RedHanded - ShortHand: Roanoke

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

When 90 men, 17 women, and 11 children disappeared without a trace – leaving behind nothing but a single cryptic word carved into a tree – it began a mystery that’s lasted centuries.From bloody battles with Native American tribes to Elizabeth I’s private pirates – we get to the bottom of the disappearing colonists of Roanoke Island.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Hey, did you hear? Watermelon is back at booster juice all summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon explosion. And the watermelon wave! Yep, they even got a new watermelon assaye pool this year, the one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like? Mmm. Like that. Booster Juice. Canadian-born, blending since 1999. Sorry, hello.

Welcome to Shorthand, where today something mysterious is happening. Crow to it is American Horror Story season. The one with Trixie Mattel in it, I don't know. Yeah, that one. Not the best one. No, I think significantly the worst one. Yes, I didn't want to say it, but it's bad. Of the ones I've seen. Yeah.

From my understanding, anything after cult was completely indefensible. but I didn't like cult either I started watching cult I didn't finish it No I didn't like cult I liked hotel Yes and I liked asylum Great and I liked the first one The house, the creepy house one Murder house

Murder house What was the Lallari one? Coven Coven liked that Yeah I would say Coven is my least Fave of the good ones Fair

And then it just fell off a cliff Carnival was good Yes actually do you know what Carnival was good I'm getting them all very confused In the order But you're right I didn't like

cult and I didn't like Roanoke and then I stopped watching it. Yeah, me too. So there you go. Anyway, we're not here to talk about all of the different seasons of American horror story. We're here to talk about something else. You've probably guessed because we've said it at least twice. We're talking about the mystery colony. On the 15th of August 1590, John White, a British colonist and mapmaker, was approaching

the island of Roanoke aboard his ship. The island was located in present-day Dare County just off the coast of North Carolina and was hoped to become Britain's first colony in the quote-unquote New World because he thinks he owns whatever land he lands on and the earth is just a dead thing he can claim. White and his crew had left three years earlier

with plans to return with supplies and equipment. But the fierce war that was raging between the British and the Spanish at the time made the journey even more perilous than it usually was. As White and his men neared Roanoke, they could see plumes of smoke rising in the sky. It had been three years since they'd last been there, and they'd left behind 90 men, 17 women and 11 children, including White's very own baby granddaughter.

After a long march through the sand, the crew finally arrived where there should have been a bustling settlement. But there wasn't a soul in sight, not a single person, dead or alive. After searching the area, the only clue White and his men found was a cryptic message carved into a tree, a single word, Croatowan. The 118 people of the Roanoke colony were never seen or heard from again, and their fates remain a mystery to this day.

And this is the shorthand. From the beginning of the 16th century, England and Spain were really at each other's throats, to put it mildly. And apart from the usual religious nonsense, these wars were based around the race to explore and colonize the new world, aka America. And so far, Spain was dominating. In fact, by the time England set out to establish its first colony,

the Spanish had already claimed much of South, Central and North America, and they were absolutely raking in the pesos as a result. In 1580, Spain was ruled by the Catholic King Philip, while England's Queen Elizabeth was a Protestant. In Spain, Protestants were being persecuted and tortured on mass, and Catholics were treated very much the same way in England. Both sides saw the other's beliefs as an affront to God that had to be eradicated no matter the cost.

Spain's influence on the international scene was only growing, and with its mighty navy reducing England's trade opportunities, Queen Elizabeth knew that she had to do something. England had already begun to build its navy under its previous king, Henry VIII, but the dream to dominate the seas was an expensive one. And it was funded by what's called privateering, which is just a fancy word for pirates. Wealthy merchants, politicians and even the queen herself

would invest their own money to buy ships, hire a crew and send them out to the Atlantic to rob the Spanish. These small but speedy English ships were fitted with large guns and sent out to intercept Spanish supply vessels between Spain and its colonies in the Caribbean. They were often filled with spices, furs and other treasures of the time, which the English would steal and sell, giving the investors in piracy a massive profit.

And the man who would go on to create England's first colony in the new world was one of the most famous privateers of his day. And some think Elizabeth's fancy man. We are of course talking about Sir Walter Raleigh. I remember once when I was a kid. I don't remember where we went. I was somewhere historical and they were selling like these little keychains that had like, what happened on your birthday

and not necessarily like the same year but like in history on the date and month of your birth like what fun thing happened and like other people were picking up their keychain for their month and it was like the first tulips were planted in the tulip fields of Netherlands or something nice

mine turned it around it was Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded I don't want a fucking keychain that says that he fucked with the wrong bitch is what he did Sir Raleigh was very well liked by Queen Elizabeth for his outstanding military record and possibly also his dick. But we don't know. So yeah, he was a pretty good like military leader having fought the French

for Protestantism aged just 17. He also fought the Spanish in the Netherlands in 1577. And this, along with his famous rakish charm, won the Queen over. And he was knighted in 1584. This is why Queen Elizabeth agreed when Raleigh pitched his case to her to fund a country colonial expedition to the new world. Raleigh gave Queen Elizabeth three reasons for why this colony was vital. It would be the perfect place from which to spot and attack Spanish ships. It would spread the good Protestant word to the godless obedient natives, and it would help England discover the Northwest Passage.

