Kara

Hey everybody, this is Kara.

Ed

And this is Ed.

Kara

And this is your day's dumpster fire.

Ed

Where we don't celebrate humanity's successes, but its most fantastic failures. Hello. Dumpster fire in the morning. This is very rare for us. Usually it's late at night where we're desperately trying to stay awake.

Kara

Right now we are awake.

Ed

But I figure this time we have a uh we have a nice two-week holiday, and we actually get to record in the daylight. It's kind of weird.

Kara

Look at us go.

Ed

I know, I know we set like an eight o'clock record time and an hour and eleven minutes later we we it's fine.

Kara

It's fine. Dogs had to pee, I had to pee.

Ed

Yeah. I'm on a new blood pressure medication, so I have to pee. I'll probably have to pee like 10 times.

Kara

Yeah, see?

Ed

Yep.

Kara

It's okay. We're old.

Ed

So yeah, what we've got a uh a vastly different episode today compared to what we've done recently. Like I feel like recently it's been kind of like a a a mixed bag of just all sorts of stuff, but now we are going back to the good old days to the to the old American colonies.

Kara

Yeah. Hitting up the 1500s. I wanted to go back in time for a little bit because I missed it. Um I'm also practicing my research practices just because I want to. So I've been wanting to improve my research skills lately, and this is the perfect opportunity to do it.

Ed

Yeah, and when you guys go onto our website, thedaysdumpsterfire.com, Kara likes to put up like when she puts up show notes, it is legit show notes. Like it is everything that we type up in the process of trying to prepare, which I didn't know that. I'm like, oh wow, I should have made my notes make a little bit more sense. But like, you know you're when Kara's practicing her research techniques, when you see the work cited pages like properly formatted and like MLA.

Kara

Yes.

Ed

Uh the only thing that is next step is to add in-text. Oh, yeah. Yep. In-text or footnotes.

Kara

Yep.

Ed

Well, but that that's not MLA if you add footnotes.

Kara

That's no, it's not Chicago. Well, in fact, these are my work cited is actually in Chicago format, too.

Ed

Is it really? But oh that would explain why it's not double spaced.

Kara

Yeah. I said it for Chicago Chicago, and then uh I just haven't done the in-text because I'm working my way up to it. But I'm I guarantee you in the next few episodes, you'll have your footnotes and a whole the whole deal. Well, it because why not?

Ed

It's sad because I'm an I'm an English lit major, and like it's so weird that so like you you have a history background. Yeah, and your history background, like every you like you've got to have multiple sources, and you've got to have everything properly cited, and you've got to have supporting evidence, and and this and that, which I have exposure to that. I'm definitely I've definitely done that, especially in my education background. But when I got into my English degree, it's like we don't want to see a works cited page, we don't want to see citations, we want you to read uh of Aaron Angels by John Dunn, and we want you to interpret that thing. And everything has to be completely original and all that stuff. So it's like it's so weird. I'm so used to like you everyone thinks that oh, an English degree, you've got to cite everything. That's only like a small part of it. Most of it is like coming up with original ideas, yeah. And then when I got into education, that's where we had to do a lot of citing and and and stuff like that.

Kara

Supporting evidence.

Ed

So like when you look at my notes, it's just like uh I just have a bunch of uh here's a bunch of links. Links, yeah.

Kara

That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. I just go overboard because I want to practice because I want to better myself, I don't want to get rusty.

Ed

That makes sense. So yeah, we've got the uh the lost colony of Roanoke.

Kara

Yes. Um, that's how it started, at least. So my original goal was to prove why the colony was a dumpster fire, and obviously, like the people disappeared, so yes, it's a dumpster fire. But also it was in in my view, it was Queen Elizabeth's personal dumpster fire of trying to colonize in the United States before Jamestown.

Ed

Well, yeah, and it's it's a hot mess because it's one thing to send out a ship and like get have it get caught in a hurricane and sink. Okay, that that happens, right? It's another thing where you are trying to set up a city and then that whole city disappears. Like you you you you you set this colony up, you gotta come home, you get stuck at home because of wars, and then you come back and you're like, I left it right here. This whole colony, hundreds of people, I left them right here, and there's not a trace to be like they couldn't even find like cabins, like they couldn't find buildings, they couldn't find anything, right?

Kara

Uh there's a few things like there's there were some cannonballs and some metal bars and stuff like that, heavy things that can't be carried.

Ed

And there was a rock, wasn't there? Like with a weird inscription on it.

Kara

Uh that was found later and it turned out to be fake.

Ed

Oh.

unknown

Yeah.

Kara

The Dare, the Dare Stones. Oh, that's disappointing. Oh, yeah, it's it's really interesting. There is one rock that was found that they think was engraved by Eleanor Dare uh later on. But the other ones, because there was a set of other ones that were found in like the 30s, I think it was, and those turned out to be fakes.

Ed

Yeah, I guess they would sell. Like that would that would leave it to America to find a way to profit off of hundreds of people disappearing.

Kara

Well, you know, I have my own opinions of what I think happened to the people, but uh, we're not going to hit that too much today. I want to mainly focus on uh Elizabeth's attempts to colonize in the New World and her uh competition with Spain in this period.

Ed

Yeah. Um, because I know like her father fascinating. Her father, like Henry, the supreme douchebag that he was, he did have enough vision to be like that America is where it's at. Like the future of Europe is going to play out in the Americas. And I feel like he was real big on that. And he he did spend a lot of time like building the shipyards and everything like that that England would later on use to build their massive navy that would then colonize America and like a set of car keys, lose a couple of those colonies.

Kara

It happens, especially your first try. Yeah, you get a crash car. So we're gonna talk about how she crashed the car the first time.

unknown

Okay.

Kara

Well, it wasn't really her fault, but it's fine.

Ed

It's fine. Yeah, she gave the keys to somebody else and they crashed it.

Kara

That's exactly what happened. So we will start in England in the 1500s. So just to set the stage a little bit, uh, Elizabeth I gained the throne after the death of her half-sister Bloody Mary in 1558. Mary was staunchly Catholic, making Catholicism the primary religion in England during her reign, and she was married to Philip II of Spain at the time of her death. So this is important. Mary, super Catholic, married to Philip of Spain, super Catholic. When Elizabeth I took the throne, she put in policies in favor of Protestantism and reinstated the Church of England after Mary died. At first, Philip, Mary's husband from Spain, asked Elizabeth for her hand in marriage, thinking politically it makes sense. And he wanted to make sure that Spain and England had some sort of relationship, but it didn't pan out that way. He wanted her to net to denounce her Protestant religion, and she was like, I'm not doing that. He was the first of many suitors that she would ultimately deny marrying during her reign, and she was a single lady for the rest of her days.

Ed

Well, I feel like Elizabeth, like I feel like she would not have had an issue getting married, but she was not gonna let her husband tell her what to do.

Kara

Yeah, no, she was not dumb, she was very, very intelligent, and she wanted to make sure that she had full control of England while she was alive.

Ed

No, if if if a suitor came along, like, hey, you know, I I'm on board with everything, uh, I'll I'll be a prince, and I I I would do that. I I don't have a problem being a stay-at-home prince, like right, nice lifestyle, but but that but we're also living at a time though where men were it was a very male-dominated society, and every guy, like, oh, I'm gonna marry Queen Elizabeth and I'm gonna make her bake me pies in the kitchen, and that that that doesn't get well with Elizabeth.

Kara

No, no, she she ain't that type of lady.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

So by 1560, Philip II struggled financially in Spain due to multiple conflicts in Europe to stay in their powerful position. So right now, they are a world superpower. They're getting a lot of financial gain from the Caribbean and their other colonies in the New World. Uh, these included, these uh conflicts included not just revolts and rebellions over land, but they were also over religious ideologies, primarily from the Protestants. So he's putting down religion, religious revolts across Europe as well as revolts over land. At the same time, in England, Elizabeth decided her best move was to stay out of it. She she didn't want anything to do with Spain's issues. She's like, that's not my problem. But that didn't mean that she wouldn't get involved in Spanish affairs entirely. By the 1570s, Elizabeth was sending out ships to loot, pillage, and annoy Spanish fleets in Europe and in the New World. And while she was doing this, she was also playing dumb. She was like, I don't know why those guys took your ship.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

Kara

What do you mean your ship was pillaged? I don't know what you mean, she knew.

Ed

Yeah, I mean while she's promoting Raleigh, like, hey, hey, nice job in sinking all these Spanish ships and then turning around, like, Raleigh, who? I don't know, but the name of Raleigh. Like, what's he doing? I'll I'll I'll I'll investigate. And if I find something, I'll stop him. And then like she turns around and tells him, Oh, there's gonna be 50 more ships out there, take them all down.

