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What happened to the lost colony at Roanoke? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know Groundhouse stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
0:11
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
0:13
Speaker 1: Charles Study Chuck Bryant, and we know where he is
0:16
Speaker 1: right now. He's just sitting there crow at And that's
0:22
Speaker 1: the best way to say that word. It does. It
0:24
Speaker 1: sounds like we'll get to it, obviously, but sound pretty
0:27
Speaker 1: like a very spooky ominous thing to carve on a tree. Yeah,
0:30
Speaker 1: especially because it was carved on the tree. Yeah, by
0:35
Speaker 1: missing people. Vanished people are like what but historians are like, yeah,
0:40
Speaker 1: that's exactly how you say it. I can't wait for
0:42
Speaker 1: this one. Uh, well you're right here, you don't have
0:46
Speaker 1: to wait. Let's experience. No. I was saying that historians
0:48
Speaker 1: are saying that, Okay, yeah yeah, um so Chuck, Yes,
0:52
Speaker 1: have you ever been to Roanoke, Virginia. I've been through there. Yeah,
0:56
Speaker 1: and like a dummy, I thought that might have been
0:59
Speaker 1: where the settlement was. Well it's not just h man.
1:01
Speaker 1: I wrote this article what happened to the Lost Colony
1:05
Speaker 1: at Roanoke, and I forgot that it wasn't Roanoke, Virginia.
1:09
Speaker 1: What we're talking about is Roanoke, North Carolina, which is
1:12
Speaker 1: an island that's part of the Outer Banks, very lovely,
1:16
Speaker 1: and Virginia was very heavily settled, So it's not like,
1:19
Speaker 1: you know, there wasn't Roanoke, Utah, right, So I'm giving
1:22
Speaker 1: ourselves a break for getting that confused. I bet a
1:24
Speaker 1: lot of people think it might be Virginia well. Plus, also,
1:26
Speaker 1: the Roanoke Colony was um the first English settlement in
1:31
Speaker 1: the New World, and Roanoke, Virginia is not too far
1:35
Speaker 1: away from it. They moved on to Jamestown to found
1:38
Speaker 1: that that was the first successful English colony. Yeah. Um,
1:43
Speaker 1: so you can you know understand why you or anybody else,
1:46
Speaker 1: including me, would think we're talking about Roanoke, Virginia. But
1:49
Speaker 1: that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about Roanoke,
1:51
Speaker 1: North Carolina. And uh it was settled in three waves,
1:58
Speaker 1: and all three of them were at the behest of
2:00
Speaker 1: one guy named Sir Walter Rawley. Sir Walter Rawley had
2:04
Speaker 1: something that a lot of other people wanted. He was
2:07
Speaker 1: born a commoner, that pride um he was damnably proud.
2:14
Speaker 1: I understand a biography um cites him as to decline
2:20
Speaker 1: and eventual beheading, But He was a big favorite of
2:23
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth the First and he was a member of
2:25
Speaker 1: her court, and she gave him the patent to any
2:29
Speaker 1: English settlement in the New World. Like he had it
2:34
Speaker 1: wide open. As long as there weren't other Christians settled
2:37
Speaker 1: on a piece of land, he could have a crack
2:41
Speaker 1: at it and get he would own it. Well. She
2:45
Speaker 1: was very concerned about the native people though, right, No, okay,
2:50
Speaker 1: sorry I had that confused. No, it was specifically other Christians.
2:53
Speaker 1: So basically she was saying, like, the Spaniards are already
2:56
Speaker 1: there in Florida Stier, clear of those guys, the French
2:59
Speaker 1: there in the beaver Pelts, so they're probably going to
3:01
Speaker 1: be a little north. Maybe you should go to North Carolina. Good,
3:04
Speaker 1: try that, And so Robie did. He he didn't go.
3:07
Speaker 1: He went later on, but um he sent a first
3:10
Speaker 1: wave an expedition, uh in early fifteen eighties something. Yes,
3:16
Speaker 1: I don't have the date there for this one, but
3:18
Speaker 1: the first that was the first real attempt at a settlement.
3:23
Speaker 1: The first one was just like an expedition like just
3:25
Speaker 1: to go check out good place prefift so fifteen eighty
3:30
Speaker 1: five that was the first attempt to actually settle the
3:34
Speaker 1: island of Rona. And it was just dudes um on
3:37
Speaker 1: this trip. It wasn't like um families and kids and
3:41
Speaker 1: things like that. It was just some dudes, adventurous guys,
3:44
Speaker 1: a lot of them soldiers. Among them was a guy
3:46
Speaker 1: named John White, who was an artist who ended up
3:49
Speaker 1: making a lot of the well, the first maps of
3:53
Speaker 1: the New World English maps were drawn by John White,
3:57
Speaker 1: and he was really good at it. And I think
3:59
Speaker 1: he was promised five acres in the end, Like, Hey,
4:04
Speaker 1: if you go set this thing up and it takes
4:06
Speaker 1: you can pick out five hundred choice acres for yourself.
4:09
Speaker 1: So he's like a lot of lands. Good deal, let's go. Yeah.
