Latest / Crime and Horror / A SECRET was hiding in plain sight The lost colony of Roanoke

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A SECRET was hiding in plain sight The lost colony of Roanoke · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I am far more
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Speaker 1: interested in mysteries that have occurred in the relatively recent past.
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Speaker 1: I think it's easier to relate to the people involved
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Speaker 1: because they probably lived their lives kind of similar to
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Speaker 1: how you're living now. Different but similar, right, you know,
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Speaker 1: And also like the information. If you're looking at a
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Speaker 1: case that happened fifty years ago or less, it's easier
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Speaker 1: to fact check that information, and there's probably more information
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Speaker 1: about that case, whereas if you're looking at something that's
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Speaker 1: happened let's say, hundreds and hundreds of years ago. While
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Speaker 1: certainly there are people involved, and being a human being,
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Speaker 1: I can relate to them in that sense, but the
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Speaker 1: way they live is a lot different than we live now,
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Speaker 1: and so it's very difficult to kind of put myself
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Speaker 1: in their perspective because my experience living on the earth
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Speaker 1: is so much different. And of course, information, even if
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Speaker 1: it was diligently transcribed at the time, it's taken hundreds
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Speaker 1: of years to arrive in front of me now, and
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Speaker 1: so the opportunity for information to change, or to be
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Speaker 1: passed down inaccurately, or to just be a straight up
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Speaker 1: embellishment is much higher, so the accuracy of information in
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Speaker 1: older cases it's a little bit up for grabs, so
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Speaker 1: I tend to be interested in more recent mysteries. But
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Speaker 1: there is one case, in fact, it is the oldest
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Speaker 1: unsolved mystery in American history that I have been fascinated
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Speaker 1: with ever since I heard about it in grade school.
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Speaker 1: And the reason I'm talking about it now in this
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Speaker 1: video is not only have I found it fascinating, but
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Speaker 1: there has been some recent discoveries as recent as twenty
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Speaker 1: eleven that totally change the theories about what could have
1:44
Speaker 1: happened in this particular case. And the case I'm referencing
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Speaker 1: is the Lost Colony of Roanoke. The too long, didn't
1:52
Speaker 1: read version of the story is when England first tried
1:56
Speaker 1: to colonize America.
1:58
Speaker 2: They set up a colony on Row Island, which is
2:01
Speaker 2: right off the coast of North Carolina.
2:03
Speaker 1: And when it wasn't going very well, and the early
2:06
Speaker 1: colonists they needed more supplies, they sent their leader back
2:09
Speaker 1: to England to get more supplies. But when he came back,
2:12
Speaker 1: the colony was gone, all one hundred and fifteen people
2:15
Speaker 1: gone without a trace, and all that was left were
2:19
Speaker 1: two strange messages one was on a tree and one
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Speaker 1: was on a fence post right in where the colony
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Speaker 1: used to be. And for centuries, historians and amateur sleuths
2:29
Speaker 1: alike have debated what those messages mean, but a recent
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Speaker 1: discovery in twenty eleven completely changes people's interpretation of what
2:39
Speaker 1: happened at Roanoke. Before we get started, if you are
2:43
Speaker 1: a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in
2:47
Speaker 1: story format, well you've come to the right channel because
2:50
Speaker 1: that is literally all I'm going to be doing, and
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Speaker 1: I post three to four times a week. So if
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Speaker 1: the like button and then turn on all the notifications
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Speaker 1: so you don't miss any of these cool stories. All right,
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Speaker 1: let's dive in. By the late fifteen hundreds, England wanted
3:07
Speaker 1: to colonize America, and in the early fifteen eighties and
3:12
Speaker 1: englishmen by the name of Sir Walter Rawley was basically
3:15
Speaker 1: given a permit to go colonize America. Basically, it said, okay,
3:20
Speaker 1: it's you know, fifteen eighty and you have until fifteen
3:23
Speaker 1: ninety one to colonize somewhere in America.
3:26
Speaker 2: If you can't do it, by then you're going to
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Speaker 2: lose your permit.
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Speaker 1: He starts getting funding together, he starts, you know, looking
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Speaker 1: on a map to figure out where's a good spot
3:33
Speaker 1: to land, and by fifteen eighty four he's ready to
3:37
Speaker 1: launch his first reconnaissance mission to America. So in fifteen
3:41
Speaker 1: eighty four, two ships make their way to North America
3:44
Speaker 1: and they land somewhere in the Outer Banks in North Carolina.
