The Head in Edward Nugent's Hand: Roanoke's Forgotten Indians

Epilogue

I f we are to relate the history of English efforts to plant and nurture an empire on American shores, it makes sense, at the end, to return to Sir Walter Ralegh. He did not forget about the Lost Colonists, at least not entirely. In  he sent out a small party under the command of Samuel Mace to trade with any natives they might encounter and search for whatever remained of John White’s expedition. Mace sailed along the Outer Banks, and spent the summer somewhere near Port Ferdinando, but we have no evidence that he met or spoke with any of the people of Ossomocomuck. It had been a decade and a half since John White’s colonists arrived at Roanoke. Mace’s men brought home samples of medicinal plants. These they found in abundance. But they found no signs of English colonists.1 Ralegh may have sponsored other efforts to find the colonists, but we know nothing about these attempts. There simply is not adequate evidence on which to rely. Ralegh’s interest in “Virginia” in any case had begun to flag as he looked to develop his plantations in Ireland. John White settled on one of Ralegh’s estates there after he returned home in , remaining a tenant for the remainder of his life. But Ralegh still dreamed of an American stronghold, one that could enrich the English empire while dealing destruction to the queen’s Catholic enemies. He became increasingly obsessed with what he considered the “Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana.”2 Meanwhile, his colonists, or the few who survived, became members of the Algonquian communities in which they lived. Ralegh believed that he could maintain peaceful relations with the native  E peoples of Guiana and fashion them into an instrument of English imperial policy. The English would harvest the new world’s riches and settle English people there, which he believed the Indians would tolerate because the colonists would bring to the people certain benefits. According to the author of a promotional tract entitled Of the Voyage to Guiana, perhaps by Ralegh’s friend and assistant Lawrence Keymis and possibly Thomas Harriot, “the offers to be made to the Guianans” included a pledge “that we will defend them,” that “we will help them to recover their country” from the Spanish, that “we will instruct them in liberal arts and civility,” and finally, “that we will teach them the use of weapons . . . for the service in the wars.”3 But we must be careful here, for it is easy to give Sir Walter too much credit. Without doubt, he attempted to treat the native peoples he encountered generously, but he never would have offered an answer to the problems that accompanied English settlement—disease, the eventual encroachment of colonists on Indian lands, and the resulting conflict. Even during his short sojourn along the Orinoco River, Ralegh complained of the difficulties he faced in restraining his men from plundering his prospective allies. We cannot give to Ralegh all credit for peaceful Anglo-Indian relations, for the natives he encountered had considerable experience with Europeans. They fed Ralegh and his men as the English ascended the river because doing so best served the interests of their community. If peace prevailed in Anglo-Indian relations, we must attribute it at least as much to the desire of native peoples in Guiana to make use of Ralegh, whom they saw as a potentially valuable ally in their struggles against European and Native American foes, as to any exceptional farsightedness or commitment to racial justice on the part of Sir Walter. That Ralegh traded with them, established the reciprocal basis for an alliance, exchanged emissaries, and pledged through his interpreters to protect them from their enemies offered evidence that here was a foreigner whose friendship was worth cultivating. Of course Ralegh never realized his dream in South America. His final encounter with America ended badly. He first sailed in , but did not return to Guiana as quickly as he had hoped. He failed to generate the financial support necessary for a full-scale expedition, and Queen Elizabeth was not interested in helping him. His fortunes fell farther with her death in . Unjustly charged with treason by the new king, James I, Ralegh was sentenced to death. The punishment was not immediately carried out and  Epilogue Ralegh became a prisoner in the Tower of London until , when James at last permitted him...