Becoming the Lost Colony

Charles R. Ewen is Harriot College Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He is an archaeologist whose research has focused on the early Contact/Colonial Period, the archaeology of piracy and cemetery studies. He has written or edited 10 books. E. Thomson Shields, Jr. is emeritus in the English Department at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. His research has focused on American exploration and frontier literature.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsList of FiguresIntroduction: What Was the Lost Colony?Part I—What We Know1. The Background History: What Do We Know deleteand How Do We Know It?The Adventure Begins (1584)First Colonization Attempt (1585–1586)Second Colonization Attempt (1587–1590)Looking for the Lost Colony (1600– )2. First Retellings: The Roanoke Colonies in Print deleteto the Early Seventeenth CenturyHakluyt’s Principal Navigations (1589 and 1598–1600)The Roanoke Colonies in Print, 1590–1606Early Jamestown Writings and the Roanoke Colonists (1606–1610)Smith, Strachey, and Purchas (1612–1626)3. The Archaeology of the Lost ColonyEarly SearchesNational Park ServiceVirginia Company FoundationFirst Colony FoundationSite XArchaeology of Hatteras IslandPart II—What We Think We Know4. From Histories to Stories: Becoming The Lost Colony“Starved or Killed by Indians”: Seventeenth-, Eighteenth–and Early ­Nineteenth-Century HistoriesThe Early ­Nineteenth Century: A Growing Sense of MysteryVirginia Dare and Becoming The Lost ColonyFrom the 1850s to the Present5. The Prevailing HypothesesThe ScenariosEpilogue6. Fringe “Theories”: How Far Can We Go?Conclusion: What We Don’t Know and How We Don’t deleteKnow ItAppendix: The Players: Major Figures in the Roanoke Colonization Ventures and Early Searches for the 1587 ColonistsChapter NotesBibliographyIndex