Post by managermike99 on Jul 30, 2014 8:22:38 GMT -5
“Croatoan”
Airing time; to be announced
Status; ordered season 1 – 16 episodes (limited series)
Category; Drama/Paranormal
Production company; MapleStar Entertainment
Running time; 60 minutes
~creators~
L. Smith
M. Crichton
~series synopsis~
Based on the sketchy details of the lost colony of Roanoke. In 1587 John White led a group of almost 200 men, women, and children to the new world, specifically to what is now Roanoke, Virginia. The legend tells of White having to return to England for supplies, leaving behind his family including newly born granddaughter Virginia Dare. A task that should have brought him back the next spring instead was delayed over two years as war broke out between England and Spain, inhibiting any plans to return. Once White makes his return they find the town empty and forsaken. Despite searches and the mysterious clues left by the colonialists (including “the word “Croatoan” carved into a tree), no bodies are ever found. Several years later an acquaintance of White’s in England receives the final communication ever from the mysterious man; a sort of purging of the soul.
This historically based limited series follows that man’s search for the truth, a search which ends upon his death but is picked up almost 400 years later by his decedent, a feisty and determined College sophomore. Transport back and forth from the days of the colonialists, the missions that came before them and sealed their fate, and the 4 century search for truth; all along the way dogged by the eerie appearances of a ghostly child believed to be Virginia Dare.
~cast~
Gabriel Hogan
Jason Isaacs
Sebastian Roche
David Ogden Stiers
Kate Sangster...2nd year history student, UNC-Chapel Hill
Gilda Sangster...Kate's grandmother, a history buff
~episode guide~
1.01 – The Lost
2006: After a less then successful college term, Kate returns home to visit her grandmother who's time left on earth appears to be waning. Kate 's relations with her mother and brother are stretched to the breaking point.
1590: John White commissions some privateering ships to bring him and one other back to Roanoke to look for the last colony. However, the sea and the greed of the pirates conspire against a successful search.
1.02 – A Return
1.03 – Govenor John White
1.04 – Famine, war, pestilence
1.05 - Sabotage
1.06 - Mutiny
1.07 - The Second Expedition
1.08 - A Bad Beginning
1.09 - A Fate Sealed, A Secret Revealed
1.10 - Goodnight Grandma
1.11
1.12
1.13
1.14
1.15 – part 1 of 2 hour finale
1.16 – part 2 of 2 hour finale
1.01 – The Lost
2006: After a less then successful college term, Kate returns home to visit her grandmother who's time left on earth appears to be waning. Kate's relations with her mother and brother are stretched to the breaking point.
Outside the house sitting in his car Kate has a disagreement with her boyfriend Lee. He wants her to switch to a more practical major then History, or at least go into Teaching. He wants to get married, she’s in no hurry. He refuses to go in for the visit, and she goes in alone in a huff.
Talking to her Grandmother she asks Kate how first term went. Kate just looks down. She tells her Grandmother that her professors tell her that she is only a memorizer of details, and not a discoverer of new ideas. Her grandmother places a hand over Kate’s and says not to worry. It will come. Kate says she is thinking of switching to a more practical major. The elderly woman astutely says that is someone else’s words not yours. You have youth, use it as you wish. Now she says what are you studying right now? Kate says they just had a lesson on local Roanoke legend, of the lost colony. Her grandmother whispers “Croatoan”. She tells Kate to tell her the legend, and she closes her eyes as her granddaughter begins to speak.
1587 - June
117 colonialists land at Roanoke from England. They began to repair the houses of an abandoned English fort. New cottages were also made of brick and tile.
On August 18th Eleanor and Ananias Dare became parents, the first English child born in North America, and the new granddaughter of the governor and leader of the expedition John White. They name her Virginia after their new home.
Serenity is shattered when Colonist George White is found dead floating face down amongst the reeds along the shore.
Suspecting foul play by the Indians an envoy is dispatched to neighboring Secotan nation through Indian liason Manteo. There is no response.
Then on August 27, amongst all the turmoil John White abruptly abandons the island.
He pledges to rescue them in 3 months but does not come back for 3 years. When he returns he finds no sign of them except for “Croatoan” carved into a tree. He never found out what happened to his colony, to his daughter, son-in-law, or to his granddaughter Virginia Dare.
2006 – Kate quietly sits up. “Good night Grandma. See I guess I really don’t have the ability to make history exciting.” She kisses her sleeping grandma on the top of the head and quietly steals out of the room. On her way out of the house her Mom calls out to her, still tension in the air. She hands Kate what looks to be a very old large diary stuffed with loose papers. What’s this Kate asks. Her mom says she doesn’t know but that her Grandmother had wanted her to have it before she left tonight. They don’t say good night, no I love you’s before Kate steps out to the porch, a cab waits for her at the curb.
In the back of the cab Kate examines the diary.
“the letters and personal correspondence of Master Richard Hakluyt, of London, England”
The first letter begins
4 February 1593
To the worshipful and my very friend Master Ricahrd Hakluyt, much happiness in the Lord.
Sir, as well for the satisfying of your earnest request, as the performance of my promise made unto you at my last being with you in England, I have sent you…the true discourse of my last voyage into the West Indies, and parts of America called Virginia, taken in hand about the end of February, in the year of our redemption 1590. And what events happened unto us in this journey you shall plainly perceive by the sequel of my discourse…
It’s from John White, the governor and leader of the Roanoke expedition.
[end of episode]
1.02 - "A Return"
2006: Friday afternoon and after a tough week of classes Kate is having a fight with her boyfriend. He wants to spend time with her this weekend but she is headed to the state capital library to do some research into Croatoan. She tells him excitedly about the historic documents she was given by her grandmother, but her BF doesn’t share her excitement.
1590, March 20th. Three ships (privateers – sanctioned pirates) put to sea from Plymouth harbour, Hopewell under Captain Cooke, Little John under Captain Newport, and John Evangelist, a consort. It has been 3 years since John white left the colony and he is manic to get back.
The only way to reach Roanoke is to coax small vessels through the treacherous channels.
5 days out from Plymouth and a mistake is made, and the shallops (the small boats being dragged) sink.
7 days later they encounter a London merchantman and two shipboats are purchased to replace the shallops.
April 29th, they reach the Caribbean after a skirmish off the Canary islands. The Little John stays behind to try and look for Spaniards to pirate.
Instead of going straight to Roanoke the other two serpentine their way through the Caribean also trying to do some privateering. John White is irate but he is helpless to stop the privateers.
They capture a Spanish frigate hailing from Cuba laden with hides and ginger.
In Puerto Rico Governor Diego Menendez de Valdes writes a letter to the Spanish crown reporting the sight of the English ships and information from spys that they are headed to Florida to take off 200 English cast away there. Reports of a governor on board.
The ships spend so much time looking to pirate that they claim it is too late in the season to go to Virginia, over concerns of hurricanes, but White as the financier gets his way after some serious threats and they go.
August 1 to 10th they encounter a storm. On the 12th they drop anchors outside Croatoan Island, the shallops sent out to sound over the breach. Reports come back with mixed depth readings but the crew agrees to go on.
August 15th they approach Roanoke.
John White spots a great smoke rise on the island near the place where he left the colony in 1587. He believes the Hopewell has been spotted by the colonialists who are signaling him.
The next morning as they ride the shallops in to Roanoke they shoot their rifles from the Hopewell intermittently to attract the attention of the settlers.
They follow to a rising smoke different then the first. It is further then they think and when they arrive it’s only a smoldering camp fire. The day is wasted and they return to the boats for the night.
Aug 17th Captain Spicer delays further, sending scallops to shore for fresh water. It’s almost noon by the time they depart for Roanoke and now the channels are no longer calm. They brave the rapids. They make it but the food and clothes are wet.
The other scallop though capsizes and 7 of 11 men drown as most can’t swim, and Captain Cooke saved as many as he could.
One of the drown were Robert Coleman who was a family member of the colonists.
After the drowning the crew doesn’t want to go any further but Captain Cook and John White convince them they must go.
They salvage Spicer’s boat and have 19 men left.
It is dark and they row past their landing spot, disorientated. They see light south from where they came so they backtrack to it. They want to signal so they all sing, but no one responds. They hunker down in the boats for the night.
Aug 18th they make their way to where the colony had been left by White 3 years previous. They find lots of footprints from the night before. Several people had been watching them as they slept.
Scrambling up a sandy bank White cries out. Cut into a tree are the letters “CRO”.
He alone knows what it means and he hangs his head. This is not good news.
2006: Kate leaves the library holding the diary of Richard Hakluyt in her hands, and heads to her car. Out of the edge of her sight she sees a young girl in an old fashioned cloak watching her from the edge of the parking lot. Kate stops to stare at her. The figure is eerie, it seems to float inches off the ground, may not be completely corporal, and no face is visible hidden in the darkness of the hood and the parking lot’s dim lights. The sound of a car distracts Kate and when she turns back to the mysterious figure it’s gone.
[end of episode]
1.03 - "Govenor John White"
2006: Kate is visiting her Grandmother and goes over some of the material she has been able to gather in regards to the lost colony. She expresses that she has hit a wall. She asks her Grandmother why John White himself would have been sent back to England to ask for supplies. There is an awkard pause before she asks “did he know something and abandon them all to die?” After thinking it over Kate’s Grandma says, “you have seen her. You are assuming something sinister happened because you believe you have seen the ghost of Virginia Dare.”
1572: painter Jacques LeMoyne and a 20 year old English volunteer Sir. Walter Raleigh hid for 3 days from Protestant Huguenots during a bloodbath in Paris streets on St Bartholomew’s Day. Raleigh would later hire LeMoyne to do paintings of Florida, and that’s where he met White who was assisting LeMoyne.
1577: John White a watercolour specialist painter, and scientific illustrator goes to Baffin Island, the expedition brings back a boat load of fool’s gold.