The Northwest Passage was a hypothetical water route leading through mainland America, through the Pacific Ocean, to Japan, China and India. Today, of course, we know the Northwest Passage doesn't actually exist. That's why the Panama Canal was eventually built in the early 20th century. I love the idea that, like, theoretical physics, they're just like, it could. It could exist. This passageway could exist and I am going to try and find it. It's just wild.

There's no guarantee that this passageway exists, which obviously, like I said, it doesn't. Because it doesn't, yeah. But so convinced were they that it could have. And it was worth taking this risk, which, again, like, look, when you're in that kind of battle, like, you know, fortune favours the brave and all that. And the reason why they believed these things was because 16th century Europeans didn't really have big clues on how big North and South America truly were. Still, it was a great pitch, and Queen Elizabeth agreed.

She told Raleigh to, quote, discover, search, find out, and view such remote heathen and barbarous lands, countries and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian prince or inhabited by Christian people. Didn't he bring back potatoes? Was that him? Oh, wow. And tobacco, I think. If that's true, then that's delicious. Then that's the best thing ever.

And so, potato in hand in 1584, the same year that he gained his knighthood. Walter Raleigh organised an expedition to claim a piece of the New World for England. But he was quite a busy guy, so he didn't actually go himself. Instead, he sent two ships, one captained by Arthur Barlow, and the other by someone called Philip Amadis. The journey took three months, but the two ships successfully landed off the coast of present-day North Carolina. Barlow dubbed the land Virginia after Queen Elizabeth,

who was known as the Virgin Queen because she refused to take a husband because she was married to England. Also, because if she got married, then politically, she would be in a weaker position. So... Yeah, because if she got married, like, Queen doesn't actually mean female king. It means wife of the king.

And there's that tweet, isn't it? It's like, oh, like, where's a queen without her king that's like historically more powerful? Anyway, the English colonists established a good early relationship with the native tribes in the area, the Sekitans and the Croatowans. They traded with them for food and furs. The following autumn, the men sailed back to England to tell Walter Raleigh that the place was perfect, and they even convinced two natives, Manteo and one Chese, to go with them. Raleigh was over the moon about hearing about how rich and vast the new world,

appeared to be, and he drew up plans to send 15 ships and 800 men there to establish a colony. And these men were to include bakers, mineral experts, blacksmiths, barbers, weavers, every kind of person you'd need to start a new colony, except for women that is. Raleigh felt the uncivilised new world was far too dangerous for them. Still, this dream of his came to an abrupt halt when Raleigh realized that he couldn't raise enough money to fund this plan. And by this point, Elizabeth had lost interest in the idea, which is why Raleigh only managed to send seven ships

and 300 men from England towards Virginia in April 1585. Maybe it's because he shouldn't have named it Virginia. I feel like she's like, who's that? It's like, it's for you, your majesty, you're a virgin, and the wealth must know. And she's like, my name's Elizabeth. That shit, I'm not giving you any more fucking money. That's what I like to tell myself happened here. So this time the expedition was led by Sir Richard Grenville, Raleigh's cousin, and a veteran of the Navy.

Also on board were Ralph Lane, a 25-year-old fort builder who was to be governor of the colonists, a Portuguese sailor, Samoa Fernandez, John White and Mattmaker, and Matteo and Wenchese, the two native men. This time, the three-month journey was a lot more perilous. A storm off the coast of Portugal sank one of the ships and the remaining six were separated, and they only regrouped later on the Puerto Rican coast, which is a long way from England. And of course, its name giving the game away, Puerto Rico is deep in the heart of Spanish territory. And the ships fought with a small Spanish fleet and then quickly left the area before reinforcements could arrive. But eventually, in June 1585, all six of the remaining ships landed

off the coast of Virginia. The two captains, Grenville and Lane, then ventured out to scout a good area to build England's first piece of the new world. They passed through several native villages on their way and were welcomed with open arms. Chief Wynchina. Wingina? Wingina? Whatever. Doesn't matter anymore.

