Share and Follow
A 400-year-old map called ‘La Virginea Pars’ created by John White, a cartographer from the Roanoke colony, might hold the key to uncovering the mystery of the lost Roanoke colony. Scholars have been trying to solve this mystery for many years, and the map could provide important clues.
In 1587, a group of colonists arrived at an island between North Carolina and the Outer Banks to establish the first permanent English settlement.
But three years later, the more than 100 colonists and all traces of their settlement vanished.
The map shows the coastline of North Carolina, starting from the community of Currituck in the northeast and extending down to the middle of the coast. Interestingly, there is a conspicuous blank spot on the map near present-day Bertie County, located at the western edge of Albemarle Sound. This particular area is close to where the English observers last saw the Roanoke colonists, less than 100 miles away.
A close inspection of the map revealed a blank spot. It appeared that someone had covered up a small section, but never drew a correction over it.
The details hidden within the centuries-old map could potentially offer valuable insights into the fate of the Roanoke colony. Researchers believe that studying this map more closely may finally provide answers to the enduring mystery that has puzzled scholars for centuries.
It also happens to match the location of a site called 31BR246, where archaeologist Nicholas Luccketti of the James River Institute for Archaeology discovered pieces of English ceramic artifacts in 2007.
This raised an interesting question: Could this be the location that the Roanoke settlers fled to from their island colony?
A close inspection of John White’s map, ‘La Virginea Pars,’ revealed two faint outlines that appeared to be repairs: small pieces of paper had been used to cover an error. One of the repairs was left totally blank, with no correction drawn over the amendment
British Museum experts analyzed the map’s blank repair using a light box, revealing the symbol for a fort underneath. Experts now believe the Roanoke colonists moved to this site from their original location on the island
More than 400 years ago, Queen Elizabeth I and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh had hoped the 1580s expedition to America would create a new capital for England, but something went terribly wrong.
The ship, carrying 115 explorers, was the first to bring women and children to the Americas.
The group included Governor John White’s pregnant daughter Eleanor White Dare.
Several weeks after they landed in Roanoke, Eleanor gave birth to the first English baby born in the New World and named her Virginia Dare.
Governor White soon returned to England to ask for more supplies but was held up in England for three years while the English warred with Spain.
When he was finally able to make it back in 1590 on his granddaughter’s third birthday, the colony was deserted.
‘La Virginea Pars,’ was drawn by John White, a cartographer who was part of the group of colonists that sailed to Roanoke Island in 1585 to establish the first permanent English settlement there. Today, this island is part of North Carolina
In 1587, a group of colonists arrived on Roanoke Island to establish the first permanent English settlement there. But three years later, the more than 100 colonists and all traces of their settlement vanished — leaving only the word ‘CROATOAN’ carved in a wooden post
Archaeologists have uncovered artifacts belonging to the people of the lost colony
The only trace of the settlers he found was the word ‘CROATOAN’ carved into a wooden post, which was the name of another island just south of Roanoke and a Native American tribe that lived there.
Numerous theories have surfaced about what happened to the 115 English settlers.
Some suggest they died from disease, were massacred by either Native Americans or Spanish settlers or assimilated into a nearby Native American tribe, either as friends or slaves.
In 2012, British Museum curator Kim Sloan and her colleague, paper conservator Alice Rugheimer, placed Governor White’s map on a light box to reveal what was behind the blank cover-up.
They found something they never expected to see: the symbol for a fort.
‘I said to Alice, ‘I think we just discovered the intended site for the ‘Cittie of Raleigh,’ the colony that John White was sent to Virginia to found,’ Sloan told Popular Mechanics. ‘And then I think I swore.’
Several years earlier, the archaeologist Luccketti found ceramic fragments at a site called 31BR246, which matched the fort location on the map.
He determined that these fragments were Border ware, a specific type of English pottery that had been ‘limited to the earliest settlement sites in Virginia, possibly dating back to the sixteenth century, he told Popular Mechanics.
Another clue was discovered in 1937, the Dare Stone that was believed to be written by Eleanor White Dare, Roanoke Governor John White’s daughter, and possibly tells the story of what happened to the settlers when they left their colony on Roanoke
Written from Eleanor’s perspective, it describes how the colonists left Roanoke and endured two years of ‘Misarie’
The find suggested the archaeologists had stumbled upon a previously unknown English settlement.
When its marked location was uncovered from White’s map years later, experts began to think the Roanoke settlers left the island and traveled about 100 miles to 31BR246, which is now known as Site X.
North Carolina’s First Colony Foundation (FCF) conducted a more thorough investigation of the site using multiple types of satellite-based remote sensing technology, but the researchers found ‘no topographic features resembling a settlement like Jamestown or Plymouth,’ according to the study.
What’s more, excavations did not reveal the fort that had been marked and then concealed on White’s map.
But it did unearth more English artifacts, including additional pieces of Border ware, an early type of aglet (the metal tip of a shoelace), a tenter hook (a nail used to secure cloth over a wooden frame) and more.
While this suggested the area was unlikely to have been a relocation site for the entire Roanoke colony, it could have still been a refuge for a few of them.
Based on the discovery of these artifacts, the FCF concluded that there was an English presence at Site X that could only have come from the Roanoke colonists.
The experts speculated that these people could have been a small colonial family seeking the help from a Native American village called Mettaquem.
The FCF plans to continue investigating Site X in search of more evidence of the English presence there, and any clues that could offer more information about what happened to the residents of the Lost Colony in 1587.
Another clue, known as the Dare Stone, was discovered in 1937.
It featured writing believed to have been left by Eleanor White Dare, the daughter of John White, and possibly tells the story of what happened to the settlers after they left their colony on Roanoke.
On one side of the stone, beneath a cross (the emergency symbol), the message reads:’Ananias Dare & / Virginia Went Hence / Unto Heaven 1591 / Anye Englishman Shew / John White Govr Via.’
The other side of the stone provides more detail about what supposedly happened to the colonists after Governor White returned to England in 1587. Written from Eleanor’s perspective, it describes how the colonists left Roanoke and endured two years of ‘Misarie.’
According to experts, the stone indicates that more than half of the settlers died. It also mentions that news eventually came of a ship arriving off the coast.