Richard Hakluyt was a new scientist, sometimes in the employ of Raleigh, he meets John White and they become fast friends.
1584: Raleigh asked John White to join the first Roanoke expedition as a commissioned artist, expedition artist.
1587 Jan 7th, Raleigh appoints White Governor of the City of Raleigh in Virginia and White agrees to lead a company of planters to establish it. His daughter Eleanor, 5 months pregnant and her husband Ananias Dare (tiler and bricklayer) to go as well.
2006: Kate meets with her professor to go over her research so far in the Lost Colony. He’s impressed at how much information Kate has dug up, and even more impressed by the diary of Richard Hakluyt. However, he says she is still just memorizing history. It’s time that she begin to shape history. Kate says she doesn’t know where to go from here. Her professor tells her to think like an investigator. Look for motive, why did people do what they did.
1590, Aug 18th: John White looks at the letters cut into the tree “CRO”.
He alone knows what it means and he hangs his head. This is not good news.
He speaks to his officers. The colonialists were prepared to relocate 50 miles into the main. This was to be their prearranged meeting signal. If they were in distress they were to carve a cross into the tree. The officers say this is good news then but White disagrees. He says they should have spelled out Croatoan not just CRO. It’s as if they were interrupted.
The rescue crew continue to the clearing where the settlers were, and its gone. No buildings, no locks, no boards, nothing. Except for a palisade made from trees, which John White says was not there when he left 3 years ago. On one of the trees on the pallasade they find another carving, Croatoan, again with no signs of distress. This puts the rest of the officers at ease but somehow White still fears the worse.
Inside the palisade the only things remaining are some heavy iron items, not easily transported and now overgrown with weeds.
The men find some chests that had been buried, now uncovered, pilfered for the most part and broken up. White realizes they were his belongings. Books torn from covers, maps spoiled, and armor almost eaten through with rust.
John White says they must have gone to Croatoan, the place where Manteo was born, the people of the island were our friends.
They return to the ships for the night, under a heavy storm, one anchor snaps.
As they arrive near Croatoan they drop anchor but it snaps away as does the next one in the rough shallows. The 4th and final anchor of the boat takes hold stopping the boat in its tracks, the ship almost run aground.
The crew decides it is too risky to continue into Croatoan, too much has gone wrong. White pleads with them. They negotiate a plan of action which will see them winter in the West Indies, hoping to catch some Spanish ships, and thus will be closer to Virginia to return in the spring. The crew does not seem to care about the fate of the colonialists grumbling about Spanish ships instead. White is a lone voice in the wilderness.
[end of episode]
1.04 – Famine, War, Pestilence
2006: There is a tremendous storm, and the lights go out at Kate’s apartment. She resorts to reading her research material by candlelight and dozes off. She is dreaming about John White leaving his family behind, knowing they will be slaughtered by the Indians and the Spaniards, while he returns to the comfort and riches of England. Then she dreams of Virginia Dare waiting on the beach for her Grandfather to return while the tide comes in until it takes her away to sea. She awakes with a start and out of the corner of her eye she thinks she see’s the edge of a dress walking away from her room. She follows but must have been seeing things as no one is there. Her phone rings, its her Mom. Kate’s Grandma has had a bad fall and is in the hospital.
1586: John White and Richard Hakluyt walk through the crowded, dirty streets of London England planning their voyage to Virginia. Hakluyt is all business trying to put together a provisions list for the journey. But White’s pious mind is on other things, the state of London and the crown. He begins a rant as they walk.
London a city of international trade based on water ways with an insatiable appetite for luxuries and fads and a delight for foreign goods. A new travel industry, foreign princes travel to London just to see the sites. A continuous line of boats on the Thames, extending the entire length of the city. A new class of urban, not accustomed anymore to country living. The Cockneys. Lapdogs are all the fashion. Overpopulated, self indulgent, lack of personal responsibility, lawsuits, youth gone wild, rudeness, street brawls, divorce. Sundays are not spent at church and worship but in dancing, dicing, carding, bowling, tennis, hunting, and the like. Dancing not for celebration but in praise of ourselves, smooching and slobbering one of another, filthy groping and unclean handling.
Bastard births, a soaring population and pandemic of venereal disease. Why did you know Richard that at Smart’s Quay a thieves’ school instructs streewise boys in the delicate art of pickpocketing? Prisons visible to the public as a deterrent, prisoners lying in filthy straw and dung. The rich feeding their sporting dogs exotic foods while the poor go hungry. Bear baiting, a bear tethered to a stick. Snarling mastiffs released one by one on the terrorized animal, the citizens eagerly placing bets.the bear can not bite back, its teeth have been broken short. An old blind bear securely fastened struck with canes and sticks by young boys. These children are the future of London, this their education.
Both men now stop in their tracks, Richard embarrassed as John White’s voice had risen high enough that they are getting a lot of menacing glances. They begin to walk again but this time it is Richard who speaks quietly. Yes, religion has been replaced by the worship of money. Suburbs sprout up past London’s walls. No room for beauty, antiquity, or history. Farmland is displaced, inflation runs rampant. The need for wood for fuel is so great the wholesale demolition of trees and forests results. Most of London’s waters are completely overfished.
But that is not why we leave is it my friend? That is not why we are eager to start again in Virginia?
2006; Kate is caressing her Grandmother’s hand as she rests, having broken her hip from a bad fall during the power outage. Kate whispers asking her Grandma why then, why did they want to start over. Her Grandma closes her eyes before speaking. Queen Elizabeth needed a strong and unified church because across Europe religious divisions created deadly civil wars. Allegiance to the Church is equated to allegiance to the Crown.
However a puritan movement catches fire, accusing Anglican officials of being too Catholic. Seperatists and secret societies exist underground, under the fear of treason.
August 1583 John Whitgift is consecrated the new Archbishop of Canterbury, pursues dissidents with rigour, too much, condemned by even Burghley, Lord Treasurere of the Queen’s Privy Council for entrapment, likening it to the inquisition. Leaders of the separatists are thrown in jail. You see dear the colonialists were not from the poor. They had to buy their share of the adventure in return for 500 acres of land. They included a physician, goldsmith, sheriff, lawyer, professor, and other gentlemen. Kate whispers, so it was religious fervor? As the nurse enters the room to tell Kate her Grandma has to rest now, Grandma shakes her head slightly and whispers for Kate to dig deeper. This had very little to do with the colonialists at all.
2006: Kate speaks to herself while looking over the diary of Richard Hakulyt and the scene continues to shift from modern day to the past as she tries to figure out what happened, tries to put herself into the colonialists shoes. She keeps coming back to the question, why send John White back for supplies? Her professor happens to come into the library where she is researching and she begins to go over the problem with him. He suggests that perhaps John White was chosen to leave, and it wasn’t his choice. Kate reminds him that he was the Governor. Yes, the professor continues, but why did they leave England in the first place? Kate responds, Religion. But they were Anglican? The professor reminds her that the colonialists were early Americans, but not much different then our founding fathers. And with that he walks away. Finally Kate clues in. The colonialists left because they were seperatists, they believed in the separation between Church and State, one of America’s founding beliefs. She is speaking to herself and getting a few stares. So once they arrived in Roanoke there is no reason to believe the Governor controlled things, they were doing things democratically. It was the colony that sent John White back to England, he didn’t have a choice. But why him, why did they choose him? Why could he succeed where they could not? What clout did he have? Power. That’s it, as Govenor, he must have had some political clout that made the colonialists believe he could succeed. Kate quieted herself and thought back to then.
1587: We see the preparations made by John White, and the Portugese pilot hired on Simon Fernandez to travel to Chesapeake Bay. 89 men, 17 women, 9 children.
2006: Kate is calling her Grandma but is told by her Mother that she is still in the hospital. Of course says Kate, embarrassed by being wrapped up in her own world. She blurts out to her Mom, they were sailing for Chesepeake Bay mom, landing in Roanoke was a mistake. Either an error, or on purpose, it was not where they intended to land. Her mom gives her an icy “that’s nice dear”. Kate remembers who she is talking to and says good-night.
1.05 - Sabotage
To Kingdom strange, to lands far off addressed:
Alone, forsaken, friendless on the shore.
With many wounds, with death’s cold pangs embraced;
Writes in the dust as one that could no more,
Whom love, and time, and fortune had defaced.
Sir Walter Raleigh
1587 – three ships set sail from Portsmouth. Lion captained by John White, piloted by Simon Fernandez. Edward Spicer commands the flyboat, and Edward Stafford commands the pinnace. Colinalists load all their possessions. With them is Manteo, native to Croatoan Island returning home from his second visit to England.
May 16, 1587. Only 8 days out from England in the dead of the night, off the dangerous Portugese coast, Captain Spicer’s flyboat is left stranded. She carries coloniasts as well as supplies. The other ships do not help, instead they abandon her.
June 22 they arrive at the Virgin Islands where all the planters were set on land for three days.
2006: Kate is visiting with her Grandma in the hospital. She is recovering form hip replacement surgery. The doctors did not want to perform the surgery at first because of her advanced age, but the fiery spirit finally convinced them. Kate asks her Grandma why they waited at the Virgin Islands? Was it a preplanned meeting? Were they waiting for the flyboat? Unfortunately her Grandma doesn't know anymore.
1587: The colonialists eat local green fruit in the Virgin Islands, making their mouths burn, tongues enlarge. Babies get colic from their mother’s milk. White confronts Fernandez who should have known about this having guided both previous Roanoke missions. The Portugese pilot though just shakes it off. Many have faces thick and swollen, babies howling in pain, a day and night spent in terror wondering if they will recover before pushing onward.
The next island stop for food and water is made at Santa Cruz. Here colonialists fall sick from the water. Again John White confronts Fernandez who promised abundant food and water but none is found on the island. Fernandez says he does not know why he made the error. White leads Fernandez and other men into the interior to look for food and water. They find tracks, a hunting party and again White turns on Fernandez, this time with more zeal. The Portugese pilot had told him the island was not inhabited. They are basically an invading party and have left the colonialists with no defensive measures. They give up the search for food and hustle back to the boats.
