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THE FINDING OF RALEIGH'S

LOST COLONY
HUME FORD

By ALEXANDER
|HE

mystery of m_ysteries in
our American chronicle has
been soh'ed at last. The

"Lost Colony of
Roanoke " has been traced;
and its descendants found
in an obscure region, where
retain the ancestral names, cherish

famous

they

still

traditions that explain

history,

many

of the gaps in

and preserve customs brought over

by their forefathers, who vanished utterl}from the ken of the mother country. I have
been among them and talked with them. So
far as I can discover, this will be the first
article describing them ever published in a
general magazine, and these photographs the
first ever published am-where.

The

storj' of

e\'ery student of

remembered

the Lost Colon}-

American

that

is

familiar to

histor\'.

It

v.-ill

be

Queen Elizabeth granted

Walter Raleigh a patent ''to discover,

out, and view such remote,
heathen, and barbarous lands, countreis, and
to Sir

searche, finde

territories

not

actually

possessed

of

an}-

Christian prince."'

The first expedition landed on Roanoke

Island July 4th (old style), 1584, but without
making a settlement; a second group gave up
in a year, and returned; later, fifteen men left
b}- Sir Richard Grenville to hold the place
were either drowned or massacred. In 1587
the indomitable Raleigh sent out 100 men and
seventeen women, with John \\Tiite as governor.
This was the memorable "Lost Colony," which, contrar}- to Raleigh's counsel,
settled on the ill-starred Roanoke Island described as "very sand}' and low toward the
water side, but so full of grapes as the very
beating and surge of the sea o\-erflowed them,
which -s^e fouud such plenty that in all the
world like abundance is not to be found."
Thus began the acquaintance of the
of

Raleigh Colon}- with the American scuppernong. The three finest native grapes, the

Catawba, the Isabella, and the Scuppernong

and tlirive best near Roanoke, and, strange to say, the most delicious of
these, the white scuppernong, which will not

are indigenous to

bear transportation a day's journev,

woven by

is

inter-

ever}- tradition v>-ith the arrival of

men

on Roanoke Island.
the first white American
grape, as well as the first white American
child, Virginia Dare, daughter of Ananias and
Eleanor Dare, and granddaughter of Governor White. The scuppernong has spread
westward along the trail followed by Virginia
Dare and the Lost Colony, and is to-day
found most luxuriant where the}' went.
Here grows the great "mother scuppernong." Report says that it covers an acre.
In August, 1587, the colonists needing supplies and other necessaries, the governor was
"through their extreme entreating constrained to return to England."
Before he
could get back, the great war with Spain broke
out.
In 1388 Raleigh sent two ships with
Governor AMiite, but Spanish war vessels
boarded, rifled, and drove them back. It
was 1591 before another attempt could be
made. This time Governor A\Tiite reached
the white

Here was

He

Roanoke.
phrases

bom

of

describes

unconscious

what happened

in

giving

poetry,

strangel}- vivid picture of the loneliness of the

New World and the Lost Colony:

"We let fall our Grapnel neere

the shore

&

sounded with a trumpet a Call. & afterwardes many familiar Enghsh tunes of Songs,
and called to them friendly; but we had no
answere."
The next day they landed, and we may
Cjuote further, without keeping to the quaint

old spelling:
"
we entered

up the sandy bank, upon

THE FINDING OF RALEIGH'S LOST COLONY

a tree, in the ver}- brow thereof, were curiously
carved these fair Roman letters, C. R. O.,

which

we knew

letters presently

to signify the

place where I should find the planters seated,

according to a secret token agreed upon be-

tween them and me at my last departure from

them; I willed them that if they should happen to be distressed in any of those places,
that then they should carve over the letters or
name, a cross -|- in this form; but we found
And having
no such sign of distress.
well considered of this, \^e passed toward the
place where the}' were left in sundry houses,
but we found the houses taken down, and
the place very strongly inclosed with a high
.

with curtains and

palisade of great trees,

and one

flankers, very fortlike,

the chief

of

trees or posts at the right side of the entrance

had

the bark taken

ground

in

fair

CROATOAN
distress.