4:12
Speaker 1: John White was a pretty good guy from what I understand. Um,
4:16
Speaker 1: the problem was he wasn't leading that expedition. He was
4:19
Speaker 1: just a member of it. Uh he The guy who
4:23
Speaker 1: was leading it was a dude named Ralph Lane. And
4:26
Speaker 1: Ralph Lane was a really brutal jerk. Um. Initially, the Indians,
4:34
Speaker 1: the local tribes, the Scdan tribe, right, Yeah, they were
4:41
Speaker 1: friendly to the the first expeditionary group, the first planters,
4:47
Speaker 1: what they're calling to their detriment of course. Yeah, So
4:50
Speaker 1: Ralph White routinely holds their leaders hostage in exchange for food,
4:56
Speaker 1: kills indiscriminately, even though they were relying on these very
4:59
Speaker 1: people to teach them the ways and how to grow
5:03
Speaker 1: these new crops and things that they had no idea
5:04
Speaker 1: about how to survive there, right, they depended on them
5:08
Speaker 1: and killed them at the same time. Right. Well, eventually,
5:10
Speaker 1: after a while, the Saccodan tribe said, you know what,
5:13
Speaker 1: to hell with you, buddy, good luck and uh. After that,
5:17
Speaker 1: the hundred I think it was a hundred people right
5:22
Speaker 1: for the expedition, Yes, a hundred men. After ten months
5:27
Speaker 1: they were like, we need food and we're going to die,
5:30
Speaker 1: so let's just go back to England. I should have waited, yeah,
5:33
Speaker 1: because I think like to two weeks later a supply
5:36
Speaker 1: ship came. Yeah, they would have been, but at the
5:40
Speaker 1: same right, at the same time, they were basically at
5:43
Speaker 1: war with the surrounding like all the surrounding tribes. Not
5:46
Speaker 1: all of them were friendly off the bat, but by
5:48
Speaker 1: the end of the ten months, all of them hated. Uh,
5:52
Speaker 1: this this group of one Englishmen. So they leave, they
5:56
Speaker 1: go back and we're always like, it was a pretty
5:59
Speaker 1: good at ten but I think we can do better.
6:01
Speaker 1: Maybe we need some women, some children, and John White,
6:03
Speaker 1: I like the cut of your jib, So you lead
6:05
Speaker 1: this one. Let's just make a go of it as
6:07
Speaker 1: like a real settlement, not just adventuring dudes. But let's
6:10
Speaker 1: really try and settle this place as a colony of
6:14
Speaker 1: families and people. Yes. So, Uh, the seven Expedition is
6:18
Speaker 1: what it's called. Was I think a hundred and eighteen
6:21
Speaker 1: people including John White, led by John White who was
6:25
Speaker 1: now the governor. And uh, they came back and they
6:29
Speaker 1: were actually not supposed to stay at Roanoke. It was
6:33
Speaker 1: obvious to everybody this was a bad place to be.
6:36
Speaker 1: The Indians hated everybody. Yeah, well what not? Well, I
6:39
Speaker 1: guess what sort of obvious? Um it was not. So
6:41
Speaker 1: it wasn't a safe place to be. And I think
6:44
Speaker 1: they originally intended to move a little further up into
6:46
Speaker 1: the Chesapeake, but they ended up in Roanoke Island. I
6:51
Speaker 1: guess to check on some soldiers. Yeah, and we'll get
6:55
Speaker 1: to the little mystery. There's a little mystery there that
6:58
Speaker 1: we'll get too later. Right on why they day there,
7:01
Speaker 1: we should say that there were soldiers on Roanoke because
7:03
Speaker 1: that supply ship that came two weeks later left fifteen
7:07
Speaker 1: men to keep an English presence in the New World. Yeah,
7:11
Speaker 1: and I think all they found was the bones of
7:13
Speaker 1: one body, right, Yeah, one single body, and the other
7:15
Speaker 1: fourteen were missing, missing and gone. But that was not
7:18
Speaker 1: the lost Colony of Roanoke. Oh no, no, No, that
7:21
Speaker 1: was just some soldiers. No, the hundred and seventeen, I
7:25
Speaker 1: think you said one or not. No, I think it
7:29
Speaker 1: wasn't because White was heard from again, so I think
7:32
Speaker 1: it was one eighteen at least, um, give or take.
7:36
Speaker 1: Let's say they settled there, they build their little two
7:41
Speaker 1: story cottages. Um, they meet some friendlies. Yeah, they actually
7:46
Speaker 1: turned the tide and made the Sacodan tribe nice again. Yeah,
7:53
Speaker 1: they met some not so friendlies that tended to just
7:55
Speaker 1: sort of leave them alone though, at least at first. Yeah.
7:58
Speaker 1: And they treated also with the Powhattan, who were um
8:01
Speaker 1: on an island called crow Tone, yeah, which is now
8:06
Speaker 1: patteras Um and crow Toe. Like we said, we'll figure
8:10
Speaker 1: in here in a second. So they were doing pretty well. Um,
8:14
Speaker 1: but they were in for hard times right off the bat.
8:17
Speaker 1: They arrived in July, which is past the planning season,
8:21
Speaker 1: so they had no crops right off the bat Yeah,
8:23
Speaker 1: which is later than they were supposed to arrive, which
8:25
Speaker 1: is part of the mystery that is yet to be revealed.
