Roanoke Colonies Research Newsletter
Volume 3.1 (November 1995)

From Richard Hakluyt to Nags Head Woods: Recent Roanoke Colonization Related Works

Several new books and articles about the Roanoke Island colonization efforts of the 1580s have recently appeared.  First, however, an important 1993 article from the North Carolina Historical Review, Susan Schmidt Horning’s “The Power of Image: Promotional Literature and Its Changing Role in the Settlement of Early Carolina” (70 [1993]: 365-400) missed being mentioned in earlier newsletters.  Horning argues that the promotional literature surrounding the 1580s Roanoke colonization ventures indirectly but significantly influenced the settlement of North Carolina in the seventeenth century.  She discusses the writings of Thomas Hariot and the two Richard Hakluyts as well as the paintings of John White.

Two collections of essays also include pieces with Roanoke colonization connections.  David B. Quinn’s essay “European Perceptions of American Ecology, 1492-1612” appears in Visions of America Since 1492, edited by Deborah L. Masden ([New York: St. Martin’s, 1994], 3-22).  Quinn’s essay explores the relationship between early European writers about the Americas and the modern idea of ecology.  Quinn concludes that while no Europeans who recorded their experiences in the New World had a truly modern ecological outlook, many had some awareness of the native peoples and the natural world they were encountering.  Quinn makes special mention of John White and his drawings, noting that these works may be the closest of any to being ecological in the modern sense.

The collection of essays The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704 includes Helen C. Rountree and Randolph E. Turner, III’s article “On the Fringe of the Southeast: The Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom in Virginia” (ed. Charles Hudson and Carmen Chaves Tesser [Athens: U of Georgia P, 1994], 355-72).  Though mainly about the Powhatans of Virginia, the article includes specific mentions of Carolina Algonquian settlements, the 1580s Roanoke voyages, and the connection of the Chesepians of the Norfolk, Virginia, area to both the other Carolina Algonquians and to the Powhatans.

A new book on the Lumbee Indian/ “Lost Colony” connection has also appeared, William L. MacDougall’s The Search for Virginia Dare (Rockville, MD: Kabel, 1995). MacDougall’s book is an overview of the arguments for the theory that the “Lost Colonists” went to Croatan, where English and Croatan culture intermixed, and that this blended society became the ancestors of the present-day Lumbee Indians.

While not an academic work, but rather a travel guide, Daniel W. Barefoot’s Touring the Backroads of North Carolina’s Upper Coast (Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1995) is of interest to scholars of Roanoke colonization.  Barefoot presents a series of tours for coastal northeastern North Carolina.  Of particular interest is “The Roanoke Island Tour” (pp. 147-73), which includes not only the history of the 1580s Roanoke colonization attempts and a guide to the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, but also includes discussion of the Elizabeth II and directions to Mother Vineyard, a scuppernong grape vine possibly cultivated by the Roanoke colonists.  Other tours mention Roanoke colonization related sites, such as the locations of various Algonquian villages.

Molly Tamarkin's poem “The Colonists” appears in a recent issue of Borderlands Texas Poetry Review (6 [1995]: 65-66).  Tamarkin explores the motivations and feelings of the “Lost Colonists” (though she never actually calls them that) as they find themselves going through their first winter and beyond.  The poem was a runner-up for the Borderlands annual best poem competition.

The 1995 Official Souvenir Program for the production of The Lost Colony (published by the Roanoke Island Historical Association) has its usual assortment of interesting articles.  Eric M. Hause gives a short historical overview of the writing and production of Paul Green’s drama in “55 Years of Theatre for the People” (3-5).  In “The Troublesome Voyage of John White’s Paintings,” lebame houston presents a history of White’s watercolors as they disappeared in the late 1500s to their reappearance in the eighteenth century (24-25).  Jim Quinn’s article, “ . . . For Here Once Walked the Men of Dreams..: A Lost Colony Alumnus Takes a Personal Look At the Colony’s Probable Fate,” gives an overview of the 1580s Roanoke colonization efforts with an emphasis on ideas about the fate of the “Lost Colony” (20-22).  And in “The Other Lost Colony,” E. Thomson Shields, Jr., discusses possible locations in or near the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site for the 1580s “Cittie of Raleigh,” particularly in light of the December 1993 Fort Raleigh Shoreline Conference (27-29).

Finally, Jane Webster, Gayle Houston, and Tony Houston, all officers of the Corolla Wild Horse Sanctuary, offer selections from their journals about the horses in “Journal of the Corolla Wild Horses” (ed. Angel Ellis Khoury, Outer Banks Magazine 13 [1995-1996]: 22-27, 74-76).  The entries describe the herd throughout 1993 as it divided into three groups following the death of the overall herd leader in May 1991.

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