...

olT,

and

capital

from the
was graven

tive feet

letters

without any cross or sign of

I greatly joyed that I

had

safely

found a certain token of their safe being at

Croatoan, which is the place where Manteo
was born, and the savages of the island our
friends."

The governor was prepared

to sail

down

the sound to Croatan, Vjut a heavy storm

rose, he lost his anchors, and narrowl}' es-

caped wreck.

The weather "grew

fouler, oiur victuals scarce,

fresh water lost."

sail

to St.

John

to

It

was

fouler and
and our cask and

necessar)- to

make

Believing the colofor the Indies in search

refit.

he set sail
Spanish prizes, intending to return

nies safe,
of

in

springtime.

He

never

came back.

Go\-ernor \\'hite
and nothing more is known of him.
Raleigh, ruined
financially, having spent $200,000 on his
colony without a penny of recompense, turned
over his grants to the London Company with
the advice that they seek to colonize Chesapeake Bay, and later the settlement at Jamestown was made. Raleigh urged the new colonists to seek the old, but both the Croatans
and the colonists had totally disappeared.
I first heard the tradition of the present existence of Raleigh's Lost Colony here at Man-

gave up the search for

his daughter,

named after the old chief who went to

England and was made "Lord of the Island
of Roanoke and Dasamonguepec"
the first
of all American titles. He returned to be bapteo,

tized only a

few days before

Dare was born.

If Governor White had
lico

little

sailed

Virginia

down Pam-

Sound, doubtless he would have found

Zi

was southward and up the

its head waters, where all
locates Raleigh's Lost Colony

his Lost Colony. It

Cape Fear River

tradition

and

still

to

the descendants of Virginia Dare.

She

being a granddaughter of the first American

governor was more trul_\' aristocratic than even
Pocahontas, who was not baptized until Virginia had attained womanhood.
And perhaps she married a }'oung brave of Roanoke
long before the daughter of Powhatan wed
an English gentleman finally to fill an unmarked grave in Britain as the English girl
Virginia fills an unknown grave in America
Pocahontas to give among her descendants a
great general (Baden Powell) to the English
of to-da}-, and Virginia Dare a governor of
North Carolina in our own times.
Wlien the English settled at Jamestown in
1607, it was still further corroborated that
the Lost Colony had intermarried among the
Indians although those that had gone north\\'ard among Powhatan's people were cruell}massacred, at the instigation of Powhatan,
about the time of the arrival of the white men
at Jamestown.
Only seven of them, four
men, two boys, and a young maid, had been
preserved from the slaughter, b}' a friendly

chief, and from these was descended a tribe of

Indians found in the vicinity of Roanoke
Island a centurj^Tater, and then known as
Hatteras Indians; they had gray eyes and
claimed to have white ancestors.
Again, in 1607, Captains Newport and John
Smith found at an Indian village below the
falls (at Richmond) a lad of about ten years
of age with yellow hair and white skin, who,
it has been assumed, was the offspring of some

representative of the ill-fated

ony.

Roanoke Col-

who
London a

Captain Francis Nelson,

ginia in 1608, took

back

to

left

Vir-

ch^rt on

which he marked at one inland place: "Here

remaineth four men clothed, that came from

Roanoke to Ocanhawan (which information

Powhatan confirmed). At Peccarecmek and
Ochanahoen (on the Neuse) the people have
houses built with stone walls, the one story
above the other, so taught them by the English who escaped the slaughter at Roanoke."
At this time there was a well-authenticated
story of a part of the Lost Colony living in
what is now Sampson County, North CaroIn 1609 word was received in London
lina.
that "some of our nation sent to Roanoke by
Sir Walter Raleigh are }-et alive within fifty
Two of our
miles of our fort (Jamestown).
colonists sent out to seek them (although denied by the sa\-ages speech with them) found