8:27
Speaker 1: Yes again they um were initially confronted with hostile Indians.
8:32
Speaker 1: They managed to turn the tide. Um. But there were
8:35
Speaker 1: some delightful things that happened. For example, John White's granddaughter,
8:40
Speaker 1: Virginia Dare, became the first English child born in the
8:43
Speaker 1: New World. Yeah. Delightful for a moment. Um. Tragic in
8:47
Speaker 1: the end. Uh. But Um, even though they did make
8:52
Speaker 1: friends with the pau Hatton's, they were essentially dependent on
8:56
Speaker 1: England still, which is important because without that, John White
9:01
Speaker 1: might have stayed. If they would have been fully self
9:02
Speaker 1: sufficient at that point, he might have stuck around. And um,
9:07
Speaker 1: although he may have met the same mysterious fate as
9:11
Speaker 1: the other loss or lost folks. Yeah, and I think
9:14
Speaker 1: that that the mystery might not have been quite as
9:16
Speaker 1: mysterious without John White to report it initially. Yeah. Maybe.
9:20
Speaker 1: So he leaves to go back to England, um the
9:23
Speaker 1: same year that the Seven Colony was established, and they
9:27
Speaker 1: say that to get provisions right, they say that he
9:30
Speaker 1: was delayed in getting back because the English and the
9:33
Speaker 1: Spanish went to war. Yeah, dude, it took him three years,
9:36
Speaker 1: three years. He finally got back in fifteen ninety. Like,
9:39
Speaker 1: I don't know what he expected. Did he expect like
9:42
Speaker 1: them to be thriving? And I guess that's what he
9:44
Speaker 1: was hoping for. I'm sure he was hoping for it,
9:45
Speaker 1: but I'll bet at the very least he was expecting
9:48
Speaker 1: for some evidence of what became of them or something.
9:51
Speaker 1: When he landed and in fifteen ninety back on Roanoke,
9:55
Speaker 1: he was confronted with a mystery that's lasted for four
10:00
Speaker 1: hundred something years, four hundred and twenty three years. Yes,
10:06
Speaker 1: what he arrived back to was no people, no bones,
10:10
Speaker 1: no bodies, no clothing, no supplies, no buildings, no nothing
10:16
Speaker 1: except for what the remnants of a wall or a fort,
10:21
Speaker 1: a fort that hadn't been there when he left. So
10:24
Speaker 1: they had assembled a fort in that basically a fort
10:28
Speaker 1: meaning just some pikes surrounding the settlement. The problem was
10:32
Speaker 1: the settlement was gone everything like not. There weren't burned
10:37
Speaker 1: out shells, there weren't tumbled down buildings. He said. His
10:42
Speaker 1: quote was that they've been taken down. Yeah, they disassembled
10:47
Speaker 1: the buildings. Yeah, it wasn't like um any signs of
10:51
Speaker 1: of the war had gone on, and that there was
10:53
Speaker 1: a massacre that had taken place, and that they burned
10:56
Speaker 1: their huts and you know, assaulted the people and killed
10:59
Speaker 1: them and left their bones. It's like they just left, right.
11:02
Speaker 1: So there was no evidence of murder. There was no
11:05
Speaker 1: evidence of um, of a hasty exit. There was no
11:09
Speaker 1: evidence that they were following fish around the country. Right.
11:14
Speaker 1: Had they settled in Vermont maybe you know PAULI right? Um?
11:18
Speaker 1: And there was no sign of distress. Apparently they had
11:21
Speaker 1: a an agreed upon symbol if John White came back
11:26
Speaker 1: and they were under duress or had been under duress,
11:28
Speaker 1: they were supposed to carve a Maltese cross in the somewhere. Well,
11:32
Speaker 1: they didn't carve a Maltese cross. They carved crow Towing.
11:35
Speaker 1: So they had an opportunity to carve something, and they
11:38
Speaker 1: didn't carve the distress signal. They carved crow tone. Yeah,
11:42
Speaker 1: which to me, and if I was John White, I
11:44
Speaker 1: would think the same thing. That means, hey, no distress.
11:47
Speaker 1: I guess they went to crow A Towing where the
11:50
Speaker 1: Indians that we were friendly with lived. Yeah, it makes
11:54
Speaker 1: good sense, And I think it was a crow a
11:56
Speaker 1: tone in one tree and then c R O in
11:58
Speaker 1: a post on the fort just crow. Yeah, but it
12:01
Speaker 1: didn't say like crow like they're like no, nothing like that.
12:05
Speaker 1: It was more just like we already carved it once
12:08
Speaker 1: or maybe those that they had a carving race. Maybe
12:12
Speaker 1: you know Diddy Johnson carved it quickly. Yeah, Virginia Dare
12:15
Speaker 1: is terrible at carving because she was three. Yeah, well
12:20
Speaker 1: let's you should never put a three year old up
12:22
Speaker 1: against an adult, good wife, or never give a three
12:25
Speaker 1: old a knife. Yeah, I think that's the key. So um,
12:30
Speaker 1: So John White is like, okay, well this is really weird.