3:48
Speaker 1: They land and they actually quickly befriend the local Native
3:52
Speaker 1: Americans that are there, and in fact, they invite these
3:56
Speaker 1: English people to come to their village, which was on
3:59
Speaker 1: Roanoke Island, also in North Carolina, not too far from
4:02
Speaker 1: the Outer Banks. And so these early English settlers are
4:06
Speaker 1: brought to this village and they're able to coexist with
4:10
Speaker 1: the Native Americans really beautifully. They're sharing trade secrets, they're
4:14
Speaker 1: learning how to hunt, they're learning how to do all
4:16
Speaker 1: the things that you would need if you were going
4:17
Speaker 1: to live.
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Speaker 2: In this new land.
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Speaker 1: And again they're being embraced by the local population, which
4:23
Speaker 1: was huge. So after one month of this reconnaissance mission,
4:27
Speaker 1: that group of early settlers is really excited about the
4:31
Speaker 1: possibilities of settling in America. So they make their way
4:35
Speaker 1: back to England, and they share their findings with Sir
4:38
Speaker 1: Walter Raleigh, and preparations are immediately began to launch an
4:44
Speaker 1: actual colonization effort into Romanoke. So one year after this
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Speaker 1: initial reconnaissance mission, Sir Walter Raleigh is ready to launch
4:54
Speaker 1: this full fledged effort to colonize America. And so he
4:59
Speaker 1: sends seven ships with six hundred men and supplies that
5:04
Speaker 1: were designed to last that group of people for a
5:08
Speaker 1: full year. And so everything's going beautifully. They're sailing their
5:11
Speaker 1: way over to America, and when they reached the outer Banks,
5:14
Speaker 1: their flagship, the biggest and best ship they had that
5:17
Speaker 1: was carrying the bulk of their supplies, their food, their
5:20
Speaker 1: fresh water, it ran aground and a lot of their
5:24
Speaker 1: supplies fell into the ocean and were spoiled.
5:26
Speaker 2: And so this is a.
5:27
Speaker 1: Devastating blow and they know immediately that, well, not everybody
5:31
Speaker 1: on this fleet can actually land here. So they sent
5:35
Speaker 1: five hundred men back to England and only landed one
5:39
Speaker 1: hundred of the original six hundred in Roanoke. Now, as
5:43
Speaker 1: soon as this second round of settlers, these one hundred
5:46
Speaker 1: men landed in Roanoke, they went and spoke with the
5:49
Speaker 1: local Native Americans. There was already good relationships built from
5:53
Speaker 1: that first reconnaissance mission, and these settlers were given permission
5:57
Speaker 1: by the local natives to build their colony in Roanoke.
6:01
Speaker 1: So they begin constructing their colony and everything is going
6:04
Speaker 1: off without a hitch. In fact, the Native Americans were
6:07
Speaker 1: incredibly generous. They worked closely with the settlers and did
6:12
Speaker 1: their best to support them.
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Speaker 2: However, they could.
6:14
Speaker 1: Now the settlers they still needed more supplies. They didn't
6:18
Speaker 1: have this robust supply that they planned on having because
6:22
Speaker 1: much of it was destroyed in that shipwreck as they
6:25
Speaker 1: initially made their way in.
6:26
Speaker 2: So they had been promised by the five hundred returning.
6:29
Speaker 1: Crew members that they were going to send supplies by
6:32
Speaker 1: the following winter. So they're anticipating this shipment of new supplies,
6:37
Speaker 1: and as they get closer to the wintertime, the one
6:40
Speaker 1: hundred settlers that are there, they're running incredibly low on supplies,
6:44
Speaker 1: to the point where they actually basically run out, and
6:47
Speaker 1: so they had to rely on the local Native Americans
6:51
Speaker 1: generosity just to stay alive. When the shipment that was
6:55
Speaker 1: supposed to be there in the winter did not show
6:58
Speaker 1: up and in fact had actually been canceled. They didn't
7:00
Speaker 1: know this that had been canceled by Queen Elizabeth, who
7:03
Speaker 1: basically said that wasn't important.
7:05
Speaker 2: We're going to focus on things that are happening in England.
