Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 75 - The Lost Colony of Roanoke

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

Jesse returns with another of History's Mysteries and the missing people of the 1500's.... Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/chilluminatipod BUY OUR MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/ThatOneLazerClown Art Commissioned by - http://www.mollyheadycarroll.com Theme - Matt Proft End song - POWER FAILURE - https://soundcloud.com/powerfailure Video - http://www.twitter.com/digitalmuppet

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meeting less and doing more. Get on board at Miro.com. The first three boards are free. Forever. That's Miro.com. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Chiluminati podcast. We are now at episode 75. The big 75. The big 75. Three quarters of a way to 100. As always I'm one of your hosts, Mike Barnes. I'm my two co-hosts Jesse Cox and Alex Fosyane. Hello boys. Three quarters of the way to the big finish. Episode 100. That's it. We end there. No we can't know. We go to the top of a mountain at episode 100. A beam comes down. We go up into the beam and then we hear Satan laughing and nobody knows for sure what happened to us. What? What is that? You combined

too many fan fictions. I'm so sorry. It's fan service but it's what the people want. You know what I mean? What the true hell is is we turn the lights on as we take a seat and it's Satan with the PowerPoint presentation explaining why you should join the Patreon. Dude. And I was just going to say Satan's got the right idea because here's the deal. Not only do you get episodes with no ads, which already a boon, right? Someone just needs to clip the Satan's got the right idea. I just clip it. Let it be. Dude, let it be. I'd probably fly his fucking unholy flag. Here we go. Guys, pay us money to keep our show coming out every week. It's been helping us so much. We got an editor full-time like for research, like full-on like notes, research,

everything. We have we have art every month. We have a mini episode every 15 like every episode has a 15 minute extra episode on the end of it that you can listen to as soon as the episode comes out when you're when you're at the end and you're wishing there was more. It's there. Everybody gets to hear those eventually too and you're supporting it. It's just a great website and I appreciate you guys supporting us and I hope that more of you do if you're liking the show. That's all I'm saying. You know what? I'd go support it if I wasn't benefiting from the support. So you sold me that hard. What? Yeah. Wait, what? Yeah. If I wasn't benefiting from the support, I would go support. If I wasn't the one raking in the support, I would go and put out the support.

I don't know if raking in is the right word, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, right. You know, raking it in like you rake fires out in the woods. Dude, come on. For your devil god. Yeah, I get it. You taught me how. This is exciting. It's episode 75, but it's also the second Jesse piloted Helm episode. I don't know. Is this going to be like a history's mysteries, Jesse? Of course. What do you got? All right. I'm ready because last time it was the lighthouse. I was going to say the White House, but that was just. I mean, there's a lot of history's mysteries with the White House as well. They're both buildings that currently have somebody very crazy living inside of them. I got a round of applause.

That was a good one. No, today we're going to talk about something that no paranormal show can do without. And I am blown away. We have not covered it. The Lost Colony of Roanoke. Oh, dude, the classic, classic tale. I love this story. Many people out there in the audience probably know about, but for those of you don't, you're in for a treat. It's a very strange one, but also neat. And I think that, uh, and maybe one of those things that you probably can figure out, but there is no real explanation to, uh, it is truly one of history's greatest mysteries. I love it. If we get some sound effects over that next time. Right. Travel back with me now as we go to the 1500s, a time when America was being explored

and colonized by Europe during this time, uh, as the Western world was becoming aware of this vast land mass of America and all of its potential wealth totally up for grabs and absolutely unoccupied. Yes. It was a new start for a lot of people because they saw dollar signs, um, the Spanish, the Dutch, the French, and in this case for our story today, the British all sent ships west to colonize and claim these new lands and resources. One of these men, the main figure today that we're going to talk about was John White. Um, he's sort of the focus of the story. John White was an Irishman from Galway. He was our Galway girl for this story. And, uh, he wasn't just an explorer. He was also an artist and a cartographer, which is very important.

A maps man. Yeah. A map man. So before we even get to our story, he was part of an exploration expedition. Uh, and he was part of the sort of, um, colonizing fervor sweeping Europe. And in 1577, White was part of this expedition that sailed to America in search of precious metals and, more importantly, a Northwest passage to Asia. Of course, he didn't find one and returned home later that year, uh, with no metals and no passage. But what he did come back with was countless sketches and drawings that illuminated the lands and the people that he saw on the voyage. And it became very famous. He has a book was created of all of his, uh, illustrations. And it was special because unlike most people at the time, he painted in watercolors instead of oils.

Oh, and delightful. Yeah. He had, uh, this, these watercolor illustrations of the lands and the natives that live there. And do you have anything of like an, like a tree, but like the tree is an old woman that like, like has like knowledge? Uh, I mean, she didn't reveal himself to him. I don't think I think you had to earn that. I think you had to be like in grandmother Willows, like a fickle mistress. I think so. I think so. He was, he was painting with all the colors of the water, but not of the wind. Unfortunately. Damn. So thank you for throwing that in. I finally got the reference. I appreciate it. It's from a Disney's Pocahontas. I, I love to get down to the bottom of my jokes after I tell them just so that everybody listen, I, it took me a minute. I was

like, I don't understand why you're down for historically inaccurate retellings of old fables. That is the one that's the one for you. Check out double feature Pocahontas by Disney and Terrence Malick's new, the new world. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it was, it was after this experience and in his eye for detail that he ended up working for Sir Walter Raleigh, who is a big O G English Lord, huge during the Elizabethan period in England. If you don't know Raleigh, look this dude up. He is, you've probably heard his name. 100%. That's how big of a deal this dude is. Got cities named after him. He is commonly associated with the first colonies in America, but also just throwing this in because it's fun history. He's also known for being the guy who