Kara

Yes, exactly. So she never admitted publicly that she had any involvement in any of these activities on the world stage, but in all reality, she was the one calling the shots. Yeah, it was yeah, she she was smart, she knew what she was doing.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

Kara

All right, let's get into it. 1577. Queen Elizabeth I receives a document entitled A Discourse, How Her Majesty May Annoy the King of Spain by fitting out ships of war under the pretense of letters patent to discover and inhabit strange places. That is the official title.

Ed

I love those titles.

Kara

It's so great. A discourse, how her majesty may annoy the king of Spain by fitting out ships of war under the pretense of letters patent to discover and inhabit strange places.

Ed

Yep. Titles back then, they they were they were something else. They're not like today, where it's like the Hunger Games or The Lord of the Rings. No, back then the title, if it didn't consume the whole front like covering. Yeah, yeah. It's just like, oh, I could just read the title and it's like its own cliff notes.

Kara

Oh, it's amazing. So, in other words, this this document was used then as an excuse for the Queen's plans to sabotage Spain. The document stated that the Queen granted permission for Sir Humphrey Gilbert and other English explorers to explore and discover areas of the new world. And in all reality, the queen wanted her men to go out and loot Spanish ships under the guise of exploration. So officially, on paper, she is sending out these explorers to explore new land. But in all reality, she just wanted to loot and pillage Spanish ships. It's fine.

Ed

But she knew nothing about it.

Kara

No, no, no, she didn't know. She's just exploring.

Ed

Yeah. She can't control these. Exploring the cargo holds of Spanish ships. That's what Krap was doing.

Kara

She is she she just wanted she doesn't she can't control these men.

Ed

Oh, little old Elizabeth. Oh, little old lady. Yeah, I can't control these guys. They're so manly and unwieldy.

Kara

Uh by 1578, the Queen was granting patents for explorers to the New World or around the New World. She did this for several reasons. Britain's presence in the New World would bring the country trade, resources, money, and it would be a step in the right directions in terms of the conflict with Spain. So, resource-wise, economically, it makes a lot of sense to have some sort of either military or civil colony in the New World because that would bring in resources for England and not for Spain. One such patent was granted to explore Sir Humphrey Gilbert, explorer Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who had made two voyages to the New York.

Ed

We're not going to explore Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

Kara

I mean, I'm not down, but you do you. He made two voyages to the New World, but he didn't settle there. He didn't make any uh attempt to put a military um settlement there or anything. Gilbert had six years to pillage and then find a place to settle. So he used most of that time to pillage Spanish ships because, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

Kara

And he realized he was running out of time to satisfy the queen's goals here. Um, like, yeah, we got a lot of money for the queen, but we didn't get any resources or settlement or gain from the New World itself. By 1583, Gilbert set sail for the New World a third time with five different ships. One of those five ships was under the command of Sir Walter Raleigh. I will pronounce his name right, I promise. Raleigh was an interesting dude and a personal favorite of the Queen after a successful run in the military back in Europe. He was a distinguished writer, statesman, military man, and he was an explorer, making himself indispensable to Queen Elizabeth. So he was the Queen's right-hand man. She loved him. The 1583 voyage was a hot mess. It was a bad deal. Raleigh and his ship was forced to turn back early because they didn't have enough for resources to make the trip. Gilbert and everyone else perished in a storm. Oh. It was believed that everybody died on that voyage, except for Raleigh, because he had to turn back for resources.

Ed

Interesting. So much. Was this like done by like Florida or no?

Kara

It was closer to Europe, I think.

Ed

Okay.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

I know there's a lot of like a lot of these ships would leave Europe at say springtime, but then they would they would land in the like southeastern parts of America right around like August, September, and that's like hurricane season.

Kara

Yeah, they tried to time it to where they could get around hurricane season, but sometimes it just didn't work out.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

But yeah.

Ed

And there's the whole Pyramidor Triangle thing with the aliens and and all that stuff.

Kara

Yeah, I'm not even gonna touch that. It's fine. On the bright side of this failed voyage, the queen had Raleigh overtake the operations of settling a colony or a settlement in the new world. Raleigh's new shiny charter had his name on it and everything. It was super special. And it was set to march for it was set for March of 1584 to leave England. So it was originally Gilbert's mission. And then because Gilbert and everybody died, the Queen's like, all right, Raleigh, here you go. You can have this. Raleigh's task was to organize a voyage to settle in the New World and use the settlement as a British military base. Queen Elizabeth wanted to compete and pillage the Spanish while benefiting from local tribes like trade and resources while there. The potential site had to be able to fulfill all of these things. So it had to be a place where the you could potentially have soldiers there for a long period of time while settling while while trading and making positive relations with the native people in the new world.

Ed

That's that's a tall order. When you when you think think about that, those orders, like it's intimidating enough as is to just try to set up a colony.

SPEAKER_01

Oh yeah.

Ed

In a land that's trying to kill you, let alone make sure that it's strategic, as well as in a position where it can be in the offensive, and oh yeah, and you need to be able to trade with the locals.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

Ed

Like, especially if you've never been there before. That's just it's just crazy to like where do you even begin on something like that?

Kara

Well, I did want to note that the English knew and understood the Spanish, um, what's the word? The Spanish way of dealing with the local people in the new world.

Ed

Oh, okay. So basically Spain's Spain's ability to socio and economic strategy of Native Americans.

Kara

Yeah, they were very violent. They didn't want to have anything to do with the native culture, they wanted the natives to assimilate into their Catholic religion, or they were going to die. Yep. And that that's how Spain went about it.

Ed

Yeah, that's why I like the Southwest Native Americans. That's why in Arizona there's those Catholic uh missions set up from way back when and all that kind of stuff.

Kara

Conquistadors and they were very violent about it, very forceful about it. England took a different, a very different approach. They went the opposite way. England had the approach of, okay, we are going to treat they called them savages. I don't like using that word. Yeah. But we are going to treat these people like people. We're going to be friendly, we are going to try to learn their culture, we'll try to learn their language, and we're going to try to have a positive relationship with the natives there. That was the English approach, and it always has been.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Um, so I I do want to make that clarification that the Spanish had one approach to handle their um relationships with the native people, while the English took a very different approach.

Ed

Well, yeah, the English English saw everything as like an investment. Whereas Spain, they didn't see things at that time. I'm not talking about Spain today, I'm talking about Spain back then. Spain, they just saw everything as a resource. For example, like when they pulled slaves out of Africa to go to Brazil, like your life expectancy was like seven months. Whereas if you're a slave, and I'm not saying this is any better or appropriate, but if you were if you were going to be a slave, you'd want to be on a British ship. Because the British were like, we and and I'm using this very loosely because the way that these slaves were transported on the British ships were absolutely deplorable. But once they actually got to the destination and the slaves were sold, they were treated as an investment. You want to you want to take care of them because they can make you a lot of money, the same way like the Native Americans, let's not just get off the boat and shoot everybody. Let's let's see what they have to offer. And and and try to work with them. And in a lot of the early uh British interactions with the Native Americans, it was very peaceful. Like, yep.

Kara

It was very peaceful, very positive. There's a lot of sources uh that prove a lot of assimilation into Native tribes. So you had a lot of white European colonists assimilating with the tribe, taking on the tribe's culture, their foods, their language, basically integrating themselves with the Native American culture, not the other way around. Um, and then you hit the 1800s and they try to cover all that up.

Ed

Well, I would even say more like the 16 going into the 1700s, that's where it all kind of fell apart.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

It yeah. And and then I would love to get a Native American history professor on here that I think talking about that would be that'd be really great. Uh that would be a a fascinating conversation to find out why why did that break down?

Kara

Yeah, that would be an interesting conversation for sure.

Ed

I'll have to send out an email.

Kara

Anyway, uh I just wanted to make that clarification is uh they they really tried to think about this and how they could handle this goal of theirs. They really tried to plan it out. Raleigh organized a recon team to find the perfect location per Elizabeth's requests. He sent out two ships with two captains, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow, and the crews that left the New World in April of 1584. Raleigh did not go himself. The Queen felt he was too important. And also, I learned this this morning. The Queen also knew that Raleigh had um dreams, big, big dreams of him founding a city in the new world, calling it um calling it after him, like naming it after him, and essentially like being the king of the sea over in the new world. And Elizabeth was like, I'm not doing all that, you're staying here with me. Uh, plus, you're like, I need you here, keep an eye on him. I mean, he's he's really handy to have around anyway. The voyage itself was difficult. It took a little over four months. There were little provisions, and only officers got a hammock. So think about this: you're a sailor or an artist or a scientist or whatever. Uh, because we didn't have just soldiers going on this trip, there was also artists and stuff like that. Uh, only your officer got a hammock. Everybody else got to sleep on the floor. People were frequently sick, people were getting sick all the time, food, food would spoil quickly. Uh, there are even sources that say that the water would spoil because it was so hot on board. Uh, it's just overall, it's not great. It's not a good time. And these voyages would last about four months, a little bit more than four months. So that's uh that's what you get.

