Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony

by Lee Miller

Overview

November 1587. A report reaches London that Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition, which left England months before to land the first English settlers in America, has foundered. On Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, a tragedy is unfolding. Something has gone very wrong, and the colony—115 men, women, and children, among them the first English child born in the New World, Virginia Dare—is in trouble. But there will be no rescue. Before help can reach them, all will vanish with barely a trace.
The Lost Colony is America’s oldest unsolved mystery. In this remarkable example of historical detective work, Lee Miller goes back to the original evidence and offers a fresh solution to the enduring legend. She establishes beyond doubt that the tragedy of the Lost Colony did not begin on the shores of Roanoke but within the walls of Westminster, in the inner circle of Queen Elizabeth’s government. As Miller detects, powerful men had reason to want Raleigh’s mission to fail. Furthermore, Miller shows what must have become of the settlers, left to face a hostile world that was itself suffering the upheavals of an alien invasion. Narrating a thrilling tale of court intrigue, spy rings, treachery, sabotage, Native American politics, and colonial power, Miller has finally shed light on a four-hundred-year-old unsolved mystery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611459517
Publisher:	Arcade
Publication date:	01/01/2012
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	381,290
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Lee Miller holds a master’s degree in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University. She was head of research and a writer for the CBS TV series 500 Nations and a consultant for the BBC TV series Land of the Eagle. She has also served as a consultant for various Indian nations, as well as for U.S. federal and state agencies, including the Library of Congress. Of Kaw heritage, she is the founder of the Native Learning Foundation and the author of From the Heart: Voices of the American Indian. She lives in upstate New York.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

List of Illustrations xv

Maps xvi

Part 1 A Case of Missing Persons

1 The Disappearance 3

2 A Case of Missing Persons 19

3 John White: Governor 21

4 Of London 30

5 Of Population 40

6 Of Religion 43

7 The Colonists 48

8 In Certain Danger 57

Part 2 A Case of Murder

9 Sabotage 61

10 The Second Roanoke Expedition: Grenville and the Secotan (1585) 80

11 The Second Roanoke Expedition: Lane's Command (1585-1586) 97

12 Chaunis Temoatan and a Murder (1586) 110

Part 3 A Case of Conspiracy

13 The Lost Colonists (1587) 127

14 Raleigh's Rise to Power 135

15 Political Turmoil 145

16 The Players 162

17 The Motive 180

18 The Game 185

19 The Fall 192

Part 4 Who are the Mandoag?

20 Raleigh's Search 207

21 Jamestown 212

22 War on the Powhatan 218

23 Requiem 223

24 Deep in the Interior 227

25 Who Are the Mandoag? 238

26 Epilogue 261

Appendix A Wingina and the Secotan 265

Appendix B The Meaning of Mandoag and Nottoway 271

Notes and References 273

Bibliography 333

Index 353

Editorial Reviews

Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony by Lee Miller provides clear and convincing explanations for the disappearance of the late 16th-century British settlement on Roanoke Island off North Carolina. In probing Native American land disputes and intrigue, Miller uncovers the reasons for the colonists' disappearance. Miller's prose is commanding as she speculates on what really happened to the colonists after they left Roanoke and on the inevitability of their leaving. An ethnohistorian and anthropologist, Miller authoritatively removes the fog she claims was intentionally wrapped around this mystery. ( June) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The story of Roanoke Island's lost colony<-->115 men, women, and children who vanished from an abandoned military fort off the North Carolina coast around 1587<-->has been repeated so many times it's taken on the status of myth: America's longest-unsolved mystery. Miller, a TV documentary researcher trained as an anthropologist, offers a dramatically told solution based on the evidence left behind and shows the reasons<-->largely political<-->the colonists were probably destined to fail even before they left England. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

A remarkable book…deeply compelling, so much so that it is surely destined to claim a permanent place in the American colonial record.

Dr. A. David Napier

Lee Miller offers enlivening insight and astounding detail as she resurrects a 400-year-old American mystery.

Associated Press Staff

A remarkable book…deeply compelling, so much so that it is surely destined to claim a permanent place in the American colonial record.

Doctor - A. David Napier