like made tobacco use popular in England and, and he plotted against King James during the whole time when like the guy Fox gunpowder plot, there were like a bunch of plots against this dude. King James was not very popular with some of the upper class people and, um, yeah, his plot would eventually lead to him being beheaded. Um, Walter Raleigh was, he led a wildlife man. He did all sorts of stuff. There's other things, but we'll get to that later. So Raleigh started on this path to being a historical figure by putting down Irish rebellions and, and he caught the eye of Queen Elizabeth and he was welcomed into the court in eight, excuse me, 1581 and soon became like a favorite of Elizabeth in 1585. He was appointed to a ton of titles and he was knighted and he

was given the right by Elizabeth because this is the thing you can do to colonize America. She was like, I give the right to be specific. I think this is crazy. I had to include this to be specific. She gave him the right to colonize any remote, maybe I'll do it in a, any remote living or barbarous lands, countries or territories, not actually possessed of a Christian prince or inhabited by Christian people. That's what that's like. If you find natives, fuck them. They don't exist. That is literally what it says. In return, he would bring her one fifth of all the gold and silver that he mined there, but he only had seven years to do it or he'd lose all the rights. So basically it was like a ye olde contract. He was like, you bring

me the goods. Didn't he do the city of gold? Isn't that him? He does have, we'll get to that later, but yes. Is that this? El Dorado was part of one of his expeditions. Yes. Okay. He was obsessed with it. Walter Raleigh, I think there's another Walter Raleigh too. I always get them all confused. I think there's like a, like an English lit guy too, who's Walter Raleigh. I would get them all mixed up. I can't remember if there's three or if there's two. There's probably many because, you know, when you get to people like John White and then John Smith and then, you know, they're all here to start calling dudes other things besides John. What year was that? That never stopped. Unfortunately, that's still going. So once he got set on this path to colonize,

he came up with a plan that was sort of the, the reason why we're doing all this, the reason why the queen is letting me do this is because things with Spain were not so great around this time period and his plan, the reason he convinced everyone that this was a genius idea to go to America was that they would take the riches of the new world, use it to fund a fleet of privateers, which are basically government sanctioned pirates and spanish fleets for gold, for gold. That was like their long-term goal. That's what they were like. Once we have all the money, we'll build enormous fleets and then we'll sink the Spanish. They just want to be like big pirate, like, like corporate. Yes.

Corporate piracy. Because the queen couldn't issue it. The queen couldn't be like, go raid them. So instead, he was like, I'll do it. Oh, total. Yeah. Absolutely. She's funding the expedition. Absolutely. She's like, yeah, go do this and then go make me pirates. You love to see it. Queen Elizabeth. Yeah. In 1585, Rowley asked parliament member Ralph Lane to be the first governor of his first attempt at colonizing America. Five ships were sent under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, who is a pretty big figure during this time period when it comes to sailing and admiralty. And later that year, the colony of Roanoke was founded. However, Lane was like a boastful, vain, fiery tempered dude who did not see eye to eye with Grenville,

did not see eye to eye with some of the colonists, and more importantly, with people back in England. In fact, when they eventually met Native Americans, rather than deal with them diplomatically, Lane was like, only threats, only demands. That's all he was. Wow. Yeah. So when eventually the colonists started to run out of supplies, what they did, rather than barter with the natives, was literally take hostages and then return them for food or information. Oh, my God. They just snucked up at the beginning and they were like, like, that's our money now? I mean, they ran out of stuff and as they started running out, they just took Native Americans hostage and were like, give us things. They were like hunting

and shit. They were just like, let's kidnap some natives. Imagine where they landed. Where they landed in the Outer Banks was, you know, it's the Outer Banks, that area of the Carolinas is like islands and swamp and hurricanes. Like it's not great hunting area. A lot of crawfish and that's about it. Yeah, crabbing. Like you can do that. Yeah. Mm. Mm. Every day. And so I would do that every day. Dude, I'd be all over that every day. It's like a hotel brunch every day for me, right? Eventually, things boiled over when one of the local natives was accused of stealing a silver cup, which led to fighting. And it wasn't until Sir Francis Drake, a big history name and also of uncharted games. I was going to say, isn't that Nathan Drake's relative guy? Yeah. We saw the

real Golden Hine last time we were in England. That's true. Yeah. He arrived and the colonists were like, like he showed up to check out the colony. I assumed to drop off supplies, I think. And he was just like, what is going on? Why is everyone fighting? And they're like, let's get out of here. This is America sucks. Let's go. And they all left with Drake. Every one of them left. That's never a good sign, man. Yeah. I take it back. How long into the colony? Yeah. Like how long into the colony being established that happened? Do we have any idea? Oh, this was literally at the end of the year. Two days later. This was, it did not last long. This was a total failure. They went back to England and I can't actually know what I can't

say it's a total failure. What ended up happening is even though they didn't bring back gold and riches and they were barely there, what they did bring back were potatoes, corn, and smokeless tobacco. It's the first time any of these had ever been in England. Whoa. Yeah. Potatoes. Yeah. Those little delicious ground fruits. Like a shepherd's pie was like, you couldn't get that didn't exist. That is wild. What they did though is Grenville left behind 15 soldiers to protect rally's claim because the rules of the contract were basically once you're there, if you abandon it, you forfeit the rights to that area. That's kind of how America works. Shit. That is like the worst job in the world. 15 dudes left behind on a continent where like they are vastly outnumbered.

