The Lost Colony of Roanoke | Pt. 1

In 1584, this guy named Walter Raleigh (that we’re pretty sure the first Queen Elizabeth was hot for) had a ton of money and got the rights to start exploring the New World (AKA America). A few months after getting the go-ahead in an official document called Raleigh’s Charter, Raleigh sent a crew of peeps (mostly military dudes and a few explorers) over to the New World on a reconnaissance mission which lasted a mere 10 months before they pansied out… OKAY fine, they ran out of food… the group landed on Roanoke, present day North Carolina, but it was bad drought and like I said they lost food and stuff, so basically all but 10 of them went home.  

Raleigh hadn’t had enough though (probably because he wasn’t actually on the trip) and wanted to send out a new group of colonists to actually settle the area. In an attempt to make a more permanent settlement on the second trip John White (who was the trip’s leader) got himself a group of colonists that consisted of 90 men, 17 women and 9 children (because a 5:1 ratio on men to women seems pretty permanent to us) that included his daughter Elinor and her hubby Ananias Dare. But they didn’t have a ton of food due to some poor planning and little ship upset so a few months after arriving White was voted off the island and back to England. Oh, and also, the 10 people the previous colony left behind weren’t there when they arrived so… bummer.

That’s about where we get to in this episode… you should probably listen though cause it’s kind of a good time.