Becoming the Lost Colony: The History, Lore and Popular Culture of the Roanoke Mystery

by Charles R. Ewen, E. Thomson Shields, Jr.

Overview

Headlines declare after each new hint of evidence that the Lost Colony—the English colonists left on Roanoke Island in 1587, including Virginia Dare—has been found. None of these claims pass muster as the historical, archaeological, and literary evidence presented here demonstrate.

This book analayzes several hypotheses and demonstrates why none have been shown to be more probable than any of the others. To understand how the 1587 colonists became The Lost Colony, the authors recount the history of the English expeditions in the 1580s and the original searches for the colonists from 1590 until the 1620s. The archaeological evidence gathered from the 19th through the 21st centuries is presented. The book then examines how the disappearance of the colonists has been portrayed in pseudoscience, fiction, and popular culture from the beginnings until the present day. In the end, readers will have all the data they need to judge new claims concerning the fate of The Lost Colony.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476694962
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	04/24/2024
Pages:	220
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.44(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Charles R. Ewen is Harriot College Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He is an archaeologist whose research has focused on the early Contact/Colonial Period, the archaeology of piracy and cemetery studies. He has written or edited 10 books. E. Thomson Shields, Jr. is emeritus in the English Department at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. His research has focused on American exploration and frontier literature.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Introduction: What Was the Lost Colony?
Part I—What We Know
1. 
The Background History: What Do We Know deleteand How Do We Know It?
The Adventure Begins (1584)
First Colonization Attempt (1585–1586)
Second Colonization Attempt (1587–1590)
Looking for the Lost Colony (1600– )
2. 
First Retellings: The Roanoke Colonies in Print deleteto the Early Seventeenth Century
Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations (1589 and 1598–1600)
The Roanoke Colonies in Print, 1590–1606
Early Jamestown Writings and the Roanoke Colonists (1606–1610)
Smith, Strachey, and Purchas (1612–1626)
3. The Archaeology of the Lost Colony
Early Searches
National Park Service
Virginia Company Foundation
First Colony Foundation
Site X
Archaeology of Hatteras Island
Part II—What We Think We Know
4. From Histories to Stories: Becoming The Lost Colony
“Starved or Killed by Indians”: Seventeenth-, Eighteenth–and Early ­Nineteenth-Century Histories
The Early ­Nineteenth Century: A Growing Sense of Mystery
Virginia Dare and Becoming The Lost Colony
From the 1850s to the Present
5. The Prevailing Hypotheses
The Scenarios
Epilogue
6. Fringe “Theories”: How Far Can We Go?
Conclusion: What We Don’t Know and How We Don’t deleteKnow It
Appendix: The Players: Major Figures in the Roanoke Colonization Ventures and Early Searches for the 1587 Colonists
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index