The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

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In the year 1587 the adventurer and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh sent out 121 colonists, which included women, in a second attempt to settle the land of the present American state of North Carolina at the mouth of the Albermarle Sound on Roanoke Island. The Indians who lived about on the few islands of the sound and alongside the coastal regions needless to say did not appreciate these white interlopers because of previous encounters with Europeans. However the animus was not universally felt by the Indian tribes, and a few of them were willing to assist the Europeans in their colonization attempts, although these Indians had no concept of property and other such notions these whites had brought with them to the "New World". To the Indians the land was universal and belonged to no one but the Great Spirit.

These colonists had numerous trials, which faced them other than the animosity of some savages, not the least of which were food shortages. So in that same year of 1587 their nominal leader, the artist John White, sailed back to England for more supplies.

White, however, could not return to Roanoke Island until the year 1590. He was prevented from doing so because the island kingdom was engaged in a war with its two main rivals for world supremacy France and Spain. And so, while their leader was absent many great calamities beset the colonists, he had left behind. And so before he could return with the needed supplies all traces of the colony disappeared, all but a mysterious word "CROATOAN" that was carved into the bark of a tree on one of the nearby islands, an island with the same name.

Settlement of the great wilderness went on unabated however, and in the 1660s King Charles II granted vast tracts of these lands to eight "Lord Proprietors" who continued to sponsor this growing colonization. And by this time the tale of the doomed settlement on Roanoke Island had slipped into the veil of history as "THE LOST COLONY".

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The speculations and rumors that surrounded any discussion about what these colonist's fate may have been went from the sublime to the ridiculous. But in the end it was all just conjecture and gossip.

One idea that had been bandied about however was closer to the truth than anyone knew, the idea that they had taken up with one of the friendlier Indian tribes and sought more hospitable lands only to perish along the way.

Food shortages indeed made the colonists John White had left behind quite desperate. And after some time they began to believe that White had either abandoned them or had himself perished on the vast Atlantic Ocean. At last their desperation drove them to entreat upon the Croatoan Tribe that occupied the island where the name of the tribe was carved into the tree.

Although their leader White had admonished them to never allow the knowledge of their precarious position become apparent to the natives they nevertheless felt the necessity to approach them.

The Europeans were in for a surprise however. The Croatoans it seems were themselves suffering from food shortages due to the harsh winter weather and recent droughts. Nonetheless the Indians took the Europeans in and assisted them as much as they were capable.

The Croatoans had not done this because they had any great admiration of the foreigners, but because they saw these white people with their fearsome weaponry as potential allies in the plan they had arrived upon to resolve their own needs.

In their most recent councils the leaders of the Croatoans had reached the decision to embark upon the warpath against another tribe the Chowans, which lived on the mainland along the shores of the Chowan River.

The Chowans were great planters and Croatoan spies had determined that they had numerous stores of maize and other crops such as turnips, which they had set aside for leaner times. And although the Chowans were a larger and wealthier tribe, they were not as great as warriors as their fierce island neighbors the Croatoans. The Croatoan council had decided they and their white allies could easily set upon the Chowan camp and take the provisions they required.