7:07
Speaker 1: When that doesn't show up the tensions between these one
7:11
Speaker 1: hundred settlers and the local natives. The tension was growing
7:14
Speaker 1: because now there's a huge overdependency. That tension grew to
7:18
Speaker 1: the point where the leader of the settlers and the
7:23
Speaker 1: leader of the local Native Americans began to not trust
7:26
Speaker 1: each other, and in fact, the local natives, instead of
7:29
Speaker 1: being violent, decided that they would just abandon Roanoke and
7:33
Speaker 1: go to the mainland and would just kind of give
7:36
Speaker 1: Roanoke Island to the settlers, and that that would kind
7:39
Speaker 1: of solve all the problems. But the English settlers took
7:44
Speaker 1: their retreat as a sign that they were actually going
7:48
Speaker 1: to the mainland of North Carolina, these Native Americans, and
7:51
Speaker 1: we're going to be forming alliances with other tribes, and
7:53
Speaker 1: then they were going to come back out and wipe
7:55
Speaker 1: out the hundred settlers. We don't know if that's true,
7:58
Speaker 1: because what happens next The English settlers, in kind of
8:02
Speaker 1: a fit of paranoia, they preemptively crossed the water, and
8:07
Speaker 1: they make it to the mainland and they attack the
8:10
Speaker 1: Native Americans that had previously been helping them and keeping
8:13
Speaker 1: them alive, and they actually wiped them out.
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Speaker 2: These English settlers come back.
8:17
Speaker 1: To Roanoke Island and now the paranoia is even higher
8:20
Speaker 1: because now they don't have supplies, they don't know how
8:23
Speaker 1: to live there.
8:23
Speaker 2: They've just basically started a war.
8:26
Speaker 1: And it just so happens that an English bound fleet
8:29
Speaker 1: was passing by the area on their way back to England,
8:33
Speaker 1: and when they stopped at the colony, the settlers were
8:37
Speaker 1: basically in a panic. I mean, at this point, they've
8:39
Speaker 1: just recently wiped out this Native American tribe.
8:42
Speaker 2: They're freaking out about what what's going to happen to them.
8:45
Speaker 1: And they were in such a rush to abandon the
8:49
Speaker 1: colony and evacuate that only ninety seven of them got
8:52
Speaker 1: on the ships and left. They literally left three people there.
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Speaker 1: They said, well, they're not here for the evacuation, so
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Speaker 1: we're out of here. And so sure enough, that fleet
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Speaker 1: took the ninety seven settlers and they left, leaving those three.
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Speaker 2: Settlers to fend for themselves.
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Speaker 1: As irony would have it, just days after this evacuation,
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Speaker 1: Sir Walter Raleigh, he had sent additional ships with resupplies
9:16
Speaker 1: and reinforcements to Roanoke and they literally arrived like a
9:21
Speaker 1: couple days after this mass evacuation. But when they arrived,
9:25
Speaker 1: the colony was abandoned and they didn't find those three
9:27
Speaker 1: men that were left there. So Sir Walter Raleigh's reinforcements
9:32
Speaker 1: just left.
9:33
Speaker 2: And then a couple.
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Speaker 1: Weeks later, another English bound fleet passed by Roanoke and
9:39
Speaker 1: stopped to check in on the colony and they found
9:42
Speaker 1: it abandoned. And because they had so many people on
9:46
Speaker 1: this fleet that was passing by, they decided to leave
9:50
Speaker 1: fifteen crew members at the colony because they felt like,
9:53
Speaker 1: this is an English colony, it's not in total disrepair
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Speaker 1: at this point, and perhaps you know this is to
10:00
Speaker 1: be useful to the crown or we can.
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Speaker 2: Use it in some way.
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Speaker 1: So they leave fifteen crew members to basically guard.
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Speaker 2: The outpost while they go back to England and figure
10:09
Speaker 2: out what's going to happen next.
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Speaker 1: So it would be months before anybody went back to Roanoke,
10:15
Speaker 1: so those fifteen crew members were.
10:16
Speaker 2: Kind of hung out to dry a little bit.
10:18
Speaker 1: But a man by the name of John White, who
10:21
Speaker 1: had been a part of that initial failed colony in Roanoke,
10:25
Speaker 1: who had evacuated back to England, he was still eager
10:29
Speaker 1: to colonize America, and so he actually convinced Sir Walter
10:32
Speaker 1: Rawley to launch a new expedition back to America to
10:37
Speaker 1: try to recolonize.