Terrible. Might as well be Mars. Like might as well be Mars. You are one of these 15. You have spent the last X number of months routinely kidnapping the natives to get food and pissing them off. And then at the end of the year, everybody's like, hold down the fort. Good luck. And as they leave, you just can like turn around and just see the natives starting to creep in and be like, free pickings. Yeah, it's terrible, terrible decision, but they had to leave people behind because Spanish, French, Dutch, anyone could just come and take over a settlement if you weren't there. Those were like the rules. And so he left those soldiers behind to keep rallies claim intact. But super important to our story, one of the

colonists who was there at the time was the aforementioned John White. He was commissioned to go to the colony and draw all the inhabitants of the new world, all these places that he saw while he was there. He created more early depictions of Native Americans than the English had ever seen before. And they're the watercolor ones that we like know, right? Yeah, yeah. The depictions were super popular in England. And again, he came back and was even more popular in court because at first he went and tried to find the Northern Passage and he, you know, he didn't, but hey, he got this amazing art and now he went on this expedition. He comes back. He has more amazing art and everyone in court loved him and his work went around all of England. Well, it was at this time rally was

like, okay, we got to send, we got to send people back. I need a working colony. If I'm going to keep this contract intact and I'm going to get these privateers, we need gold and silver. And he was convinced the only way to do this was not to send a bunch of dudes and soldiers and sailors, but this time he was going to try something different. He was going to do families, right? He was going to try and send women, children, making a self-sustaining colony in Virginia. So instead of the original enterprise, we're talking next generation style. And so he was like, I need a different person to lead this time. I need someone who can deal with the families. I need someone who is more of a scholar than a warrior, someone who's an

artist, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And so it leads him to court figure and former Roanoke colonist, John White. And White is like, okay, we can't go back to Roanoke. Like the Carolinas are trouble. Instead, let's go to Virginia. We'll set up a colony there, right? The weather's better. We don't have to worry about huge storms. The native incidents won't be a problem for us. And he convinces about 113 people to join him. And these would have been like middle class Londoners who were looking to become, I don't want to say landlords, but that's really what they were, like landed lords, right? This was their one opportunity to move out of maybe like a nice house in London and instead become like a titled Lord and improve their family's position.

It's just, it's straight up just like, like level one fable of the game. Like you're just starting a fucking township. He even convinces daughter Eleanor and his son-in-law, Anais, dare to join them. And for his efforts, Raleigh named White the new governor of this new colony he was going to create. Which wasn't called, wasn't called Roanoke? It was not going to be called Roanoke. Okay. However, in a twist that could only be the start of a good horror movie, while on the voyage West, White's lack of this like tough guy facade made it difficult for him to control the sailors. And this would become a problem when they arrived at their first stop, which was Roanoke, because they were going to go resupply the sailors who were stationed there.

Right? The 15 guys that left behind, they were going to go resupply them. Those fucking guys, yeah. Yeah. Wait, they were going to resupply, they weren't going to close that colony down. They were just going to resupply them as they did last night. As long as he held that territory, no one could come and claim it, right? And it was still his. Okay. And so they were going to go there, resupply it.

White planned to take 40 men with him into Roanoke, where they would consult with the 15 less behind and, you know, see what was going on in the area and drop off supplies. And then they would head up towards the Chesapeake Bay, which is where they wanted to settle. That was going to be their new location. However, when they told the crew that they were going to, you know, drop off the stuff and then come back to the shipping a little bit, the crew was like, no, no, no, we're not sailing anymore. Are you crazy? Like what do you mean? He's like, summer's almost over. We're not going to go sail up to the Chesapeake Bay right now.

We're going to settle here for a little bit and then we'll, we'll, we'll deal with it after winter. Absolutely not a good idea. And they were like, what? No, we, we, we should go right now. And they were like, nope, we're not moving. We've sailed for like a month and a half. F you, we're not doing any, we're going to be on land for a while, deal with it. And the settlers tried to argue against it, but eventually white realized he couldn't convince the crew of the ships and they just gave up trying and decided they would try to find Roanoke and deliver the supplies and then settle there for the winter.

The next day they thought 15 dudes, they thought 15 dudes were going to be like, we've expanded. Well, it's, it's worse than that. The next day, white's party locates the colony and the fort that was built before had been totally dismantled. The houses were still there, but they recovered in vines. And I think one of the notes was like, there were melons growing on the vines. So I think it's a weird, interesting detail. That is a bizarre detail. And how long has it been again? I'm sorry.

Uh, they were returned in July of 1857 and 1587. I'm sorry. Yes. 1587. And, uh, the original colony was there in like a year before or something, right? Yeah. If I said two, so about two years or so. Roughly. I mean, we're talking, you know, months difference, but yeah, roughly two years. And, um, they, they return and they find nobody there, no sign of life, none.

Um, the fort itself had been torn down, but the houses still stood. And when they searched and looked around, the only thing they found were some bones that appeared to be human and they assumed it was the result of a native attack. Okay. Worried, but, yeah, worried, but left with no choice. The colonists were brought to town and decided to resettle. And what I said, uh, in 1587, it wasn't exactly what they had planned on doing, but like it wasn't all bad.

White's granddaughter was born, uh, to his daughter. And they named her Virginia Dare and she was deemed the first Christian air quotes born in America. Wow. Way to bury the lead. Her last name is not white. No. Well, because Eleanor, uh, married Anais Dare. Oh, okay. And so Virginia Dare was the kid's name. And in fact, the Outer Banks area, that county, I believe is known as Dare County, uh, after her name.