APPLETON'S MAGAZINE

24
and

crosses

letters

and

characters, assured

testimonials of Christians, newly WTOte on the

The early Virginians
barks of the trees.''

did not know then that they were most probably in touch onl}- with a few stragghng groups
of the Lost Colony, although, even in 1608, it
was believed that farther south a large body
of their unfortunate countrj-men might still

be found.
In 1660 the Rev. Morgan Jones, of Virginia,
was captured by the Tuscarora Indians living
in North Carolina along the Neuse River.
After some time in captivity he returned to
civilization to make the solemn statement that
he found a tribe settled on the Pantego River,
near Cape Atros (Hatteras), known. to their
neighbors as the white Indians on account
of their light color; he tells that they spoke
British, in which language he preached to
them three times a week.
From now on, all traces of the Lost Colony
are to be found in North Carolina west and
south of Roanoke. An old Indian trail led
from the fishing and hunting grounds at Roanoke Island to the head waters of the Cape
Fear River at Fayetteville. Along this trail
Indian settlements still exist, and where it
ends in Robeson County is the largest Indian
settlement

east

of

the

ISIississippi

River.

have congregated the traditions of the Lost Colony for 300 years.
We hear no more of the "white" Indians
from 1660 untD. 1709. In the mean time they
had moved to Robeson County, where the
French Huguenots of South Carolina found

Along

this trail

them in

that year

long

inteUigent farmers

settled in the countr}-,

who had

built ever\-w-here

magnificent roads. In 1729 English settlers

penetrated to Robeson Count;)-, where they
found liffht Indians on Lumber River who
spoke English, tilled the soil, o\\'ned slaves,
and held land in common. They claimed to
be descendants of English who came over the
sea in great swan boats, and in 1732 King
George 11 gave land grants to Henri,' Berry
and James Lo^\Tey, the two leading men of
the tribe. Henry Berr}' claimed lineal descent
from the Henn- Berry^ of the Raleigh Colony,

and James
sister of

In

1 7

Lo'.\Tey married Priscilla Bern.-,

also married

English in the Croatan tribe.

Lawson, who wrote the first histor}' of North
Carolina, in 1709, speaks of "the Hatteras
Indians who lived on Roanoack Island, or
much frequented it. These tell us that several of their ancestors were white people and
could talk in a book as we do, the truth of
which is confirmed by gray eyes being frequently found among these Indians and no
others.
They value themselves extremely for
their affinity to the English, and are ready to
do them all friendly office. It is probable
that this settlement [of Raleigh's] miscarried
for want of timely supplies from England, or
through the treachery of the natives, for we
may reasonably suppose that the English
were forced to cohabit with them for relief
and conservation, and that in process of time
they conformed themselves to the manners of
their Indian relations."
As Professor \\"eeks, of Trinit}- College,
North Carolina, obsen-es in a paper on this
subject: "It is impossible for the stors" told by
Lawson to be a tradition not founded on the
truth, for he wrote within 120 years of the
original settlements at Roanoke, and he may
have talked with men whose grandfathers had

been among the original colonists."

In the War of the Revolution, the Robeson
County Indians bearing English names inclined to be Tories, in the belief that they
were English, and we find many names familiar in tlie list of Raleigh's colonists on the
side of the British; but in 181 2 these were all
on the side of the American forces, even to the
Dares, who claimed descent from \'irginia
Dare, "the ^^'hite Doe" bom at Roanoke.
Many of these Indians bearing English names
received pensions from the government for
their ser\"ices.

In 1835 the ungrateful North Carolinians

disfranchised their Indian allies who, at that
It was
time, owned schools and churches.
now a crime to teach a dark person to read or
write; hence, only the traditions of the old,

old chroniclers sun-ived. It was not until

1868 that the Robeson Count}- Indians were
restored

Henrv' Berr\-.

