There’s also the fact that the attempted colonists were essentially a bunch of MBAs. My understanding is that it probably went about like watching the Trump family try to actually build a building.
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Headline doesn’t match the story. It’s the racism underlying the “mystery” that’s dissapointing, not the solution.
I’ve been hearing this story all my life, but this is the first time I’ve heard there was a Croatoan island nearby.
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In Colonial America, there was something of a controversy about how settlers who “went native” never came back. If I recall correctly, Ben Franklin, among others, wrote about this. The “civilized” settlers could not understand why friends and family would prefer to live with native tribal peoples instead. It was a threatening idea that people could prefer living with Indians the way Indians lived instead of enjoying the benefits of “civilization.”
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It would be really interesting if we had the full story of what happened, how the tribe reacted to the Roanoke people showing up at their doorstep, what challenges they had with merging cultures, etc.
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We can make educated guesses with other interactions between colonists and Native Americans, which often included them being welcomed into the community. I suspect that is part of how this story was pieced together, with other well documented interactions with the Croatan.
This is more often than not what history this far back is, educated guesses based on what we do know and what is documented.
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But was it a thing in Franklin’s time?
Fur traders and explorers often had native wives. There were no white women, and there were advantages of a woman who knew the area.
This is why it’s generally always a native grandmother that people talk about, as European woman came over, there was less need to intermarriage, and “civilization” made it more taboo.
And yes, the marriages were welcome. And they tell a different story, people able to get along. I’ve yet to see something negative said about my great, great, great grandparent’s marriage , though Mourning Dove in her autobiography says my family didn’t trust white men after they moved away (I assume that’s the move to Red River).
The Okanagan Nation Alliance even acknowledges those marriages, which of course came later than in the East.
Some historian speculated that my great, great, great grandfather had come over from Scotland to “raise a fortune” and return. If that’s true, he stayed for Sarah and the children. That contrasts with settlers coming iver and wanting thihgs cleared.
All the good fur trade families in Red River (which was kind of a “retirement” place as fur traders settled down) had native relatives. The racism seeped in as more people came from “civilized” Canada.
People forget how strong religion was back then. Even if there wasn’t anything against marrying outside the religion, the mixed marriages were not sanctioned by the church. By European standards, people were “living in sin”. Easy to do when you’re the only white guy among native people (and might see white men sporadically), harder in a colony especially if there were women.
In “New France” priesrs were a big part of early colonies, so unless one moved away the only mixed marriages were probably when women were converted to Catholic, and then properly married.
Roanoke had women along, and it kept going as more and more people came over.
I suspect the colony diminished, lessening the social contract, so the remaining people found refuge among the People.
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Richard Pryor and James Earl Jones. How the hell did I miss that one! Bought today on Amazon. THANKS!
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Yes, it was a thing in Franklin’s time and even before. See the Unredeemed Captive for more from even earlier than Franklin.
Franklin also wrote about the dangers of immigration and those pesky foreign immigrants who were taking over, the Germans.
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My biggest beef with History Channel is that their programs are so. . . “diluted”, like a kid fudging the margins and spacing to pad out a single paragraph into a ten page term paper. An hour long PBS show like Nova or American Experience is packed with information, but a History Channel show is like one tiny bit of info stretched out into an hour without adding anything substantive.
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Yes! Many of the leaders of the “Five civilized tribes” in the south were mixed race.
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An interesting essay on the subject, with refrences.
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Oh shit! I didn’t know there was actually any connection there. Interesting.
Roanoke Island is in the sound, somewhat buffered from the ocean by what is currently Bodie “Island.” The Croatan settlements were in the area of Buxton and Hatteras, which are quite a bit more exposed (and has better beaches) - Roanoke was in their fishing / hunting range.
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Later… they were all eaten by the giant Hatteras mosquitoes.
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According to the excerpt I’ve read from this book,
the standards used to grant or withhold federal recognition privilege an idea of “tribe” inconsistent with how the Lumbee understand kinship. Too much emphasis on the Roanoke connection and in admixture in general is politically disadvantageous. North Carolina recognizes the Lumbee, the federal government does not.
Another article on the subject:
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Roanoke was Galt’s Gulch?
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