Raleigh's Roanoke Colonies and the Lost Colony
England's first two attempts at an American settlement end in a failed garrison and a vanished village
Quick facts
- Region
- Roanoke Island, present-day North Carolina
- Sponsor
- Sir Walter Raleigh
- Governor of second colony
- John White
- Outcome
- Colonists vanished by 1590; fate never conclusively resolved
What happened
Sir Walter Raleigh sent two colonizing expeditions to Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina. The first, in 1585, was a military garrison of about 108 men under Ralph Lane, delivered by a fleet under Sir Richard Grenville that had been delayed and damaged crossing the Atlantic. Short on supplies and in worsening conflict with the local Roanoke and Secotan peoples, the garrison abandoned the site in 1586. A second expedition of 112 to 121 men, women, and children arrived in 1587 under governor John White, who returned to England for supplies but was delayed three years by war with Spain. When a relief ship finally reached Roanoke in 1590, the colonists had vanished, leaving behind the single word CROATOAN carved into a post and no sign of a struggle. Their fate has never been conclusively established.
Why it matters
Roanoke's failure taught the backers of English colonization, chiefly the Virginia Company that followed, what a permanent settlement required: sustained supply lines, a defensible site, and a workable relationship with nearby Indigenous nations. Jamestown in 1607 was founded with those lessons in mind.
How we know
The National Park Service's Fort Raleigh National Historic Site preserves the excavated fort site and the surviving 1590 account of John White's search, in which the returning colonists found only the word CROATOAN carved on a post.
Sources
- Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, U.S. National Park Service. 1585: The Military Colony · Reputable sourcenps.gov · The domain "nps.gov" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, U.S. National Park Service. 1587: The Lost Colony · Reputable sourcenps.gov · The domain "nps.gov" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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