Ed

That's a long time on a boat. And these boats weren't like what we are used to seeing in like the British fleet, like in the 1800s. Uh, they were way shorter, they were very top-heavy, so they bobbed around in the water a lot. Uh, they didn't have a lot of room for storage. So, like, I know, and and this is I don't want to say this is the early days of exploration, but it's pretty early on. Uh, the big thing was a nutrition. They just didn't know what a human being had to have and what they could live without. Like, you know, a lot of them thought, like, well, you have to have sugar, but you don't have to have salt. Or you have to have potatoes, but you don't you don't need oranges or anything like that. Like, because they had no idea of vitamin C and stuff like that. There was a lot of discussion and a lot of research back then, like, we only have so much room, we've got to put on the bare necessities. Turns out humans need a lot of crap to be healthy.

Kara

Yeah, which explains all the sickness going on.

Ed

Oh, yeah. Scurvy, like everybody, uh like those sailors back then, a lot of them had scurvy, they were bow-legged and and all that stuff. But hey, you gotta learn somehow.

Kara

Yeah, it's a good time. This trip will be the first of five Elizabethan voyages to North America during this period. So we're gonna talk about five different voyages back and forth. This is the first of five.

Ed

Okay.

Kara

All right. Here we go. So the first one, 1584. The British knew that the Spanish ships would follow the sea current when traveling from Europe to their colonies near the Caribbean. On their way back, they would travel up the Gulf Stream, going north up to Croatan Island and through the outer banks of what is now North Carolina. I have handy maps here, so if you want to pop onto our website, check out the show notes, you can see what I'm talking about. The outer banks of North Carolina were right in the path of the Spanish ships going back to Europe, likely full of goods and gold. Seems legit. Seems like a good spot. Understanding the different current systems in the ocean, Raleigh and his team determined that anywhere just north of the Croatoan Islands, which are now called the Hatteras Islands, if you're ever looking for it on a map, were a prime place to have a Navy settlement and maybe even a colony in the future. The two captains landed in the New World to scout the area. They were there for about six weeks checking on resources and the native population to see if they were willing to trade and have a relationship with the English. Impressed with the land, the location, and the native population, the men returned to Britain after six weeks of travel, and Raleigh would call the land Virginia after his queen. So that good old Raleigh, he knew how to Oh, isn't like the Virgin Queen? Yep. That's what Virginia is named after.

Ed

So Yeah, because I guess like Elizabethia.

Kara

Yeah, that's a little kind of weird. A little weird. Virginia's a lot. It rolls off the tongue a little bit more. Yeah. Uh another interesting fact, these uh these captains, when they came back to Britain, they brought two native men back with them to Europe, uh, Juan Chies and Manteo. Juan Chies and Manteo would stay in Britain before returning on the voyage. And I did some extra research on this because I I just thought it was interesting. Uh, Manteo was a chief of the Croatoan tribe, and Juan Chies was a Roanoke tribesman. The two men primarily stayed as guests of Raleigh in London while they were there. Juan Chis and Manteo would share information about the land and native culture of the New World before Raleigh sent an exhibition there to establish a Navy post. He went so far as to have Thomas Harriet create a right, create and write down an entire dictionary of the Algonquin language to help the English communicate with any of his in the area. Raleigh also felt it was good PR to have Juan Chies Mateo there to speak to people in Europe. So he would like dress them up in European clothing and just take them down the street to talk with Europeans, which is not great.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

But here we are. It's not a good look now, at least, when if you're looking at it through a uh 2024 lens.

Ed

Uh but then again, though, it's it's not like they could have really taken him to England wearing their normal outfit, yeah. Because people would be like, well, they they were literally aliens. Yeah, they're they're really viewed as like somebody from another planet. And so, like, they I'm I'm certain by dressing them up in British attire, yeah, it it would help with some of that that shock of like you're not from around these parts, are you? Kind of a thing.

Kara

Yeah, that's true. Um, we also don't have any source that talks about how um they made this friendship with Manteo and One Cheese and how that decision was made to get them to come onto the British ship. Um, but it's it would be interesting to read. That would be an interesting read.

Ed

Yeah, yeah. I wish it were I wish there was like a like a first person essay or whatever, something that that talked about, hey, we got these two guys on the boat that were taking them to England.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

Should be interesting.

Kara

Overall, the 1584 voyage was considered to be a raving success in the eyes of the Queen, and Raleigh was able to get enough investors for a second voyage in 1585. So, hey, we did it. That one, not as much of a dumpster fire as it could have been primarily a success, but it's also important to understand that this is a starting off point for our five voyage series here. The 1585 voyage was made up of 600 men under Sir Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane. Grenville was in charge of the seven ships on the journey and everybody on board. An interesting note, only one ship out of the seven belonged to the Queen. All of the other ships belonged to private investors. Her ship was the largest, built by her father and named the Tiger. The Queen sent this ship under the terms of receiving a percentage of any profits made from plundering Spanish ships. This is going to be a pattern.

Ed

Like this is all she doesn't know anything about.

Kara

Yeah. She, she, she, yes. She also sent this is the best part. She also sent 400 pounds of gunpowder, not for use against the Native Americans, but it was meant as a special gift for the Spanish.

Ed

I like that special gift.

Kara

Yes.

Ed

Like this is for just gonna give them 400 pounds of gunpowder and a bunch of cannonballs. Yep. That's like they don't even have to hand them over. She'll just launch them over there.

Kara

Yeah, she'll do it for them.

Ed

Yeah, like here, catch this. This is you know, this 40-pound cannonball moving at like, you know, 500 feet per second.

Kara

I love it. Also on this boys' voyage where Jonchi Samanteo, they were aboard the tiger to go home. About a week in, a storm blew through and scattered all seven ships. Those on board the tiger, including Grenville, had no idea what happened to the other ships, as there's no way to communicate with them after being scattered. Unbeknownst to them, one of his ships, which I just thought this was funny, ended up landing in Portugal. And they stayed there. They never continued the voyage. They were like, screw this, I'm out. So they lost the ship to that.

Ed

Portugal. Oh, that's funny. It's like we just get off, like I can just imagine these guys, like they're all sick and everything, and they just get off, and the captain just throws the keys at some Portugal garden, like, here it's all yours.

Kara

Take this, we're staying.

Ed

We're out.

Kara

Yep. By the time the tiger reached the outer banks, they were able to rendezvous with one other ship, the Elizabeth. They also raided three Spanish ships, scoring lots of money and men, and they sent two of them back to England for the Queen. So good for them. But by the time the Tiger reached the Outer Banks in June of 1585, they were the last of the seven ships to arrive, probably due to all the fun they were having raiding Spanish ships. Oh one historian I was listening to about this when I was initially starting was uh he explained that as uh he called it terrorism against the Spanish. I was like, that's justifiable, but it's just pretty funny to me. Now, now looking back with uh with the hundreds of years behind us, it's funny.

Ed

Uh yeah, yeah. It's just like I feel like the Spanish were kind of like the brunt of a lot of uh jokes back then.

Kara

I'm sure Philip was getting so annoyed.

Ed

Well, and the thing is it wasn't like the Spanish fleet was something to bulk at.

Kara

Like it was a pretty Oh, it wasn't a very impressive fleet.

Ed

Yeah, like they they were a viable threat. Yeah, like if not the most viable threat. And I do remember uh and I and I read this reading um some first hand accounts in my uh early American lit classes, as well as even in the 1800s, they could always tell they could always find the Spanish ships uh before they could even see them via the smell. I guess like Spanish ships were notorious for smelling really, really bad, especially slave ships.

Kara

I was just gonna say the slave ships um during this time period had that reputation as well. Everybody knew like a day or two before the ship got there because of the smell.

Ed

Oh, oh, that's just what a what a reputation to have. Awful world's biggest, smelliest navy.

Kara

Well, despite all this fun that the English were having with the Spanish ships and good fortune, the tiger, the ship carrying a majority of the resources, like food and booty that came from the Spanish, ran aground off the oh, uh I'm gonna try here.

Ed

Yeah, okra coke and island. Yeah, Wokoken.

Kara

Okay, cool.

Ed

Or Wokoken.

Kara

Wokokin. I'm I'm so sorry if I butchered that. I I'm really trying. Anyway, uh, this means that the ship got stuck because the water was too shallow. So the bottom of the ship got stuck in the sand for for the listeners who don't know what running aground means. Um, and it's essentially you could call it a shipwreck. And this was an absolute disaster. This happened right when they got there, maybe a couple days in. Men had to throw resources and supplies overboard to try and lighten the load. There are even stories of men throwing horses overboard to try and lighten the load to try to get the ship free. Yeah, it was it was awful. So they lost all of these resources.

Ed

Well, and they had to wait for high tide. Because that's a lot of times they would they would crash, uh, they would run aground on low tide, but it's not like they had a lot of experience with this coastline, so they didn't know if it was low tide or high tide. And so they would have to wait until it's high tide, so it could be stuck there for like two weeks. You would have men in these rowboats with a rope attached to them, all this like trying to row backwards. Like running aground is probably next to a fire, I think running aground is probably the next worst thing because you were literally a sitting duck. Yeah, the only hope you would have is that you couldn't be boarded. Uh you couldn't be easily boarded by another ship because if they tried to sail it next to you, then they would run aground.

