An entire colony of 117 men, women and children vanished without leaving behind a single body. There was no blood, no sign of an attack and no ruined settlement. Their homes had been carefully dismantled and taken away. All they left behind was one word carved into a wooden post: CROATOAN.
In 1587, the colonists were stranded on Roanoke Island instead of reaching their intended home in Chesapeake Bay. Governor John White sailed back to England for supplies, leaving behind his daughter Eleanor and newborn granddaughter Virginia Dare. War, privateering and disaster kept him away for three years. By the time he returned, everyone was gone.
What did Croatoan mean and where did the settlers go? Did they move inland, reach the Indigenous communities around Chesapeake, survive through trade and assimilation, or meet a more violent end? From Sir Walter Raleigh’s collapsing colonial scheme and England’s brutal relationship with local communities to hidden map symbols, hammerscale, Jamestown accounts and the infamous Dare Stones, this is the strange history behind one of America’s most enduring unsolved mysteries and the possibility that the colonists were never truly lost at all.
Topics Included
- What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke
- The real meaning of the Croatoan carving
- John White’s three-year delay and return
- Virginia Dare and the 117 settlers
- English conflict with the Roanoac and Croatoan communities
- The planned move to Chesapeake Bay
- Archaeological evidence at Croatoan and Salmon Creek
- Jamestown accounts of surviving colonists
- The Lumbee connection and assimilation theory
- The Dare Stones and the hoax that followed
Host & Show Info
- Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
- Editor: Giordanno Bottezini
- Intro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland
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