Chief Vagina was the leader of all of these villages and his brother, Grand Granny, Mio. Nailed it. Anyway, his brother was the one who welcomed Amardis and Barlow the year before. The Englishman stopped to eat and speak. with the people of the village, and Grenville noticed, as they were all sat around eating, that one of his silver cups was missing. So he accused the natives of having stolen it, which they denied. So he did what any or normal person would do, and burned all of their crops and the entire village to the ground. This violent incident, no doubt, laid the table

for future trouble. But we'll come back to that later. The expedition continued up the coast to the spot that Amadis and Barlow had found the year before. There they were welcomed, by Grand Ganymio, who clearly hadn't heard about what had happened at the village with the burning of the crops because of the silver cups, because he happily offered them part of Roanoke Island. Grenville and Lane decided the place was perfect, and the men unloaded their cattle, food and supplies from the ships. 108 men stayed behind, while the rest left in August 1585 to get more supplies from England, promising to be back by March the following year. Those who stayed built a fort and huts to prepare for the coming winter.

But because they were soldiers and not settlers, not one of them knew how to grow any food. Nor did they seem to be particularly interested in learning the native people's agricultural techniques or even their fishing methods. Feels like they should have left behind some barbers and taken some farmers. Yes. I feel like you can learn to be a barber better than you can learn to be a farmer. No shade on the barbers, but it's just true.

These soldiers who had been left there much preferred to rely on the native population's goodwill, which didn't stay good for very long. The native tribes only grew and hunted what they needed, and unlike Europeans, they didn't grow excessively for storage. And before long, Chief Wingina had had enough of the colonists. He instructed the other villagers to stop supplying the English, and he moved his tribe further away without telling Lane and White the colonial leaders.

The chief was hoping that the English would starve to death and leave his people in peace. And soon, the English were starving. So, they captured a native man who revealed the chief's plan was to starve them all to death. Lane decided that he was going to make the first move, and in June 1585,

after a short battle, the colonists decapitated Chief Winchina. Many historians believe that this was the final nail in the coffin for the colony of Roanoke. After the slaughter, the future looked so bleak for the English, they were ill, they were starving, and they were starting to lose all hope of any ships returning from England.

But then, one day in the spring of 1585, the settlers spotted the fleet of Sir Francis Drake himself appear on the horizon. Francis Drake is probably the most famous privateer, sea pirate, in history, the first Englishman to ever circumnavigate the world between 1577 and 1580. He stole an enormous amount of treasure from the Spanish ships during his expeditions. with one of his halls amounting to about 20 million in today's money. Francis Drake saw how starved and troubled the colonists were and offered to sail them all back to England, which they happily accepted.

So Roanoke was abandoned, at least for the time being. Grenville, however, who had led the mission back to England, was actually on his way back to Roanoke and didn't have a clue about what had happened in his absence. So when he arrived with a fleet of 30 ships in mid-July that year, to find that the 108 months, men that he'd left behind were nowhere to be found. He left for England once again. This time he left behind 15 men to maintain the settlement, which was a weird decision considering what had happened

to the dozens of men he'd left behind before. And once again, in England, again, Grenville gathered together a group of 118 people, this time 85 men, 17 women and 11 children to settle Roanoke once and for all. This group was comprised of entire families who left everything behind in England, gambling on the promise of a better life in the new world. This time, they were captained by John White, who Raleigh chose to become the governor of Roanoke. But when White and his 118 settlers arrived at Roanoke Island on the 22nd of July 1587, the 157, the 15 men that Grenville had left behind the previous year were now again nowhere to be found. All they could see was a single skeleton. Now, technically these 15 men were the original lost colony of

Roanoke. But as you'll see, the fates of the 118 new settlers were just as grim and mysterious. Mantello, the Croatian native who had acted as a mediator between the colonists and the native tribes, went to find out what had happened to the 15 men who had disappeared. And he learned that they had been attacked by the Roanoke tribe, who managed to kill one of them before the other 14 fled. But what happened to that 14 is still unknown. During the first few days on Roanoke Island, the new colonists didn't see any sign of the native Roanoke tribe. That is, until one of White's assistance was killed whilst fishing. White then sent Manteo out to ask his people, the Croatowans,

for help in fighting the Roanoke's. But they were hesitant, because they knew what Grenville's men had done to Chief Wingina and his people, but Manteo somehow convinced them that the English meant them no harm. But the trust of the Croatian people would not be rewarded. Just a week later, White would repeat the sins of Grenville because we don't learn. In the dead of night, he led a war party toward a settlement of what he believed to be the Roanoke tribe. The war party killed men, women, children and even babies, only to later realise that I'm sure you can see where this is going. These were not Roanoke.

They were Croatowans, Manteo's own people, who had literally just offered to help them. But even after this, the Croatowans still forget. the English. They accepted that what they had done was a horrible mistake. Having said that, though, their relationship would never be the same, which fair enough. On the 18th of August that year, John White's daughter, Eleanor White Dare, gave birth to a baby girl, who became the first English child born in the new world, and they gave her a pretty cool name. They named her Virginia Dare. Then came time for White to make a difficult decision. With winter fast approaching, He had no choice but to return to England for more supplies.

