Lost Colony of Roanoke (Part II)

Investigations into Roanoke

Sir Walter Raleigh

Although White failed to locate his colonists in 1590, his report suggested they had simply relocated and might yet be found alive. However, it served Raleigh's purposes to keep the matter in doubt; so long as the settlers could not be proven dead, he could legally maintain his claim on Virginia. Nevertheless, a 1594 petition was made to declare Ananias Dare legally dead so that his son, John Dare, could inherit his estate. The petition was granted in 1597.

During Raleigh's first transatlantic voyage in 1595, he claimed to be in search of his lost colonists, although he would admit this was disinformation to cover his search for El Dorado. On the return voyage, he sailed past the Outer Banks, and later claimed that weather prevented him from landing.

Raleigh later sought to enforce his monopoly on Virginia—based on the potential survival of the Roanoke colonists—when the price of sassafras skyrocketed. He funded a 1602 mission to the Outer Banks, with the stated goal of resuming the search. Led by Samuel Mace, this expedition differed from previous voyages in that Raleigh bought his own ship and guaranteed the sailors' wages so that they would not be distracted by privateering. However, the ship's itinerary and manifest indicate that Raleigh's top priority was harvesting sassafras far south of Croatoan Island. By the time Mace approached Hatteras, bad weather prevented them from lingering in the area. In 1603, Raleigh was implicated in the Main Plot and arrested for treason against King James, effectively ending his Virginia charter.

Bartholomew Gilbert

There was one final expedition in 1603 led by Bartholomew Gilbert with the intention of finding Roanoke colonists. Their intended destination was Chesapeake Bay, but bad weather forced them to land in an unspecified location near there. The landing team, including Gilbert himself, was killed by a group of Native Americans for unknown reasons on July 29. The remaining crew were forced to return to England empty-handed.

John Smith

Following the establishment of the Jamestown settlement in 1607, John Smith was captured by the Powhatan and met with both their leader Wahunsenacawh (often referred to as "Chief Powhatan") and his brother Opchanacanough. They described to him a place called "Ocanahonan", where men wore European-style clothing; and "Anone", which featured walled houses. Later, after Smith returned to the colony, he made arrangements with Wowinchopunk, the king of the Paspahegh, to investigate "Panawicke", another place reportedly inhabited by men in European dress. The colony produced a crude map of the region with labels for these villages. The map also featured a place called "Pakrakanick" with a note indicating, "Here remayneth 4 men clothed that came from Roonocok to Ocanahawan."

In the summer of 1608, Smith sent a letter about this information, along with the map, back to England. The original map is now lost, but a copy was obtained by Pedro de Zúñiga, the Spanish ambassador to England, who passed it on to King Philip III of Spain. The copy, now commonly referred to as the "Zúñiga Map", was rediscovered in 1890.

Smith planned to explore Pakrakanick, but a dispute with the Paspahegh ended the mission before it could begin. He also dispatched two search parties, possibly to look for the other villages reported to him, with instructions to find "the lost company of Sir Walter Rawley". Neither group could find any sign of the Roanoke colonists living in the area.

By May 1609, word had reached England's Royal Council for Virginia that the 1587 colonists had been massacred by Wahunsenacawh. The source of this allegation is unknown. Machumps, Wahunsenacawh's brother-in-law, is known to have provided information about Virginia, and he had recently arrived in England. It has been speculated that the same voyage could have also delivered a letter from Smith, although no evidence for this exists.

Based on this intelligence, as well as Smith's earlier report, the Council drafted orders for the Jamestown colony to relocate. These orders recommended "Ohonahorn" (or "Oconahoen"), near the mouth of the Chowan River, as a new base. Among the purported advantages of this location were proximity to "Riche Copper mines of Ritanoc" and "Peccarecamicke", where four of Raleigh's colonists were supposed to be held by a chieftain named "Gepanocon". These orders, along with the new acting governor, Thomas Gates, were delayed due to the shipwreck of the Sea Venture at Bermuda. Gates arrived at Jamestown in May 1610, several months into the Starving Time. The crisis may have deterred the colonists from attempting the proposed relocation. An expedition was sent to the Chowan River, but there is no record of its findings.