12:33
Speaker 1: Everybody's vanished and he's probably sad. Yeah, and he goes, okay,
12:38
Speaker 1: I'm going back to England. He had a very um history.
12:43
Speaker 1: Is not necessarily treated John White well historians, I should say,
12:48
Speaker 1: he's been described it turns as paranoid, which we'll get into.
12:53
Speaker 1: And also it's a little flaky. At the very least.
12:56
Speaker 1: My interpretation of John White is that he didn't stay
13:00
Speaker 1: end up to people like maybe he should have. So
13:03
Speaker 1: the um, the the sailors that he's with that he
13:07
Speaker 1: sailed back with provisions to Roanoke with said hey man,
13:12
Speaker 1: I think a storm's coming, Let's just get out of here.
13:14
Speaker 1: So he never went the crow a tone and to
13:16
Speaker 1: find out what happened to the colonists. For fifteen twenty
13:20
Speaker 1: one years, there were no expeditions to find out what happened.
13:23
Speaker 1: It wasn't until Jamestown in sixteen o seven that they
13:26
Speaker 1: finally started looking and then making a habit of when
13:30
Speaker 1: they came across Native tribes saying, hey, uh, you see
13:33
Speaker 1: a bunch of white people around here. Yeah, and um,
13:36
Speaker 1: and actually there had been some proposed expeditions that people
13:39
Speaker 1: had carried out, but they never actually went to search
13:41
Speaker 1: for him. They just used it as an excuse for piracy. Um.
13:45
Speaker 1: But yeah, once Jamestown settled, one of the one of
13:47
Speaker 1: the main things they did was question local Indians, and
13:50
Speaker 1: they actually got some pretty intriguing answers. Yeah. Um, like, well,
13:56
Speaker 1: they also found some pretty intriguing things like in adiends
14:00
Speaker 1: with gray eyes and a boy with blonde hair but
14:04
Speaker 1: in Native American clothing. Yeah, they're like, hey, kid, come
14:06
Speaker 1: over here, and the kid takes off. Yeah. They didn't
14:08
Speaker 1: get a chance to question them, right right. Um. And
14:11
Speaker 1: these are apparently like eyewitness reports from reliable Jamestown planners
14:16
Speaker 1: um so, and then from the local tribes they found
14:20
Speaker 1: that there were supposedly people who lived in two story
14:23
Speaker 1: stone structures with thatched roofs, totally unique to the English. Um.
14:28
Speaker 1: There were supposedly people who spoke English and like read
14:31
Speaker 1: the Bible who lived you know, further down the coast,
14:34
Speaker 1: but they never found any of them. Yeah. And part
14:36
Speaker 1: of the problem too, that we should point out is
14:38
Speaker 1: that they aren't exactly sure, because of poor record keeping,
14:42
Speaker 1: exactly exactly where the settlement was to begin with, so
14:46
Speaker 1: they didn't know where to look. Um White I think
14:49
Speaker 1: had had said it was further north on the island, um,
14:52
Speaker 1: where the original dudes were adventuring, and um, I think
14:56
Speaker 1: a Spanish dude had said, no, it's worked towards the
15:00
Speaker 1: center of the island, and they found evidence of like
15:03
Speaker 1: cannons and things there, so they think it might have
15:05
Speaker 1: been there. Yeah, and they think that possibly, um, the
15:08
Speaker 1: settlement is now underwater, like there's been massive erosion on
15:11
Speaker 1: the island since the sixteenth century. It's only twelve miles
15:14
Speaker 1: long though, but of course back then that's a bigger
15:17
Speaker 1: search area than they were capable of, you know. Yeah. Well,
15:19
Speaker 1: they also think though that um, that in the last
15:23
Speaker 1: four hundred years, as much as a quarter mile um
15:26
Speaker 1: of the coast of the coast is eroded inland, and
15:29
Speaker 1: that yeah, it's very possible to settlements underwater. Now interesting,
15:32
Speaker 1: I saw a thing on I watched a little YouTube
15:34
Speaker 1: thing on this. It was kind of a silly show.
15:37
Speaker 1: But this, uh, there was one cool part where this
15:39
Speaker 1: uh tree experts said that you can drill into the
15:44
Speaker 1: core of a tree and study how much rainfall um
15:48
Speaker 1: as that historically that that area has gotten. And they
15:52
Speaker 1: found this you know tree that was like five years old,
15:54
Speaker 1: drilled into the core and found that the biggest drought
15:57
Speaker 1: of the past eight hundred years occurred in right, they
16:01
Speaker 1: walked right into it. So it was just not a
16:03
Speaker 1: good situation. Of course, I didn't prove anything. That was
16:05
Speaker 1: a nice little footnote. Yeah, what was silly about it?
16:08
Speaker 1: Did they did they break into dance and song? Here? No,
16:10
Speaker 1: the guy on the show, he's like, you know, one
16:12
Speaker 1: of these like history detectives, and he rented a you know,
16:15
Speaker 1: the little pair of gliders to have a fan attached
16:18
Speaker 1: to your back. He's like, I wanted to get an
16:19
Speaker 1: aerial view. So like, dude, you just wanted to ride
16:22
Speaker 1: around on that thing, like you got absolutely nothing from that?