And that's the like Virginia. No, this is, this is, this is, uh, still in Carolina. Right. But isn't Virginia Dare the Virginia of Virginia? I don't think so. I think Virginia is after the Virgin Queen. Oh, maybe I'm making, maybe I'm, maybe I'm mixing it up. Maybe she's named after Virginia. Yeah. I think Virginia is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, because their, their goal was to go to Virginia.

So I think that's why she was named that. Yeah. Better than nothing, I guess. So shortly after settling in, everything seemed fine. There wasn't a lot of trouble until while crabbing along the coast, a colonist was killed by a group of Native Americans. Instead of all awards, fine. What do you mean?

The 15 dudes. They were never found. They were never found. Nobody saw them. Okay. No, never found. Um, what ended up happening is this guy got killed while crabbing and instead of an all out war, what ended up happening is white being a straight up genius had a different strategy.

He was going to approach and reestablish relations with the local Algonquin peoples on the Croatian island, which was one of the many islands on that chain. Okay. Because this dude, like I said, was smarter than hell. One of the things he did was on the first expedition, he befriended a man by the name of Manteo, who was the chief of that tribe. Oh, damn. Well, go right for the top, dude.

And more importantly, they brought him back to England with them when they left the first time. What do you think a 1500s man and a 1500s native had in common? Who the F knows, man. Not much. That made the best friend. Unless Manteo was like, Mathis waiting in his whole life for somebody from like another world. This is an alien moment.

Yeah, just scoop him up and take him away. They took him back to England and he was sort of like a big figure in court. And he lived with the British and he sort of did a few things for a few years and everyone, you know, I'm sure they just looked at him and were like blown away, waited him around at breakfast. Yeah, I'm sure he wasn't, you know, that great. But he got dignified. Yeah.

Right. He got to go back and experience England and they learned to speak English and they brought him back with them on this return trip to America. So together they would go approach his tribe. It was explained to them when they met this tribe that what had happened to the men left behind was that multiple mainland tribes united together to kill them. Oh my God. They were hated so much.

Multiple tribes got together to murder these 15 dudes. It had to be what, 24 hours later? Like they were probably some dude watching like, all right, they're gone. Let's get these fuckers out of here. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I truly don't know the speed at which bodies decompose. But I imagine they just left them there. So two years, maybe two years later, maybe 18 months later, there was something about the few scattered bones left.

Yeah. I was thinking animals are going to be picking that thing up within a day or two. Plus the body isn't going to last. Right. The weather of just that area with hurricanes and stuff. I imagine. Moist and gross. They didn't use their fertilizer for the melons.

Oh my God. Body melons. Body melons. That's what they were. Uh, and so they discovered that a lot of the mainland tribes joined together. And so white was like, all right, guys, will you reach out to them for us? I'd like to negotiate a piece. We are not here to fight.

We are here just, you know, for a little bit and then we're moving on. Don't even like, we just want to chill. What can we do? No response was ever given. They never heard from the tribes. Yeah. They never responded. They like killed that dude that they sent or something.

No, they just, the guy they sent was one of the natives that they befriended. Oh my God. And he came back and they were like, yeah, um, they had nothing to say. That's not a good sign, dude. I wouldn't be sleeping very nicely at night. So one of the tribal groups, the Dasamanguponke, I think that, or it's a Dasamanguponke, however you would say that. Be bold.

Yeah. They were the group responsible for killing the settler who was, who was crabbing and white deemed them the biggest threat. And so he was like, all right, look, I don't want to have to do this, but we need to launch a preemptive strike on them so that they know we mean business. Like we want to, we're going to offer them peace, but they need to understand that we're ready for a war. And so they launched a strike early August 1850, I'm sorry, 1587.

And, um, it was before Don attack on a Dasamanguponke village. But it was so early and so dark, they couldn't see a damn thing. And so they just shot at anything that looked like a native. Oh my God. It turns out the villagers, fearing reprisal for murdering the settler, abandoned the village. And the people that white and his men killed were actually crowed in looters who had come for what was left behind.

So they shot the friendly dudes from the island. Yes, they shot the friendly dudes from the island. And just when everything was about to go out of control, Manteo swooped in like a boss and was like, look, everyone makes mistakes. Basically save the settlers asses. And for it, uh, white named him the Lord of Rhono. White named him the Lord of Rhono like he gave him a Lord title, a Lord ship. That's how much of a badass that dude was.

I wonder how much that meant to him though. Honestly, don't know. I do know that in the area, you can find little plaques devoted to him, but I don't know that history itself has much to say about him. I honestly don't know if I'm even saying Manteo right. It's M A N T E O. All right. I assume that's how you would say it.

But, um, they, you know, he's one of those like lost to history, but kind of not really figures anyway. This one's for you, Manteo. We're out here. We got you dude. Episode 75 dedicated to Manteo. Wherever you are, dude. This one's for you.

This bud's for you. It was decided by the colonists that, uh, things were not looking well. Mind you, they just got there in July 1587. This is August 1587. They're like, it is not okay here. This place is problematic to say the least and they, they all voted to be like, we should move the colony 50 miles away. We should go like inland or up north or just get out of here.

Let's just get out of this area. We can go 50 miles away. We have little boats. We can, we can travel and, um, they were like, okay, well, we need supplies to do all this. We need, we need to get, we need to get out here as soon as possible. So white, please go back to England and beseech the crown on our behalf. And, uh, white was like, I can't leave you people. And they're like, you have to.