Kara

Yeah, that's true.

Ed

That was that's the only same grace, but otherwise you're just kind of there until you get waiting to be shot.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Uh so Grenville understood that his men's would never survive after losing so much, so many resources and gold and all of this stuff. They they most of it was ruined because they had to throw it into the water. So he decided that he was going to take all the really big ships back, minus the tiger, to raid the Spanish, of course. Like he needed the big ships to raid the Spanish. And he also took 495 out of the 600 men back to England for more supplies. He also sent word to Sir Walter Riley ahead of time to send more supplies over there. Hopefully, that ship would get there before Grenville could get back. And he left Commander Ralph Lane in charge of the 105 men who remained in the Outer Banks and eventually establishing Fort Raleigh on Roanoke Island. A word on Lane. He was not exactly a nice person, or so it would seem in the sources that we have available. He was a harsh commander with a strong military background. Diplomacy just it wasn't his thing. He was organized, he knew what he was doing in a military sense, but he was not very tactful. No, no, he was very harsh, very violent. He was one of those guys who thinks you could solve the world's problems with violence.

Ed

Oh, one of those guys. Yeah. Because they they really move humanity forward.

Kara

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a it's a good time. Um because diplomacy wasn't really Lane's thing, the relationship with the Native Americans began to sour. This isn't great. I'm not sure if Lane understood it or not, but he and his men depended on the native support, and it sounded like he was a real jerk base or really impatient with them, or both. At any rate, the English were beginning to distrust the native populations that surrounded them while at the same time the in America the Native Americans were growing impatient with the English, especially considering that the English were consuming a lot of resources in the area. Not to mention the diseases that spread wherever the English went.

Ed

I've I I've often wondered this did did the Native Americans understand like the diseases were coming from the Europeans?

Kara

Yes.

Ed

Okay.

Kara

I think they caught on to the pattern of you know, wherever you see a white man, people get sick shortly after that.

Ed

Okay.

Kara

I also wanted to note here too, it's important, really, really important to understand when we're talking about the Native American tribes, it there, there, there are tribes, multiple, different tribes. It's not just one large group of people. Um, you have different tribes or clans or whatever of different people, and those tribes are don't always get along. You have warring tribes, you have tribes that get along to grow the great, and you have this complex network of people who have their own problems in the world. So when the English arrived and the relationship started to sour, the relationship wasn't souring with all of the Native American people. It was starting to sour with one local tribe while the other local tribe they had good relations with.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Kara

Um, which we'll we'll dive further into that right now, but I just wanted to make sure that that was understood that it when you're talking about Native Americans, you can't really lump them all together.

Ed

Yeah. Well, I I had a uh I had a uh a history professor in college um that that that was what he did his PhD thesis on was all the Native American tribes. And he said that like on the eastern seaboard alone, uh before Europeans got heavily involved, there were over 400 major tribes, yep, and hundreds more smaller ones, and there was like like you could have like say like the Cherokee, but the Cherokee could be broken up into like 15.

Kara

Yep.

Ed

Like it it's just there are so many like little nations, yeah, exactly.

Kara

So you can imagine the complexities of uh I guess diplomacy within North America amongst the Native American tribes. And so I don't think when people look back at this time period, they think about that. Um but it's important to to note when you're talking about, especially this story in particular, it's it's important to understand.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Um, so if you if I'm gonna give you a little bit of this story because it's ridiculous. Um, here's how it went in a nutshell for those who want to know more. Trust issues between the natives and the English began with a cup. So the story goes. In a secoton, in a secoten village called, I'm gonna butcher it, Aguskog.

Ed

Agus Gogok, yeah. Yeah, I would I would go with that.

Kara

Cool, let's do it. Uh, back in 1584, the Englishman visiting the village noticed a stolen silver cup. As punishment for the stolen cup, Philip Amadis and 16 men burned down the village and grain fields making themselves rivals to the Sekotin tribe.

Ed

Good lord.

Kara

Uh-huh. Brief note the Sekotin were rivals of the Croaton tribe. The Croatoan tribe was Mateo's tribe. The English were told by the natives that their chief, Menatonin, had been wounded fighting the Sekatoan tribe's chief named Wing Wingina. Okay. So we have two competing tribes here. The English had their friend Mateo on one side of the tribe, and they just burned down the village of the other tribe. So they just got themselves in the middle of two warring tribes, probably a conflict that's been going on for some time now, over a cup.

Ed

Uh oh boy. And this isn't the last time that white men messed up everything.

Kara

Well, you know, after the burning of the village over a cup, on top of growing frustrations already mentioned above, Lane found himself in the middle of an old tribal war on the side of the Croaton, but in deep doo-doo with the Secotan. In the midst of this conflict, Lane, Manteo, and his men ended up in a battle with the Sekatin and the Croaton, ending with Lane in possession of Wingina's head. It's not great. Oh, it's not great. Oh, yeah. He's terrible.

Ed

Like, just like having to like explain to everybody like what's going on, and the poor PR person is just like yeah. So uh the silver lining is that we're not dead yet. You can read it, yeah.

Kara

You can read it. Lane wrote to Raleigh on his way back to Britain and told him about all of this. You can read it. I actually have it cited on the bottom there. So if you do want to read it, you can see that.

Ed

We have to look that up. That's a good primary source.

Kara

Oh, it's amazing. I was reading it last night, just like, wow, this guy. Um, it's not great. Overall, Lane and his hundred-ish men were in Roanoke for about 10 months. By the later months, the men were starving and they were desperate for resources. They they did have some help from the Croatoan tribe, but with uh the Sekotin warring with the Croatoan, resources were very scarce and it was hard to come by. Out of desperation, Lane sent one of his captains, Edward Stafford, and 20 men to the Croatoan Islands to give to live with the natives there while keeping an eye on the long-gone Grenville with supplies. So they're still waiting for Grenville to come back, and it's been 10 months, and they're like, Where is this guy? We're getting really hungry, like we're this is a problem. Meanwhile, Lane is screaming at everybody, I'm sure. In June of 1586, about one year after the shipwreck, Stafford shot saw an English fleet of ships heading through the Outer Banks, and it was very exciting. This fleet did not belong to Grenville, but it belonged to Sir Francis Drake. Yes, that Sir Francis Drake, the guy who sailed around the world, yay! One of the first English sailors to make money from the slave trade, boo! Famous for his Spanish pillaging and eventual involvement in the famous Spanish Armada battles on the English side in 1588. We'll get there. But seriously, if if you want to look up Sir Francis Drake facts or trivia, it's really funny. I found a list from one of the museums in Greenwich. It sounds like a list of Chuck Norris jokes. Like it's it's wonderful. I highly suggest you do that. It's fun.

Ed

Yeah, Drake is fascinating.

Kara

He's interesting. Drake is interesting, yeah. So I I I didn't go too much into his background, but if you do want to do a deep dive, I highly suggest it. Um, Drake was on his way back to England after a hard day's work pillaging Spanish ships, probably in Florida, when he landed in Croatone for a resupply, because we are still pillaging ships that Elizabeth doesn't know about.

Ed

Because, you know, priorities.

Kara

Yes. Lane met with Drake and asked for help. He requested a ship to get back to England with enough supplies for 105 soldiers to get home. Drake gave everything to Lane that he He requested plus some extra men. And Lane and his men eventually joined Drake's fleet back to England on a ship. Back to back to England on a ship. Ending the second voyage.

Ed

And they they got on a British ship from Britain to go to Britain. Yes. On a British trip from New Britain.

Kara

Facts. That's that's it. But it ended the second voyage in any attempt to build a lasting settlement in the new world.

Ed

Golly. That's just the second one.

Kara

I know. I'm telling you, it's great. Dumpster fires and dumpster fires and dumpster fires. This is the stuff people don't talk about, and I just thought it was so interesting.

Ed

Uh yeah, it's so when Lane turning into a landfill fire.

Kara

Oh, it's terrible. When Lane returned back to England and he had to face all of these people who paid him to try to stay there, he said that the voyage failed due to the lack of food and supplies. Many other people from the outside looking in blamed Lane's mistreatment of the native people.

Ed

So I just noting that. Like, yes, supplies were an issue, but you're also an ass. And that probably was the catalyst that made things go south quicker.

Kara

Yes. Um, remember that ship that Grenville was supposed to come back with on top of the one sent by Rawlings.

Ed

Oh, yeah, yeah, the wayward supply ship.

Kara

Uh-huh. Well, it it did arrive at Roanoke Island one week after Lane and his men left.

Ed

Beautiful.

Kara

Uh talk about missing each other on the way. That ship returned to England when they came across an empty military base, and then they just turned around and left. They're like, This is stupid. And then they went back to England.

