The Search for the First English Settlement in America

From the Introduction

IN THE BEGINNING was Ronaoke! And Roanoke was in the beginning!  The United States of America has many forefathers and mothers, but the English were there from the genesis.  Our country grew primarily out of English settlements.  The English made their first attempts to plant roots in what is today the United States in 1585-86, 1586 and 1587.  They settled on an island named Roanoke, in a place they called "Virginia."  This isle, which is about 12 miles long and from 2 to 3 miles wide, is located in the northeastern corner of present-day North Carolina.  It is not far south of the present-day Virginia line.  Roanoke Island lies at the mouth of Albemarle Sound between Roanoke and Croatan Sounds.  It ranges from sea level to 20 feet in elevation, but it is sheltered from the Atlantic by the barrier islands called the Outer Banks.  These are a chain of narrow islands extending about 175 miles from Back Bay, Virginia, to Cape Lookout, North Carolina.  They are partly covered by sand dunes.  Under the pounding of wind and waves, these islands have changed their shapes over the centuries, with old inlets closing and new ones opening.  Here the English gained their first toehold in the "New Found Land of Virginia."  However, the precise location of the First English Settlement on this small island is still much in dispute.

This First Settlement in what is today the United States has sometimes been called “the Cradle of America,” because it was here that our country began.  Three successive groups took part in the First Settlement.  They all came at the initiative of Sir Walter Raleigh during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.  Before the settlers, however, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe explored the nearby islands and sounds.  In his famous sketch, the artist John White shows them sailing toward the Indian village of Roanoac in 1584; it was northwest of an inlet later called Shallowbag Bay.  The First Colony of 107 settlers arrived in the area of Roanoke Island in June 1585.  They began to build a fort and an adjacent small village that August under the leadership of their “Governour” Ralph Lane.  He named the fortification “the Newe Forte in Verginia,” and the village he called the “towne.”  This fort plus “towne” served as the base of the First English Settlement in America.  Because it included a number of soldiers, historians have labeled this First Colony the “military colony.”  However, it was much more than that.  The settlers included the astronomer and algebraist Thomas Harriot and a team of mineral men featuring the senior metallurgist Joachim Gans.  These pioneers were a venturesome lot:  They landed in the American wilderness and forthwith set out to study its flora and fauna and to discover and test its potential commodities.  Harriot left a fascinating account—A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia.  The mineralogists built a laboratory and conducted tests....

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