You're the only one that crown will listen to you. You got to go. And he's like, all right. So at the end of August 1587, he leaves and returns to England. They were there. I mean, he was there a couple of months and they peaced out. He was like, I gotta get out of here. When he returns to England in November leave, uh, the hundreds, some colonists,

he and the sailors returned the colonists were left behind. And, you know, the people that were there to guard and protect them. Um, he goes back and arrives in England in November 1587. So the trip is from the end of August to November 1587. And that gives you an idea how long it takes to sail back and forth. And fuck dude. But he arrives when tensions with Spain are at their peak and reports the Spanish Armada that they're mobilizing

and they're going to attack London. And the queen is like, look, if you have a ship that is able to fight, you cannot leave England. You have to stay and defend it. Oh no. But what the fuck? So this is like her being like, we got all your shit. We got all your shit.

And Spain is like, stop it. Like we're going to fuck you up anytime we see you now. Yeah. And so she said, if they come get us, Spain come gets us, all British ships need to be ready to fight. And so White was forced to stay with his ships. But Grenville, because he was like, you know, a badass, he got a waiver from the queen to take a fleet to the Caribbean

and attack any Spanish ships there. And White was permitted to go along. Such a bad idea. White was permitted to go along with a supply ship, right? He was given a supply ship and he would go along with them. It took until March 1588 for the fleet to set sail. You know, the winter plus ships and upkeep and all that stuff, supplies, whatever. But at the last minute, Grenville was told to stay back and defend England.

However, he was like, look, I got two ships. They're not really fit for combat. Take them, go back to Roanoke. But again, because this entire thing is just folly after folly. Instead of going directly to Roanoke, the sailors were like, let's head towards Morocco and raid some Spanish ships for extra loot. I just, what a wild time the 1500s were, dude. What's crazy is that it seems like according to history,

it seems like you would do something crazy. And then wait eight months and then do another crazy thing. It's insane. So they go down to Morocco to raid Spanish ships, but they're in like really, they are un, like barely fortified ships themselves. And so instead of finding Spanish ships, what they find are French ships which attack and loot all the supplies. And so-

This is how world wars begin. And so they're forced to limp back to London with nothing. They can't go to America. So they just like go out in the ocean and get their ass kicked for no reason? Yes, literally for no reason. Because the sailors wanted some more loot, because they didn't think they were being paid enough. Yeah.

It wasn't until the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 that there was finally another war to finish. Yeah. There was finally another plan to return to Roanoke. In August- I'm sure Roanoke is fine, dude. I'm sure they're fine. Yeah, I'm sure everything's great.

100 plus people? Children could fist fight some- Versus all the United tribes of the mainland? No big deal. In August 1590, three years after he first left, white landed in America again. On the evening of August 15th, while anchored off the coast, they noticed columns of smoke coming from the islands.

And they set about to investigate, but they found nothing. Then on the 17th, they spotted fire on the north end of Roanoke Island. And they rode towards it, but they decided, you know what? Now isn't really a smart time to go aboard, because it's pitch black in the middle of the night. We don't want to land because we could get our asses shot, right? No one knows who's- No one knows we're coming.

So we're going to wait till the morning. And it was fitting, he thought, because the 18th was the third birthday of his granddaughter. He thought it'd be a great present to return home to his family. Oh, right. He left his family behind. Yeah. When they made landfall the next morning,

they found fresh tracks in the sand, but no real sign of a fire. And no one came to welcome them. Nearby, they found a tree with the letter CRO carved into it. Upon reaching the site of the colony, it was completely empty. No sign of struggle or battle or anything. However, they did discover that houses had been dismantled, and anything that could have been carried was completely missing. And another interesting note, the chests that he hid on the-

Like he had his own personal stuff and money and they- He hid it there. And the only people who knew about it were his family. That chest had been dug up and completely looted. Hmm. So it sounds like they left willingly. I don't know. The only other thing of note was carved in the Palisade walls, the word

CROATOAN. And many people thought that was like, ooh, what an ominous phrase. What does that mean? In fact, White was filled with hope when he saw this, because before he left, he told the colonists, yeah, he told the colonists, if you have to flee for whatever reason or if to leave,

leave me a note of where you went. But if you do it under duress, if something happens, put a cross next to it. I'll know that bad stuff happened. Something bad happened, yeah. Right. But there was no cross. So he remained convinced his family and the other colonists

went to go stay with the Croatian people. And maybe Manteo like led them there, and that's how they made it through whatever had happened. The party returned to their ship to hope well that night, and the next day they're going to go and search for the Croatian and try to find, you know, where they're settled at right now. And of course, because this is a series of follies, the cable on the anchor snaps.

Oh my God. Leaving them with just the backup, and the crew was afraid of shipwrecking because they couldn't anchor both sides of the ship. Oh, good Lord. At this point, the moonlight, the other ship with them is like, nope, bad omens all around were out, and they piece back to England.

Assholes. So hope well, the hope well, the ship, the captain's like, all right, look. Let's go to the Caribbean, we'll repair, we'll return in the spring of 1591, right? Like that's how long it takes to do anything to sail. Anyway, like we'll come back in 1591. Jesus Christ.

But again, because this is the craziest story, the hopeful's blown off course and ends up in the Azores, which if you don't know where the Azores are, imagine the middle of the Atlantic, but closer to Spain than America. Damn. That's crazy. Yeah.

And so they resupply there, and they're like, all right, let's just go back to England. And at this point, White never returns. He never gets to go back. But I wouldn't go back either at that point. It's like half a decade of his life. Yeah. Not to mention whatever the fuck happened to his family.

But this is, you know, a major part of it, because what ends up happening is that he's convinced because of the note left behind that his family's fine, the Manteos taking care of them, they've gone to go live with a local tribe, and he's convinced they're fine. And even though there's no evidence of any of this, Raleigh doesn't even care.