II the Indians of

Robeson County had

aided the whites against the Tuscaroras, in the

great Indian War; from !Mattamuskeet they
brought back Indian slaves who had traditions of the time when the Croatans and the
^Nlattamuskeets lived together, and knew of
In fact.
the white blood in the other tribe.

many of their people had

among the descendants of the

they claim.ed that

to

full

rights

of citizenship,

after

their glorious defense of the Confederacy.

During this war, one of the chiefs, in defending one of his men accused of crime, said
in a public speech: "We have always been
We were free peofriends to the white man.
ple before the white man came to our land.
Our tribe was alwavs free. Thev lived at

TV

Roanoke in Virginia.
came to Roanoke our

1" I

\\'hen
tribe

kindly; one of our tribe went to

saw the great country,

There
to live with us.

I,

the

HOUSE

English

them
England and

treated

took the English

white man's blood
We took the
in our veins as well as Indian.
^^'c
white man's language and religion,
fought with the \\'hite men, yet white men
treat us as negroes."

And

so in

all

^^'e

is

the centuries their tradition

that they are the descendants of Raleigh's

Lost Colony will not down, and even the

State recognizes their claim. Their traditions
state that thev came from Croatan, south of

Roanoke, that their leading man was made

of Roanoke, bv name Mavno (Manteoj,

Lord
a

name

still

common among

them.

and througliout
tidewater North Carolina met ever\'where the
I started to

follow the

trail,

"Raleigh Colonv Indians"

bv
water to the great hunting grounds near the
hills.
Besides the water pathway, there was
a direct well-kept trail from the Roanoke region to the present site of Fa\'etteville, where
all the great pathwavs of the Southern Indians
met.
From South Carolina, Georgia, and
Virginia, the remnants of the various tribes
tradition that the

had gone

either across the mainland, or

MONG THE

that receded before the scourging lro<[uois

and

the white

man, followed

the diverging

settlement just be\'ond

Fa_\etlevil!e, that extended to the South CarIn this area there still live
olina State line.

trails

to

the

great

some 5,000 red men, descendants,

])erhaps, of

almost everv Indian tribe that populated the

Southern seaboard and mountains. Among
these peojjle are the traditions of Raleigh's

Lost Colony, and hundreds of men, women,

and children bearing the very names of th^
Roanoke colonists and still earnestly believing that they are descended from the English'
their Chief ^Slayno

men and women whom

(Manteo) adopted into his tribe.

It was as an explorer that I retraced the old
Indian trail across country and at last arrived

among

these strange people.

In Green County, yet farther westward,

may be found to this day- Croatan Indians
who still use the old Saxon crossbow, which,
tradition narrates, the Roanoke colotaught them to make and use to bring
down their quarry silently.
Sampson Comity, bet^\een Green and
Robeson, is richer still in Indian legends: it
was here that a large number of the lost colonists were reported to John Smith in 1608,
their
nists

APPLETON'S MAGAZINE

26

Old water mills

maize and a well-constructed
dam were found here by the first whites who
entered the region. And then the Indians
their Indian allies to build.

for grinding

acted as millers.
A walk of a yery few miles along the old
Indian road brings you into Robeson County,
where liye 3,500 Croatan Indians who claim
descent from the lost colonists.

The

last tradition

among

the Croatans of
year.
One

Robeson County dates back but a

of their delegates, a descendant of

lost colonists,

was

sent to

one of the

Washington

to in-

vite the President to yisit the tribe at the great

CUOAIAN';^ W

and there

were,-

I\

up

N'

IN

i:

gathering at Roanoke Lsland this summer.