July 1 daytime, they enter Rojo Bay, a place that White is familiar with and wants to take on supplies. Fernandez urges him not to land, saying it isn’t the same place, that if the Pinnace went into the Bay she could be in great danger because of storms and shallows. Frustrated but cautious White sides with Fernandez.
That night they land at Mosquitoes Bay, Puerto Rico to find supplies. When the ships leave they accidently leave behind two irishmen Darby Glande and Denice Carrell. Glande treks across Puero Rico to the Headquarters of the PR Govenor Diego Menendez de Valdes. Glande is taken into custody by the Spanish and tells them the English are preparing to settle a colony at a location called Jacan (Roanoke Island, not Chesapeake Bay).
The Spanish send Captain Vicente Gonzalez to scour the coast for White’s colony.
2006; Kate is trying to figure out why Darby Glande told the Spanish that they are settling in Roanoke and not Chesapeake? How could he know that while they set out for Chesapeake they would end up in Roanoke? Had they changed their minds already? Was the information about the colonialists going to Chesapeake a mistake? Or was Glande in conspiracy with others against the colony, and being left on the island was not a mistake, but done intentionally by Glande? Kate says outloud to herself that Glande always claimed somewhat dubiously that he was pressganged as an Irishman into serving White and the British. Maybe he was and this was his revenge. Kate decides to pack up her materials and make a late night visit to her Grandma to see how she is feeling. As she walks to her car she again see's the ghost of Virginia Dare, hovering beside an Elm tree. The wind whispers to Kate, to Kingdom strange, to lands far off addressed:
Alone, forsaken, friendless on the shore.
With many wounds, with death’s cold pangs embraced;
Writes in the dust as one that could no more,
Whom love, and time, and fortune had defaced.. The wind howls and whips around Kate and the ghost some 40 yards away. Freaked out Kate fights the wind to get into her car, yet still clearly hears the whisper "sabotage".
1.06 - "Mutiny"
2006: Kate is having a romantic dinner with her boyfriend, or that is what they are trying to determine. He again tries to get her to committ to their relationship and take a step back in her studies. She won't have it, and when he gives her an ultimatum, they end the relationship. She doesn't seem heartbroken.
1587: July 3rd plans land in Hispaniola where Fernandez has a friend, a French trader who will furnish their needs. Instead Fernandez lets the island slip away, changing his story that he has heard that the Trader had died and is no longer there.
The planters have been on board since April with very little to eat or drink, two pregnant women near term (including Eleanor Dare), one more nursing. Living quarters are stinking and filthy from 3 months accumulated waste. John White is growing desperate but needs Fernandez' skill as a pilot.
Mid-July they stop near an island that Fernandez believes in Croatoan, but turns out it isn't after a couple wasted days of sending out a discovery team. John White is furious now and desperate. He demands why Fernandez didn't just ask Manteo who knows this isn't his homelands. Fernandez dismisses Manteo as a savage. White is fuming, he tells Fernandez it is now too late to get in a growing season. He doesn't know how the colony will survive the winter.
July 22 the ships arrive safely at Hatoras. White boards the pinnacle with 40 of his best men to visit Roanoke and to hold conference with the 15 soldiers stationed there since 1585.
The privateers aboard the ship mutiny and with Fernandez the Portugese pilot prepare to sail back to England, leaving the group. All the remaining planters are sent to land. Strangely the boat remains anchored off the coast for 36 days before sailing back to England.
2006: Kate visits her Grandma who is now back at home with Kate's Mom after the surgery. They are all in good spirits, and even her Mom seems interested when Kate lays out all that she has pieced together. Her newest puzzle though is why the mutinous ship would wait at the coast for 36 days before heading back to England. After all, they were now criminals, and running out of supplies. Kate's Grandma says that on the surface they are mutinous, but apparently not. All the behaviour only seems odd when assuming that as fact. Kate thinks aloud, saying if they were conspirators against the colony instead of mutineers, or at least the leaders of the group, then things make sense. Fernandez really could find food for them on the way back, so they know they will not starve. So why wait? What were they waiting for? Something to happen to the planters?
1587; Unaware of the mutiny, White and the others lead the group to the military fort near Roanoke where they discover one dead body of a soldier, the rest are missing, and the little fort is overgrown and ransacked.
As White looks around he realizes they can not survive here. He says to return to the boats and they must return to England. When he see's the planters on the shore however, he knows it is all over. "We're all dead" he whispers.
1.07 - "The Second Expedition"
1587: Edward Spicer in the long absent flyboat arrives at Hatorask. All the planters are reunited.
The colonists go into the marshes to hunt crabs. George Howe strays off. He is shot with 16 arrows, his head beat into pieces by a club. George Howe Jr awaits his return in vain.
An envoy is rushed to Croatoan with Manteo to smooth things over with the Secotan Indian tribe.
Aug 18 Eleanor Dare gives birth to Virginia Dare.
Aug 21 as they prepare to send back the flyboat for help the colonists argue over who to send. After several refuse Christoper Cooper agrees, only to change his mind the next day at the urging of his friends.
Aug 22 all the planters come to John White and ask him to go to England. He finally agrees. The colonists are to move 50 miles further up into the main. He does not want to leave all his poseessions, and his family. They vow to preserve his goods. They agree to draw up a document which states they asked him to go back to England, so that he would not lose face for leaving his colony as Govenor behind in danger.
Aug 27 the boats prepare to leave, as White is still not convinced. Finally he agrees.
Eleanor waves goodbye to her father. The earliest he can return will be spring.
They have a rough journey back, delays because of storms. Late October they finally see the shores of Ireland, and have to be rescued. Most of the crew are dead from starvation, dehydration, or overboard during the storms. White and Spicer live but need medical attention and are incapacitated.
After recovering White searches for a ship to take him to London as he gets word Fernandez has already left for the capital. White is worried that Fernandez will make up stories about what happened to cover his own tracks. Finally on Nov 1st he finds a slow vessel headed to Southampton. Fernandez beat him to London by 3 weeks.
2006: Kate discusses her research and theories with her professor. She talks about how frustrated she is by not being able to figure out with any certainty what happened. And one assumption leads to another, and the further on you go the further from the truth you can end up. Her professor just smiles and tells her this is great stuff. She is looking for the truth in history now, not just the facts. There is a big difference he says between the truth and the facts. She asks where she should look next. The professor says to go forward maybe she needs to look back. This pilot Fernandez, he was on the earlier voyage to Roanoke. Who was he working for? Why would he sabotage the colony?
1585: "The Second Expedition to Roanoke".
Jan 6 1585, a lavish party is thrown by the Queen and she knights Sir Walter Raleigh as a reward for annexing the land of Virginia. Manteo and Wanchese are there, a constant diversion.
Raleigh plans to make a military establishment at Roanoke to strike at Spain halting the gold supply that feeds its military goals.
Hakluyt assures the Queen privately that the Spaniards are a men most odious, not only to the people of the West Indies, but also to all Christendom.
300 soldiers are conscripted, many drawn from combat in wartorn Ireland, including of course Darby Glande.
Elizabeth assigns Raleigh the warship Tiger, mounted with two tiers of guns.
Feb 8 Elizabeth recalls Captain Ralph Lane from military service in Kerry to head Raleigh’s ladn forces. He is ferocious, and not happy about being recalled from the battle field to sail for months on end.
Apr 9, the fleet is assembled at Plymouth. Commanding General is Raleigh’s cousin Richard Grenville. A gentleman and leader, but who never led a squadron.
Simon Fernandez is the Pilot Major, a 3rd officer on the maritime side.
John White,the future Governor of Roanoke, is aboard as an artist. He talks excitedly about the new world with a scientist and and a mineral man.
1.08 - "A Bad Beginning"
2006: The family gathers to celebrate Grandma's 90th birthday. It is predominantly women, and they talk openly of the family "curse". Grandma became a widow at the age of 32 when her husband died in a farming accident. She had 3 daughters all of whom are at the party. Kate's Mom married but then divorced all at a young age. Kate is her only daughter and Grandma's only grandchild. The other 2 sisters have gone through 3 husbands, are both currently single, and never had children. They laugh that even their dogs have always been..females..
After the party Kate is summoned by her Grandma to discuss Croatoan. Grandma tells Kate that she has been dreaming more and more about Virginia Dare, and thinks that her time is almost up. Kate cries for her not to talk like that, but Grandma is too much of a realist. They talk about their earlier question on why the mutineers waited 36 days before leaving for England. Kate wonders if they were getting ready to sail when Spicer showed up with the missing flyboat. Grandma says she was thinking the same thing. They wanted to make sure the colonists stayed put, that they were not followed. Kate wonders if they had tried to leave if the mutineers would have killed them. Grandma reminds Kate that mutiny of course was a common capital offense back then. To go back to England they must have some belief that their story would hold up, either the colonists would not return, or they had clout somewhere in the Crown.
1585: May 1585 Spain escalates the naval war and begins to seize English ships and subject crew to Inquisition. The English economy begins to quickly collapse under the embargo.
May 12, 1585. Puerto Rico, Ship’s log from the second expedition. "The 12th day of May, we came to an anchor in the Bay of Mosquito, in the Island of S. John. The Tiger is all alone, the fleet battered by a storm in the Bay of Portugal and separated. A bad beginning."
Greenville orders the men ashore to erect a fort and build a pinnace to replace the one sunk. It is needd to carry supplies and to manoeuvre the shallow sounds to Roanoke.
8 Spanish horsemen materialize out of the forest. The English force them to retreat as they try and pilfer supplies.
May 23, 1585. The new pinnace is built, they have also been found by Thomas Cavendish’s separated vessel “Elizabeth”. They burn the fort as they leave, big black smoke announces their departure.