William Strachey

William Strachey arrived in Jamestown, along with Gates and Machumps, in May 1610. By 1612, he had returned to England, where he wrote The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, an overview of the Virginia territory. He described "Peccarecamek", "Ochanahoen", "Anoeg", and "Ritanoe" in a manner consistent with Smith's map and the Virginia Council's orders to Gates. However, Strachey introduced additional details about "the slaughter at Roanoak".

Strachey suggested that the lost colonists had spent twenty years living peacefully with a tribe beyond Powhatan territory. Wahunsenacawh, he claimed, carried out the unprovoked attack at the recommendation of his priests, shortly before the arrival of the Jamestown colonists. Based on this account, seven English—four men, two boys, and one woman—survived the assault and fled up the Chowan River. They later came under the protection of a chieftain named "Eyanoco", for whom they beat copper at "Ritanoe".

The Historie of Travaile never directly identifies the tribe that supposedly hosted the Roanoke colonists. However, Strachey did describe an attack against the Chesepians, in which Wahunsenacawh's priests warned him that a nation would arise in Chesapeake Bay to threaten his dominion. It has been inferred that the colonists had relocated to Chesapeake, and both groups were massacred in the same attack.

Strachey believed that the Powhatan religion was inherently Satanic, and that the priests might literally be in communion with Satan. He advocated for England to facilitate the Powhatans' conversion to Christianity. To that end, he recommended a plan in which King James would show mercy to the Powhatan people for the massacre of the Roanoke colonists, but demand revenge upon the priests. However, the London Company did not publish The Historie of Travaile, which fell into obscurity until 1849. There is no indication that any actions were taken against Wahunsenacawh or his priests in retaliation for the alleged massacre.

Samuel Purchas

Powhatan attack on Jamestown

After the Powhatan attacked Jamestown in 1622, there was a dramatic shift in English commentary on Native Americans, as writers increasingly questioned their humanity. The London Company sponsored propaganda arguing that the massacre had justified genocidal retaliation, in order to assure potential backers that their investment in the colony would be safe.

In this context, Samuel Purchas wrote Virginia's Verger in 1625, asserting England's right to possess and exploit its North American claim. He argued that the natives, as a race, had forfeited their right to the land through bloodshed, citing the 1586 ambush of Grenville's garrison, an alleged attack on White's colonists, and the 1622 Jamestown massacre. Purchas offered no evidence for his claim about the 1587 colony except to state, "Powhatan confessed to Cap. Smith, that hee had beene at their slaughter, and had divers utensils of theirs to shew."

It is possible Smith related the story of Wahunsenacawh's confession to Purchas, as they are known to have spoken together. However, Smith's own writings never mention the confession, leaving Purchas's claim to stand alone in what historian Helen Rountree dismisses as "an anti-Indian polemic". Even if taken at face value, the alleged confession is not persuasive, as Wahunsenacawh might have invented the story in an attempt to intimidate Smith. The European artifacts allegedly offered as "proof" of a raid on the Roanoke colonists could just as easily have been obtained from other sources, such as Ajacán.

John Lawson

Sea traffic through Roanoke Island fell into decline in the 17th century, owing to the dangerous waters of the Outer Banks. In 1672, the inlet between Hatorask and Croatoan Islands closed, and the resulting landmass became known as Hatteras Island.

During John Lawson's 1701-1709 exploration of northern Carolina, he visited Hatteras Island and encountered the Hatteras people. Although there is evidence of European activity in the Outer Banks throughout the 17th century, Lawson was the first historian to investigate the region since White left in 1590. Lawson was impressed with the influence of English culture on the Hatteras. They reported that several of their ancestors had been white, and some of them had gray eyes, supporting this claim. Lawson theorized that members of the 1587 colony had assimilated into this community after they lost hope of regaining contact with England. While visiting Roanoke Island itself, Lawson reported finding the remains of a fort, as well as English coins, firearms, and a powder horn.

