The savages of North America gave early evidence of the possession of imaginative minds, of rare power of invention, and of an amiable desire to make satisfactory replies to the inquiries of their visitors.They generally told their questioners what they wanted to know, if they could ascertain what sort of information would please them.If they had known the taste of the sixteenth century for the marvelous they could not have responded more fitly to suit it.They filled Mr.Lane and Mr.Hariot full of tales of a wonderful copper mine on the River Maratock (Roanoke), where the metal was dipped out of the stream in great bowls.The colonists had great hopes of this river, which Mr: Hariot thought flowed out of the Gulf of Mexico, or very near the South Sea.The Indians also conveyed to the mind of this sagacious observer the notion that they had a very respectably developed religion; that they believed in one chief god who existed from all eternity, and who made many gods of less degree; that for mankind a woman was first created, who by one of the gods brought forth children; that they believed in the immortality of the soul, and that for good works a soul will be conveyed to bliss in the tabernacles of the gods, and for bad deeds to pokogusso, a great pit in the furthest part of the world, where the sun sets, and where they burn continually.The Indians knew this because two men lately dead had revived and come back to tell them of the other world.These stories, and many others of like kind, the Indians told of themselves, and they further pleased Mr.Hariot by kissing his Bible and rubbing it all over their bodies, notwithstanding he told them there was no virtue in the material book itself, only in its doctrines.We must do Mr.Hariot the justice to say, however, that he had some little suspicion of the "subtiltie" of the weroances (chiefs) and the priests.
Raleigh was not easily discouraged; he was determined to plant his colony, and to send relief to the handful of men that Grenville had left on Roanoke Island.In May, 1587, he sent out three ships and a hundred and fifty householders, under command of Mr.John White, who was appointed Governor of the colony, with twelve assistants as a Council, who were incorporated under the name of "The Governor and Assistants of the City of Ralegh in Virginia," with instructions to change their settlement to Chesapeake Bay.The expedition found there no one of the colony (whether it was fifty or fifteen the writers disagree), nothing but the bones of one man where the plantation had been; the houses were unhurt, but overgrown with weeds, and the fort was defaced.Captain Stafford, with twenty men, went to Croatan to seek the lost colonists.He heard that the fifty had been set upon by three hundred Indians, and, after a sharp skirmish and the loss of one man, had taken boats and gone to a small island near Hatorask, and afterwards had departed no one knew whither.
Mr.White sent a band to take revenge upon the Indians who were suspected of their murder through treachery, which was guided by Mateo, the friendly Indian, who had returned with the expedition from England.By a mistake they attacked a friendly tribe.In August of this year Mateo was Christianized, and baptized under the title of Lord of Roanoke and Dassomonpeake, as a reward for his fidelity.The same month Elinor, the daughter of the Govemor, the wife of Ananias Dare, gave birth to a daughter, the first white child born in this part of the continent, who was named Virginia.
Before long a dispute arose between the Governor and his Council as to the proper person to return to England for supplies.White himself was finally prevailed upon to go, and he departed, leaving about a hundred settlers on one of the islands of Hatorask to form a plantation.
The Spanish invasion and the Armada distracted the attention of Europe about this time, and the hope of plunder from Spanish vessels was more attractive than the colonization of America.It was not until 1590 that Raleigh was able to despatch vessels to the relief of the Hatorask colony, and then it was too late.White did, indeed, start out from Biddeford in April, 1588, with two vessels, but the temptation to chase prizes was too strong for him, and he went on a cruise of his own, and left the colony to its destruction.
In March, 1589-90, Mr.White was again sent out, with three ships, from Plymouth, and reached the coast in August.Sailing by Croatan they went to Hatorask, where they descried a smoke in the place they had left the colony in 1587.Going ashore next day, they found no man, nor sign that any had been there lately.Preparing to go to Roanoke next day, a boat was upset and Captain Spicer and six of the crew were drowned.This accident so discouraged the sailors that they could hardly be persuaded to enter on the search for the colony.