The President set aside fiye minutes for the
reception, but kept the Croatan guest for an
hour plying him with questions and seeking
to learn all he could about the descendants of
He did not invite the red
the Lost Colony.
man to luncheon.
But why plod through traditions longer? I
was among these people, face to face, here at
Red Springs in Robeson County, where
10,000 Indians had often encamped at a time;
I had but to look out of the window of my
hotel to see the Croatans by the hundred, following each other in single file up and down
the main street of the little village, for young

llf.i:

to half a

century ago, old men and women of the Croatans, hereabout,

who recalled hearing that the
Dares, the Coopers, and the
Har\'eys of Raleigh's Colony
who had intermarried in their
tribe were the pioneers of migration westward, and brought
a part of the tribe here. And
to

this

day the Har\-eys, the

Dares, and Coopers are to be

found among the Croatans to

the farthest

end of the
by the

the Har\-e}-s,

trail.

To

wa}-,

was

born the second English child

in America.

Beyond Sampson County

Cumberland,

way

is

in the direct path-

Lost Colony and the

Here, near
Fayetteville, on a creek emptying into the Cape Fear Riyer,
may be seen to this day the
remains of the ''Indian Stone
House,"' which was still standing
of the

Croataii

Indians.

in 1832, and which tradition says

the Roanoke colonists taught

11 V.

"MOTHER

UK AT
^s

H It

II

\"

Hi.;

SI A

S C

T' 1>

PE

11

XONG

DARK WAS

IIF.
l"

XEAIll

R SE D

THE FINDING OF RALEIGH'S LOST COLONY

old were coming to town to do their
Christmas shopping. Some of the visitors to
town were as dark as an\- Indians in j\jnerica,
some so light as to have red hair and blue
Yet, one and all walked on the sideeyes.
walk or in the roadwav in single file.
I tried to be friendly, but the Croatans are

and

uncommunicative with strangers. They consider that the whites treated them badlv; at

01.

n DIEL,

THE CEN'TKX A n AN
I

Di-sct-nd.mti

of

Hcnn

Iierr\

one time disfranchising them and placing

them on a level with the negro; and they
have never forgiven the insult. The children
I found even less communicative than their
elders.

The

Croiitans

make

their invn liquor,

keep their own secrets, and ignore the Federal

authorities.
Every Croatan grows the scuppernong.
It is in their traditions that the white men
taught them the art of distilling wine from the
"mother" vine at Roanoke, and when the

colon\'

moved away,

slips

were taken along

and planted wherever the colony

rested.

The

white scuppernong is an accident and grows

only from slips; but it is doubtful if there is a
Croatan Indian anv^vhere in North Carolina
who does not rest under his own vine, and
drink the juice of the scuppernong after he has
fermented it according to the manner taught
him bv the white man.

AND

.S

G UA\nCH

I 1. 1) 11

.\

of Raleigh's Lost Colony.

The whites of Red Springs looked at me

almost scornfully for talking with the Indians.
"But the\' are the descendants of Raleigh's
Lost Colony," I explained to one in e.xcuse.
"Oh, yes, that's what they say!"
"Don't you ever go among them?"
"What, me?
white

no,

siree;

they

don't like

men to go into their settlement. They

man to keep away once: and after that

a
they shoot."
tell

"You ought

to see

Hamilton McMillan,"

28

PPL ETON'S MAGAZINE

suggested one of the village storekeepers; "he

knows more aljout the Croatan Indians than
they know about themselves."
I found him to be a scholarly old gentleman,
a college graduate, and prominent law}er who
was once a State senator. He had located
at Red Springs in his }'ounger days to study
the strange red people near by who claimed to
be descendants of the^ famous Lost Colony.
Mr. Mc^Millan is one of the few white men
who have taken the pains to investigate the
traditions and legends of the Croatans, and it
is due to his research that the proof of their
claims was made