Modern research

Research into the disappearance of the 1587 colonists largely ended with Lawson's 1701 investigation. Renewed interest in the Lost Colony during the 19th century eventually led to a wide range of scholarly analysis.

Site preservation

The ruins that Lawson encountered in 1701 eventually became a tourist attraction. U.S. President James Monroe visited the site on April 7, 1819. During the 1860s, visitors described the deteriorated "fort" as little more than an earthwork in the shape of a small bastion, and reported holes dug by in search of valuable relics. Production of the 1921 silent film The Lost Colony and road development further damaged the site. In the 1930s, J. C. Harrington advocated for the restoration and preservation of the earthwork. The National Park Service began administration of the area in 1941, designating it Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. In 1950, the earthwork was reconstructed in an effort to restore its original size and shape.

Archaeological evidence

Archaeological research on Roanoke Island only began when Talcott Williams discovered a Native American burial site in 1887. He returned in 1895 to excavate the fort, but found nothing of significance. Ivor Noël Hume would later make several compelling finds in the 1990s, but none that could be positively linked to the 1587 colony, as opposed to the 1585 outpost.

After Hurricane Emily uncovered a number of Native American artifacts along Cape Creek in Buxton, North Carolina, anthropologist David Sutton Phelps Jr. organized an excavation in 1995. Phelps and his team discovered a ring in 1998, which initially appeared to be a gold signet ring bearing the heraldry of a Kendall family in the 16th century. The find was celebrated as a landmark discovery, but Phelps never published a paper on his findings, and neglected to have the ring properly tested. X-ray analysis in 2017 proved the ring was brass, not gold, and experts could not confirm the alleged connection to Kendall heraldry. The low value and relative anonymity of the ring make it more difficult to conclusively associate with any particular person from the Roanoke voyages, which in turn increases the likelihood that it could have been brought to the New World at a later time.

A significant challenge for archaeologists seeking information about the 1587 colonists is that many common artifacts could plausibly originate from the 1585 colony, or from Native Americans who traded with other European settlements in the same era. Andrew Lawler suggests that an example of a conclusive find would be female remains (since the 1585 colony was exclusively male) buried according to Christian tradition (supine, in an east–west orientation) which can be dated to before 1650 (by which point Europeans would have spread throughout the region). However, few human remains of any kind have been discovered at sites related to the Lost Colony.

One possible explanation for the extreme deficiency in archaeological evidence is shoreline erosion. The northern shore of Roanoke Island, where the Lane and White colonies were located, lost 928 feet (283 m) between 1851 and 1970. Extrapolating from this trend back to the 1580s, it is likely portions of the settlements are now underwater, along with any artifacts or signs of life.

Site X

In November 2011, researchers at the First Colony Foundation noticed two corrective patches on White's 1585 map La Virginea Pars. At their request, the British Museum examined the original map with a light table. One of the patches, at the confluence of the Roanoke and Chowan rivers, was found to cover a symbol representing a fort.

As the symbol is not to scale, it covers an area on the map representing thousands of acres in Bertie County, North Carolina. However, the location is presumed to be in or near the 16th century Weapemeoc village of Mettaquem. In 2012, when a team prepared to excavate where the symbol indicated, archaeologist Nicholas Luccketti suggested they name the location "Site X", as in "X marks the spot."

In an October 2017 statement, the First Colony Foundation reported finding fragments of Tudor pottery and weapons at Site X, and concluded that these indicate a small group of colonists residing peacefully in the area. The challenge for this research is to convincingly rule out the possibility that such finds were not brought to the area by the 1585 Lane colony, or the trading post established by Nathaniel Batts in the 1650s. In 2019, the Foundation announced plans to expand the research into land that has been donated to North Carolina as Salmon Creek State Natural Area.