16:25
Speaker 1: Why an aerial Yeah, and afterwards we learned nothing about it.
16:30
Speaker 1: He was just like boy, and you know, that's just
16:31
Speaker 1: a good way to see the island. So anyway, he
16:34
Speaker 1: was silly, um. And it was not a Discovery network,
16:37
Speaker 1: so I can say that. So so Chuck, Yes, the
16:41
Speaker 1: colonists are lost. The colony is lost, if any idea
16:46
Speaker 1: where it is. And they've even found like parts of
16:48
Speaker 1: the colony. Yeah, they found a guy's ring, right, Yeah.
16:53
Speaker 1: They found the first scientific laboratory um ever created in
16:57
Speaker 1: the New World, Thomas Harriet. Um. So they found like
17:01
Speaker 1: other stuff, they just can't find the seven one, which
17:04
Speaker 1: is weird. Um. But there are a lot of theories
17:08
Speaker 1: abounding for what happened to the colonists, and I think
17:13
Speaker 1: it's awesome that there are none that fully explain what happened.
17:19
Speaker 1: I love historical mystery. I think that's cool when they're solved,
17:22
Speaker 1: and I like it when they're unsolved. Yeah, this one's
17:23
Speaker 1: like as American as it gets. This is an American mystery,
17:27
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. One clue that uh, you know, White
17:31
Speaker 1: wrote down a bunch of stuff in a letter obviously,
17:33
Speaker 1: when he went to check things out, and one thing
17:34
Speaker 1: he said that is pretty key was that they moved
17:38
Speaker 1: fifty miles into the main which everyone took to me
17:41
Speaker 1: and into the main part of North Carolina inland into
17:44
Speaker 1: the forest. But now they think maybe he'd met Mike
17:47
Speaker 1: to the main towards Chesapeake. Ya. Uh that or if um,
17:52
Speaker 1: if you look at the distance between crow tonin and
17:55
Speaker 1: um Roanoke is fifty miles, So they could have just
17:59
Speaker 1: assimilated with a friendly tribe and uh mixed their races
18:04
Speaker 1: and eventually became an altogether new Well. Yeah, and there's
18:09
Speaker 1: actually a tribe that counts Um part of its origin
18:13
Speaker 1: story as the Roanoke settlers. Yeah, the Lumbi tribe of
18:18
Speaker 1: Robeson County, North Carolina. See this sounds really compelling to me.
18:22
Speaker 1: It does. Um, if you ask the average Lumbie, depending
18:26
Speaker 1: on who you ask, you're gonna get like a yeah,
18:28
Speaker 1: of course or a no that's not the case. Yeah.
18:31
Speaker 1: It just depends the tribes divided as to its the
18:34
Speaker 1: whether or not the Um they they assimilated the Roanoke
18:39
Speaker 1: colonists or not. But there are some there's some pretty
18:42
Speaker 1: tantalizing evidence. For example, Apparently as early as seventeen nineteen,
18:47
Speaker 1: some members of the Lumbie tribe had surnames that were
18:51
Speaker 1: the same as some of the Lost colonists, like Hyatt
18:54
Speaker 1: Dial Taylor. I think if a Native American walks studio
18:59
Speaker 1: and says, hey, Jim Taylor, nice to meet you in
19:02
Speaker 1: seventeen nineteen, BERMUDI like they could read. They can read,
19:06
Speaker 1: you know that stuff turns brown in the winter. Not
19:08
Speaker 1: a fan. Uh. They spoke English and could like read
19:13
Speaker 1: and write. I think, right, yeah, they were familiar with
19:16
Speaker 1: the Bible. Yeah, so come on, well, here's the thing, um,
19:20
Speaker 1: whether or not that is if, if that happened in
19:24
Speaker 1: seventeen nineteen, yeah, that's pretty compelling evidence. But there was
19:29
Speaker 1: still a hundred years of exposure that could have happened
19:33
Speaker 1: little by little. You could still account for it, if
19:36
Speaker 1: you ask me. I think the Lumby connection is pretty
19:40
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting at the very least. And maybe some
19:43
Speaker 1: of them went that way. You know, it's possible. No
19:45
Speaker 1: one has no one, you know, did they have to
19:48
Speaker 1: stay together? No, not necessarily. But with the tribe, it's
19:53
Speaker 1: kind of like, well, these are our origins or they're
19:55
Speaker 1: not our origins, because they're distinct. They're distinct group. I
20:00
Speaker 1: get that as I understand it. Uh, some folks say
20:02
Speaker 1: that they were killed by the Spanish. Um, they definitely
20:07
Speaker 1: knew that they were there because one of the one
20:10
Speaker 1: of the dudes on the Roanoke expedition when they stopped
20:13
Speaker 1: off in Puerto Rico, said hey, let me get off
20:17
Speaker 1: here because it's really nice. Right, that's probably what the
20:22
Speaker 1: real intent was. But um, why what did he say?
20:24
Speaker 1: Was gonna say? Darby Gland said that he was going
20:26
Speaker 1: to take on supplies, but by the way, I'm gonna
20:29
Speaker 1: stay here with the supply. Yeah for a while. Either way,
20:33
Speaker 1: he stayed there and told the Spanish, Hey, yeah, like,
20:36
Speaker 1: we're settling right up there on that island there in Roanoke.