He's like, look, as long as you say they're alive, I get to keep my claim. Oh, yeah, of course. He says, look, White, I'm going to send people, trust me, I will send back expeditions, I will find them. So White is told by Raleigh that he himself is going to lead a 1595 expedition to get them. But what he really does is go hunt for El Dorado.

He just spends the entire time trying to find El Dorado. Yeah. He just lied so he could leave, and then he was like, actually, I'm going to go find El Dorado. Well, what he says in his notes, but no one has any evidence of this, is he says that he went past the Outer Banks and the way home and the weather was bad,

so he couldn't land. That's what he wrote. He did it. He's one of those drive-bys like, they look fine, maybe. It's fine. Okay. In 1602, he sends another expedition to the Outer Banks. But this time, and he's like,

I'm going to find them this time. I swear, I swear. But this time, his priority, according to the ledgers, was to gather Sassafras, because the price had skyrocketed. No real search was ever commenced. He's a shit. What a piece of shit. He went like right to them.

Dude knew how to work people's emotions for money. However, the most interesting part of the story, and I love this part, later on in 1607, in 1994. John Smith, actual John Smith. Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson was captured by the Pahaton people.

And when he met with their leader, which I think is crazy, this dude keeps getting captured by natives, and then just was like, let me talk to your boss. And they're like, okay. And then he like walks away every time. It's wild. So what happens when you have a natural 20 in charisma, dude?

He goes to talk to them. Body armor, body shape, little hat. It's all you need, that little, little, little kid hat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. He, when he met with the chief,

the chief described the fact that he had seen people like him before in a place called Akanan honan, where men wore European style clothing and lived in walled houses. There was also mentioned in a place called Pac-Rac-Nik, Pac-Rac-Nik maybe. And.

Okay. That's a cool one. They drew a map for him. They literally drew a map of where these places would be. We got captured. And then on the other end, he's got the chief like hand-drawn his ass on that. They have a map.

Jesus Christ. It included a note that read, here four clothed men that came from Runakuk to Akanawan. And then there was a tack, there was mention of an attack that the chieftain did on one of these locations as a reprisal for an attack on him. That sucks. So he thinks maybe they merged with the tribe

and then they wiped the tribe out. Maybe they moved a couple of times and then they got murdered. That's what he's thinking. And so Smith sent the map back to England. But the original is lost. However, a Spanish ambassador to England, Pedro de Zaniga copied it. And so his copy still remains. Okay.

Cool. That's kind of cool that we still have a version of the map then. Attempts to scout for the strange men by Smith and others found nothing. They literally found nothing at all. Other attempts were made throughout history, but no one has ever really found anything since. Even recently, archaeologically speaking,

they've tried to do digs and try to find anything that could lead to what actually happened to these people. But whether conditions like hurricanes and all, it's eroded any possible leads. And to make things harder, you know, anything found around this time period could easily be from the 1585 colony as well. Because geologically speaking,

it's two years is not that big a difference in geological time. Yeah. But that one we're very sure about the fact that those tribes united and just wiped out those 20 years. Yeah. Wiped notes home. Like he said, yeah, no, the Crone and people told me they were, these guys were killed.

Geographically speaking, something to note, uh, climatologists note that the area between, like in that area of the United States between 1587 and 1589 had the worst growing season in a tree that they measured, you know, when they measure the rings of a tree and the tree they measured, it had the worst growing season in its 800 year lifespan. So those people just settled

when it was literally the worst time to settle. That sucks too. And the writings were consistent with like fine, like the findings were consistent with writings at the time. So let's talk about what people think happened because this is great. I love some of these. They're so good.

You'll notice none of them are aliens came and took them. It's all real things this week, y'all. There's too much physical evidence to prove that they probably did not get abducted by aliens. Right. So what happened? First off, the big one that I think most people believe, tribal integration.

It is the most common theory. Many people believe that the colonists simply joined the Croatian people and integrated into their society. The tribe as a whole was reported to have moved from the outer banks and have headed inland. So that might be why no Europeans were found. However, it doesn't explain thing like the footprints

on the ground when they arrived or the fires they saw. There's a lot of weird mystery bits to it. There was someone there. Yeah. Yeah. It's never truly solved. But who knows? Also, there were reports up until 1609

of white people in native tribes. The biggest problem is genetic testing to find the supposed colonists is kind of impossible because how do you find the descendant of someone who is lost, right? But you can't. Yeah. How do you do that?

And, you know, it's very difficult to just be like, all right, we want to test. Are you, is your family from the South in the 1500s? Like, how do you do that? Yeah, especially since we came in and just wholesale slaughtered countless natives. So, you know, then there is another theory

that the Pajitun attacked. The people that John Smith had talked to. One theory suggests that the colonists sought to relocate at the original Chesapeake Bay location, right? They sought to like build a small boat and head up north. However, some would have stayed behind because there's no way they could have fit everyone on a boat.

And they would have stayed with Croydon and Manteo, which explains why there are two sites, right? He mentions there are two places where he saw white people. It explains why there'd be two. But this theory speculates that this group that stayed behind were the group that the chief was talking about, the people that he killed. And John Smith heard this information

and sent it back with the map, but Raleigh, in order to like avoid complications, covered it up. Like, he was just like, Yeah, they're fine. They're fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So, he wouldn't like traumatize the guy? No, because he wants the money from the colonies. Yeah, yeah. Everything's about money with that guy, I forgot. There's a theory about an attempted return. Many people think the deconstructed houses could have meant the colonists attempted to build their own vessel to go back to England.