Climate factors

In 1998, a team led by climatologist David W. Stahle (of the University of Arkansas) and archaeologist Dennis B. Blanton (of the College of William and Mary) concluded that an extreme drought occurred in Tidewater between 1587 and 1589. Their study measured growth rings from a network of bald cypress trees, producing data over ranging from 1185 to 1984. Specifically, 1587 was measured as the worst growing season in the entire 800-year period. The findings were considered consistent with the concerns the Croatan expressed about their food supply.

Genetic analysis

Since 2005, computer scientist Roberta Estes has founded several organizations for DNA analysis and genealogical research. Her interest in the disappearance of the 1587 colony motivated various projects to establish a genetic link between the colonists and potential Native American descendants. Examining autosomal DNA for this purpose is unreliable, as so little of the colonists' genetic material would remain after five or six generations. However, testing of Y chromosomes and Mitochondrial DNA is more reliable over large spans of time. The main challenge of this work is to obtain a genetic point of comparison, either from the remains of a Lost Colonist or one of their descendants. While it is conceivable to sequence DNA from 430-year-old bones, there are as of yet no bones from the Lost Colony to work with. As of 2019, the project has yet to identify any living descendants either.

Hypotheses about the disappearance

It's the Area 51 of colonial history.— Adrian Masters (historian, University of Texas)

Without evidence of the Lost Colony's relocation or destruction, speculation about their fate has endured since the 1590s. The matter has developed a reputation among academics for attracting obsession and sensationalism with little scholastic benefit.

Conjecture about the Lost Colonists typically begins with the known facts about the case. When White returned to the colony in 1590, there was no sign of battle or withdrawal under duress, although the site was fortified. There were no human remains or graves reported in the area, suggesting everyone left alive. The "CROATOAN" message is consistent with the agreement with White to indicate where to look for them, suggesting they expected White to look for them and wanted to be found.

Integration with local tribes

People have considered the possibility that the missing colonists could have assimilated into nearby Native American tribes since at least 1605. If this integration was successful, the assimilated colonists would gradually exhaust their European supplies (ammunition, clothing) and discard European culture (language, style of dress, agriculture) as Algonquian lifestyle became more convenient. Colonial era Europeans observed that people removed from European society by Native Americans—even if captured or enslaved—were reluctant to return; the reverse was seldom true. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that, at some point, the assimilated colonists or their descendants would resist efforts at recovery.

Most historians today believe this to be the most likely scenario for the colonists' survival. However, this leaves open the question of which tribe, or tribes, the colonists assimilated with.

It is widely accepted that the Croatan were ancestors of the 18th-century Hatteras, although evidence of this is circumstantial. The present-day Roanoke-Hatteras tribe identifies as descendants of both the Croatan and the Lost Colonists by way of the Hatteras.

Some 17th-century maps use the word "Croatoan" to describe locations on the mainland, across Pamlico Sound from Roanoke and Hatteras. By 1700, these areas were associated with the Machapunga. Oral traditions and legends about the migration of the Croatan through the mainland are prevalent in eastern North Carolina. For example, the "Legend of the Coharie" in Sampson County was transcribed by Edward M. Bullard in 1950.

More famously, in the 1880s, state legislator Hamilton McMillan proposed that the Native American community in Robeson County (then considered free people of color) retained surnames and linguistic characteristics from the 1587 colonists. His efforts convinced the North Carolina legislature to confer tribal recognition to the community in 1885, with the new designation of "Croatan". The tribe petitioned to be renamed in 1911, eventually settling on the name Lumbee in 1956.

Other tribes purportedly linked to the Roanoke colonists include the Catawba and the Coree. Samuel A'Court Ashe was convinced that the colonists had relocated westward to the banks of the Chowan River in Bertie County, and Conway Whittle Sams claimed that after being attacked by Wanchese and Wahunsenacawh, they scattered to multiple locations: the Chowan River, and south to the Pamlico and Neuse Rivers.

Reports of encounters with pale-skinned, blond-haired people among various Native American tribes occur as early as 1607. Although this is frequently attributed to assimilated Lost Colonists, it may be more easily explained by dramatically higher rates of albinism in Native Americans than in people of European descent.