June 1st, the expedition captures two Spanish frigates. But then they anchor off Hispaniola and actually trade with sundry Spaniards. They now have supplies but anger between Lane and Greenville explodes as Lane does not think this is proper, thinking about the Crown, but Greenville cares only about the expedition. Lane and Greenville find themselves on opposite ends of the spectrum and begin to recruit faithfuls.
June 23 1585. Greenville almost runs aground at Cape Fear. Lane wonders why he left his military charge at Kerry for this promotion, saying he feels impotent.
They begin to slow down as depth soundings are made and recorded.
Determined to bring the vessels through the entry at Wococon despite the dangerous waters, Fernandez misjudges the shoals and runs the Tiger aground. Men tumble to the deck, crates and cargo spill across the hold slamming into bellowing livestock. A heavy sea washes over the ship driving it on to the shoal like a battering ram. For two hours the Tiger is beaten on by the sea. Finally it is rotated and run aground hard to the shore. The ship is damaged but intact. Most of the provisions are contaminated by the salt water spilling into the hold. And the season is too far gone to plant.
Grenville blames Fernandez, but Lane writes letters to England blaming the leadership of Grenville. He casts doubt in his letters about the loyalty of Greenville and the colonists to the Crown.
2006: Kate's last day at College after writing her finals. She tells her family she thinks she did real good, and wants to continue as a history major, already working the Croatoan into her eventual thesis. Both women are very proud of her. Kate gets an unexpected phone call from a man in England, who claims to be a historian in England, specializing in Sir Walter Raleigh. He doesn't seem happy about Kate's research into Croatoan and suggests that next time he is in "the colonies" he'll try and drop by to set her straight on what happened. Kate thinks the man is threatening her, but he softens his tone, assuring her that he means no harm, he is a historian just like her.
1.09 - "A Fate Sealed, A Secret Revealed"
1585: As they cleanup of the Tiger , Grenville dispatches a Corporal north to Hatorask Island near Roanoake to search for any of the fleet’s missing vessels. Miraculously both the Roebuck and the Dorothy are found.
July 1585. The Queen gives hundreds of English privateering vessels letters of reprisal to recoup their loses in the high seas in undeclared war against Spain (privateers, pirates)
England becomes flooded with goods seized from the Spanish including sugar.
July 11, 1585. 4 small boats bearing 50 men including Grenville, White and Manteo are readied for a trip to the interior.
The men spend the night on the beach under full guard along the hem of trees listing to the calls of the whippoorwill. Unable to sleep the men retreat to their rocking boats.
The next day the boats pull near the town of Pomeioc and are greeted by crowds of natives. The men note how fertile the soil is, how diverse the bounty.
John White sketches with paper and charcoal.
They trade finished goods for food and furs. Then they follow a path to an oasis.
That night they settle around a campfire with the natives. They make good cheer and feast.
Somewhere far away in the swamp an alligator growls, but the men are safe in the protective palisade walls.
In the morning the boats head west hugging the mainland, deep into Secotan country. They arrive at Aquascogoc late in the afternoon.
The town lies enveloped in corn fields. Again they trade. Hariot produces a bible and begins to tell the savages of Christianity.
Travel to Secota, again surrounded by corn, Open, no pallisdes. Hariot scrutinizes a corn cob, unknown in England, giggles from native women, he finds them attractive, nearly nude. Tattoos widning around their bodies.
As the evening progresses more men flood into the village from all directions, bringing fish. White paints a woman making stew in a pot.
The men notice a silver cup is missing, not having seen it since Aquascogoc. Amadas and ten soldiers return for the cup. Sent by Lane at daybreak.
Amadas arrives and demands the silver cup. They promise its return. Amadas waits.
Waits until dusk with no word.
2006: Kate discusses the implications of this with her Grandmother, but the elder seems distracted. Finally when questioned by Kate she says she has a secret that she was hoping Kate would have figured out by now. But since she has not discovered it, its time for her to know just how her own family is connected to the Croatoan legend. "Our family?" asks a shocked Kate.
1585: Tiger journal. "The 16 we returned thence, and one of our boats with the Admiral was sent to Aquascococke to demand a silver cup which one of the savages had stolen from us, and not recieving it according to the promise, we burnt, and spoiled their corn, and Town, all the people being fled."
The English do not worry about war, believing the natives to be weak.
2006: Kate's Grandma says it was no accident how she happened to have the diary of John White's best friend and confidant Richard Hakluyt. It had been given to her by her Grandfather, and before that his Father. Sometimes it skipped a generation, and sometimes it changed sexes, thus the changes in the family name. But always within the family from Richard Hakluyt to Gilda Sangster to Kate Sangster. We are the direct descendents of Richard Hakluyt. Kate is stunned.
1585: July 18th. Grenville’s company regroups under a relentless sun. Grenville determines the only option is to return to England for supplies and renew the offensive in the spring. Lane and others belive the patriotic thing to do is stay. Lane says the original plan was to have him stay as commander and demands Grenville stick to the plan. This is insuboridantion, mutiny.
Grenville threatens him with hanging, but Lane says he was just offering his advise and that is what his men will tell the Queen.
July 21st. Grenville takes the fleet back to England leaving Lane and 107 men. Lane will build a defensive fort on the north side of Roanoke Island.
Lane sneakily gives letters of complaint to one man to deliver to the Queen and her advisors. To Sir Walter Raleigh he forwards an entire book, a discourse of the whole voyage.
2006: Kate's Grandmother settles into bed. She tells Kate not to think too much about tonight's revelations but to return to her pursuit of the truth. In that light Kate says that in a way that single callous act of burning the natives crops over a silver chalice, sealed the doom of the missing colony. Kate's Grandma nodded, saying some believe that. First that assumes the natives had a part to play in the disappearance, and that seems to be certain, a part; but what part and how big? And what about the letters from Lane to the court? Keep searching dear, the truth is close by, I can feel it.
1.10 - "Goodnight Grandma"
2006: Kate re-reads the letter sent by John White, to his best friend and confidant, the man Kate now knows as her ancestor, Richard Hakluyt.
“Thus may you plainly perceive the success of my fifth and last voyage to Virginia, which was no less unfortunately ended than forwardly began, and as luckless to many, as sinister to myself. But I would to God it had been as prosperous to all, as noisome to the planters; & as joyful to me, as discomfortable to them. Yet seeing it is not my first crossed voyage, I remain contented. And wanting my wishes, I leave off from prosecuting that whereunto Iwould to God my wealth were answerable to my will. Thus committing the relief of my discomfortable company to the planters in Virginia, to the merciful help of the Almighty, whom I most humbly beseseech to help and comfort them, according to his most Holy will and their good desire, I take my leave from my house at Newtowne in Kylmore the 4 of February, 1593.
Your most well wishing friend, John White.
1583:
Pre-expedition preparations included briefings from experienced Portugese navigator Simon Fernandez a pilot. The hiring of Hakluyt to translate books about other North American expeditions for the planters to study. Hakluyt compiles a provisions list for the expedition.
1587: Hakluyt published a book in October proclaiming the trip a success “safe arrival of your last colony in their wished haven”. Wished Haven? They never reached their wished haven, planning on Chesapeake Bay and ending up in Roanoke instead.
1585
Lane’s Command (1585-86)
July 29, 1585. King Wingino’s brother brought on board the Tiger for negotiations. They allow the settlers to stay in Roanoke but they will not receive any help from the natives. They have no food.
Aug 17, 1585. Construction of the fort is completed. Lane assumes command of new HQ. Soldiers have been unruly. Many of them conscripts from Ireland.
“God will command even the ravens to feed us, as he did by his servant the Prophet Habakkuk.
They unload guns and munitions from the ship to the fort.
Amadas is sent to the mainland north of Roanoke Island. Searching for food.
Drought. The soil dries to sand under relentless sun. No rain for weeks. The native elders have never seen it so bad. Many think it is the gods punishment for not feeding the white man, so they go and beg them to pray to the God of England.
They begin to try and convert the Secotans. Still no rain comes.
Sept 27. Looks like a comet in the sky. Secotan begin to die. Within a few days after the departure of the surveyors in each town people begin to die, many in short space.
Elders die the most, taking away experience, priests, cooks, craftsmen.
King Wingina who frequently accompanied the surveyors is seized with chills, collapses filled with infection. So many begin to die that bodies are left to rot, some buried in shallow graves. The natives believe they are being cursed for not praying to the white man’s god.
The surveyors are no longer welcome, relations begin to deteriorate between the white men and the natives.
Sept, 1585, Sir Raleigh promoted to Lord-Lieutenant of Cornwall, a position traditionally held by royalty.
Oct 18, 1585 Grenville enters Plymouth harbour.
Raleigh is happy with the job done by his cousin Grenville, does not belive Lane’s slander and selects Grenville to command the returning squadron.
An anonymous tip to the Queen says that the ships are bringing back goods worth more then a million ducats, but the manifests say only 120,000 ducats.
Raleigh meets with Hakluyt to advertise the wonders and spoils brought back from the new world, to entice more investment. It’s working and they are the talk of the court.
Dec 10, 1585 Sir Walsingham receives intelligence of massive naval build up by Spain. The armada is preparing. England prepares for war, the fort at Roanoke no consequence in the big picture.
Winter. Isolated in the fort, no contact with Secotan.
Secotan trying to survive day to day. Corn crop has been destroyed. They hunt and gather enough to survive, pulling together.
The soldiers as commissioned soldiers refuse to hunt and gather. They are miserable. They try and trade copper with the natives for food.
They kill and eat the dogs. Some of them belonging to the Secotan.
A soldier is hung for falling asleep on watch, driving morale even further down.
Lane stays because in the spring he is determined to find the source of all the copper that the native women wear. He has riches in his eyes and in his heart.
2006:
Kate gets the phone call she has dreaded for so long. Her teary Mother tells Kate that her Grandma, Gilda, has passed away in her sleep last night. Kate is heartbroken and despondent.