10:39
Speaker 2: Not in Roanoke, but slightly north.
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Speaker 1: In the Chesapeake Bay, which was just viewed as a
10:44
Speaker 1: more fertile and just more advantageous position. And then in
10:48
Speaker 1: fifteen eighty seven they send out three ships back to
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Speaker 1: America to try this colonization effort all over again.
10:55
Speaker 2: It is important to note that unlike the first.
10:57
Speaker 1: Effort, which was much more kind of militaristic it was
11:00
Speaker 1: literally six hundred men that got set to America, this
11:05
Speaker 1: time it was going to be a more kind of
11:08
Speaker 1: civilian approach, where it was men, women and children being
11:11
Speaker 1: sent over to America to colonize. So with John White
11:14
Speaker 1: as the captain of these three ships, they're making their
11:18
Speaker 1: way towards America. And again their plan was to go
11:21
Speaker 1: north to the Chesapeake Bay area, but they intended to
11:26
Speaker 1: pass by Roanoke on purpose because they knew about those
11:30
Speaker 1: fifteen crew members that had been left there almost a
11:33
Speaker 1: year prior, and so they intended to stop at Roanoke
11:36
Speaker 1: and basically have a meeting with those crew members, give
11:39
Speaker 1: them supplies that they needed it, and then make their
11:41
Speaker 1: way up to the Chesapeake Bay. However, something strange happens
11:45
Speaker 1: where the chief navigator, a man by the name of
11:49
Speaker 1: Simon Fernandez, who had navigated during the initial reconnaissance mission
11:55
Speaker 1: the very first trip to America, also navigated for the
12:00
Speaker 1: the second trip to America when they brought the six
12:03
Speaker 1: hundred men now navigating for this third trip with John White.
12:08
Speaker 1: He had the charisma of a real leader and it
12:12
Speaker 1: was frankly just very well respected.
12:14
Speaker 2: He's an incredible sailor.
12:15
Speaker 1: And even though John White was technically the captain, really
12:20
Speaker 1: it was Fernandez that really had the respect of all
12:24
Speaker 1: of the people on this trip to America. And so
12:27
Speaker 1: for some reason, Fernandez decided that he just didn't want
12:31
Speaker 1: them to go up to Chesapeake Bay, and instead, when
12:35
Speaker 1: they got to Roano to have this meeting with the
12:38
Speaker 1: fifteen crew members, he just basically told.
12:41
Speaker 2: Everybody to get off, like we're not going to go north.
12:44
Speaker 1: Everybody that's here to colonize go ahead and get off
12:46
Speaker 1: because we're out of here.
12:48
Speaker 2: And John White didn't put up a fight.
12:50
Speaker 1: I think he recognized that the pull this guy had
12:52
Speaker 1: was going to be too much, and the crew and
12:54
Speaker 1: everybody who was there just kind of accepted it.
12:57
Speaker 2: And so, even though it was a.
12:58
Speaker 1: Total deviation, they just begin to colonize Roanoke, even though
13:04
Speaker 1: again that was never their plan. So as they're literally
13:08
Speaker 1: descending upon Roanoak, they're getting ready to meet with these
13:12
Speaker 1: fifteen crew members who they're really hoping are still alive,
13:15
Speaker 1: but there's no sign of them. There's no sign of.
13:18
Speaker 2: The crew that were left behind, and all they find
13:21
Speaker 2: is like a little pile of bones.
13:23
Speaker 1: And John White speculated that, you know, perhaps this is
13:28
Speaker 1: a sign that the crew members were you know, attacked
13:31
Speaker 1: by the Native Americans that were seeking revenge because they
13:34
Speaker 1: had been wiped out from that initial group that had
13:37
Speaker 1: been here, the initial English settlers. John White's suspicions would
13:40
Speaker 1: actually be proven true when just a few days after
13:44
Speaker 1: the one hundred plus group of colonists that kind of
13:47
Speaker 1: began setting up camp in Roanoke, a man by the
13:51
Speaker 1: name of George Howe was you know, away from the colony,
13:55
Speaker 1: a little bit and a group of Native Americans surrounded
13:59
Speaker 1: him and shot him with sixteen arrows. So it was
14:02
Speaker 1: kind of like a message to the settlers that, like,
14:04
Speaker 1: you're not welcome here. You know your predecessors that wiped
14:08
Speaker 1: out an entire tribe, Yeah, we haven't forgotten about that,
14:10
Speaker 1: so you're not allowed to be here. It was not
14:12
Speaker 1: a good start for John White and his new colony,
14:16
Speaker 1: feeling like the colony was kind of doomed from the start.