Attempt to return to England

Construction of a pinnace to evacuate Charlesfort

The colonists could have decided to rescue themselves by sailing for England in the pinnace left behind by the 1587 expedition. If such an effort was made, the ship could have been lost with all hands at sea, accounting for the absence of both the ship and any trace of the colonists. It is plausible that the colony included sailors qualified to attempt the return voyage. Little is known about the pinnacle, but ships of its size were capable of making the trip, although they typically did so alongside other vessels.

The colonists may have feared that a standard route across the Atlantic Ocean, with a stop in the Caribbean, would risk a Spanish attack. Nevertheless, it was feasible for the colonists to attempt a direct course to England. In 1563, French settlers at the failed Charlesfort colony built a crude boat and successfully (albeit desperately) returned to Europe. Alternatively, the Roanoke colonists could have sailed north along the coast, in the hopes of making contact with English fishing fleets in the Gulf of Maine.

The pinnace would not have been large enough to carry all of the colonists. Additionally, the provisions needed for a transatlantic voyage would further restrict the number of passengers. The colonists may have possessed the resources to construct another seaworthy vessel, using local lumber and spare parts from the pinnace. Considering the ships were built by survivors of the 1609 Sea Venture shipwreck, it is at least possible that the Lost Colonists could produce a second ship that, with the pinnace, could transport most of their party. Even in these ideal conditions, however, at least some colonists would remain in Virginia, leaving open the question of what became of them.

Powhatan attack at Chesapeake Bay

David Beers Quinn concluded that the 1587 colonists sought to relocate to their original destination—Chesapeake Bay—using the pinnace and other small boats to transport themselves and their belongings. A small group would have been stationed at Croatoan to await White's return and direct him to the transplanted colony. Following White's failure to locate any of the colonists, the main body of the colonists would have quickly assimilated with the Chesepians, while the lookouts on Croatoan would have blended into the Croatan tribe.

Quinn suggested that Samuel Mace's 1602 voyage might have ventured into Chesepeake Bay and kidnapped Powhatans to bring back to England. From there these abductees would be able to communicate with Thomas Harriot, and might reveal that Europeans were living in the region. Quinn evidently believed circumstances such as these were necessary to explain optimism about the colonists' survival after 1603.

Although Strachey accused Wahunsenacawh of slaughtering the colonists and Chesepians in separate passages, Quinn decided that these events occurred in a single attack on an integrated community, in April 1607. He supposed that Wahunsenacawh could have been seeking revenge for the speculative kidnappings by Mace. In Quinn's estimation, John Smith was the first to learn of the massacre, but for political considerations he quietly reported it directly to King James rather than revealing it in his published writings.

Despite Quinn's reputation on the subject, his peers had reservations about his theory, which relies heavily on the accounts of Strachey and Purchas.

Spanish attack

While preparing to compose a 1937 drama about the Lost Colony, Paul Green noticed that Spanish records from the period contained an abundance of references to Raleigh and his settlements. Green's play ends with the colonists leaving Roanoke Island to evade an approaching Spanish ship, leaving the audience to wonder if the Spanish found them.

Spanish forces knew of English plans to establish a new Virginia base in 1587, and were searching for it before White's colonists had even arrived. The Spanish Empire had included most of North America in their Florida claim, and did not recognize England's right to colonize Roanoke or Chesapeake Bay. The colonists likely recognized the threat this represented, given the Spanish sack of Fort Caroline in 1565. However, the Spanish were still attempting to locate the colony in Chesapeake Bay as late as 1600, suggesting that they were unaware of its fate.

Conspiracy against Raleigh

Anthropologist Lee Miller proposed that Sir Francis Walsingham, Simon Fernandes, Edward Strafford, and others participated in a conspiracy to maroon the 1587 colonists at Roanoke. The purpose of this plot, she argued, was to undermine Walter Raleigh, whose activities supposedly interfered with Walsingham's covert machinations to make England a Protestant world power at the expense of Spain and other Catholic nations. This conspiracy would have prevented Raleigh and White from dispatching a relief mission until Walsingham's death in 1590. Miller also suggested that the colonists may have been Separatists, seeking refuge in America from religious persecution in England. Raleigh expressed sympathy for the Separatists, while Walsingham considered them a threat to be eliminated.

