Roanoke

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Roanoke was established in 1585 and was the first English colony in the New World. This colony was unfortunately a failure.

In 1585 a little band of 108 Englishmen set sail for the New World. These brave men were sent by Sir Walter Raleigh. The little colony at first went well, but soon the supplies began to run low. It had been originally planned a supply ship would come later bringing them additional resources. However, the ship departed from England and all records of it were lost. Faced with this tragedy, they decided to send home some of the settlers to get supplies. When they returned in 1587 to the colony with 150 more settlers all that was left was the charred ruins of the fort. They began a second attempt in the same location, under the direction of John White, on August 18, 1587, twenty-seven days after the colonists landed, a baby girl was born. She was named by the sailors Virginia Dare, the first English person to be born in the New World. Despite this, the second colony also failed. Eventually they sent some settlers home to England to get greatly needed supplies. When they reached England they got the supplies but, couldn't leave until 1591.They returned to Roanoke but all that was found was the word "Croatoan".

Roanoke is also known as the "Lost Colony". There are many theories about what happened to the colonists. The three most popular are that they: 1) Were all killed by hostile indians; 2) Killed by the Spanish, who came up from Florida; or 3) Married into one of the Native American tribes and then left. There still exists today an Indian tribe that call themselves "Croatoans" and most of them have English names.

The reason for the failure of the these two attempts at forming a colony at Roanoke is still a mystery to history.