14:20
Speaker 1: The colonists actually told John White, hey, if this is
14:24
Speaker 1: the way it's starting, we need more people here, We
14:27
Speaker 1: need more supplies.
14:27
Speaker 2: Like this is not a good start. We are not
14:29
Speaker 2: set up for success here.
14:31
Speaker 1: You need to go back to England and get more
14:34
Speaker 1: supplies and bring them back here, because without that we're doomed.
14:38
Speaker 1: And it just so happened that Fernandez, the guy that
14:40
Speaker 1: had kind of ditched them, he hadn't left the Outer
14:43
Speaker 1: Banks yet, he had anchored at the Outer Banks, and
14:45
Speaker 1: he was basically still available to take people back.
14:48
Speaker 2: And so John White initially was against the.
14:52
Speaker 1: Idea because he didn't want to be viewed as someone
14:54
Speaker 1: that was kind of abandoning the colony. When he got
14:56
Speaker 1: back to England, and John White's dog, who was pregnant,
15:01
Speaker 1: was there. She was one of the early colonists. She
15:03
Speaker 1: was there in Roanoke, and he didn't want to abandon her,
15:07
Speaker 1: but ultimately he says, okay, I'll go, and he goes
15:11
Speaker 1: and gets on Fernandez's ship and they go back to England. Now, unfortunately,
15:16
Speaker 1: when he got back to England, England was in the
15:19
Speaker 1: middle of a war with Spain, and so the Queen
15:21
Speaker 1: had ordered any ship, any English ship was basically not
15:25
Speaker 1: allowed to leave England because they needed to be able
15:28
Speaker 1: to defend themselves against the Spanish armada. And so he
15:33
Speaker 1: wasn't able to leave England to go back to Roanoke,
15:37
Speaker 1: whether he had supplies or not, for three years. And
15:40
Speaker 1: so three years go by and he finally, with the
15:44
Speaker 1: help of Sir Walter Rawley, is able to be put
15:47
Speaker 1: on a convoy of ships that is going back to
15:50
Speaker 1: America with the necessary supplies, and so he heads off.
15:53
Speaker 1: So it's fifteen ninety three years since John White has
15:56
Speaker 1: left Roanoke, left his daughter and to go back for supplies.
16:01
Speaker 1: Now he's back and he's got the supplies and they
16:04
Speaker 1: get to the outer Banks and they get in their
16:06
Speaker 1: small boats to make their little journey up around to
16:09
Speaker 1: the north side of Roanoak so they can actually get
16:11
Speaker 1: on the island and go check out what's happening at Roanoke.
16:15
Speaker 1: And when they land on the north side of Roanoke,
16:18
Speaker 1: they start yelling to try to get anybody's attention.
16:20
Speaker 2: There's no answer.
16:21
Speaker 1: As they walk up into the woods, they notice that
16:23
Speaker 1: there are some fresh footprints right on the beach and
16:26
Speaker 1: then in the woods itself, but again no one's coming
16:29
Speaker 1: to greet them, which is a bit of a bad
16:31
Speaker 1: omen because if there are fresh tracks, either it's an
16:36
Speaker 1: English settler, in which case they would be eager to
16:38
Speaker 1: come see them, they'd be running out to meet them,
16:41
Speaker 1: or it's a Native American, which could mean, you know,
16:45
Speaker 1: they don't trust the English settlers, right, they don't want
16:47
Speaker 1: to show themselves, or they don't want to be seen,
16:49
Speaker 1: which is also kind of ominous. And they start moving
16:52
Speaker 1: in to where the Roanoke Colony was and they see
16:57
Speaker 1: a they see three letters on a tree.
17:00
Speaker 2: It just says cro on a tree.
17:02
Speaker 1: As they're making their way into the colony, and again
17:05
Speaker 1: they're yelling the whole time, trying to get anybody's attention,
17:07
Speaker 1: and no one's calling out, there's no sign of life anywhere.
17:10
Speaker 2: So they see cro on the tree, and then.
17:13
Speaker 1: They keep moving closer, and now they break out the colony.
17:17
Speaker 1: And the colony when they left had not been heavily fortified.
