Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America (12 page)

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Authors: Giles Milton

BOOK: Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America
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Grenville and his men so enjoyed their visit to Secotan that they spent the night in the village. They might have stayed longer, but Grenville was anxious to return to the
Tiger
. In exactly a week he had explored more than two hundred miles of uncharted territory. It was a considerable achievement.
 
John White won the confidence of this Indian child by handing her an Elizabethan doll complete with bonnet and buskin. “They are greatlye delighted with puppetts and babes [dolls] which wear brought oute of England.”
As the exploration party neared the beach at Wococon, Grenville was overjoyed to see that
Tiger
was no longer lying helpless on the shore. Instead, she had been refloated and was riding at anchor with the rest of the fleet. Once all the men were aboard Grenville ordered his ships to proceed northwards to the largest gap in the Outer Banks, Port Ferdinando, where supplies could at last be unloaded in preparation for the construction of a settlement.
Grenville had by now realised that this would be almost impossible to achieve without the consent of the Indian tribes. He also knew that Amadas and Barlowe had met with considerable goodwill the previous year and been at the receiving end of much hospitality. He decided to renew contact with Granganimeo and, with Manteo’s help, inform him of his wish to settle a small group of men. The details of the meeting have been lost. The
Tiger
’s journal records only that on July 29, 1585, “Granginimeo, brother to King Wingina, came aboard the Admirall, and Manteo with him.” The two sides appear to have reached an amicable agreement that allowed Grenville to settle his colonists on Roanoke Island, probably at Shallowbag Bay on the northeastern coast. This was far enough away from the Indian village to prevent the English from encroaching on their land, and also ensured that the settlement would be hidden from the sea by the dunes of the Outer Banks.
After the disaster at Wococon, Grenville knew better than to attempt to sail the
Tiger
into the shallow sound. Instead, he ordered the fleet to anchor some three miles offshore, from where his men faced the exhausting task of unloading the supplies into boats and rowing them through heavy surf to a holding depot on the Outer Banks. Once here, they could be transferred to Roanoke Island in relative safety.
It was no small undertaking: livestock, barrels, and tools—all had to be rowed ashore in pinnaces that were hard to manoeuvre in the breaking waves. But by August 5 the first of the ships was empty and Captain John Arundell “was sent for England” to inform the queen that the country at last had a toehold on American soil. The queen was so delighted that she knighted him.
 
The villagers of Secotan welcomed the English with a terrifying dance (bottom right) in which they writhed around a circle of posts. “Every man was attyred in the most strange fashion they can devise.”
Ralph Lane now began to assume his role as the colony’s governor, posting himself at the depot on the Outer Banks and overseeing the transferral of supplies to Roanoke. He was in his element. In the rare moments of quiet, he wrote letters home in his characteristically eccentric spelling, describing the paradise that was now his to govern. He boasted that “all ye kingedomes and states of chrystendom … doo not yealde ether more good, or more plentyfulle, … [than] is needefull or pleasinge for delighte.” Since he had arrived at Roanoke less than two weeks previously, his critics might have justifiably accused him of overoptimism, but Lane already had proof of the healthfulness of the land. His men had arrived with the “reumes”—colds, catarrh, bronchitis, and tuberculosis—but had made a spectacular recovery. “The clymate ys soo whoollesome,” he wrote, “[that] wee have not had one sycke synce wee enterdde into ye countrey; but sundry yt came sycke, are recovered of longe dyseases.”
Once the supplies had been landed, Governor Lane’s most urgent task was to build a fort. This had been given much advance thought; Ralegh had commissioned an expert—probably Sir Roger Williams—to design a bastion of sufficient strength to deter both Spanish and Indians alike. Sir Roger more than fulfilled his brief, proposing an enclosing structure strong enough to withstand cannonfire, hurricanes, and tidal waves. It was to be shaped like a pentangle, with “five large bulwarkes,” sloping curtain walls, and commanding ramparts. Military strength was his only concern: “I would have every streat strayt to every bulwarke,” he wrote, “so as standying in the market-plase, yow may see all the bulwarkes, curtyns and gates.” Such a fortress would have required a garrison of some 800 soldiers armed with arquebus guns, longbows, pikes, and halberds.
Lane quickly realised that Williams’s planning was all in vain. The only stone to be found on Roanoke was “a fewe small pebbles”
—hardly adequate for curtain walls—and any ramparts would have to be built of sand and timbers. He had no option but to construct a fort very much like the makeshift defences on Puerto Rico—a bank of sand, a deep ditch, and a few heavily fortified gun emplacements. It was quickly cobbled together, for Lane was keen to finish the work before Grenville sailed for England with much of the available manpower.
As soon as the fort was complete, Lane ordered his men to begin work on their lodgings. These were extremely rudimentary. Although Lane, Harriot, and the other gentlemen built themselves “decent dwelling houses,” the rest of the men lived in roughly thatched wooden shacks. More care went into the construction of the communal buildings. There were a church and a storehouse, an armoury for the weapons, and stables for the few animals that had survived the disaster of Wococon. There was also a jail equipped with “bylboes”—an immovable iron bar with sliding leg irons.
By the third week of August, the work was almost complete and Grenville decided it was time to leave. The
Tiger
set sail for England on August 25, leaving behind 107 settlers—a far smaller number than had originally been planned, but more realistic given the lack of supplies. Three weeks later, the
Roebuck
also weighed anchor and headed off into the Atlantic. The colonists’ last link with England was broken.
 