According to Miller, the colonists split up, with a small group relocating to Croatoan while the main body sought shelter with the Chowanoke. However, the colonists would quickly spread European diseases among their hosts, decimating the Chowanoke and thereby destabilizing the balance of power in the region. From there Miller reasoned that the Chowanoke were attacked, with the survivors taken captive, by the "Mandoag", a powerful nation to the west that the Jamestown colonists only knew from the vague accounts of their neighbors. She concluded that the Mandoag were the Eno, who traded the remaining Lost Colonists as slaves until they were dispersed throughout the region.

Miller's theory has been challenged based on Walsingham's considerable financial support of Raleigh's expeditions, and the willingness of Fernandes to bring John White back to England instead of abandoning him with the other colonists.

Secret operation at Beechland

Local legends in Dare County refer to an abandoned settlement called "Beechland", located within what is now the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. The area has had reports of small coffins, some with Christian markings, encouraging speculation of a link to the Lost Colony. Based on these legends, engineer Phillip McMullan and amateur archaeologist Fred Willard concluded that Walter Raleigh dispatched the 1587 colonists to harvest sassafras along the Alligator River. All records suggesting the colony's intended destination was Chesapeake Bay, and that England had lost contact with the colony, were supposedly falsified to conceal the operation from Spanish operatives and other potential competitors.

According to McMullan, Raleigh quietly re-established contact with the colony by 1597, and his sassafras expeditions were simply picking up the colonists' harvests. In this view, the colony was not truly abandoned until the secret of the colony's location died with Raleigh in 1618. After that point, McMullan argued, the colonists would have begun to assimilate with the Croatan at Beechland.

This theory largely depends upon oral traditions and unsubstantiated reports about Beechland, as well as a 1651 map that depicts a sassafras tree near the Alligator River. A significant problem is that Raleigh supposedly planned a sassafras farm in 1587 to capitalize on a dramatic increase in crop prices, so that he could quickly compensate for the great expense of the failed 1585 colony. This overlooks the fact that Richard Grenville's privateering recovered the cost of the 1585 expedition. Additionally, sassafras prices did not skyrocket in value until the late 1590s, well after the establishment of the 1587 colony.

CORA tree

In 2006, writer Scott Dawson proposed that a Southern live oak tree on Hatteras Island, which bears the faint inscription "CORA" in its bark, might be connected to the Lost Colony. The CORA tree had already been the subject of local legends, most notably a story about a witch named "Cora" that was popularized in a 1989 book by Charles H. Whedbee. Nevertheless, Dawson argued that the inscription might represent another message from the colonists, similar to the "CROATOAN" inscription at Roanoke. If so, "CORA" might indicate that the colonists left Croatoan Island to settle with the Coree (also known as the Coranine) on the mainland near Lake Mattamuskeet.

A 2009 study to determine the age of the CORA tree was inconclusive. Damage to the tree, caused by lightning and decay, has made it impossible to obtain a valid core sample for tree-ring dating. Even if the tree dates back to the 16th century, though, establishing the age of the inscription would be another matter.

Dare Stones

From 1937 to 1941, a series of inscribed stones was discovered that were claimed to have been written by Eleanor Dare, mother of Virginia Dare. They told of the travelings of the colonists and their ultimate deaths. Most historians believe that they are a fraud, but there are some today who still believe at least one of the stones to be genuine. The first one is sometimes regarded as different from the rest, based on a linguistic and chemical analysis, and as possibly genuine.