17:20
Speaker 1: Now it was very heavily fortified, with big pikes, you know,
17:24
Speaker 1: basically like wooden pikes lining the outside of this basically
17:29
Speaker 1: looks at fort And on one of the wooden posts
17:34
Speaker 1: that was kind of fortifying the outside of Roanoak was
17:37
Speaker 1: the word crow atoin. There is not only nobody inside
17:42
Speaker 1: of this heavily fortified colony, this kind of fort if
17:45
Speaker 1: you will, it looked like no one had been there
17:48
Speaker 1: in years. The grass was overgrown, you know, basically anything
17:52
Speaker 1: of value had been looted effectively there was the only
17:55
Speaker 1: things that were left were like really heavy objects that
17:58
Speaker 1: would have been difficult to move.
18:00
Speaker 2: But there was also no sign of a struggle. Did
18:03
Speaker 2: There was not like.
18:03
Speaker 1: Human remains anywhere. There wasn't a clear sign of struggle.
18:07
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's this well fortified area, which leads
18:12
Speaker 1: you to believe that they were at least anticipating some
18:14
Speaker 1: sort of attack, But there was no sign of a struggle.
18:18
Speaker 2: They're just gone. John White.
18:21
Speaker 1: He would write about this experience when he arrived and
18:25
Speaker 1: just discovered the colonies vanished, one hundred and fifteen people
18:28
Speaker 1: just gone right. He wasn't actually concerned because the writing
18:32
Speaker 1: that he saw on the tree and on the wooden
18:34
Speaker 1: post to him meant something really specific. Before he left
18:39
Speaker 1: to go back to England to get the supplies, he
18:42
Speaker 1: had spoken with the people that would be staying there
18:44
Speaker 1: and said, look, if you need to abandon Roanoke for
18:48
Speaker 1: any reason, we need to have a system worked out
18:50
Speaker 1: to where if I come back and you're gone, I
18:52
Speaker 1: need to know what happened. And so you need to
18:55
Speaker 1: leave me a clue. You need to write a clue
18:58
Speaker 1: somewhere of where your destination is. If you're going by choice,
19:02
Speaker 1: just write the destination. If you're being forced, rite the
19:06
Speaker 1: destination with a cross, and that will to me signify
19:10
Speaker 1: that you've left in distress. And so when he sees
19:13
Speaker 1: kro a Toin and pro on the tree, to him,
19:18
Speaker 1: that just means, oh, well, you know, they must have
19:20
Speaker 1: relocated to the island of kro A Toan which was
19:23
Speaker 1: fifty miles to the south. He would detail in his
19:27
Speaker 1: notes that before he left Roanoke in fifteen eighty seven
19:31
Speaker 1: to go get those supplies. He said that the settlers
19:35
Speaker 1: had been talking about leaving Roanoke, abandoning Roanoke and moving
19:40
Speaker 1: fifty miles north to the mainland, not fifty miles south
19:45
Speaker 1: to an island. The concern was the island was isolated
19:49
Speaker 1: and not a good place to have a colony, and
19:51
Speaker 1: so they were talking about leaving it.
19:53
Speaker 2: And so he just kind of casually.
19:54
Speaker 1: Mentions in his notes, Oh, well, you know, they were
19:56
Speaker 1: thinking about leaving to go fifty miles to the mainland,
20:00
Speaker 1: So that might be why they're at Croatoan Island. But
20:03
Speaker 1: that doesn't really make any sense because you're just kind
20:05
Speaker 1: of abandoning one problem set for another, Like you want
20:08
Speaker 1: to leave an island because an island has unique problems.
20:11
Speaker 1: Why would you go to another island, You would go
20:14
Speaker 1: to the mainland.
20:15
Speaker 2: So that was kind of problematic.
20:16
Speaker 1: So John White believes they've just up and relocated to
20:19
Speaker 1: the cro Atone Island, and so he quickly takes his
20:23
Speaker 1: men and he goes back to the ship and they
20:26
Speaker 1: begin to turn and set their course to go south
20:29
Speaker 1: the fifty miles to the Crootin Island. But as fate
20:32
Speaker 1: would have it, the anchor line snapped as they're trying
20:35
Speaker 1: to make their way south to the Crowote Island, and
20:38
Speaker 1: the weather was getting progressively worse and worse, and they
20:41
Speaker 1: start drifting north and north until finally the captain of
20:44
Speaker 1: the crew just.