The colony did include sailors, and building a boat from your homes wasn't unheard of. In 1563, French settlers in a place called Charles Fort, which was a failed colony built a boat and literally sailed home. That feels like it would be dangerous. It was. Oh yeah, I mean, like, it was almost a flotilla, and they sailed home.

Yeah, and trying to float all the way back to England. Yeah. The Roanoke colonists could have done this, or they could have made a ship and sailed north to where the British fishing fleets were, and just met with people there and got a ride back that way. Or settled near Maine, right? That's where the British, Nova Scotia,

was a big British area at the time. The ship might not have been large enough for everyone, and that could also explain about several of the white people they found mixed in with native tribes, right? Like, some people just stayed behind. They didn't want to risk it. It reminds me of that dude that they found, like, I don't remember the story exactly,

but there was like some dude who was like, sort of like a rich, sort of like adventurer type guy, and he like went to this island that was populated by like this cannibal tribe that nobody, that was like isolated far longer than most tribes, and they were like, don't go over there, they're going to kill you. And everybody was like, oh yeah,

he went over there and then they killed him. But then there's like some, there's like some picture that somebody found, like years later, somebody else who went to go interact with this tribe, and there's like one white dude with them. Interesting. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, I mean, I imagine if you have someone like Manteo there to sort of be the smooth and over. Yeah, to be sort of the guide and envoy between the two peoples, I feel like that's a great way to get in with the tribe. Plus, if your choice is live culturally different or don't live at all, I know what most people are going to choose, right?

So another good, what might have happened to them was sickness. When the Europeans would have joined the natives, it's quite possible that any diseases they had affected the tribal populations, and they were super weak, which is why they were so easily wiped out by other tribes. Eventually, this tribe would just be completely removed because most of the strong would have become weak with sickness,

and then any other native tribes nearby would have seen this and been like, all right, we can take their land or whatever. I guess land wasn't a big issue, but you know what I mean? Like they can take out the tribe. And the last one is my favorite. It's so good. The conspiracy theory. This is my favorite one.

Sir Francis Walsingham conspired with other men who hated Raleigh to maroon the colonists to undermine his claims. Just to like fuck them up over and so that he doesn't, that like nobody will be there and then like they can just. Money goes away. I mean, basically, yeah, he wanted to maroon the colonists. So everything, all the bad stuff that happened wasn't actually flukes. It was a group of men.

It's with their machinations to screw over Walter Raleigh because they hated him so much. And so from going off course to keeping him literally this, I love this. It is surely coincidental, but I love that this is the thing. When white comes back to England, right? He's stuck there for three years. He has to wait through a war.

And every time he tries to leave, something happens to bring him back. And strangely, when Walsingham dies in 1590, that's when he's allowed to go back. I mean, it's very coincidental, but like it's so good for a fun conspiracy theory. Especially with the way they've been acting through the whole story. Like just these people seem very transactional to that guy anyway.

Pissing off somebody is not going to be out of the realm of possibility. And it also feels like white is caught up in this game of like lords, right? Raleigh is this very powerful lord. And Walsingham is like his conspirators are other powerful lords. And it's one of those like Game of Thrones things where all the normal people don't matter. Yeah, he's like Robb Stark vibes. Yeah, and they're just messing with everyone.

And white is caught in the middle of it. And even though it is, you know, historically, they definitely hated each other. It's there is no real backup to any of this, but it's super fun. The idea that he was like, break the anchor at this point. Like, you know, like that kind of stuff, like, right? Yeah, it's fascinating.

Yeah. Sorry, Ned Stark, not Robb Stark. That's my bad. Yeah, he dies in 1590. And that's the year they decide they can go back. Because remember, the war ended in 1588. So why didn't they go back in 1589? I'm just saying, fun theory.

Don't know that it's real, but super fun. That is awesome. Actually, I kind of wish it might be a little real. Yeah. And if you want to know what happened to Raleigh, he conspired against James, got caught, convinced King James to let him go. And then he went on another expedition,

totally screwed the pooch on it, came back and the Spanish were like, look, I think it was a Spanish. It might have been the Spanish of France. Whatever happened, he got in a battle when he promised he wouldn't get in a battle and literally returned home and they were like, kill this guy. And so James had to kill him.

So he cut off his head. And what's crazy is on the chopping block, Raleigh was like, get this shit over with. He was hard. He was himself to the end, dude. Yeah, it was crazy. That's awesome. Dude, those people are fucking nuts.

Yeah. And that's that's one of history's great mysteries. No one truly knows what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke. And we will never truly know. Or do they? Or do they? Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe we've figured it out already, but there's no evidence of it. There's no way to prove anything. Well, I assumed you weren't going to get into this. But there are a few other details of this story. Yeah, go on. Yeah. So in 1937, many years later, somebody, this this person

showed up at Emory University and they were like, I need help. I found this like I'm a tourist. I found this rock a couple of months ago by the river in North Carolina. And on it, it says Anais Dair in Virginia. The Dairstones. Yeah. Went to heaven, 1591, show this to John White, something like that. And they looked him up and they found a bunch more like as time went on.

And most people believe that they were written by this woman who is like a descendant of the Dairs, Eleanor Dair. But the granddaughter, the granddaughter. But everybody thinks they're fake, except maybe the first one's daughter. Yeah, except maybe the first one's not fake. Yeah, no one knows. This is I decided not to include it because no one truly knows whether

they've tried to carbon date them. And many of them are not at all from the 1500s. However, the first one, they they're like, maybe they just don't know the first one. But that's one thing is that they all these people basically had like epitaphs, which is like a really weird thing to find, right? Right. There is one other element of the Roanoke story that I think is really interesting. It's a series of coincidences.