In popular culture

Raleigh was publicly criticized for his apparent indifference to the fate of the 1587 colony, most notably by Sir Francis Bacon. "It is the sinfullest thing in the world," Bacon wrote in 1597, "to forsake or destitute a plantation once in forwardness; for besides the dishonor, it is the guiltiness of blood of many commiserable persons." The 1605 comedy Eastward Hoe features characters bound for Virginia, who are assured that the lost colonists have by that time intermarried with Native Americans to give rise to "a whole country of English".

United States historians largely overlooked or minimized the importance of the Roanoke settlements until 1834, when George Bancroft lionized the 1587 colonists in A History of the United States. Bancroft emphasized the nobility of Walter Raleigh, the treachery of Simon Fernandes, the threat of the Secotan, the courage of the colonists, and the uncanny tragedy of their loss. He was the first since John White to write about Virginia Dare, calling attention to her status as the first English child born on what would become US soil, and the pioneering spirit exhibited by her name. The account captivated the American public. As Andrew Lawler puts it, "The country was hungry for an origin story more enchanting than the spoiled fops of Jamestown or the straitlaced Puritans of Plymouth... Roanoke, with its knights and villains and its brave but outnumbered few facing an alien culture, provided all the elements for a national myth."

The first known use of the phrase "The Lost Colony" to describe the 1587 Roanoke settlement was by Eliza Lanesford Cushing in an 1837 historical romance, "Virginia Dare; or, the Lost Colony". Cushing also appears to be the first to cast White's granddaughter being reared by Native Americans following the massacre of the other colonists, and to focus on her adventures as a beautiful young woman. In 1840, Cornelia Tuthill published a similar story, introducing the conceit of Virginia wearing the skin of a white doe. An 1861 Raleigh Register serial by Mary Mason employs the premise of Virginia being magically transformed into a white doe. The same concept was used more famously in The White Doe, a 1901 poem by Sallie Southall Cotten.

The popularity of the Lost Colony and Virginia Dare in the 19th and early 20th centuries coincided with American controversies about rising numbers of Catholic and non-British immigrants, as well as the treatment of African Americans and Native Americans. Both the colony and the adult Virginia character were embraced as symbols of white nationalism. Even when Virginia Dare was invoked in the name of women's suffrage in the 1920s, it was to persuade North Carolina legislators that granting white women the vote would assure white supremacy. By the 1930s this racist connotation apparently subsided, although the VDARE organization, founded in 1999, has been denounced for promoting white supremacists.

Celebrations of the Lost Colony, on Virginia Dare's birthday, have been organized on Roanoke Island since the 1880s. To expand the tourist attraction, Paul Green's play The Lost Colony opened in 1937, and remains in production today. President Franklin D. Roosevelt attended the play on August 18, 1937—Virginia Dare's 350th birthday.

Bereft of its full context, the colonists' sparse message of "CROATOAN" has taken on a paranormal quality in Harlan Ellison's 1975 short story "Croatoan", Stephen King's 1999 television miniseries Storm of the Century, and the 2005 television series Supernatural. The 1994 graphic novel Batman-Spawn: War Devil states that "Croatoan" was the name of a powerful demon who, in the 20th century, attempts to sacrifice the entirety of Gotham City to Satan. In the 2015 novel The Last American Vampire, the colonists are the victims of a vampire named Crowley; the inscription "CRO" was thus an incomplete attempt to implicate him.

The American Horror Story episode "Birth" relates a fictional legend in which the Lost Colonists mysteriously died, and their ghosts haunted the local Native Americans until a tribal elder banished them with the word "Croatoan". This premise is expanded upon in the sixth season of the series, American Horror Story: Roanoke, which presents a series of fictional television programs documenting encounters with the ghost colonists. The leader of the undead colonists, "The Butcher", is depicted as John White's wife Thomasin, although there is no historical evidence that she was one of the colonists.

Notes

The precise number of colonists is disputed.

The English called this place "Bay of Muskito" (Mosquito Bay) while the Spanish called it "Mosquetal", the precise location of which is uncertain. David Beers Quinn identified Mosquetal as Tallaboa Bay in 1955, but he later concurred with Samuel Eliot Morison's 1971 conclusion that the name referred to Guayanilla Bay.