20:39
Speaker 1: So they Spanish knew where they were for sure. We
20:41
Speaker 1: know that. And here is why that's weird. They weren't
20:45
Speaker 1: supposed to settle in Roanoke, that's right. They didn't know
20:49
Speaker 1: that they were going to settle in Roanoke. No, they
20:51
Speaker 1: weren't supposed that. They're supposed to be in Chesapeake. So
20:53
Speaker 1: here in is the first clue to the mystery. So
20:56
Speaker 1: there's a um. John hop Johns Hopkins trained anthropologist name
21:00
Speaker 1: Lee Miller, who came up with this idea that the
21:02
Speaker 1: Roanoke Colony was sabotaged by rivals of Sir Walter Rawley
21:07
Speaker 1: who resented him for his patent and wanted to get
21:10
Speaker 1: it themselves. And they thought that maybe by proving that
21:13
Speaker 1: he couldn't possibly established in English um colony in the
21:17
Speaker 1: New World, they could they could get the patent. Yeah,
21:20
Speaker 1: and sabotage in the way of their ships. Captain potentially
21:24
Speaker 1: was it Fernandez was paid off? Maybe and uh, he
21:29
Speaker 1: did a lot of mysterious things like took way too
21:32
Speaker 1: much time to do some basic charting and seamanship when
21:37
Speaker 1: he should have been he super experienced. Well not only
21:40
Speaker 1: that he knew the area and he spent I think
21:44
Speaker 1: thirty six days um off the coast of Cape Fear
21:48
Speaker 1: to get his bearings um and well, like we said
21:51
Speaker 1: that the colonists were delivered to the New World after
21:55
Speaker 1: the planning season, so they couldn't there's no way they
21:58
Speaker 1: could plant during a drought and to an area that
22:01
Speaker 1: was known to be you know, right, rono. Some people
22:07
Speaker 1: got off and said, you know what, everybody get off here.
22:09
Speaker 1: I'll see you guys later, and he left and they
22:11
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to be there, and he basically stranded him
22:13
Speaker 1: there in a hostile area after planning season and then
22:17
Speaker 1: limited supplies. This other guy tells the Spanish where they are,
22:20
Speaker 1: maybe as a backup to make sure before they ever
22:23
Speaker 1: even went to Rono they were on their way there.
22:26
Speaker 1: So it's definitely hinky. Yeah, and Miller implicates a guy
22:29
Speaker 1: named Francis walling Sam. I believe um and basically says,
22:36
Speaker 1: this is the guy who was after Sir Walter Rawley
22:40
Speaker 1: and did all this and found that Walling Sam rescued
22:46
Speaker 1: Fernandez the pilot from being hanged. So Fernande is literally
22:51
Speaker 1: owed this other guy his life, so who knows what
22:55
Speaker 1: he would have done. Yeah, possibly one of the first
22:57
Speaker 1: conspiracy uh conspira reces of the New World of among
23:03
Speaker 1: Europeans in the New World. UM And Miller also goes
23:08
Speaker 1: on to say that he he thinks probably what literally
23:11
Speaker 1: happened to them, despite whether they were set up or
23:13
Speaker 1: not to fail, was that they were caught up in
23:16
Speaker 1: a shift of power among tribes. UM. Basically, from you
23:21
Speaker 1: know the friendlies one away, they not friendlies came in
23:23
Speaker 1: and there was a balance of power shifting, and they
23:25
Speaker 1: were kind of right in the middle of that. Well,
23:26
Speaker 1: they walked right into it. If they went into North
23:29
Speaker 1: Carolina in the forest, they walked right into the hands
23:31
Speaker 1: of some very hostile tribes who would have, according to Miller,
23:35
Speaker 1: killed all the men and sold all the women and
23:38
Speaker 1: children into slavery um and that they would have been
23:42
Speaker 1: traded up and down this network that spanned from Florida
23:45
Speaker 1: up to Virginia the Chesapeake. And there's actually really cantalizing
23:51
Speaker 1: evidence this other mystery. So there's a mystery on a mystery.
23:55
Speaker 1: It's have you heard of the Dare Stones? Now, So
23:59
Speaker 1: from ninety seven and nine, forty stones turned up from
24:05
Speaker 1: the North Carolina area all the way down to the
24:07
Speaker 1: Chatahoocha just outside of Atlanta, almost forming a trail, and
24:11
Speaker 1: they were etched granite stones that were written in Elizabethan
24:16
Speaker 1: English and said things like mark the death of Virginia
24:20
Speaker 1: Dare in fifte um, all sorts of different like little messages,
24:28
Speaker 1: but leading from North Carolina to Atlanta and posedly from
24:32
Speaker 1: the late sixteenth century. Yeah, so a lot of these
24:35
Speaker 1: are considered to be fake, if not all of them.
24:38
Speaker 1: But Burnow University up in Gainesville has all forty of
24:40
Speaker 1: them in their collection, and apparently they're going back and
24:43
Speaker 1: reevaluating them because most people are like those are frauds.