20:45
Speaker 2: Said, look, we cannot go to the Crowotone Island. It's
20:48
Speaker 2: not really possible, and so they had to return to England.
20:50
Speaker 2: John White never would return to America, so he.
20:54
Speaker 1: Actually would end up dying with absolutely no idea what
20:57
Speaker 1: happened to the colony. And in fact, no one really
21:00
Speaker 1: knew what happened to the colony. It was just this
21:02
Speaker 1: huge cliffhanger, the assumption as they'd gone to the crow
21:06
Speaker 1: Atoin Island, but no one could prove that they really had.
21:10
Speaker 1: Literally for centuries, people just speculated as to what could
21:14
Speaker 1: have happened to this colony. I mean, there's the assumption
21:17
Speaker 1: that perhaps they did just go to crow Atoin and
21:20
Speaker 1: eventually kind of assimilated with the Native Americans there and
21:24
Speaker 1: they just became a part of the culture there.
21:27
Speaker 2: There was other theories that they.
21:28
Speaker 1: Were wiped out at some point by angry Native Americans,
21:32
Speaker 1: but it was all just assumptions until the nineteen thirties
21:37
Speaker 1: when a small stone was found by a man just
21:40
Speaker 1: out walking around and he turned it into a museum
21:44
Speaker 1: and they looked at it, and it was written by
21:48
Speaker 1: Eleanor Dare, who was the daughter of John White, the
21:54
Speaker 1: pregnant daughter that he had that he had abandoned and
21:56
Speaker 1: didn't get to see again. And she detailed what had happened.
22:00
Speaker 1: And half of the colony got wiped out by Native
22:03
Speaker 1: Americans that were angry at them, and then another percentage
22:06
Speaker 1: were taken captive, and then there's a couple survivors that
22:09
Speaker 1: are barely able to survive, that don't really expect to
22:13
Speaker 1: live very long. At the time the stone was found,
22:15
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody knew that the last we had heard
22:18
Speaker 1: from the Roanoke Colony was that they more than likely
22:21
Speaker 1: had made their way to the crow a toin Island,
22:23
Speaker 1: because that was the word written on the post, the
22:26
Speaker 1: cro on the tree. I mean, that's what made the
22:28
Speaker 1: most sense. And so why would there be this stone
22:31
Speaker 1: by the daughter of John White fifty miles to the
22:34
Speaker 1: north of roano Wouldn't it make more sense to have
22:37
Speaker 1: been found on either Roanoke itself or at cro a
22:41
Speaker 1: toin like it didn't really add up, and so a
22:43
Speaker 1: lot of people speculated that that stone had to have
22:46
Speaker 1: just been a fake, a hoax. But in twenty eleven,
22:49
Speaker 1: a major discovery is made in the Roanoke case that
22:53
Speaker 1: actually lends a lot of credibility to the stone that
22:57
Speaker 1: Eleanor Dare had apparently written on.
23:00
Speaker 2: White was a painter by trade, and he had created.
23:02
Speaker 1: All these maps of the colony of Virginia of North Carolina.
23:06
Speaker 1: Everywhere he went, you know, he basically painted a map.
23:09
Speaker 1: It was customary when you were at the time, when
23:11
Speaker 1: you were making a map, if you had small mistakes
23:15
Speaker 1: on your map, you would actually cut a new piece
23:17
Speaker 1: of canvas and you would put the corrections on that piece,
23:21
Speaker 1: and then you would slap it over wherever your mistakes
23:23
Speaker 1: were made. And so it wasn't uncommon if you were
23:25
Speaker 1: looking at a map to see little patches kind of
23:27
Speaker 1: all over the map. And so for literally centuries there
23:31
Speaker 1: were these maps that John White had created that had
23:34
Speaker 1: a number of these little patches on the map. And
23:37
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, somebody who was researching said, well, why
23:41
Speaker 1: don't we look under the patches and just confirm that
23:43
Speaker 1: they really were just that little mistakes that were covered
23:46
Speaker 1: up and corrected with a patch. And it turned out
23:49
Speaker 1: that on one of the maps there was a patch
23:53
Speaker 1: over a section of land fifty miles to the north
23:57
Speaker 1: of Roanoke, around the area where that stone had been found,
24:01
Speaker 1: and underneath the patch was a star, and the star
24:05
Speaker 1: was set to resemble a fort. So basically there is
24:08
Speaker 1: an English fort built basically where that.