Airing time; to be announced
Status; ordered season 1 – 16 episodes (limited series)
Category; Drama/Paranormal
Production company; MapleStar Entertainment
Running time; 60 minutes
~creators~
L. Smith
M. Crichton
~series synopsis~
Based on the sketchy details of the lost colony of Roanoke. In 1587 John White led a group of almost 200 men, women, and children to the new world, specifically to what is now Roanoke, Virginia. The legend tells of White having to return to England for supplies, leaving behind his family including newly born granddaughter Virginia Dare. A task that should have brought him back the next spring instead was delayed over two years as war broke out between England and Spain, inhibiting any plans to return. Once White makes his return they find the town empty and forsaken. Despite searches and the mysterious clues left by the colonialists (including “the word “Croatoan” carved into a tree), no bodies are ever found. Several years later an acquaintance of White’s in England receives the final communication ever from the mysterious man; a sort of purging of the soul.
This historically based limited series follows that man’s search for the truth, a search which ends upon his death but is picked up almost 400 years later by his decedent, a feisty and determined College sophomore. Transport back and forth from the days of the colonialists, the missions that came before them and sealed their fate, and the 4 century search for truth; all along the way dogged by the eerie appearances of a ghostly child believed to be Virginia Dare.
~cast~
Gabriel Hogan
Jason Isaacs
Sebastian Roche
David Ogden Stiers
Kate Sangster...2nd year history student, UNC-Chapel Hill
Gilda Sangster...Kate's grandmother, a history buff
~episode guide~
1.01 – The Lost
2006: After a less then successful college term, Kate returns home to visit her grandmother who's time left on earth appears to be waning. Kate 's relations with her mother and brother are stretched to the breaking point.
1590: John White commissions some privateering ships to bring him and one other back to Roanoke to look for the last colony. However, the sea and the greed of the pirates conspire against a successful search.
1.02 – A Return
1.03 – Govenor John White
1.04 – Famine, war, pestilence
1.05 - Sabotage
1.06 - Mutiny
1.07 - The Second Expedition
1.08 - A Bad Beginning
1.09 - A Fate Sealed, A Secret Revealed
1.10 - Goodnight Grandma
1.11
1.12
1.13
1.14
1.15 – part 1 of 2 hour finale
1.16 – part 2 of 2 hour finale
1.01 – The Lost
2006: After a less then successful college term, Kate returns home to visit her grandmother who's time left on earth appears to be waning. Kate's relations with her mother and brother are stretched to the breaking point.
Outside the house sitting in his car Kate has a disagreement with her boyfriend Lee. He wants her to switch to a more practical major then History, or at least go into Teaching. He wants to get married, she’s in no hurry. He refuses to go in for the visit, and she goes in alone in a huff.
Talking to her Grandmother she asks Kate how first term went. Kate just looks down. She tells her Grandmother that her professors tell her that she is only a memorizer of details, and not a discoverer of new ideas. Her grandmother places a hand over Kate’s and says not to worry. It will come. Kate says she is thinking of switching to a more practical major. The elderly woman astutely says that is someone else’s words not yours. You have youth, use it as you wish. Now she says what are you studying right now? Kate says they just had a lesson on local Roanoke legend, of the lost colony. Her grandmother whispers “Croatoan”. She tells Kate to tell her the legend, and she closes her eyes as her granddaughter begins to speak.
1587 - June
117 colonialists land at Roanoke from England. They began to repair the houses of an abandoned English fort. New cottages were also made of brick and tile.
On August 18th Eleanor and Ananias Dare became parents, the first English child born in North America, and the new granddaughter of the governor and leader of the expedition John White. They name her Virginia after their new home.
Serenity is shattered when Colonist George White is found dead floating face down amongst the reeds along the shore.
Suspecting foul play by the Indians an envoy is dispatched to neighboring Secotan nation through Indian liason Manteo. There is no response.
Then on August 27, amongst all the turmoil John White abruptly abandons the island.
He pledges to rescue them in 3 months but does not come back for 3 years. When he returns he finds no sign of them except for “Croatoan” carved into a tree. He never found out what happened to his colony, to his daughter, son-in-law, or to his granddaughter Virginia Dare.
2006 – Kate quietly sits up. “Good night Grandma. See I guess I really don’t have the ability to make history exciting.” She kisses her sleeping grandma on the top of the head and quietly steals out of the room. On her way out of the house her Mom calls out to her, still tension in the air. She hands Kate what looks to be a very old large diary stuffed with loose papers. What’s this Kate asks. Her mom says she doesn’t know but that her Grandmother had wanted her to have it before she left tonight. They don’t say good night, no I love you’s before Kate steps out to the porch, a cab waits for her at the curb.
In the back of the cab Kate examines the diary.
“the letters and personal correspondence of Master Richard Hakluyt, of London, England”
The first letter begins
4 February 1593
To the worshipful and my very friend Master Ricahrd Hakluyt, much happiness in the Lord.
Sir, as well for the satisfying of your earnest request, as the performance of my promise made unto you at my last being with you in England, I have sent you…the true discourse of my last voyage into the West Indies, and parts of America called Virginia, taken in hand about the end of February, in the year of our redemption 1590. And what events happened unto us in this journey you shall plainly perceive by the sequel of my discourse…
It’s from John White, the governor and leader of the Roanoke expedition.
[end of episode]
1.02 - "A Return"
2006: Friday afternoon and after a tough week of classes Kate is having a fight with her boyfriend. He wants to spend time with her this weekend but she is headed to the state capital library to do some research into Croatoan. She tells him excitedly about the historic documents she was given by her grandmother, but her BF doesn’t share her excitement.
1590, March 20th. Three ships (privateers – sanctioned pirates) put to sea from Plymouth harbour, Hopewell under Captain Cooke, Little John under Captain Newport, and John Evangelist, a consort. It has been 3 years since John white left the colony and he is manic to get back.
The only way to reach Roanoke is to coax small vessels through the treacherous channels.
5 days out from Plymouth and a mistake is made, and the shallops (the small boats being dragged) sink.
7 days later they encounter a London merchantman and two shipboats are purchased to replace the shallops.
April 29th, they reach the Caribbean after a skirmish off the Canary islands. The Little John stays behind to try and look for Spaniards to pirate.
Instead of going straight to Roanoke the other two serpentine their way through the Caribean also trying to do some privateering. John White is irate but he is helpless to stop the privateers.
They capture a Spanish frigate hailing from Cuba laden with hides and ginger.
In Puerto Rico Governor Diego Menendez de Valdes writes a letter to the Spanish crown reporting the sight of the English ships and information from spys that they are headed to Florida to take off 200 English cast away there. Reports of a governor on board.
The ships spend so much time looking to pirate that they claim it is too late in the season to go to Virginia, over concerns of hurricanes, but White as the financier gets his way after some serious threats and they go.
August 1 to 10th they encounter a storm. On the 12th they drop anchors outside Croatoan Island, the shallops sent out to sound over the breach. Reports come back with mixed depth readings but the crew agrees to go on.
August 15th they approach Roanoke.
John White spots a great smoke rise on the island near the place where he left the colony in 1587. He believes the Hopewell has been spotted by the colonialists who are signaling him.
The next morning as they ride the shallops in to Roanoke they shoot their rifles from the Hopewell intermittently to attract the attention of the settlers.
They follow to a rising smoke different then the first. It is further then they think and when they arrive it’s only a smoldering camp fire. The day is wasted and they return to the boats for the night.
Aug 17th Captain Spicer delays further, sending scallops to shore for fresh water. It’s almost noon by the time they depart for Roanoke and now the channels are no longer calm. They brave the rapids. They make it but the food and clothes are wet.
The other scallop though capsizes and 7 of 11 men drown as most can’t swim, and Captain Cooke saved as many as he could.
One of the drown were Robert Coleman who was a family member of the colonists.
After the drowning the crew doesn’t want to go any further but Captain Cook and John White convince them they must go.
They salvage Spicer’s boat and have 19 men left.
It is dark and they row past their landing spot, disorientated. They see light south from where they came so they backtrack to it. They want to signal so they all sing, but no one responds. They hunker down in the boats for the night.
Aug 18th they make their way to where the colony had been left by White 3 years previous. They find lots of footprints from the night before. Several people had been watching them as they slept.
Scrambling up a sandy bank White cries out. Cut into a tree are the letters “CRO”.
He alone knows what it means and he hangs his head. This is not good news.
2006: Kate leaves the library holding the diary of Richard Hakluyt in her hands, and heads to her car. Out of the edge of her sight she sees a young girl in an old fashioned cloak watching her from the edge of the parking lot. Kate stops to stare at her. The figure is eerie, it seems to float inches off the ground, may not be completely corporal, and no face is visible hidden in the darkness of the hood and the parking lot’s dim lights. The sound of a car distracts Kate and when she turns back to the mysterious figure it’s gone.
[end of episode]
1.03 - "Govenor John White"
2006: Kate is visiting her Grandmother and goes over some of the material she has been able to gather in regards to the lost colony. She expresses that she has hit a wall. She asks her Grandmother why John White himself would have been sent back to England to ask for supplies. There is an awkard pause before she asks “did he know something and abandon them all to die?” After thinking it over Kate’s Grandma says, “you have seen her. You are assuming something sinister happened because you believe you have seen the ghost of Virginia Dare.”
1572: painter Jacques LeMoyne and a 20 year old English volunteer Sir. Walter Raleigh hid for 3 days from Protestant Huguenots during a bloodbath in Paris streets on St Bartholomew’s Day. Raleigh would later hire LeMoyne to do paintings of Florida, and that’s where he met White who was assisting LeMoyne.
1577: John White a watercolour specialist painter, and scientific illustrator goes to Baffin Island, the expedition brings back a boat load of fool’s gold.
Richard Hakluyt was a new scientist, sometimes in the employ of Raleigh, he meets John White and they become fast friends.
