American Colonial Times



American Colonial Times

America's Quadricentennial provides a time when Americans of all persuasions can rejoice together that the seeds planted at her birth were of such quality as to bring forth the civil liberty we still enjoy today. Yet, those conducting the “commemoration” (one cannot say celebration these days) of America's four hundredth birthday find it difficult to give honor to whom honor is due.

It is common today to view all the European settlements, especially Jamestown and Plymouth, as “an invasion.” Since we must come to conclusions based upon a bias of historic interpretations (all have such a bias), it may be important to highlight the biased assumptions of some of today's historians.

Queen Elizabeth granted a patent (Royal Charter) to Sir Humphrey Gilbert (half brother of Sir Walter Ralegh) who led an expedition to Newfoundland in 1583 and claimed it for England. For the next thirty years he tried, but without success, to begin settlements. Eventually he was lost at sea in a storm. A Royal Charter was granted to Sir Walter Ralegh to establish a settlement on Roanoke Island in 1585, and later in 1587. Roanoke is an island in the outer banks of North Carolina in an obscure cove the Spanish could not easily discover. The 1585 venture involving 107 men lasted less than a year because food ran out and they were unable to obtain food from the Indians. The colonists were rescued by Sir Francis Drake and returned to England. In 1587 Ralegh delivered 110 men, women and children under John White, a painter, to Roanoke Island. John White stayed only a month but made detailed drawings of the appearance and housing of the costal Carolina Algonquian Indians.

War between England and Spain prevented White from returning to Roanoke until 1590 when he found the site abandoned and only the word Croatoan carved on a post. Croatoan was the name of neighboring Indians on an island of the same name but owing to bad weather the English were unable to organize a mission to search for the "Lost Colony of Roanoke". In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold and 20 men tried to establish a trading post on Cape Cod but lacking food abandoned the effort and returned to England.

British land claims on the North American eastern seaboard, from what is now northern Maine to Wilmington, North Carolina was broadly called "Virginia" to honor Queen Elizabeth, the "Virgin Queen". ...