I can't find anything about this anywhere other than in articles about this. So I don't know where I don't know where this information like. This is a strong start, Alex. Listen, I got to bring you guys the goods. OK, and I want to you know, I want to say it and I just want you to understand that I didn't go as deep as I maybe could have in researching this, but it is a popularly held belief to some people, right? So the thing that gets everybody excited about this mystery all the time, right,

is the idea of showing up where the colony is supposed to be. It's not there. And there's just this like weird message, right? Croton. Yeah, it's not quite Croton. It's not like quite the right word, right? It doesn't really mean the same thing as the island that's over there, right? But this isn't the only time that this word has been linked with an American disappearance.

OK, right. What are you about to say? I'm very curious. So are you familiar with the death of Edgar Allan Poe? Yeah. So you know that he like, you know, had a life as like an author and was very successful. Didn't really get success till kind of later in his career and kind of died, like kind of poor.

But I think that's crazy out. Yeah, they found him like muttering in the street in like weird pajamas or something. Oh, I did not know that about Edgar Allan Poe. He didn't know that he was like an absinthe nut, man. He was. Yes, I got a sense, honestly. He was at the bottom couple of really couple of really great horror poems and loved his child cousin.

Yeah. Yes. But it was an inexplicable. It was an inexplicable death. Like it's kind of a mystery in itself. Yeah. The death of Edgar Allan Poe. But allegedly, one of the last things that he said was he said, grow a toan.

Was one of his last words. Oh, shit. And also, do you know who Ambrose Beers is? That sounds like a Civil War general to be real. Well, he's really similar to Edgar Allan Poe. He's sort of like an author from that time. And he wrote some really famous stories about people disappearing. And then he ended up disappearing himself in Mexico, like later towards the end of his career.

And apparently in Mexico, where he was at the bed that he slept in the night before he vanished, carved into the bedpost was the word Crote Toan. And the word Crote Toan allegedly was found in the journal of Amelia Earhart when she disappeared in 1937, same year as the darestones were found. And Black Bart, the famous criminal, he was in prison. They found the word in his prison cell. And after he was dismissed from prison, he disappeared. OK.

OK. And there is a ship called the Carol A. Deering that ran aground in Cape Hatteras in 1921, pretty close to that island. And on the last page, the logbook of the ship was the word Crote Toan and nothing else was there. So I don't know what that means. Sprinkle that mystery on top of your history, you know what I'm saying? I just wanted to put a little bit of unsubstantiated nonsense at the end. Just to...

You can't say nonsense if some of it is actually true. It can be. It may be true, but like... It can be true. It can be if you believe hard enough. It's believably true. I don't know. I just...

I think there's... If you're looking for a way to like get strung out in the middle of the night and go deep down some sort of weird rabbit hole of YouTube and Internet, there are some ways to do that with Roanoke. And yeah, hope that put a little question mark. Does that make you... Does that tickle your mystery pickle there, Jesse? Well, I mean, maybe the big thing is that after this colony went missing, I like...

We always think of history as being kind of like... Like it's weird, like a modern thing. But to go back to the great example of like, in Rome, they thought ancient Egypt was ancient, right? Like they were like, that's 2,000 years ago. So that's so crazy. And now we think about Rome as... You know, ancient Egypt and Rome kind of blend together in our collective memories.

Right, but they're like middle distance between each other, basically. Right, right. And so at the time, in the early 1600s, this was a known story. It was a mystery that fascinated people in England at the time. So it wasn't like this is something that only a small group of people knew about. This was a thing that became kind of like... Oh, a mystery.

And so it's quite possible that a lot of people were just fans of it. I imagine by the time of Edgar Allen Poe, there have been many stories about this that are cool. And I just, you know... So you think he was slipping in a little reference right before he passed out? I think before he died, he was trolling a little bit. And you want to keep the mystery alive a little bit? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You mean Ambrose? Yeah, they're all fans. Yeah, I don't know. Also, just to clarify, there is a like... One of the weird things about all of this is there is the Croatian Indians, which are the group of Indians that are there, but Croatoan is what was written. Yeah, it's like slightly different, right? Yeah, it's like minorly off.

Yeah. And it was the name of a nearby island that had some additional tribes of people there. But, you know, it's one of those things that no one knows exactly if it was the tribe that they were talking about or the island. And that's why they just simply couldn't find them. Well, we'll have to leave the mystery there. Thank you so much, Jesse. My pleasure, Laura.

This wonderful little missing people's mystery. We will be back next week with a Minnesota compilation for those. It's been a while since we have Minnesota. So if you're on the Patreon, you got... If you haven't been on the Patreon, you want to jump on even after this compilation, compilation, I'm sorry, I say it weird, compilation. There's still going to be like 10 plus over on Patreon for you to go binge and enjoy. A treasure trove, if you will.

And the treasure is untold. We're actually going to do that right now. Wait till you see what I talk about this time. Who knows? Oh, you already have me interested. I don't even know what it's going to be. So we're going to go do that right now. We love you guys.

We'll see you next time. Goodbye. Bye. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night enjoying ourselves. I needed to go to the bathroom, so I stepped back inside and after a few moments, I hear my wife go, holy shit, get out here. So I quickly dash back outside. She's looking up at the sky in the fall.

I look up too, and there's a perfect line of dozen lights traveling across the sky. Uh, another pointless video call where nothing gets done. I think you're on mute, David. Sorry, what did I miss? IT just approved Miro for the whole company. Miro? That's the... Online whiteboard.

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