1584: Raleigh asked John White to join the first Roanoke expedition as a commissioned artist, expedition artist.
1587 Jan 7th, Raleigh appoints White Governor of the City of Raleigh in Virginia and White agrees to lead a company of planters to establish it. His daughter Eleanor, 5 months pregnant and her husband Ananias Dare (tiler and bricklayer) to go as well.
2006: Kate meets with her professor to go over her research so far in the Lost Colony. He’s impressed at how much information Kate has dug up, and even more impressed by the diary of Richard Hakluyt. However, he says she is still just memorizing history. It’s time that she begin to shape history. Kate says she doesn’t know where to go from here. Her professor tells her to think like an investigator. Look for motive, why did people do what they did.
1590, Aug 18th: John White looks at the letters cut into the tree “CRO”.
He alone knows what it means and he hangs his head. This is not good news.
He speaks to his officers. The colonialists were prepared to relocate 50 miles into the main. This was to be their prearranged meeting signal. If they were in distress they were to carve a cross into the tree. The officers say this is good news then but White disagrees. He says they should have spelled out Croatoan not just CRO. It’s as if they were interrupted.
The rescue crew continue to the clearing where the settlers were, and its gone. No buildings, no locks, no boards, nothing. Except for a palisade made from trees, which John White says was not there when he left 3 years ago. On one of the trees on the pallasade they find another carving, Croatoan, again with no signs of distress. This puts the rest of the officers at ease but somehow White still fears the worse.
Inside the palisade the only things remaining are some heavy iron items, not easily transported and now overgrown with weeds.
The men find some chests that had been buried, now uncovered, pilfered for the most part and broken up. White realizes they were his belongings. Books torn from covers, maps spoiled, and armor almost eaten through with rust.
John White says they must have gone to Croatoan, the place where Manteo was born, the people of the island were our friends.
They return to the ships for the night, under a heavy storm, one anchor snaps.
As they arrive near Croatoan they drop anchor but it snaps away as does the next one in the rough shallows. The 4th and final anchor of the boat takes hold stopping the boat in its tracks, the ship almost run aground.
The crew decides it is too risky to continue into Croatoan, too much has gone wrong. White pleads with them. They negotiate a plan of action which will see them winter in the West Indies, hoping to catch some Spanish ships, and thus will be closer to Virginia to return in the spring. The crew does not seem to care about the fate of the colonialists grumbling about Spanish ships instead. White is a lone voice in the wilderness.
[end of episode]
1.04 – Famine, War, Pestilence
2006: There is a tremendous storm, and the lights go out at Kate’s apartment. She resorts to reading her research material by candlelight and dozes off. She is dreaming about John White leaving his family behind, knowing they will be slaughtered by the Indians and the Spaniards, while he returns to the comfort and riches of England. Then she dreams of Virginia Dare waiting on the beach for her Grandfather to return while the tide comes in until it takes her away to sea. She awakes with a start and out of the corner of her eye she thinks she see’s the edge of a dress walking away from her room. She follows but must have been seeing things as no one is there. Her phone rings, its her Mom. Kate’s Grandma has had a bad fall and is in the hospital.
1586: John White and Richard Hakluyt walk through the crowded, dirty streets of London England planning their voyage to Virginia. Hakluyt is all business trying to put together a provisions list for the journey. But White’s pious mind is on other things, the state of London and the crown. He begins a rant as they walk.
London a city of international trade based on water ways with an insatiable appetite for luxuries and fads and a delight for foreign goods. A new travel industry, foreign princes travel to London just to see the sites. A continuous line of boats on the Thames, extending the entire length of the city. A new class of urban, not accustomed anymore to country living. The Cockneys. Lapdogs are all the fashion. Overpopulated, self indulgent, lack of personal responsibility, lawsuits, youth gone wild, rudeness, street brawls, divorce. Sundays are not spent at church and worship but in dancing, dicing, carding, bowling, tennis, hunting, and the like. Dancing not for celebration but in praise of ourselves, smooching and slobbering one of another, filthy groping and unclean handling.
Bastard births, a soaring population and pandemic of venereal disease. Why did you know Richard that at Smart’s Quay a thieves’ school instructs streewise boys in the delicate art of pickpocketing? Prisons visible to the public as a deterrent, prisoners lying in filthy straw and dung. The rich feeding their sporting dogs exotic foods while the poor go hungry. Bear baiting, a bear tethered to a stick. Snarling mastiffs released one by one on the terrorized animal, the citizens eagerly placing bets.the bear can not bite back, its teeth have been broken short. An old blind bear securely fastened struck with canes and sticks by young boys. These children are the future of London, this their education.
Both men now stop in their tracks, Richard embarrassed as John White’s voice had risen high enough that they are getting a lot of menacing glances. They begin to walk again but this time it is Richard who speaks quietly. Yes, religion has been replaced by the worship of money. Suburbs sprout up past London’s walls. No room for beauty, antiquity, or history. Farmland is displaced, inflation runs rampant. The need for wood for fuel is so great the wholesale demolition of trees and forests results. Most of London’s waters are completely overfished.
But that is not why we leave is it my friend? That is not why we are eager to start again in Virginia?
2006; Kate is caressing her Grandmother’s hand as she rests, having broken her hip from a bad fall during the power outage. Kate whispers asking her Grandma why then, why did they want to start over. Her Grandma closes her eyes before speaking. Queen Elizabeth needed a strong and unified church because across Europe religious divisions created deadly civil wars. Allegiance to the Church is equated to allegiance to the Crown.
However a puritan movement catches fire, accusing Anglican officials of being too Catholic. Seperatists and secret societies exist underground, under the fear of treason.
August 1583 John Whitgift is consecrated the new Archbishop of Canterbury, pursues dissidents with rigour, too much, condemned by even Burghley, Lord Treasurere of the Queen’s Privy Council for entrapment, likening it to the inquisition. Leaders of the separatists are thrown in jail. You see dear the colonialists were not from the poor. They had to buy their share of the adventure in return for 500 acres of land. They included a physician, goldsmith, sheriff, lawyer, professor, and other gentlemen. Kate whispers, so it was religious fervor? As the nurse enters the room to tell Kate her Grandma has to rest now, Grandma shakes her head slightly and whispers for Kate to dig deeper. This had very little to do with the colonialists at all.
2006: Kate speaks to herself while looking over the diary of Richard Hakulyt and the scene continues to shift from modern day to the past as she tries to figure out what happened, tries to put herself into the colonialists shoes. She keeps coming back to the question, why send John White back for supplies? Her professor happens to come into the library where she is researching and she begins to go over the problem with him. He suggests that perhaps John White was chosen to leave, and it wasn’t his choice. Kate reminds him that he was the Governor. Yes, the professor continues, but why did they leave England in the first place? Kate responds, Religion. But they were Anglican? The professor reminds her that the colonialists were early Americans, but not much different then our founding fathers. And with that he walks away. Finally Kate clues in. The colonialists left because they were seperatists, they believed in the separation between Church and State, one of America’s founding beliefs. She is speaking to herself and getting a few stares. So once they arrived in Roanoke there is no reason to believe the Governor controlled things, they were doing things democratically. It was the colony that sent John White back to England, he didn’t have a choice. But why him, why did they choose him? Why could he succeed where they could not? What clout did he have? Power. That’s it, as Govenor, he must have had some political clout that made the colonialists believe he could succeed. Kate quieted herself and thought back to then.
1587: We see the preparations made by John White, and the Portugese pilot hired on Simon Fernandez to travel to Chesapeake Bay. 89 men, 17 women, 9 children.
2006: Kate is calling her Grandma but is told by her Mother that she is still in the hospital. Of course says Kate, embarrassed by being wrapped up in her own world. She blurts out to her Mom, they were sailing for Chesepeake Bay mom, landing in Roanoke was a mistake. Either an error, or on purpose, it was not where they intended to land. Her mom gives her an icy “that’s nice dear”. Kate remembers who she is talking to and says good-night.
1.05 - Sabotage
To Kingdom strange, to lands far off addressed:
Alone, forsaken, friendless on the shore.
With many wounds, with death’s cold pangs embraced;
Writes in the dust as one that could no more,
Whom love, and time, and fortune had defaced.
Sir Walter Raleigh
1587 – three ships set sail from Portsmouth. Lion captained by John White, piloted by Simon Fernandez. Edward Spicer commands the flyboat, and Edward Stafford commands the pinnace. Colinalists load all their possessions. With them is Manteo, native to Croatoan Island returning home from his second visit to England.
May 16, 1587. Only 8 days out from England in the dead of the night, off the dangerous Portugese coast, Captain Spicer’s flyboat is left stranded. She carries coloniasts as well as supplies. The other ships do not help, instead they abandon her.
June 22 they arrive at the Virgin Islands where all the planters were set on land for three days.
2006: Kate is visiting with her Grandma in the hospital. She is recovering form hip replacement surgery. The doctors did not want to perform the surgery at first because of her advanced age, but the fiery spirit finally convinced them. Kate asks her Grandma why they waited at the Virgin Islands? Was it a preplanned meeting? Were they waiting for the flyboat? Unfortunately her Grandma doesn't know anymore.
1587: The colonialists eat local green fruit in the Virgin Islands, making their mouths burn, tongues enlarge. Babies get colic from their mother’s milk. White confronts Fernandez who should have known about this having guided both previous Roanoke missions. The Portugese pilot though just shakes it off. Many have faces thick and swollen, babies howling in pain, a day and night spent in terror wondering if they will recover before pushing onward.
The next island stop for food and water is made at Santa Cruz. Here colonialists fall sick from the water. Again John White confronts Fernandez who promised abundant food and water but none is found on the island. Fernandez says he does not know why he made the error. White leads Fernandez and other men into the interior to look for food and water. They find tracks, a hunting party and again White turns on Fernandez, this time with more zeal. The Portugese pilot had told him the island was not inhabited. They are basically an invading party and have left the colonialists with no defensive measures. They give up the search for food and hustle back to the boats.