24:46
Speaker 1: The problem is the people who turned them up had
24:49
Speaker 1: no they don't know Elizabeth in English, they didn't weren't
24:53
Speaker 1: trained in that at all, so it would have been
24:55
Speaker 1: right there, kind of tough to to carry out that
24:58
Speaker 1: hoax because it was no. Well, but they think that
25:03
Speaker 1: some of the last ones were intentionally like used to
25:07
Speaker 1: discredit people who were accusing at Land and Professor's emery
25:11
Speaker 1: of like trying to generate tourism by saying, the lost
25:15
Speaker 1: colonists ended up here, so come down here and run
25:17
Speaker 1: a cabin, you know. But the anyway, the brand now
25:20
Speaker 1: university professors are going back and looking at each one
25:23
Speaker 1: on its own marriage rather than related to the other
25:25
Speaker 1: thirty nine of them from what I understand. Um, so
25:28
Speaker 1: there's the dare Stone's interesting and it's possible that it
25:31
Speaker 1: kind of supports Lee Miller's hypothesis that they were traded
25:36
Speaker 1: and lived and left markings behind saying hey, we were here. Well,
25:42
Speaker 1: I know that Miller was frustrated with when it was
25:46
Speaker 1: Miller here, she she she, I thought so when She
25:50
Speaker 1: actually went to Roanoke and was just so frustrated, like
25:52
Speaker 1: because it's you know, like I said, twelve miles by
25:54
Speaker 1: I think three miles And she was just like it's small,
25:57
Speaker 1: Like where is the stuff? Like why can't we find anything?
26:01
Speaker 1: I think it's because they took off it has been
26:03
Speaker 1: taken down. Um. And then did you read this thing
26:06
Speaker 1: that I sent you? Yeah, I really had a hard
26:09
Speaker 1: time understanding the significance of it. Are they saying that
26:12
Speaker 1: John White is saying here, this is where they were?
26:15
Speaker 1: And I think here's here's the deal. This UM group
26:19
Speaker 1: was established to try and figure this out, of course, uh.
26:21
Speaker 1: And I think they were from England even um. And
26:23
Speaker 1: they took a new look uh that they're called the
26:26
Speaker 1: First Colony Foundation. Now they're from North Carolina. They've been
26:29
Speaker 1: working with the British Museum. Okay, that has that map.
26:33
Speaker 1: So they found the year old map. They didn't find it.
26:36
Speaker 1: They took a new look at it and found that
26:39
Speaker 1: there were a couple of patches on the map, which basically,
26:42
Speaker 1: back then you couldn't erase something and start over. You
26:44
Speaker 1: would do a little patch section and attach that to
26:47
Speaker 1: the map. One of the patches was UM just a
26:51
Speaker 1: mistake that was being corrected, and the other one didn't
26:55
Speaker 1: appear until they held it in front of a light box.
26:57
Speaker 1: So that's very mysterious. And they sound evidence that they
27:01
Speaker 1: think concludes that they moved westward up the Albamarla Albemarle
27:07
Speaker 1: Sound to the confluence of the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers.
27:12
Speaker 1: And the evidence is because what was covered up was
27:15
Speaker 1: believed to be a symbol of a fort. So what
27:19
Speaker 1: they're saying is his intention because this was a very
27:21
Speaker 1: detailed map and it was a very important map and
27:23
Speaker 1: it was drawn by John White, Right, Yeah, drawn by
27:26
Speaker 1: John White, and um it had been you know, covered
27:30
Speaker 1: up for centuries until they found it, saying it's pretty
27:32
Speaker 1: clear that the intention was, Hey, this is where we
27:35
Speaker 1: want to settle. This is where we're going to this fort.
27:39
Speaker 1: So are they saying that John White drew the map
27:44
Speaker 1: and that was originally where they were going to go
27:45
Speaker 1: before Fernandez stranded them, and so that's probably where the
27:49
Speaker 1: colonists went after they left Roanoke. I think so, Okay,
27:53
Speaker 1: I think that's what they're saying. They didn't specifically say
27:56
Speaker 1: that that was their original intent, but I think at
27:59
Speaker 1: some point while they were before he left to go
28:02
Speaker 1: back to England, he said, let's go to this place
28:05
Speaker 1: established a fort. So he just didn't write down what
28:07
Speaker 1: he knew well enough, I think so. And um they
28:12
Speaker 1: say they don't know why it was covered covered over
28:14
Speaker 1: with a patch. Um, but they think that they could
28:18
Speaker 1: start looking there for maybe remnants. Yeah, supposedly the it's
28:21
Speaker 1: under a subdivision and a golf course. Yeah it's so
28:25
Speaker 1: good luck with that. Um no excavating whole nine. But
28:31
Speaker 1: um yeah, interesting. They seem I was a little less
28:33
Speaker 1: moved by this, like you. They seemed to be really like,
28:36
Speaker 1: oh my god, the mystery has been solved. There was
28:39
Speaker 1: a fort that they said that they were going to established, right,
28:42
Speaker 1: and they covered it up with a patch that has
28:43
Speaker 1: a different kind of fort drawing on it. Yeah, it
28:46
Speaker 1: could have been as simple as you know, maybe they
28:47
Speaker 1: wanted to do that, but then they still ended up,
28:49
Speaker 1: you know, getting taken or going somewhere else. So who knows,
28:52
Speaker 1: we'll never know. We probably will never know. It's going
28:55
Speaker 1: to be one of those in during mysteries. I love it.