24:11
Speaker 2: Stone had been found, but it had been.
24:13
Speaker 1: Covered over with a patch, as if the fort was
24:16
Speaker 1: a mistake, right, whoop, shouldn't have been a fort there,
24:19
Speaker 1: and they put a patch over it. But upon closer inspection,
24:22
Speaker 1: the patch that had been put over that X on
24:25
Speaker 1: the map that signified a fort right where that stone
24:28
Speaker 1: had been found. Well, on the patch there was literally
24:31
Speaker 1: hidden ink where someone.
24:33
Speaker 2: Had drawn a similar X to denote.
24:36
Speaker 1: A fort, and they'd put that over the obvious fort
24:40
Speaker 1: symbol that they were covering up. One could maybe make
24:43
Speaker 1: the case that they wanted to signify to someone that
24:46
Speaker 1: was maybe looking for invisible ink. They wanted to signify
24:50
Speaker 1: that that was where the fort was, but they didn't
24:53
Speaker 1: want someone who intercepted the map, for example, the Spanish,
24:56
Speaker 1: because they'd just been at war with a Spanish they
24:58
Speaker 1: did not want them to know where a location of
25:02
Speaker 1: a fort was.
25:02
Speaker 2: Researchers began calling that site where there was that patch
25:06
Speaker 2: site X.
25:07
Speaker 1: Now Site X is fifty miles to the north of Roanoke.
25:12
Speaker 1: And if you recall from what John White had put
25:15
Speaker 1: in his description when he was describing finding the writing
25:18
Speaker 1: of the tree in the post when he returned to
25:20
Speaker 1: Roanoke in fifteen ninety, he had referenced that the colony
25:24
Speaker 1: was planning to move fifty miles north to the mainland
25:28
Speaker 1: because that was a more suitable place to live. But
25:30
Speaker 1: of course with the writing on the trees, everyone thought, oh,
25:33
Speaker 1: well they end up going to crow a tone.
25:35
Speaker 2: Well, now is site X.
25:37
Speaker 1: That is a location that lines up with what they
25:39
Speaker 1: had originally said they were going to do. And you
25:42
Speaker 1: have that stone written by Eleanor Dare at the same location.
25:48
Speaker 1: And so archaeologists descended upon the area that was Site X.
25:52
Speaker 1: And while they haven't confirmed that there's a ford or
25:55
Speaker 1: they haven't found a ford in the area, they have
25:57
Speaker 1: found metal and pottery that is potentially indicative of an
26:02
Speaker 1: English settlement. And in fact, right now they're still doing
26:05
Speaker 1: all sorts of archaeological digs and research to try to
26:09
Speaker 1: determine if that is where the Roanoke Colony went. But
26:13
Speaker 1: even if that is the answer to the mystery that
26:15
Speaker 1: in fact, you know it was just this hidden.
26:17
Speaker 2: Map and this stone that said yep, they went fifteen miles.
26:20
Speaker 1: North, it doesn't really answer the question, which is what
26:23
Speaker 1: everybody thinks of when they think of the Roanoke Colony
26:26
Speaker 1: of why was crow a ton written on the fence post,
26:29
Speaker 1: Why was crow written on the tree?
26:32
Speaker 2: Why were they there?
26:34
Speaker 1: And how is it that with all these eyes and
26:37
Speaker 1: all this interest in this case dating back to literally
26:40
Speaker 1: the fifteen hundreds, how has no one ever found even
26:45
Speaker 1: one of the remains of the one hundred and fifteen
26:48
Speaker 1: colonists that apparently just vanished into thin air. So it's
26:51
Speaker 1: a fascinating case with recent developments which makes it even
26:54
Speaker 1: more fascinating. And I would love to hear if you
26:57
Speaker 1: have any theories about what could have happened to the
26:59
Speaker 1: colonists to lead it in the comments so we can
27:01
Speaker 1: discuss it.
27:02
Speaker 2: So that's gonna do it.
27:03
Speaker 1: If you want to be in touch with me, you
27:04
Speaker 1: can hit me up on Instagram. My handle is John
27:06
Speaker 1: ballin four one six. Also, I post quite a bit
27:10
Speaker 1: on TikTok. My handle is mister ballin there, and that's
27:13
Speaker 1: gonna do it, guys. Until next time, I'll talk to
27:15
Speaker 1: you guys soon.