quiet island.
For them, Roanoke Island was the
end of a 75-day voyage across the
Atlantic, and through the treach-
erous Carolina shoal banks that
claimed victims, too, among tine
radar-eyed vessels of the War.
America is not a place that pre-
serves its mysteries well. The
superway and the go-getter trans
form a scene and the ghosts flee.
But Roanoke Island is different
True, it has the causeway and its
motels. True the first thing the
modern explorer sees is a Coca
Cola sign "Come and Have Fun
at Mack's Place, and warning
that your speed may be electrical
ly timed by concealed cops. But
on the beaches and in the still
deathly still, pine woods where |
have spent the day, you can easily
imagine the breastplated, sworded
men as they stepped ashore at
sunset that night of July 22nd,
1887
The omens were not good. Fiji
teen men had been left behind in
"a fort the year before to hold the
newly-discovered land for Queen
Elizabeth. Now only the bones of
one man remained. The fort was
RACED to the ground Indians!
Indians in the forests and in the
marsh reeds, watching and wait
ing. On July %, they struck their
first blow. While the others were
building cottages and repairing
the fort, fat George Howe went
looking for crabs with a small
forked stick. The Indians were
hiding in the high reeds and
George Howe fell dead in the wa
ter with sixteen arrows in his
body.
The settlers We're paying for
the excuses of an earlier military
expedition which had made ruth
less war on the Indians. The dis
coverers in 1884 had reported the
Indians "most gentle, loving and
faithful" but now in July, 1887
only the Croatoan group OF In
dams was friendly. The lusty
Croatoan savage Nantes had Wis
tied England, prize for display,
and was still a friend with the
new colonists; but Wanchese who
had also been to Queen Elizabeth's
court was now back in the forests
with the red men, a deadly enemy.
ION Roanoke Island today there
are twin whiteman's villages OF
Manic and Wanchese which nour-
ish a keen rivalry.
By August 18th, the colonists
had unloaded their ships, and the
sailors prepared to return to Eng
land for supplies for them. |. was
now too late in the season for
planting crops. The 116 to be left
behind would have to live on their
supplies and the fruit and game
they could get until relief came,
so the Governor himself, John
White, agreed to return with the
ships.
It was August 9th that John
White set sail-and August 9th
that darkness closed around the
tiny band of English, men, women
and children. The world has never
heard since Of those 80 men, IL