28:58
Speaker 1: I love it too, Chuck. You know, yeah, you got
29:00
Speaker 1: anything else? I gonna solve everything. People are crazy for
29:04
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. You know. They love to know everything.
29:08
Speaker 1: It's like chill out, all in good time, all in
29:13
Speaker 1: four and something years. If you want to know more
29:16
Speaker 1: about the Roanoke mystery, type that word into the search
29:19
Speaker 1: bar at how stuff works dot com. That is R
29:22
Speaker 1: O A N O kay e not Virginia, North Carolina,
29:27
Speaker 1: and it will bring up this article by me. And
29:29
Speaker 1: since I said me, it's time for a message break
29:33
Speaker 1: which begins with me. Okay, so now listener mail. Yeah,
29:44
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna call this, uh, maybe the biggest
29:46
Speaker 1: nerd ever to write in dork show. I love this dude.
29:50
Speaker 1: Actually he may not be ready at all. Hi, guys,
29:53
Speaker 1: it has to do with D and D again though.
29:56
Speaker 1: After listening to D and d uh podcast, I wanted
29:59
Speaker 1: to share to you how you inspired the creation of
30:03
Speaker 1: Dungeons and dragonesque role playing adventure. Two weeks before Christmas
30:07
Speaker 1: vacation last year, I came down with the chicken pots. Uh.
30:11
Speaker 1: That is sort of a medical absurdity um to every doctor, nurse,
30:14
Speaker 1: and colleague came into contact with. It's also really dangerous though, right,
30:17
Speaker 1: I think it's more I don't know about dangerous, but
30:20
Speaker 1: I think it's more complicated for sure, all right, you're
30:22
Speaker 1: a kid. Sorry for enough's um. Two weeks of being
30:25
Speaker 1: stuck at home trying not to scratch allowed my imagination
30:27
Speaker 1: to wander at a day where I listened to the Singularity,
30:30
Speaker 1: holographic environments, and designing our children's podcast. Also, I watched
30:35
Speaker 1: two documentaries on the band Rush and the movie Blade Runner.
30:39
Speaker 1: This combination of science fiction ideology sparked the idea for
30:42
Speaker 1: a story, but I needed some help writing it, so
30:44
Speaker 1: I created a role playing game. Dungeons and Dragons does
30:47
Speaker 1: not lend itself to futuristic technology, so I decided to
30:50
Speaker 1: create my own games and rules. I used a university
30:55
Speaker 1: as the dungeon, college majors as character classes, campus stereotypes
31:00
Speaker 1: as races, rushed song lyrics as puzzles, and stuff you
31:05
Speaker 1: should know podcasts for the storyline. One example of what
31:09
Speaker 1: we did with it uh major's technology related field, wizard, nursing, healer, kinesiology, paladin, chemist, rogue, thief, biology,
31:20
Speaker 1: druid music major, bard theology, monk. I'm just I have
31:24
Speaker 1: no idea. What do you even make of that? You? Yeah, okay,
31:27
Speaker 1: So four college boys set out to save the world
31:29
Speaker 1: from Alex liveson and Getty Lee's genetically engineered Neil Perk
31:34
Speaker 1: and to prevent the Singularity from taking over the campus
31:38
Speaker 1: of Illinois State, go red Birds. Other than the odd
31:41
Speaker 1: looks we received from the guy installing window treatments while
31:44
Speaker 1: we were playing, the game was a great success and
31:46
Speaker 1: I introduced for new people to the stuff you should
31:49
Speaker 1: know universe. So thanks for inspiring an awesome day and
31:51
Speaker 1: distracting me from the pox. That is from Matt McCulley,
31:54
Speaker 1: math teacher at Woodstock High School in Illinois and the
31:57
Speaker 1: cross country and track coach. A dude, I want to
32:01
Speaker 1: see this game. I want to play this game. I
32:04
Speaker 1: want to figurine of me. You do me and Getty
32:07
Speaker 1: Lee like fighting druids? Yeah, or fighting one another with
32:11
Speaker 1: druids advancing on you. That's a sticky situation. Yeah, so
32:14
Speaker 1: that's that's quite a game, and that is quite an email. Mat. Yeah,
32:17
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Matt. You may be right, chuck uh
32:19
Speaker 1: if you want to let us know how nerdy you
32:22
Speaker 1: are or how wonderful your imagination is, I guess it's
32:25
Speaker 1: another way to put up. Yeah, we love nerdy qualities.
32:28
Speaker 1: By the way, because we got an email for like
32:30
Speaker 1: young lady that took exceptions of me Jane nerd and
32:33
Speaker 1: thinking all my little nerd pleases. But it's all good fun.
32:37
Speaker 1: We love it. Yeah, get a sense of human nerds. Yeah,
32:40
Speaker 1: if you want to let us know how funny you
32:42
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32:45
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32:48
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32:53
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32:59
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33:06
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