Henry Lowre\-, put it in its present

magnificent shape.
The Croatans are still the best natural
road makers in America. Road building is a
mania with them, and has been ever since the
lost colonists taught them the art.
They are
'hief,

alwa_\-s at

work on

and

their roads, voluntarily

without pay.
The first house we stopped at was that of
Jim Diel, whose wife is a great-granddaughter
of the famous old Indian road builder. These
Lowre}"s have given a senator from Mississippi, Hon. Hiram R. Revels, born in North

Gov-

Carolina.

the

ernor Lowrey

State Legis-

Swain, of North

so

clear

to

North

Carolina, was

Carolina to-day

also of the tribe.

recog-

Some of them
have gone to

lature that

officially

nizes these people

Raleigh's
ny.

other States and

de-

the

as

scendants

of

Colo-

Florida,

a centurv,

society

in

and

business.

man

lo\-ed

a mil-

is

lionaire, a leader

Mr. McMillan
has been the
best

of for-

tune; one, in

For a quar-

ter of

men

are

Jim Diel was

among

the Croa-

out

tans.

The one

rived, so his wife

when we

and niece

thing they could

never forget was
the fact that he
had secured for

ar-

re-

ceived us.

Everything

schools from the

around the house

showed signs of
careless pros-

negroes

perity.

them separate

rather

for,

than

their young
attena negro
permitted

e.x-

nong yielded
enough

them

annually

r H E S r I
G WHEEL
S
grow up in
and ignorance.
Mr. ilcMillan gladly consented to
N'

to

the

tensive scupper-

had

schools, they

In

back yard an

let

I N'

IS

STILL IV VOGUE

grapes
for a

hundred gallons
of fiery wine.

pride

We

had passed through a

typical negro

take me visiting among the Cnxitans; so,

bright and earl\- one Sunday morning, we
made our tirst excursion into the most forgotten part of these United States, and among
the most neglected of all the red men in

settlement on our way to "Scuffletown," as

the Indian settlement is commonly called by

America

negro and

toward the old Indian

trail, that still traverses the State of North
Carolina from the mountains to the Roanoke
country.
Here in Robeson County it is still
known as "the great Lowrey road," because
two hundred years ago the fanious Indian
\\"e

started

out

the Indians themselves, in

"Scoville"
or

who

more ago.

led

them

to

memory

of

one

battle a century

\\'hat a contrast lietween the

Indian. Shiftlessness was

written ever\-\vhere about the negro possesthe

On the other hand, an Indian house

be detected from afar. Everything
in repair, outhouses kept up, all the necessities for making life in the countn' comfortable; beehives, stables, wells, corn cribs,
sions.

could

cider

presses

I .-M I

II

in

all

vr M n R T A

active

use.

It

and

As

the

Scuffletown is left behind, the

negro disappears completely.
We met Jim Diel down the Lowrey road,
and great was his concern that he had not been
at home to meet us.
He was a magnificent
fringe

of

specimen of Indianhood, almost a full blood;

proud of his descent from the early English
colonist, tirm in his belief that the onl\- white

IX A

CUOATAN HOME

"mon"; "father" is called "fayther" (there

many Irish names among the Roanoke

were

colonists);

"measurement"

is

called

"men-

sion"; their plural for hose is "hosen," for

house, "housen," etc.
Professor Weeks in his pa]>er states that
the strongest evidence of all is furnished by
the family names.
The 117 Roanoke settlers
had 95 different surnames: pL these 41 "or

blood in the triije entered through the Lost

Colony. He spoke in a high, almost falsetto
voice, peculiar to all these descendants of
Raleigh's Lost Colony, who still use the old

more than 43 per cent are reproduced by a

tribe living hundreds of miles from Roanoke
Island and after a lapse of 300 years and the

Saxon English.
It was with regret

of

we parted from Jim

home where we stopped
the door was upened to us, as \\e knew it
would be. Often when I knocked alone, the

although

at

that

everv

door was opened grudgingly, and I saw that

the white stranger was unwelcome, but invariably there came forth from within that
high rich falsetto "Walk in, mon; sit thee by

my

fire

and warm."