So along with 15 men, White left just a week after Virginia was born. When they got to England, Raleigh was thrilled to hear that his vision was becoming a reality, and the men began gathering the supplies that the Roanoke colony needed. White had no clue that he would never see his daughter, his granddaughter, or the rest of his colony ever again. The plan was to leave England for Roanoke within six months. but in 1588, tensions between Spain and England had reached fever pitch, and war broke out. The Spanish Armada was sailing out against England, and Queen Elizabeth ordered all English ships to be used for the war effort.

That summer, the seemingly invincible Spanish Armada was successfully held off by the smaller, more nimble English ships. Sir Walter Rale and Sir Francis Drake were instrumental in this victory, which if they'd lost, would have meant that North America would be speaking Spanish. today. The Anglo-Spanish War would continue all the way up until 1604, but White managed to get permission to sail out to the Roanoke colony in 1590, three years after he'd left. When he arrived in August with his men, as we know, there was not a single soul in sight, just the word Croatouin etched into a tree. The entire colony of Roanoke had vanished. So what had happened there during the three years that White had been gone. Where were his daughter and his granddaughter in the 116 other people

who had settled on Roanoke Island? Well, there are four main theories. The word Croatowan being carved into the tree is what led some people to suspect that the colony relocated to Croatian Island 50 miles away. And in fact, over 400 years later, archaeologists on Croatian island, which is now called Hatteras, found a gun, English farthings, and a signet ring. The ring had the Kendall coat of arms on it, and we know that a man called Kendall was a part of the Roanoke colony. However, this discovery alone isn't quite enough to prove that there was an English settlement on Croatowan.

All of those items could have easily got there another way. Then again, the colony could just have been killed. John Smith, the Englishman who led the Jamestown colony in the early 17th century, said to a native leader, called Pahatan, that he'd killed the Roanoke colonists. And then he married Pocahontas. But once again, there isn't much archaeological evidence for a massacre of over 100 people having taken place there.

Because if you kill that many people, you've got to do something with their bodies. Some historians maintain that the colony was wiped out by the Spanish, who'd already colonized various parts of North America by that time. During the time, White left the settlers behind, the Spanish had actually slaughtered a couple of French colonies in the area too. But the argument against this theory is that there's evidence that the Spanish was still looking for the Roanoke colony in 1600, which means that they couldn't have destroyed it in

1590. Or is that double bluff? A sneaky Spanish double bluff. Then there's a theory that the colony actually integrated with a local tribe. With the winter months approaching after White and his crew left to gather supplies, the colony may have lost hope that they would ever return. And with no other option, it's possible that the colony decided to live amongst the Croatian people who had already been quite forgiving. What's more, a Spanish traveller would later mention that he'd witnessed a number

of Native Americans with grey eyes, fair skin and blonde hair. And apparently those natives claim to be descendants from the Roanoke settlers. That's what I think happened. Yeah, I think that's what happened. It just feels like you're in dire straits. Everybody keeps being like, oh, I'm just going to pop out with some

supplies. I'll be back in like two years or something. See ya. Oh, there's a massive war back home. Oh, no. I can't even tell you. Like, of course they lost hope and it was like, it's just survival. There's no other option they would have had. Where are they going to get boats to sail 50 miles to get to that

other fucking island? So I think that's probably what happened. Now, Raleigh's plans to claim a piece of the new world for England was a disaster from start to finish. From his lack of funds, the less than ideal number of colonists that he had at his disposal, arguably also the makeup of the

colonists that he had taken over there to Ralph Lane and John White's horrific treatment of the natives. The whole thing was bad newspeers. The existing evidence which consists of journals made up by the sailors, privateers and colonists is great. But they don't give us the full story. It's possible that new evidence will pop up one day. But it's more than likely that any evidence which would give us a solid answer

to what fate befell the Roanoke colony is lost forever by this point. I think it just makes the most sense that they would be like, hey guys, we don't know how to farm here. Would you like our women and children? And they're like, yeah, fine. Let's do it. We've been trying to tell you that you're farming all wrong. By not farming at all, you're doing it completely wrong.

Equals equals. Exactly. So I think really there's only three, right? They left the island and went somewhere else. They all got murdered or died or they integrated. And it's really questionable how they would have managed to get off the island when they had literally no supplies. and they were quote unquote troubled, which I think is putting it in mind.

And if they all died, again, where are their bodies? So integration just makes the most sense. I agree. So there you go. The mysterious non-mystery of the remote colony and how they probably just did what they had to to survive on that little rock that they ended up on. So that's it, guys.

I can't remember why we did this. Was it the anniversary or something? I don't know. Look it up. We'll see you next time. Bye.