Ed

And then there's a there's a lot of connections here to like trucking.

Kara

It never changes.

Ed

Yeah, you get to the consonee, you ring the doorbell, nobody answers. You just get in your truck and just go back.

Kara

So that was Raleigh's ship. And then uh two weeks after that ship came and it went, Grenville finally returned to Roanoke with three more ships full of supplies. Like he was ready. He was just late. To be fair to Grenville, and he's not the best guy either. He doesn't have a great track record, but he's definitely better than Lane. Uh, he came back and communication is trash. I want you to remember this. He had no idea what he was walking into when he got to Roanoke Island.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

He was unaware of the damage done by Lane in terms of the natives' relationships, the beheading, the diseases, the starvation. He it was a lot. He didn't know about it. He just showed up one day to help his men out and found that nobody was there. Not wanting to give up the land that they had already settled and thinking that things were good with the locals in Roanoke, when in reality the locals that were friendly to the English were not on Roanoke, but on Croatoan, south of Roanoke. Uh, Grenville left 15 guys on the island with supplies for less than two years, thinking that everything was good. Because he didn't want to lose the land. He was like, This island is beautiful and we like it. And I'm just gonna leave these guys here.

Ed

And I'll just a long time to be hanging out with 15 bros.

Kara

Oh, yeah, like it it's it's fun.

Ed

Yeah, you get the yeah, it's gonna turn into like a college dorm party.

Kara

Like, well, you know, that's usually how it went, these early colonies.

Ed

Yeah, 15 dudes left with their own devices for two years. Nothing good's gonna come out of that.

Kara

Oh no, no, it's gonna be an absolute this is another fire. Grenville left for England, but first made sure to stop by the Azores held by the Spanish to pillage and raid. Of course. He was very successful. He brought lots of money back to the queen, and this one's especially famous because they took everything off of the Azores, everything, even door hinges, which I just thought was funny. They took the door hinges.

Ed

They took everything but the fire pit.

Kara

Pretty much. Meanwhile, the 15 men were attacked by Sekatin warriors. Uh, they wanted revenge for the deaths of those who died by disease and they were beheaded. Chief fair. The men highlighted it out. The man hightailed it. There we go. The men hightailed it out of there in a tiny, tiny boat east of Roanoke Island, and they were never seen or heard from again.

Ed

The 15 bros that were left there to conquer America.

Kara

The 15 bros that were left there. Um, as of today, it we don't we still don't really know what happened to them. Uh, it could probably be chalked up to they were lost at sea in their very tiny boat, but we don't have a lot of evidence.

Ed

Well, because I don't think any of them are alive today. So I think they died.

Kara

Yeah, you're right. Well, wasn't that that was fun, wasn't it? That was a good time. We haven't even gotten to the colony yet. Like, this is this is great. So far, the queen hadn't had much luck in finding a good place to settle, but her guys have made a lot of money from raiding and pillaging Spanish ships. And boy, were the Spanish mad. So that's a plus. Woo! That brings us to the 1587 voyage, voyage number four. This voyage was the one, the one that everybody's been waiting for. The voyage that would put England on the map in the new world in terms of a colony. The previous voyage's purpose was military and trade. And make sure we understand that those those previous ones were all for military. This one was a more permanent mission in terms of England's goal to keep up with the Spanish. The 1587 voyage was the first English voyage with women and children set to sail alongside the men, which is what makes it different, which means that they are planning to settle.

Ed

Well, yeah, and it's it's important to know too, like they were setting up all these colonies, and like these colonies were failing, like they weren't growing, and they literally had to bear in mind that in order to make more humans, you you have to have both men and women.

Kara

Yeah, you do need that.

Ed

They literally could not, they did not think of that. They're like, why are these colonies just just withering away? Well you need women. Yeah. Sorry. Like they yeah, they they you you need you need the you need the oven. If you don't have the oven, you can't bake more babies, I guess.

Kara

Yeah. So the plan was this. We're gonna lay out the plan here, all right? In in day's dumpster fire fashion. The plan was to sail to the Outer Banks, stop at Roanoke to pick up those 15 guys that Grenville left there in 1586. Then head further north up to Chesapeake Bay and settle there. Raleigh appointed John White to be the governor of the new colony. A captain was hired, and everything was good to set sail in March of 1587. Plans are in set, put in place, it sounds good, can't fail, right? Um, John White was a painter. Right. John White was a painter, cartographer, and explorer, so he made maps. Uh he had gone to the New World before in 1577. That expedition had different goals, but White took the opportunity to sketch out the land and the people he encountered there on his trip. He was also on Grenville's 1585 voyage to Roanoke, where he did the same thing before returning to England in 1586 with Lane. White seemed like a good choice as a governor for the new colony with previous experience and a good sense of the land. Plus, he probably had an idea of how to create friendly friendly relationships with the natives there, especially after seeing how bad it can go if it's done improperly.

Ed

It's like, do everything this guy didn't do, and don't do anything that this previous guy did, and you'll be just fine.

Kara

Correct. Um, I also wanted to know you can look at uh White's illustrations and maps, they're actually pretty cool. Um you can go and check those out. I was looking at them the other day, but yeah, highly recommend. The captain of this trip was Simon Fernando. Good old Fernando. This guy is a piece of work. So Fernando is a former pirate, which is a good start, uh, who took the and the queen took a liking to him because he had a reputation of pillaging Spanish ships. She has a type. It's fine. The English sailors, however, did not like this guy at all. I don't know if it was the pirate thing, maybe he was a big jerk face. There's just something was off about him.

Ed

My guess it's the pirate thing.

Kara

It's likely the pirate thing.

Ed

They kind of had a bad reputation.

Kara

Yeah, yeah. Which I mean, fair. But also, what what are they doing to the Spanish? Just saying, drawing it out there.

Ed

You're saying this is a two-way road.

Kara

Like, I mean, everything is, right? But it's fine. The total number of colonists was about 117 men, women, and children. Uh, today historians really don't know much about the people who were on board aside from their names. Some of them may have been on board to start a new life. Maybe they went because they wanted some adventure, and maybe they thought they could make a lot of money in the new world. We don't really know, but we do have their list, a list of their names, which I thought was interesting. I also noted that in the works cited page. If you want to go check that out.

Ed

Yes. Uh that that's called a manifest. Yes, it's interesting. Or if you really want to get specific, the bill of lading.

Kara

Ew.

Ed

That's where the term comes from. I know, but ew. For those of you who don't know, in truck driving, uh a truck driver picks up a load and they get what's known as the bill of lading, which is like all the paperwork associated with that load. And it seems like every single time they go deliver that load, that paperwork gets lost. And it is an account manager's nightmare to try to track down missing paperwork.

Kara

Amazing. We still have this paperwork from Roanoke, but we can't find the other. Anyway.

Ed

Yeah, we know some driver managers that like really we can find Roanoke, but we can't find your paperwork from yesterday. Anyway.

Kara

Anyway, John White was bringing his pregnant daughter and her husband with him on the trip. So how bad could it could this go? I mean, he's we we gotta be confident we're bringing a pregnant lady. Mateo was also a passenger on this voyage back to the new world, which I thought was interesting. At this point, he was an acting translator and probably something of an ambassador for the English when they go back to the new world. So he's making himself known with the English. When White and the colonists arrived at Roanoke to pick up the 15 extra men as part of the plan, they found it abandoned with a skeleton and a burnt fort. Um, it was reported to White that the Sekatoan tribe or the Sekatan tribe, sorry, I keep doing that, the Sekatan tribe killed two of the 15 and the rest escaped on a little tiny boat. They didn't know what happened to them after that. After finding out that the men were gone, the pirate Captain Fernando did not want to wait for White while his colonists went to look for the men. He left them on Roanoke without taking him to Chesapeake Bay, as per the plan, claiming it would take too much time, and if they waited any longer, the weather would not permit the captain to leave the area until winter was over. This guy he left 117 colonists with women and children on Roanoke Island and said deuces. Um, he also had the nerve to hire an Irishman to go and tell the Spanish in the Caribbean that the English had set up a colony on Roanoke Island. Oh good. Yeah, isn't he fun? Uh yeah, it's great. So now instead of settling on Chesapeake Bay, which correct me if I'm wrong, Chesapeake Bay was later colonized successfully, like very successfully.

Ed

Yes.

Kara

So this could have been a super successful trip.

Ed

Yes.

Kara

Like this could have worked, but here we are. I just I just want everybody to be aware this could have worked, and Fernando messed it up.

Ed

Yeah, I I I completely I didn't realize the role that Fernando played.

Kara

Oh, yeah, he screwed everybody. Nice.

Ed

Well, I mean, that's what you get for hiring a pirate.

Kara

Yeah, that's fair. Well, not long after arriving on Roanoke Island, a colonist named George Howe was by himself crab fishing. He was attacked while he was fishing, being shot with 16 arrows. So not only are we stuck on Roanoke Island with a Sekatin tribe, really, really mad at English settlers for understandable reasons, but now we have colonists being attacked by that same tribe. It's concerning.

