Roanoke Colonies Research Newsletter
Volume 2.1 (November 1994)

Notes & Queries

A few letters have arrived at the Roanoke Colonies Research Office this month with notes or questions of interest.

Thomas C. Parramore of Raleigh, North Carolina, lets us know that he, David Phelps, Ivor Noël Hume, and Karen Kupperman have been interviewed for an upcoming episode of the Discovery Channel’s program Archaeology. (Though the air date is not know, the episode about the Roanoke Island colonization attempts is supposed to be the final episode of the season.) Parramore expresses his concern that the prevailing belief that the “Lost Colony” ended up near the Chesapeake Bay has become accepted truth. Parramore presents an alternative viewpoint in the Archaeology episode, postulating a possible North Carolina location. Parramore also writes that his book Norfolk: The First Four Centuries is just out; chapter two presents some of his thoughts on the “Lost Colony” question. A fuller note on the book should appear in the next issue of the Roanoke Colonies Research Newsletter.

G. S. Ambridge of East Sussex, England, has sent the Roanoke Colonies Research Office materials concerning his interest in the locations of sixteenth-century sites connected with the Roanoke Island colonization efforts. Using period maps, modern relief maps, original documents, possible variants of place names, and so forth, Ambridge posits present-day locations for Algonkian settlements, in particular Ramushonnouk (or Ramushowong or one of many other variants), which he believes may be the same as Ritanoe. Ritanoe is the place that Thomas Hariot mentions in 1609 as having “a rich mine of copper or gold.” (See The Roanoke Voyages: 1584 1590, ed. David B. Quinn, Hakluyt Society 2nd ser. 104 [London: Hakluyt Society, 1955; rpt. Dover: New York, 1991], 388.) Anyone interested in contacting Mr. Ambridge, to either find out more about his conclusions or to help with additional information, can reach him at 3 Northern Avenue, Polegate, East Sussex, BN26 6HQ, England.

One Ph.D. dissertation and one M.A. thesis on Roanoke Island colonization related topics have been done of late. As noted above (see page 1, “Recent Publications”), the Ph.D. dissertation is Michael L. Oberg’s “Dominion and Civility: Indians, Englishmen, and the Challenge of the First American Frontiers.” It was completed in May 1994 at Syracuse University’s Department of History under the direction of Stephen Saunders Webb, James Roger Sharp, and Joseph M. Levine. The first chapter, which Dr. Oberg writes is about 90 pages long, deals with the Roanoke colonies.

The M.A. thesis is by Brenda Louise Biggs, “Tales of Roanoke: Manteo and Wanchese Redefined.” It was completed in September 1994 at ECU’s Department of English under the direction of Dr. E. Thomson Shields, Jr. Ms. Biggs examines the portrayal of Manteo and Wanchese in the original sixteenthcentury documents as well as in later literary and historical works, concluding that these two minor figures in the original documents become, over time, central figures and stereotypes, Manteo as the “good savage” and Wanchese as the “bad
savage.”

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