 
The departure of the ships filled the colonists with dread. From now on they were alone and totally dependent upon their own skills for survival. There were no women to keep them company, all their alcohol had been lost, and food supplies were critically low. Many already had severe doubts about the wisdom of remaining in America. Now that it was too late to leave, their frustration turned to anger. They became “wylde menn … whose unrulynes ys suche as not to gyve leasure to ye goovernour to bee allmost at eny time from them.”
Many were alarmed that their governor took such perverse enjoyment in their precarious existence, and there were few who shared his passion for hardship. “For myne owne part,” wrote Lane, “[I] do finde myselfe better contented to lyve with fysshe for my dayely foode, and water for my daylye drynke.” He added that he would rather eke out an existence in an uncharted wilderness than enjoy the “greatest plenty” that London’s courtly circle could offer.
The colonists were horrified and began to protest, a defeatist attitude that incensed Lane and saddened Harriot. “Some … were of a nice bringing up,” he wrote, “[having lived] only in cities or townes, or such as never (as I may say) had seene the world before.” He claimed that they were unwilling to accept the inevitable hardship, and “because there were not to bee found any English cities, nor such faire houses, nor at their owne wish any of their olde accustomed daintie food, nor any soft beds of downe or feathers, the countrey was to them miserable.” Few showed any willingness to join the various expeditions planned by Lane and Harriot, nor did they have any desire to trade with the Indians. Many “were never out of the iland where wee were seated,” and once they realised there was no gold or silver with which to make their fortunes, they “had little or no care of any other thing but to pamper their bellies.”
This was not easy, for few of the colonists had the necessary skills to fend for themselves. Abraham Kendall had trained as a mathematician, Marmaduke Constable was fresh out of Oxford University, and Anthony Rowse appears to have been a former member of Parliament. A good number called themselves gentlemen and, as such, had no intention of digging and sowing their own fields.
As many as half the colonists were soldiers, divided into two small companies under captains Edward Stafford and John Vaughan. Their task was to guard the defences and spearhead expeditions into the interior—vital concerns. But there were too many soldiers in proportion to such a small colonist population. Edward Nugent, Darby Glande, Edward Kelly, and John Gostigo had already proved themselves in Ireland and had been hand-selected by Lane himself.
Others were less well disciplined, and Harriot reported that several soldiers, “for their misdemeanour and ill-dealing in the countrey, have beene there worthily punished.” Such rowdy elements were a constant concern; they were accused of having “badde natures” and blamed for having “maliciously not onelie spoken ill of their governours, but for their sakes slaundered the countrie itselfe.”
 
Governor Lane intended to build a massive fortress with curtain walls and ramparts, but the only stone to be found was “a fewe small pebbles.” His sand-and-timber fort probably resembled this contemporary makeshift bastion
Lane had no time for such men; he had “sette downe a discipline” before the Roanoke landing, and it was “severely executed, first at sea, and then afterwarde by me in lyke sorte continued at lande.” It is likely that at least one unruly soldier was hanged, and his rotting corpse left dangling from a tree as a grim warning to the others.

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