Ed

It's concerning. So the Spanish know, and everybody knows that it's there.

Kara

The colonists didn't know that the Spanish knew, but the Spanish knew, so this is a problem.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Um, the colonists in Manteo met up with the friendly Croatoan tribe for trade, news, and help. They figured, all right, we're being attacked. This Sekatin tribe is super mad at us. We're basically stuck here. We need some help. So they went to the Croatoan for help. They held a feast together, and White was told that Howe and two of his soldiers from the year before were killed by the Psychotan. So they just confirmed what their suspicions were essentially. Uh, John White wrote in his own accounts that they were happy to integrate with the friendly tribe and excited to work with them to create a new settlement. Uh, he made the best of it. I mean, yeah, I can't knock him for that. And his accounts are actually really interesting. So not only read his paintings, but read his accounts, his primary resources, their public domain. You can go find them and read them. You do have to get past the old English or the Middle English, but it is an interesting read. I read some of it, I liked it.

Ed

Yeah. And it's very um, it's like uh everything like starts with like with our Lord, our Lord, Lord, this, God, this, like they were. There's a lot of that. Yeah, very, very religious folks. Yes.

Kara

Remember the time period we were in, we were in Elizabethan England in 1500, 1600s. So that is a big thing. We have not hit the enlightenment yet, it is true. But yeah, read it, it's cool. Um, the colonists attempted to make peace with the Sekotan while they were there, and they they failed, kinda. It's weird. So, this attempt, they they sent out a letter to the Sekotan chief, and they were like, Hey, we want to try to negotiate some peace with you guys with the Croatan. Um, meet us in a week at this place. If you don't meet us to try to make peace, uh, then we're going to have to come after you so we can use this land safely. Like we just need to defend ourselves at that point with violence.

Ed

Let's meet up for a peaceful meeting. And if you don't show up, we're going to kill you.

Kara

That's pretty much what it was. Um, it's interesting, especially considering that they had the Croaton tribe backing them on this. I thought that was an interesting thing as well. And to be fair, like the Croatan did not like the Sekotan tribe, so I understand it, but I just thought it was an interesting dynamic. Uh John White and his daughter were in Roanoke for a few weeks. Oh, wait, sorry, I skipped. So they anyway, they sent out this peace treaty. The Secotan tribe never came. Okay. So what they did was they went the English and the Croatoan went to go attack the Secotan. And when they got there, the Sekotan had a head start. They were gone. They left. They were like, we're out. Because you guys have guns and you also have a tribe backing use, it's not worth it. So at least the rival tribe were out of they were out of the area, and the Croatoan people were very supportive of the colonists and all of that. So the the peace treaty didn't really work, but at the same time, we don't we're not being attacked every day.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Kara

So it's like a compromise, you know, we're not everybody's happy, but it works. John White and his daughter were in Roanoke for a few weeks when her baby arrived. Her name was Virginia Dare, and she is the first English child born in the New World. So that's what she's famous for, for just being born. Good for her. Woo. Um, no, she she has an interesting history to her. Um even though we don't really know what happened to her as a real person, what happened to her reputation-wise is really interesting. And um, yeah, it's it's it's a really interesting story. Um I don't want to get into it here because it it's a rabbit hole that you could go down for long periods of time, but yeah, look into it. It's it's conflicting and interesting. Um yeah. Anyway, yeah, look that up.

Ed

Yeah, I'll have to look that up because I all I remember is that oh, first she's the first, you know, basically first American. And that that was it.

Kara

I didn't know like there was a lot of backstory and there's a lot of um there's a lot of things that people did with her story in terms of like race and religion and that type of thing. Uh especially especially when you get to like the 1940s and 50s, or even in the early 1800s, you get a lot of interesting things with that. But um, yeah, look into that. Um anyway, over the weeks the colonists arrived, so over the few weeks they were there, John White and the colonists began to realize that resources were becoming really scarce and thin. With winter coming, they wouldn't last long on their own, and they knew that they needed resupply from England. It was decided by the leaders of the colony that White was the man for the job. He didn't like it, but he agreed. Before leaving, he told the colonists that if they needed to relocate while he was gone, they were to carve into a tree a name of where they were going to go. If they were leaving because they were in danger or it was an emergency, they would put a cross underneath the name. So the point of this was okay, John White is leaving and he's going to come back. If anything happens, they're going to write down somewhere, carve it so it doesn't go away, not on a piece of paper, but carve it. Write down where you're going to go. And the cross was something that native tribes were not uh familiar with. It was a very English thing. It's a it's a very particular cross. I I honestly don't remember the name of that particular cross. Um, it's in the primary resource. I could probably go and find it, but if that there were any danger, that's what they were supposed to put. So just keep that in mind.

Ed

So, in other words, if he comes back and he sees, hey, we went this way with the little cross under, then he knows to kind of like proceed with caution because proceed with caution.

Kara

We were in danger, we were fleeing for our lives, yeah.

Ed

Got it. Yeah, that's pretty clever.

Kara

Mm-hmm. It's real smart. He's not a dumb guy. So White also buried some of his personal belongings on the island for himself, like books and records and things, uh, for for him to get back when he came, when he returned with his resupply. He then bid farewell to his daughter, son-in-law, his granddaughter, along with all of the other colonists before leaving the island. He didn't know it would take him three years to get back.

Ed

Poor dude. Yeah. So at this time during the three years, like Europe just like fell apart.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

Like a lot of wars, naval wars, all that kind of stuff just kind of came to a head, if I remember correctly.

Kara

Yep, I'm gonna touch on it right now. Oh, yeah, I'm not gonna go into deep detail, but it is a part of the story, and I wanted to make sure that you know it's understood that this is a very European story. Yes, it's part of American history as well, but at this point, Europe and the new world are very much tied together.

Ed

Yeah. In February is a very strong umbilical cord between the two.

Kara

Yes, very much so. It was not clipped until 1778. Anyway, in February of 1587, only a month or so before the colonists left for Roanoke. By the way, this is in Europe, meanwhile, in Europe, in February, Queen Elizabeth had her half-sister, Mary, Queen of Scots, executed. Mary was the heir to the throne and a staunch Catholic queen ruling in Scotland. She was executed with evidence found against her of conspiring against Elizabeth with Philip II of Spain. Philip II took this execution personally, he took it as a personal offense, and that's that that is the straw that broke the camel's back. That is the thing that did it. He began planning out an all-out he began planning an all-out invasion in England that included 130 ships strong Spanish Armada. Yay! In April of 1587, spies for England got word that the crown got word to the crown that Philip was planning his attack. Sir Francis Drake, the same guy from earlier, left for Spain in an attack that would surprise Philip II and delayed the armada for a full year before it arrived in English waters. I think that's the thing that got united. Drake was a hero for England and gave Elizabeth ample time to prepare for her defense. So, April 1587, our colonists are on their way to Roanoke, while at the same time. Philip II is planning his Spanish Armada to go and attack England. Drake bought her a year, and here we are in 1588, the big year. Philip sent his impressive armada to England and was famously defended well under Queen Elizabeth's leadership. I'll even argue that this could be our own show in terms of Philip II's uh perspective of things, because that was another one where he had it all planned out. It was not a good plan, but he had it all planned out and it went horribly wrong.

Ed

Yeah, because I mean he had him outgunned, outmanned, out shipped, like buttons. Oh, yeah, but he British the British just know how to run a boat. Yeah.

Kara

It was a whole thing. So the Anglo-Spanish War is what it was eventually called. It lasted from 1588 to 1603, at about the Queen's death. Meanwhile.

Ed

That's a pretty long war.

Kara

It was pretty long. It lasted a little while. During this time, meanwhile, at the same time, our little buddy. He seems so small now when you're look talking about Philip II and Queen Elizabeth. Our little buddy John White, he did make it back to England right around the same time the war blew everything up, like literally and figuratively. He he this this poor man. So John tried to get back to Roanoke on a resupply mission multiple times, only to be turned down because the war was more important to the crown. Which, I mean, fair.

Ed

Yeah, priorities.

Kara

Yeah, I get it. This is especially true in 1588 with the Armada and all of that stuff. Like I said, I can't blame her. But those are some really bad circumstances for John and his colonists over in Roanoke. That's a bad deal. In 1589, he made another attempt and it was approved. Which is awesome. Thank you. But a few miles from England, White's ship was ambushed by the French. The English defended the ship well, and it took a but it took a lot out of them, and they could not move forward with that voyage. So yeah. I actually found this account to be interesting. Uh, this is White's own words of that particular ambush. He said, I myself was wounded twice in the head, once with a sword, and another time with a s with a pike, and hurt also in the side of the buttocks with a shot.

Ed

So he was two head wounds and he got shot in the butt.

