Richard Hakluyt's Problem

Historically Speaking March/April 2007 on a book on Roanoke. What drew you to the topic? Horn: The story of Roanoke, like that of Jamestown, is much misunderstood. As I researched Jamestown and got into some of die issues concerning Roanoke, I realized that I simply couldn't agree with the standard view of what happened to the lost colonists. It is also, like Jamestown, a great story. Stephens: What is the standard view? Horn: The conventional theory is that when the lost colonists left Roanoke Island they moved to the south bank of the James River and settled widi Indians somewhere near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The reason that diis has been the dominant theory is simply that this was where they were originally heading when the expedition set out in 1587 under the leadership of John White. They were meant to go to the Chesapeake, and they got dumped on Roanoke Island instead. But I tiiink that all the evidence points to them moving directly westward. They moved up Albemarle Sound to the confluence of the Roanoke and Chowan rivers, and that is where they established diemselves initially. The idea was that they were going to wait for John White to return with extra supplies and other settlers, but, of course, he never showed up. Stephens: How would he know where they were? How would they reach him? Horn: Well, the great thing here is that there are lots of mysteries, which is what I want to write about. Why didn't they simply tell him before he left where they were going? They said they would move fifty miles inland, which suggests that they weren't quite sure where they were going to go. They left a message on Roanoke Island—the famous carving on the tree—to go to the nearby island called Croatoan. I believe that they planned to leave a small group on Croatoan who, when White came back, would lead him to die others. (They couldn't stay on Roanoke Island because the Spanish knew diey were there and local Indians were hostile). Nobody knows for certain where they went, but I think there is good evidence that suggests they ended up in the interior of North Carolina. Stephens: How would this alter our basic ideas about early settlement? Horn: It plays out in the way Virginia might have developed, which was quite different from the way it did develop. The Virginia we know, and the Chesapeake we know, is really the creation in large part of John Smith and the vision of the colony based around die Chesapeake Bay. The vision of Virginia in 1609 was quite different; it was a colony, which would stretch across the interior of North Carolina and up to the fall of theJames River. It was a colony that was not based on the Chesapeake Bay, but somewhat to the south and inland. Had that happened , we may have seen a different development of English settlement in this part of America. It could have been that the English would not have turned to tobacco. It is quite possible that that colony in the interior of North Carolina and Virginia would not have lasted very long because it just couldn't have kept going. They would not have found gold or a passage to the South Sea, and it would have just fizzled out. Richard Hakluyt's Problem Peter C. Mancali In the 1 580s Richard Hakluyt had a problem. After learning from his namesake cousin (known to scholars as Richard Hakluyt the elder) about what could be found in exotic lands far from Europe, he came to the conclusion that the English needed to get involved in overseas exploration and colonization. He feared it might already be too late. The Spanish had been profiting from their American enterprises for almost a century , and the Portuguese and French had also been more active than the English in transadantic endeavors . To be sure, the Tudors had made some important efforts since Europeans heard about Christopher Columbus's voyages. The Cabots had ventured to North America in the 1490s and Martin Frobisher had led three expeditions into the...