Evidence over time has suggested that a number of the settlers may have ended up living with Natives, or at least in intimate contact with them. So, some have suggested the answer is simple, the colonists simply assimilated.
But a good mystery analyst is always…well… forming strong theories and then shooting them down. Yes, finding the holes in his or her own ideas.
We build houses of theory so easily. We allow fresh air into them so reluctantly, at times.
Take the matter of all the “evidence” that indicates assimilation of the settlers into neighboring Native cultures. It does qualify as substantial and scientific–telling artifacts, genetic clues pointing to intermarriage, and the like.
And it has a bit of logic behind it: settlers not yet adapted to survival in so new a world, starving during a severe drought, and needing the succor of established peoples, such as the Natives, quite badly.
But. What does all that really tell us, for sure? That there was genetic interaction between at least some colonists and some Natives, although precisely when, where, how many all remain unanswerable questions, at this point.
A small minority of these settlers might have swapped DNA with surrounding peoples. It might have been individuals, or a small break-away group who thought the Natives tolerable, while others settlers would rather die than “go Indian.”
Consider it: the possibilities in that regard are broad, and we have few tools for narrowing them down.
And the artifacts. Quite a few have been discovered that seem to solidly suggest European provenance, agreed. But how did they find their way miles from Roanoke, presumably in Native settlement areas?
We don’t know. We really don’t. Those few settlers that we hypothesized going Native may have borne those items with them. Or, Natives visiting, or raiding the Roanoke settlement may have come away with the trinkets–the novel always seems worth taking and collecting, to many a culture.
So where does that leave us? With still quite a few questions that are unanswered, and perhaps can never be. We shouldn’t hesitate to offer a range of theories, as long as they’re plausible.
One short snippet of film floating around on the Internet caught our eye. The narrator reminded us that we really don’t know what John White encountered when he returned to the site three years after last seeing the settlers. We only know what he reported he found, a significant difference.
Remember that English official policy was driven toward exploration, colonizing new areas. Supposing White’s orders from home, either tacit or explicit, were to find a “successful” colony in full bloom, so that others would be motivated to sign on to the next such venture.
If he found the village collapsed and what’s more, skeletons lying all about, his temptation would have been to downplay the failure and carnage. It wasn’t possible to tell a story about a thriving, going concern and make it stick, but he might have suggested that folks took off for greener pastures inland. Evidence of anything more violent could have been ignored, or tossed out into the tides, never to be found by later explorers.
If you think we’ve travelled the road of sheer conjecture, you’re right, but don’t underestimate how much conjecture, with no real proof, attends all the other theories. We’re merely reminding Lost Colony analysts how often we swallow a basic story without asking, “was the original report correct?” We only know what White committed to writing, what historians have passed on.
White’s report did contain the references to Croatoan and the one partial carving, as if interrupted. If accurate, what do those clues mean? Again, we have room to construct scenarios. Was one carving only partial because someone ran out of patience, or because a deathly raid was in progress? We should keep our mind open to the possibilities, which are varied.
Remember, 115 persons, or 117 in many historical sources, made the trip that attempted a Roanoke settlement. We don’t know what happened, for sure, to even one of them, and certainly we don’t know what happened to all of them.
Now, please enjoy this documentary from “In Search of History: The Lost Colony of Roanoke:”