July 1 daytime, they enter Rojo Bay, a place that White is familiar with and wants to take on supplies. Fernandez urges him not to land, saying it isn’t the same place, that if the Pinnace went into the Bay she could be in great danger because of storms and shallows. Frustrated but cautious White sides with Fernandez.
That night they land at Mosquitoes Bay, Puerto Rico to find supplies. When the ships leave they accidently leave behind two irishmen Darby Glande and Denice Carrell. Glande treks across Puero Rico to the Headquarters of the PR Govenor Diego Menendez de Valdes. Glande is taken into custody by the Spanish and tells them the English are preparing to settle a colony at a location called Jacan (Roanoke Island, not Chesapeake Bay).
The Spanish send Captain Vicente Gonzalez to scour the coast for White’s colony.
2006; Kate is trying to figure out why Darby Glande told the Spanish that they are settling in Roanoke and not Chesapeake? How could he know that while they set out for Chesapeake they would end up in Roanoke? Had they changed their minds already? Was the information about the colonialists going to Chesapeake a mistake? Or was Glande in conspiracy with others against the colony, and being left on the island was not a mistake, but done intentionally by Glande? Kate says outloud to herself that Glande always claimed somewhat dubiously that he was pressganged as an Irishman into serving White and the British. Maybe he was and this was his revenge. Kate decides to pack up her materials and make a late night visit to her Grandma to see how she is feeling. As she walks to her car she again see's the ghost of Virginia Dare, hovering beside an Elm tree. The wind whispers to Kate, to Kingdom strange, to lands far off addressed:
Alone, forsaken, friendless on the shore.
With many wounds, with death’s cold pangs embraced;
Writes in the dust as one that could no more,
Whom love, and time, and fortune had defaced.. The wind howls and whips around Kate and the ghost some 40 yards away. Freaked out Kate fights the wind to get into her car, yet still clearly hears the whisper "sabotage".
1.06 - "Mutiny"
2006: Kate is having a romantic dinner with her boyfriend, or that is what they are trying to determine. He again tries to get her to committ to their relationship and take a step back in her studies. She won't have it, and when he gives her an ultimatum, they end the relationship. She doesn't seem heartbroken.
1587: July 3rd plans land in Hispaniola where Fernandez has a friend, a French trader who will furnish their needs. Instead Fernandez lets the island slip away, changing his story that he has heard that the Trader had died and is no longer there.
The planters have been on board since April with very little to eat or drink, two pregnant women near term (including Eleanor Dare), one more nursing. Living quarters are stinking and filthy from 3 months accumulated waste. John White is growing desperate but needs Fernandez' skill as a pilot.
Mid-July they stop near an island that Fernandez believes in Croatoan, but turns out it isn't after a couple wasted days of sending out a discovery team. John White is furious now and desperate. He demands why Fernandez didn't just ask Manteo who knows this isn't his homelands. Fernandez dismisses Manteo as a savage. White is fuming, he tells Fernandez it is now too late to get in a growing season. He doesn't know how the colony will survive the winter.
July 22 the ships arrive safely at Hatoras. White boards the pinnacle with 40 of his best men to visit Roanoke and to hold conference with the 15 soldiers stationed there since 1585.
The privateers aboard the ship mutiny and with Fernandez the Portugese pilot prepare to sail back to England, leaving the group. All the remaining planters are sent to land. Strangely the boat remains anchored off the coast for 36 days before sailing back to England.
2006: Kate visits her Grandma who is now back at home with Kate's Mom after the surgery. They are all in good spirits, and even her Mom seems interested when Kate lays out all that she has pieced together. Her newest puzzle though is why the mutinous ship would wait at the coast for 36 days before heading back to England. After all, they were now criminals, and running out of supplies. Kate's Grandma says that on the surface they are mutinous, but apparently not. All the behaviour only seems odd when assuming that as fact. Kate thinks aloud, saying if they were conspirators against the colony instead of mutineers, or at least the leaders of the group, then things make sense. Fernandez really could find food for them on the way back, so they know they will not starve. So why wait? What were they waiting for? Something to happen to the planters?
1587; Unaware of the mutiny, White and the others lead the group to the military fort near Roanoke where they discover one dead body of a soldier, the rest are missing, and the little fort is overgrown and ransacked.
As White looks around he realizes they can not survive here. He says to return to the boats and they must return to England. When he see's the planters on the shore however, he knows it is all over. "We're all dead" he whispers.
1.07 - "The Second Expedition"
1587: Edward Spicer in the long absent flyboat arrives at Hatorask. All the planters are reunited.
The colonists go into the marshes to hunt crabs. George Howe strays off. He is shot with 16 arrows, his head beat into pieces by a club. George Howe Jr awaits his return in vain.
An envoy is rushed to Croatoan with Manteo to smooth things over with the Secotan Indian tribe.
Aug 18 Eleanor Dare gives birth to Virginia Dare.
Aug 21 as they prepare to send back the flyboat for help the colonists argue over who to send. After several refuse Christoper Cooper agrees, only to change his mind the next day at the urging of his friends.
Aug 22 all the planters come to John White and ask him to go to England. He finally agrees. The colonists are to move 50 miles further up into the main. He does not want to leave all his poseessions, and his family. They vow to preserve his goods. They agree to draw up a document which states they asked him to go back to England, so that he would not lose face for leaving his colony as Govenor behind in danger.
Aug 27 the boats prepare to leave, as White is still not convinced. Finally he agrees.
Eleanor waves goodbye to her father. The earliest he can return will be spring.
They have a rough journey back, delays because of storms. Late October they finally see the shores of Ireland, and have to be rescued. Most of the crew are dead from starvation, dehydration, or overboard during the storms. White and Spicer live but need medical attention and are incapacitated.
After recovering White searches for a ship to take him to London as he gets word Fernandez has already left for the capital. White is worried that Fernandez will make up stories about what happened to cover his own tracks. Finally on Nov 1st he finds a slow vessel headed to Southampton. Fernandez beat him to London by 3 weeks.
2006: Kate discusses her research and theories with her professor. She talks about how frustrated she is by not being able to figure out with any certainty what happened. And one assumption leads to another, and the further on you go the further from the truth you can end up. Her professor just smiles and tells her this is great stuff. She is looking for the truth in history now, not just the facts. There is a big difference he says between the truth and the facts. She asks where she should look next. The professor says to go forward maybe she needs to look back. This pilot Fernandez, he was on the earlier voyage to Roanoke. Who was he working for? Why would he sabotage the colony?
1585: "The Second Expedition to Roanoke".
Jan 6 1585, a lavish party is thrown by the Queen and she knights Sir Walter Raleigh as a reward for annexing the land of Virginia. Manteo and Wanchese are there, a constant diversion.
Raleigh plans to make a military establishment at Roanoke to strike at Spain halting the gold supply that feeds its military goals.
Hakluyt assures the Queen privately that the Spaniards are a men most odious, not only to the people of the West Indies, but also to all Christendom.
300 soldiers are conscripted, many drawn from combat in wartorn Ireland, including of course Darby Glande.
Elizabeth assigns Raleigh the warship Tiger, mounted with two tiers of guns.
Feb 8 Elizabeth recalls Captain Ralph Lane from military service in Kerry to head Raleigh’s ladn forces. He is ferocious, and not happy about being recalled from the battle field to sail for months on end.
Apr 9, the fleet is assembled at Plymouth. Commanding General is Raleigh’s cousin Richard Grenville. A gentleman and leader, but who never led a squadron.
Simon Fernandez is the Pilot Major, a 3rd officer on the maritime side.
John White,the future Governor of Roanoke, is aboard as an artist. He talks excitedly about the new world with a scientist and and a mineral man.
1.08 - "A Bad Beginning"
2006: The family gathers to celebrate Grandma's 90th birthday. It is predominantly women, and they talk openly of the family "curse". Grandma became a widow at the age of 32 when her husband died in a farming accident. She had 3 daughters all of whom are at the party. Kate's Mom married but then divorced all at a young age. Kate is her only daughter and Grandma's only grandchild. The other 2 sisters have gone through 3 husbands, are both currently single, and never had children. They laugh that even their dogs have always been..females..
After the party Kate is summoned by her Grandma to discuss Croatoan. Grandma tells Kate that she has been dreaming more and more about Virginia Dare, and thinks that her time is almost up. Kate cries for her not to talk like that, but Grandma is too much of a realist. They talk about their earlier question on why the mutineers waited 36 days before leaving for England. Kate wonders if they were getting ready to sail when Spicer showed up with the missing flyboat. Grandma says she was thinking the same thing. They wanted to make sure the colonists stayed put, that they were not followed. Kate wonders if they had tried to leave if the mutineers would have killed them. Grandma reminds Kate that mutiny of course was a common capital offense back then. To go back to England they must have some belief that their story would hold up, either the colonists would not return, or they had clout somewhere in the Crown.
1585: May 1585 Spain escalates the naval war and begins to seize English ships and subject crew to Inquisition. The English economy begins to quickly collapse under the embargo.
May 12, 1585. Puerto Rico, Ship’s log from the second expedition. "The 12th day of May, we came to an anchor in the Bay of Mosquito, in the Island of S. John. The Tiger is all alone, the fleet battered by a storm in the Bay of Portugal and separated. A bad beginning."
Greenville orders the men ashore to erect a fort and build a pinnace to replace the one sunk. It is needd to carry supplies and to manoeuvre the shallow sounds to Roanoke.
8 Spanish horsemen materialize out of the forest. The English force them to retreat as they try and pilfer supplies.
May 23, 1585. The new pinnace is built, they have also been found by Thomas Cavendish’s separated vessel “Elizabeth”. They burn the fort as they leave, big black smoke announces their departure.