Kara

Yep. He made it out alive, but man, this poor this poor guy. Finally, in 1590, White found a way back. He hitched a ride with his with an old friend, Captain Spicer, who was headed back to the Caribbean to pillage Spanish ships. And he agreed to take White with him and check in on Roanoke on their way back to England. He finally catches a break, this poor dude. Alright. This is the last one. The 1590 voyage to voyage number five. So John White was stuck in England, away from his daughter and granddaughter with little to no communication for three years. The 1590 voyage back was full of raiding and pillaging and excitement because that's what they do. Uh there is a war happening after all. Let's not forget that. Uh, this did take a lot of time. And I can imagine how antsy white was. Like, guys, we just need to get back, stop.

Ed

They keep raiding and pillaging. I feel like he was like kind of like Cooper from Interstellar.

Kara

Yeah, I could see that.

Ed

Like, hey, let's go, let's go, let's go. Like, I've got I got family waiting for me. What are we what's up at the side trips here? Like, do we really have to take out that Spanish dinghy? Like, can we yeah, I can I could totally see his his standpoint here.

Kara

I could too. When the ship finally arrived at the outer banks, so they hit up the Caribbean first, remember, and then they went back up. They hit a rough spot of water. So, like maybe 20 miles before they hit rowing up. They hit a rough spot of water.

Ed

What defines that?

Kara

I guess a super strong current to the point where it causes seven men to drown, including the captain.

Ed

Like, I shouldn't laugh, but it's just it's such an understatement.

Kara

I know, and then that's what I read. I was like, rough spot of water. But then people drowned. Okay, I'll use that wording because it's funny.

Ed

But yeah, it's just like I've heard of like a rough patch of the road or whatnot, but when you think of water, it just sits there. It doesn't I don't know. Maybe maybe Titanic hit hit the Titanic hit a rough spot of water.

Kara

Yeah, the Titanic hit a rough spot of cold water. It's fine.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

But yeah, this the this is a rough spot of water, seven men drowned just trying to get to Roanoke Island, and that included his friend Spicer. This caused a lot of argument, as you can imagine. So, like Spicer's crew no longer had a captain. They lost seven men just trying to get the stupid little island. And there was a lot of argument amongst the crew and white to even just think that it was worth it to stop there. Like, why are we doing this? And at the same time, you have White, who hasn't seen his family in three years, trying to get them to stop. So the larger ship would wait off the coast while White and 19 men would go to Roanoke on a smaller boat to check in on the colony. White and the men had attempted to signal the English colony before they got there by playing familiar English songs. I guess they had some instruments on board. I don't know. I just thought that was fairly interesting.

Ed

Yeah, make their presence known.

Kara

Yep. And uh they were shooting shots in the air, trying to get attention, but they received no response from any of this. They landed on the northeast end of the island and began to walk south where the colony was located. About a quarter mile north of where the settlement was, White and the men stumbled upon a large tree with the letters C R O carved into it. Later, after this whole thing went down, he wrote that he thought the letters meant that the colonists went to Croatoan.

Ed

Okay.

Kara

So they kept walking and they kept walking south towards the colony, and when they got there, it was empty. The houses that were once there were all taken down, dismantled, moved. There was no sign of a struggle, no burned down buildings or splintered lumber or anything like that, no bodies, only a few heavy iron bars, some lead, some tools, some cannonballs. Note those are heavy things.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

So if you're going to travel anywhere, you're going to want to take your wooden houses and not your iron bars. I get that.

Ed

Well, even still, like these wooden houses were like cabins. It's not like you can just tear it down and move. Like these were heavy things. And the fact that they left the cannonballs tells me that, like they they one probably left in a hurry, but two, they left in a way that it wasn't necessarily a defensive move.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

Because they would have taken the artillery and all that kind of stuff with them.

Kara

One interesting thing I read too is that the houses were put together in like joints. So if you think about how East Asia made makes their homes, it's like a bunch of intricate wooden joints. It wasn't as intricate intricate as they had in Asia, but here it was it was the same idea where it was easy to put together and easy to pull apart, but strong enough to keep together when you're using it.

Ed

Um so I thought that was really like IKEA houses.

Kara

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it was.

Ed

They'll pull the little Allen wrenches or like taking apart their house.

Kara

Right. Um, they also noticed that carved on a large tree at the entrance of the site was the word Croatoan. The bark had been peeled from the tree to make it easier to carve, and notably there was no cross underneath the word, signaling that the colonists did not leave by force.

Ed

Interesting.

Kara

White later wrote that he believed the colonists left for the Croatoan people looking for protection and assistance from their native allies. He wrote that in his journals not long after this. The next morning, White and his 19 men planned to sail to the Croatoan Island the next day, because naturally he wanted to go and make sure.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Kara

Croatoan was about 50 miles south down the coast from Groanoke. Unfortunately, this poor guy. Unfortunately for White, as soon as they set sail, a storm hit.

Ed

Of course.

Kara

The wind and bad weather pushed White and his men about 23 miles out to sea.

Ed

All those rough waters.

Kara

They lost almost all of their anchors, so they couldn't safely anchor anymore. And the mood instantly turned sour amongst the 19 men. Remember, they kept arguing about whether to do this at all.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Kara

So then when this happened, they were just they're not having it. They refused to return to Croaton and they all sailed back to the giant ship, waiting for them. And White was taken with him, forced to return to England. So poor dude, he tried.

Ed

I mean, that's just gotta be, you know, as a father of like two daughters, married and all that stuff, like that's gotta be awful to just lose all of that, and you have no idea what happened, and you never will have an idea of what happened.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

That's that's gotta take a toll on on your mental state.

Kara

Yeah, it's um it's rough. The ship that he went home on, just fun fact, it wrecked in Ireland on the return trip, which John White was on. So he he got to experience one last shipwreck before he went home to Ireland. After he was home and safe, just before he died, John wrote to the Queen's historian saying, I greatly joyed that I found a certain token of their safe being at Croatoan, which is the place where man where Manteo was born, and the savages of that island are our friends. So up until the day he died, John White believed that the colonists went and assimilated with the Croaton natives there, and he took solace in that. Uh, John White died in 1593 without seeing his daughter or his granddaughter ever again.

Ed

Jeez, that that sucks.

Kara

I know it's a mess, man. Later on, the English did eventually colonize a little bit further north, and it worked out great over in Janestown. Um that is a successful story, so we won't talk about that here, but this is the the first attempt that just didn't, it was not, it didn't work. Um as far as Roanoke is concerned, uh there have been numerous series to explain what happened to the colonists in Roanoke. A popular bit of propaganda that entered its way into myth territory was that the colonists were attacked by Native Americans. I take this as propaganda because this this came out of I think Jamestown. Um and that was a group of colonists who were extremely racist and negative towards the American people at the time period. So I could see that being something that was spread to sway the opinion of people. Um this has been debunked, debunked, and proven false over and over again. There is no such evidence at all anywhere to prove that the colonists were attacked by Native Americans.

Ed

Yeah, because I feel like there would have been like White would have seen some something.

Kara

Yeah, and he would have noted it.

Ed

Yeah, no, they they definitely they definitely packed up and relocated. It's just where and for what reasons.

Kara

Yeah. Well, I think the reasons are kind of clear, and I think they tried to say where they carved it into a tree.

Ed

Yeah, yeah, they did, they did leave a note.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

So I don't know. But well, I do know like um they did uh tree ring studies, and they noticed that when they when you look at a tree ring, the closer they are together, that it that means that there's less growth, and usually it's because of uh of a drought.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Ed

And they noticed that right around this time of the whole Roanoke thing, they noticed that the tree rings were a lot closer together. And they and one theory is that yeah, there was probably a massive drought, and they were starving, and they had no choice but to partner up with a group of people that knew how to survive those those types of settings.

Kara

Today historians have some pretty solid theories as to what happened, they vary from assimilation with the Croaton people to finding a boat and getting lost at sea, which is also one that can be valid because when you go and sail out into the ocean with a wooden boat, usually you you don't have any remnants of it after a while.

Ed

Especially if that boat isn't very big and they're trying to use that boat to get to the Croatones.

Kara

Yeah, that's also a theory.

Ed

I I could see it capsizing, especially if they've got like a bunch of log cabins, a bunch of rough waters pieces. Yeah, yeah, they hit some rough water and then that was it, they're gone.

Kara

There are also some really wild theories involving like aliens and time machines and really stupid ones that I don't care for.

Ed

So history channel stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kara

Because that that's what the history channel does now is they used to be so well even their website's not bad, but I mean Yeah.

Ed

Anyway, and it it really depends. Like during the daytime, like if you watch it around like 11 o'clock, it's not so bad. But yeah, lately I've seen it, and it's just like everything is this like ancient aliens or really weird conspiracy theories. I'm like, can we just get back to like regular history? Like war documentaries and yeah, I don't know. Yeah, right now that that that's another episode.