The speech

of the Croatans, by the way, is

unlike that of either the whites or blacks

around them.
of 300 years

It

shows traces

ago.

"Man"

of the language
is

pronounced

traditions of every family bearing the

one of the

lost colonists point to

name

Roanoke

Island as the home of their ancestors."

At the outer edge of the settlement we
found manv of the poorer and most illiterate
of the tribe; some of these had completelv lost
caste bv marrving among or associating with
mulattoes.
In fact those who have neglected
to observe the color line are compelled to worship by themselves.
They have a church on
the Great Lowrey road where the aristocracy
of Scuffletown is never seen.
Since 1887 the
State has made marriages between the Croatans and negmes null and void.
.\t last we reached the homes of those who

M ON U 51 EXT MARKIVO THE SPOT

The

Still

treasure the old traditions.

WHERE VIRGIVIA DARE WAS BOUX

small stones outline the fort built

At the spa-

1587.

in

Lowrev road

in

Robeson Countv know

it

cious log mansion of one of the old chron-

well.

who has lived a full century on the

Great Lowrey road, we were made welcome.
The ancient chronicler, grandfather of " Jim"
Diel, totters now as he walks, but he remembers still the War of 1812, although many
events since rest dimly upon his enfeebled
brain. The things of his childhood are easiest
for him to recall, and so it is that he remem-

They both recall how, twent\'-five years

ago when Hamilton McMillan first came
among them, he mentioned one day the name

iclers

bers

still

many

of the old traditions that link

the Croatans with the colony of whites that

Raleigh sent to Roanoke.

A daughter of this old sage married the
present lord of the log mansion, a Lowrey, a
white-haired man of eighty years now. Some
time ago he followed the old Indian trail out
through the gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains
and across country- to the Indian territorv
where many of the friends of his youth had
migrated. In Lincoln County, North Carolina, he found descendants of the Dares who
were still remembered by his father, though
they

had

left

Robeson County

after the ^\'ar

of 1812, in which, according to the State rec-

ords of North Carolina, the men of the family fought bravely against the EngUsh.

The

Dares eke out an humble

mines near Crouse, in
Western North Carolina; thev have almost
forgotten that the}' came from Robeson County, and the stor\- of the "^\'hite Doe of Roanoke"' is seldom told among them now. But
the two white-haired veterans of the Great
living

last of the

now

in the iron

Virginia

Dare

in the councils of their people.

The

old chroniclers remained silent or shook

their heads; but when Mr. ^IcMillan pro-

nounced it Darr, "Ah's" came from many

an old throat, and soon the chroniclers were
busy narrating traditions of the little white
fawn by the name of Darr, \\ho was born
far otT in Roanoke, Xa.., and when she grew
up married one of their young braves; how
her people were skilled and brave and fighters.
But, alas! years before they had gone westward along the great trail no one in the tribe
knew whither. While the old chroniclers

talked, the Indian

women in the gathering bent

back and forth moaning

to-day

when

in

rhvthm, as they do

tales of the old times are told.

There are those to-day among the Croatans

who, if you ask of Virginia Dare, shake their
heads or remain silent, but say Virginia Darr,
and there will be an eager "Yes, yes we
know Virginia Darr, she is our mother way
back." A few there are still who remember
the old, old traditions they heard in bygone
davs from the real chroniclers who have
passed away, that told how the baby white girl
was taken wth the white men and women
from the Island of Roanoke and grew to
womanhood on the banks of the Burnt Lake
(Mattamuskeet).