June 1st, the expedition captures two Spanish frigates. But then they anchor off Hispaniola and actually trade with sundry Spaniards. They now have supplies but anger between Lane and Greenville explodes as Lane does not think this is proper, thinking about the Crown, but Greenville cares only about the expedition. Lane and Greenville find themselves on opposite ends of the spectrum and begin to recruit faithfuls.
June 23 1585. Greenville almost runs aground at Cape Fear. Lane wonders why he left his military charge at Kerry for this promotion, saying he feels impotent.
They begin to slow down as depth soundings are made and recorded.
Determined to bring the vessels through the entry at Wococon despite the dangerous waters, Fernandez misjudges the shoals and runs the Tiger aground. Men tumble to the deck, crates and cargo spill across the hold slamming into bellowing livestock. A heavy sea washes over the ship driving it on to the shoal like a battering ram. For two hours the Tiger is beaten on by the sea. Finally it is rotated and run aground hard to the shore. The ship is damaged but intact. Most of the provisions are contaminated by the salt water spilling into the hold. And the season is too far gone to plant.
Grenville blames Fernandez, but Lane writes letters to England blaming the leadership of Grenville. He casts doubt in his letters about the loyalty of Greenville and the colonists to the Crown.
2006: Kate's last day at College after writing her finals. She tells her family she thinks she did real good, and wants to continue as a history major, already working the Croatoan into her eventual thesis. Both women are very proud of her. Kate gets an unexpected phone call from a man in England, who claims to be a historian in England, specializing in Sir Walter Raleigh. He doesn't seem happy about Kate's research into Croatoan and suggests that next time he is in "the colonies" he'll try and drop by to set her straight on what happened. Kate thinks the man is threatening her, but he softens his tone, assuring her that he means no harm, he is a historian just like her.
1.09 - "A Fate Sealed, A Secret Revealed"
1585: As they cleanup of the Tiger , Grenville dispatches a Corporal north to Hatorask Island near Roanoake to search for any of the fleet’s missing vessels. Miraculously both the Roebuck and the Dorothy are found.
July 1585. The Queen gives hundreds of English privateering vessels letters of reprisal to recoup their loses in the high seas in undeclared war against Spain (privateers, pirates)
England becomes flooded with goods seized from the Spanish including sugar.
July 11, 1585. 4 small boats bearing 50 men including Grenville, White and Manteo are readied for a trip to the interior.
The men spend the night on the beach under full guard along the hem of trees listing to the calls of the whippoorwill. Unable to sleep the men retreat to their rocking boats.
The next day the boats pull near the town of Pomeioc and are greeted by crowds of natives. The men note how fertile the soil is, how diverse the bounty.
John White sketches with paper and charcoal.
They trade finished goods for food and furs. Then they follow a path to an oasis.
That night they settle around a campfire with the natives. They make good cheer and feast.
Somewhere far away in the swamp an alligator growls, but the men are safe in the protective palisade walls.
In the morning the boats head west hugging the mainland, deep into Secotan country. They arrive at Aquascogoc late in the afternoon.
The town lies enveloped in corn fields. Again they trade. Hariot produces a bible and begins to tell the savages of Christianity.
Travel to Secota, again surrounded by corn, Open, no pallisdes. Hariot scrutinizes a corn cob, unknown in England, giggles from native women, he finds them attractive, nearly nude. Tattoos widning around their bodies.
As the evening progresses more men flood into the village from all directions, bringing fish. White paints a woman making stew in a pot.
The men notice a silver cup is missing, not having seen it since Aquascogoc. Amadas and ten soldiers return for the cup. Sent by Lane at daybreak.
Amadas arrives and demands the silver cup. They promise its return. Amadas waits.
Waits until dusk with no word.
2006: Kate discusses the implications of this with her Grandmother, but the elder seems distracted. Finally when questioned by Kate she says she has a secret that she was hoping Kate would have figured out by now. But since she has not discovered it, its time for her to know just how her own family is connected to the Croatoan legend. "Our family?" asks a shocked Kate.
1585: Tiger journal. "The 16 we returned thence, and one of our boats with the Admiral was sent to Aquascococke to demand a silver cup which one of the savages had stolen from us, and not recieving it according to the promise, we burnt, and spoiled their corn, and Town, all the people being fled."
The English do not worry about war, believing the natives to be weak.
2006: Kate's Grandma says it was no accident how she happened to have the diary of John White's best friend and confidant Richard Hakluyt. It had been given to her by her Grandfather, and before that his Father. Sometimes it skipped a generation, and sometimes it changed sexes, thus the changes in the family name. But always within the family from Richard Hakluyt to Gilda Sangster to Kate Sangster. We are the direct descendents of Richard Hakluyt. Kate is stunned.
1585: July 18th. Grenville’s company regroups under a relentless sun. Grenville determines the only option is to return to England for supplies and renew the offensive in the spring. Lane and others belive the patriotic thing to do is stay. Lane says the original plan was to have him stay as commander and demands Grenville stick to the plan. This is insuboridantion, mutiny.
Grenville threatens him with hanging, but Lane says he was just offering his advise and that is what his men will tell the Queen.
July 21st. Grenville takes the fleet back to England leaving Lane and 107 men. Lane will build a defensive fort on the north side of Roanoke Island.
Lane sneakily gives letters of complaint to one man to deliver to the Queen and her advisors. To Sir Walter Raleigh he forwards an entire book, a discourse of the whole voyage.
2006: Kate's Grandmother settles into bed. She tells Kate not to think too much about tonight's revelations but to return to her pursuit of the truth. In that light Kate says that in a way that single callous act of burning the natives crops over a silver chalice, sealed the doom of the missing colony. Kate's Grandma nodded, saying some believe that. First that assumes the natives had a part to play in the disappearance, and that seems to be certain, a part; but what part and how big? And what about the letters from Lane to the court? Keep searching dear, the truth is close by, I can feel it.
1.10 - "Goodnight Grandma"
2006: Kate re-reads the letter sent by John White, to his best friend and confidant, the man Kate now knows as her ancestor, Richard Hakluyt.
“Thus may you plainly perceive the success of my fifth and last voyage to Virginia, which was no less unfortunately ended than forwardly began, and as luckless to many, as sinister to myself. But I would to God it had been as prosperous to all, as noisome to the planters; & as joyful to me, as discomfortable to them. Yet seeing it is not my first crossed voyage, I remain contented. And wanting my wishes, I leave off from prosecuting that whereunto Iwould to God my wealth were answerable to my will. Thus committing the relief of my discomfortable company to the planters in Virginia, to the merciful help of the Almighty, whom I most humbly beseseech to help and comfort them, according to his most Holy will and their good desire, I take my leave from my house at Newtowne in Kylmore the 4 of February, 1593.
Your most well wishing friend, John White.
1583:
Pre-expedition preparations included briefings from experienced Portugese navigator Simon Fernandez a pilot. The hiring of Hakluyt to translate books about other North American expeditions for the planters to study. Hakluyt compiles a provisions list for the expedition.
1587: Hakluyt published a book in October proclaiming the trip a success “safe arrival of your last colony in their wished haven”. Wished Haven? They never reached their wished haven, planning on Chesapeake Bay and ending up in Roanoke instead.
1585
Lane’s Command (1585-86)
July 29, 1585. King Wingino’s brother brought on board the Tiger for negotiations. They allow the settlers to stay in Roanoke but they will not receive any help from the natives. They have no food.
Aug 17, 1585. Construction of the fort is completed. Lane assumes command of new HQ. Soldiers have been unruly. Many of them conscripts from Ireland.
“God will command even the ravens to feed us, as he did by his servant the Prophet Habakkuk.
They unload guns and munitions from the ship to the fort.
Amadas is sent to the mainland north of Roanoke Island. Searching for food.
Drought. The soil dries to sand under relentless sun. No rain for weeks. The native elders have never seen it so bad. Many think it is the gods punishment for not feeding the white man, so they go and beg them to pray to the God of England.
They begin to try and convert the Secotans. Still no rain comes.
Sept 27. Looks like a comet in the sky. Secotan begin to die. Within a few days after the departure of the surveyors in each town people begin to die, many in short space.
Elders die the most, taking away experience, priests, cooks, craftsmen.
King Wingina who frequently accompanied the surveyors is seized with chills, collapses filled with infection. So many begin to die that bodies are left to rot, some buried in shallow graves. The natives believe they are being cursed for not praying to the white man’s god.
The surveyors are no longer welcome, relations begin to deteriorate between the white men and the natives.
Sept, 1585, Sir Raleigh promoted to Lord-Lieutenant of Cornwall, a position traditionally held by royalty.
Oct 18, 1585 Grenville enters Plymouth harbour.
Raleigh is happy with the job done by his cousin Grenville, does not belive Lane’s slander and selects Grenville to command the returning squadron.
An anonymous tip to the Queen says that the ships are bringing back goods worth more then a million ducats, but the manifests say only 120,000 ducats.
Raleigh meets with Hakluyt to advertise the wonders and spoils brought back from the new world, to entice more investment. It’s working and they are the talk of the court.
Dec 10, 1585 Sir Walsingham receives intelligence of massive naval build up by Spain. The armada is preparing. England prepares for war, the fort at Roanoke no consequence in the big picture.
Winter. Isolated in the fort, no contact with Secotan.
Secotan trying to survive day to day. Corn crop has been destroyed. They hunt and gather enough to survive, pulling together.
The soldiers as commissioned soldiers refuse to hunt and gather. They are miserable. They try and trade copper with the natives for food.
They kill and eat the dogs. Some of them belonging to the Secotan.
A soldier is hung for falling asleep on watch, driving morale even further down.
Lane stays because in the spring he is determined to find the source of all the copper that the native women wear. He has riches in his eyes and in his heart.
2006:
Kate gets the phone call she has dreaded for so long. Her teary Mother tells Kate that her Grandma, Gilda, has passed away in her sleep last night. Kate is heartbroken and despondent.