Kara

Yeah, that's a different episode altogether. But currently, right now, as we speak, there's a project going on amongst scientists, archaeologists, historians. Uh, they're working on finding DNA sets amongst the population in North Carolina to see if they can prove through DNA resort research that the colonists assimilated with the Croatoan people. I thought that was really interesting. Um, we haven't had any theory like set in stone, this is fact, and this has been decided. But I think um historians or people who really, really study this have their opinion pretty set on what they believe it was. And one thing that I'll say for certain is that the founding of the first English colony in America was an absolute dumpster fire.

Ed

Yeah. And it wasn't the last one either. There is those those early attempts, they were they were brutal. And it's like, what is it? Uh John Smith, he he wrote like everything. This land has everything that you possibly could want, but you have to work for it. Yeah, and this land will try to kill you.

Kara

He also wrote in the third person, which makes them look like a total jerk.

Ed

Yes, yes, yeah.

Kara

He was it's infuriating to read his writing.

Ed

Yes, yeah, he's definitely a little uh a little out there and I would say shady in a lot of respects. But he's not my one that that wrote back to England and said that guys, everything you could possibly want is in this land, but just be prepared. It's not easy to take. Yeah, and I feel like those first colonies that were set up just did not ready. Yeah, they were they were not prepared for what for what America had to offer, so to speak, in terms of like resources, you know, the weather and the natives and disease and and all that kind of stuff.

Kara

Yeah, it was a good time, but yeah, that's it. That's that's what I got.

Ed

Okay. On my so yeah, how to lose a colony 101.

Kara

There you go. That's it.

Ed

And I could guarantee you when White got to where he knew the colony was, I guarantee you he turned around and looked at those those other guys, and he's like, guys, I left it right here. I'm telling you, it it's it's right here. Like it, you know, and it's almost like GPS, I think, would have fixed a lot of things.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

Maps were pretty good too, but they were but man, like, could you imagine if it's like somebody like say his daughter had like an iPhone or something like that, and you like he could look on the map and see, oh, she's traveling this way with this group of people. Cool. And then like there would be there would be no episode.

Kara

Or even better, just give her a call.

unknown

Yeah, yeah.

Ed

Send her a text message when you're about 200 miles out from the coastline.

Kara

Hey, hey, I'm on the way. I'll I'll be there soon.

Ed

Yeah, 200 miles out, I'll be there in like four weeks. Yeah. Oh boy, yeah. No, that's that's that's a good one. I the the Roanoke one has always been it's always fun, interesting, and and I think really the heart of it is like, okay, what is the simplest solution? Or what is the simplest reason why they left? And and I think it really just should be like logically, they were probably running out of resources given the history of this colony prior. They're running out of resources, and like who knows what other tribes are around there that were hostile towards them. It would make sense, like, okay, let's pack up, let's go with the Croaton's, we have a partnership with them and move on.

Kara

Yeah, to me, that's that that is the thing that makes the most logical sense, and the one that I subscribe to. But, you know, I'm just I'm just me.

Ed

But that's so I'm I'm totally down for aliens though.

Kara

I think that'd be so funny if that's you know, I can't rule it out, I guess, mathematically speaking.

Ed

Oh, who was it? Was it Winthrop? He wrote, like, basically, I have to look it up, but he wrote the first account of like a UFO sighting in America. Like he was walking by a lake and he saw a giant bright light in the middle of the lake, and then he wrote as though like this bright light then just shot off to the sky and disappeared. Sick. And it's considered to be like the first, you know, air quote like alien sighting in America. But it could also have been a dream, it and a lot of things too. It's like we we given how religious these people were, uh, lying was a pretty serious sin. When you are dealing with like an old testament god, like an angry god, uh, where God's looking for reasons to kill you, kind of like in the Puritan society, uh, lying was not necessarily something that they did all that often. Uh John Smith, perhaps, he he did a lot of shady stuff, but like I feel as though when you are reading these primary sources, it I kind of believe them. Like, I don't think they're hiding much, I don't think that they're trying to deceive the reader at all. I think there's a degree of genuineness in in these sources.

Kara

I think when you're reading primary sources, the thing to keep in mind is the time period and who's writing it and the circumstances, right? So you always want to have some sort of um you want to hold yourself back a little bit and understand like, okay, this person that I'm reading about, I don't know, like maybe they're looking at things through this specific lens. So, and they don't know about this, or they don't know about that current thing that's happening over there. So we want to make sure that you take all of those facts into consideration while you're reading a primary source.

Ed

Yes, because it I mean, well, it it goes back to the argument. Like I knew people who who fought in World War II, and they were in a battle, uh, they were part of a platoon and some part of a larger campaign. Like they could tell you everything that happened that day, but to be truthful, they had no idea what the status of the war was.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

They just don't know, like they don't have visibility into it. Whereas somebody like uh Eisenhower would have a way better understanding of the war as a whole, but not necessarily what's going on in the trenches.

Kara

Right. So ultimately, that's the job of the historian is to gather all of these different primary resources, look for patterns, look for things that are the same, look for the things that are different, think about the circumstances involved, and then put all of that together to make it make sense.

Ed

Mm-hmm. To paint an accurate picture of what's what actually happened and why.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

Ed

So speaking of Uh speaking of pictures, don't forget to check out our website.

Kara

Yeah, it's updated.

Ed

Yeah, Kara, Kara updated it. Uh, we are up to the very recent now. Uh, be sure to check out the DaysMire.com because yeah, there you'll find our detailed notes, um, our research methodologies if you're into that sort of thing. Um, but yeah, there will be like pictures, we put maps up there, especially when we're talking about uh anything involving a lot of human movement, uh stuff like that. So we will we have maps up there, we've got you're still putting up, I'm assuming, your uh artwork.

Kara

Yeah, I gotta get that out, but I will put it up.

Ed

Yep, yeah. So be sure to check out Kara's artwork. I do have a uh an original uh Kara picture of a tiny little angry Napoleon staring off at like burning Moscow.

Kara

Yeah, I'll put that one up. It's a good one.

Ed

Yeah, that one or the one where he's standing in like this frozen woods, like just everything is kind of like desolate. So uh be sure to check out her stuff. Uh she's also on Instagram.

Kara

Yes.

Ed

Uh what's the handle for that?

Kara

It's it's uh KM Smalls, like you're killing me, smalls, km smalls.draws.

Ed

Okay. Yep. So yeah, be sure to check her out on there. Our uh Day Sumpstrifier is also on Instagram. Um, we will be updating that as well once I figure out how to log on to it. And um, and then yeah, don't be afraid to uh send us an email at the daystumpstrifier gmail.com. Uh we are always looking for more ideas. We are also totally open to like suggestions, recommendations, ways to improve the show. Uh I I saw one recommendation. It's like, yeah, I like the show, just get rid of that guy that's on there all the time. Like, okay. So it'll just be the Kara show, I suppose.

Kara

I I guess. I'll make it work. I'll make it work.

Ed

It's like I guess I'm that annoying, but um, but yeah, no, like feel free to reach out to us. Uh, you can also, if you go to our website, uh, we have a link as well as in the show notes. Uh, we have a link to this ability where you can send us a text message, which is kind of cool. Uh it'd be uh it's a great way to if you just want to get a hold of us like directly, um, and you don't want to type up like a giant email or anything. But yeah, feel free to send us a message, hit us up on the social media, hit us up on the website, email us, however you want to get a hold of us. Um so don't be afraid to uh to share our our little show. Uh I've I've gotten a couple of subscribers just because it's like it it's a it's a great conversation starter, right? Two people could be talking about like their cars, and I'll throw in like, hey, I have a podcast, and then all of a sudden they're asking me questions about it, and like, oh, where can we find it? How can we how do we get it? And yeah, just tell them like pull out your phone and then go to where we get your podcast, like Spotify or uh Apple has their own podcasting thing now. They actually have a website, I think it's like podcast.apple.com where you can actually stream podcasts uh via that route. Uh we're on YouTube, we are on podcast addicts, we are pretty much everywhere. Uh so yeah, don't be afraid to like grab people's phones and sign them up. Um, like I said before, it's a great conversation starter. But yeah, that's pretty much all I got. Uh did you need to add anything on Kara? Did I miss anything?

Kara

I think that's okay.

Ed

I know I've got an episode that we're gonna try to record here. Um, I've been working on probably one of the worst deep sea uh diving, like saturation diving disasters in recorded history. Cool. Uh that one is gonna be a little graphic, but hey, we gotta talk about it because I think it's the fastest dumpster fire that we've ever had, where start to finish it took like 0.11 seconds.

Kara

Nice.

Ed

Meanwhile, mine's a dude that gets extruded through like a five-inch hole. So god yeah, okay. But um, but yeah, no, great episode, uh, Kara. That was thoroughly enjoyable. Thank you. I actually I learned a lot from it. Excellent. So, yeah. In the meantime, uh, we'll catch you on the next episode and uh keep it a hot mess.

Kara

Bye.