THH FINDING OF RALEIGH'S LOST COLONY

The mystery

ui

llie

dL--appearance of the

solved plainly and simply by the

According to one
traditions of these Indians.
legend, at that time only a marsh separated
Roanoke Island from the mainland, and

colonists

is

good hunting was over, and the

tribe homesick for the hills, their white brothers
unable to wrest a living from the wilds
alone asked that they might go with their
red brothers and remain with them until they
received their supplies from the good queen,
whom Chief Manteo had once gone over the
So the white men left signs on
sea to meet.

when

the

the trees, and there being too many women

and children to take in the canoes, a march
was begun overland.
A long, long stop of many years was made

which the Indians called in their

Burnt Lake, and which modern
science says was created by a great fire that
Here the
ate down through the dry swamp.
Croatans rested, and here the white people
expected that the messengers from over the
sea would follow. But time passed and no one
came perhaps those who came and read
'le word Croatoan carved on the trees did not
.low of the great road from Roanoke to the
at a lake

tongue

Hiil Country,

spot then
the sand

and turned

known

their eyes to the

to the English as

bank near Hatteras.

Croatan on

There was no

left to tell of the great trail

perhaps all
the English-speaking Indians migrated with
the tribe.

one

We

followed the Great Lowrey road for

E\'ery here and there we stopped at
a neatly built log house or a frame dwelling
erected by the Croatans, for the_v never go
outside for anv necessity. The State has supplied a Normal School, but the Croatans
miles.

built

it

and

built

it

well.

The Normal School

is

the pride of every

one of the 3,500 Croatans in Robeson County.

When Thanksgiving and closing days come,
around the school is a scene of wild activitv;

camps and picnics without,

while within there are elocutionary efforts;
without there is feasting and foot racing and
elocutionary narratives of the past glories of
the Croatans.
At a little log house that spread out in wings
and outhouses like a veritable village, we
caught one of the old men at work at a pinestump mortar beating with wooden pestle the
corn into meal for the daily food.
It was not only the numerous Sampsons
the richest of the Croatans (and claiming descent from the John Sampsons, father and son
the entire tribe

31

Roanoke) who grew their own tobacco.

Every Indian in Robeson County is as ambitious to have his own little tobacco patch as
were his ancestors from whose front \'ards on
of

Roanoke Island
and carried back

the

first

colonists secured

Waller Raleigh seed

from the tobacco plant, grains from the ripe
maize, and potatoes from the soil, three Indian
names that have gone around the globe from
Roanoke Island, and three commodities still
grown by the Croatans, who alone of all the
Indians in the world still plant, as they did
300 years ago, their private patches of the
weed that helped to make Raleigh's name
remembered the world around.
to Sir

The

Ethnokigical Bureau at Washington

authority for the statement that the
Croatans have been absolutely passed over
and neglected by the white men in search of
historical and scientific data relating to the
American Indian.
A modern poem tells of a young Indian
swain who fell in love with Virginia Dare, and
being rejected, used sorcery to change her
into a white doe, and of a rival who shot the
white doe with an enchanted silver arrow,
when she at once instead of, as he expected,
turning again into a maiden, died upon the
spot and from her blood sprang the "mother"
scuppernong, with its pale grape and white
"blood." But as we know that the "mother" vine antedates the arrival of the colonists,
this tradition may be dismissed in its entirety
Certain it is, howas of modern invention.
ever, that the great scuppernong vine did play
a part in the story of Virginia Dare; its seeds
still grow vines that bear red grapes, and the
white men who liked the "white blood" of
the "mother" vine, took slips with them
wherever thev went. The Lost Colony migl'.t
have been found long ago by merely following
the white scuppernong across the State.
I had tasted of the fruit of the vine at the
spot where Virginia Dare was born; I drank
her last health from an ancient vine in far-off
Robeson County that her hands who knows?
may have planted. It is certain that the
itself is

vines that bear the white grapes in distant

Robeson Countv are descended onh' from the

"nKjther" vine at Roanoke; it seems certain,

Indians at the end of

too, that the pale-faced

the trail are also the distant offspring of thoi^e

foreigners who joined with the

fair-faced

native Americans at

Roanoke when both bade

farewell together to the "mother" vine, to

carry white blood into the regions of the west,

there to mingle with the red.