Sir Walter Raleigh's American colonies

Interesting item 1 - Raleigh's first expedition landed and the crew asked the local Indians the name of the country. Raleigh then put a Bill before Parliament to confirm his rights to what translates as "You've got good clothes".

Interesting item 2 - Raleigh never landed in North America - he just organised and part-financed the expeditions. However, there is a painting in the National Maritime Museum showing him claiming Virginia for England - evidently by an artist with a good sense of imagination.
Raleigh was such a favourite that the Queen refused to permit him to go off on expeditions. Thus it was the ships he provided and the men he instructed who actually went to the "New World" and brought back a number of new discoveries.

Interesting item 3 - It was one of his employees (Thomas Hariot - see below) who brought back the first potato to the British Isles and this was first planted on Raleigh's Irish estate.

Interesting item 4 - Raleigh made smoking fashionable but it was Sir John Hawkins (or possibly Hariot again, according to one account) who introduced tobacco to England. There's more background information on the history of tobacco here.

Interesting item 5 - While imprisoned in the Tower of London he was charged up to £5 a week for his keep.

Drumming up support.

• an ideal base for attacking Spanish interests in the area.
• stopping Spain and France establishing their own colonies there. They had been making attempts since 1562, but without success. The second French colony had been destroyed by the Spanish.
• somewhere to find employment for all the unemployed in England.
• a land rich in resources which could be used for trade.

The expeditions were all of a commercial nature and, despite all the failures, Raleigh still made an overall profit from them. This was mostly from the capture of various Spanish treasure ships.

Raleigh arranged for the artist John White to accompany his expeditions. His pictures were used to further interest in the potential colonies.

Why they failed.

The initial choice of Roanoke was very poor since the difficult landing there became thoroughly dangerous in bad weather.

Raleigh's first attempt at a colony failed because of lack of supplies (largely due to trying to land at Roanoke) and the heavy-handed militaristic nature of the colony's leader.

Raleigh's second attempt should have corrected both of the above, by choosing genuine colonists and re-establishing the colony at a better site. However, the countermanding of Raleigh's orders led to the colony having to continue at the same site - which had been made untenable by the first colony.

Remains.

Raleigh's name is marked by the city of Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina.

There is a Virginia Handbook with information on the area. Some tourist-type notes about the area and the visitor centre stated -

"Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. Exhibits inside the visitor center ..... include a few rusty artifacts and dry displays explaining the historical context of the colonial effort. There are also copies of the many beautiful watercolors and drawings of native plants, animals and people produced by the original expedition's two immensely talented scientists, John White and Thomas Hariot."

"The historic port of Manteo (pop. 950, pronounced MAN-t-o), in the middle of Roanoke Island, between Fort Raleigh and the beach resorts of the Outer Banks, was named for the Native American who helped Sir Walter Raleigh and the Lost Colony......Budleigh Street across from the waterfront.....Queen Elizabeth Street....."

It is interesting to note the names of Budleigh (presumably from East Budleigh, the nearest village to Raleigh's birthplace at Hayes Barton) and Queen Elizabeth.

Thomas Hariot, tobacco and the potato.

In Raleigh's 1585 expedition which founded Roanoke, Hariot was in charge of relations with the local natives. His navigational devices greatly impressed the local Indians. He also collected and examined the animals, plants and minerals of the new country.

In 1588 Raleigh owned the Abbey of Molana in Ireland which he rented to Hariot.

An extinct AlchemyWeb page on Hariot said -
"During the year the colonists remained on Roanoke Island, Hariot wrote The Chronicle or Discourse of Virginia according to the course of the times, a detailed survey of area's natural resources and native inhabitants. Hariot's Briefe and True Report is an abstract of his Chronicle. It was first published privately in 1588, probably at Raleigh's request, in an attempt reinvigorate flagging interest in his New World colonization efforts. Although in the Report Hariot states his intent to publish the entire Chronicle at a later date, it was never printed and is now lost."

See especially the text of his Brief and True Report on the new colony.

In this he says:
Tobacco - "There is an herbe which is sowed a part by it selfe & is called by the inhabitants vppawoc: In the West Indies it hath diuers names, according to the seuerall places & countries where it groweth and is vsed: The Spaniardes generally call it Tobacco. The leaues thereof being dried and brought into powder: they vse to take the fume or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of claie into their stomacke and heade; from whence it purgeth superfluous fleame & other grosse humors"

Potatoes - "The second part of suche commodities as Virginia is knowne to yeelde for victuall and su-stenance of mans life, vsually fed vpon by the naturall inhabitants: as also by vs during the time of our aboad. And first of such as are sowed and husbanded. OPenauk are a kind of roots of round forme, some of the bignes of walnuts, some far greater, which are found in moist & marish grounds growing many together one by another in ropes, or as thogh they were fastnened with a string. Being boiled or sodden they are very good meate."

Around 1589, Raleigh planted the potato, described as the "Openhauk" by Hariot, in his garden at Myrtle Grove, Youghal, near Cork.

On a whole host of web sites, they say about the potato "The ancient Incas were cultivating this humble tuber thousands of years ago. The potato was not readily accepted in Europe, however, because it was known to be a member of the nightshade family (as are the tomato and eggplant) and therefore thought to be poisonous. In the 16th century, Sir Walter Raleigh was instrumental in debunking the poisonous potato superstition when he planted them on property he owned in Ireland."

Other information.

• A map of Explorers and Settlers of North America.
• A page about early settlements from the North Carolina State Library.
• A page with information on the ships used to establish and service the colony.
• An informative extract from The Devil's Tramping Ground by John Harden, Published by The University of North Carolina Press.
• The American National Park Service page on Raleigh (N.B. The coat of arms shown is not Raleigh's).
• Notes about John Rolfe, who sailed with an expedition which did establish a successful colony in Virginia in 1609. He married an Indian chief's daughter, Pocohontas, in 1614.
• The Hakluyt Society list of links lists other Discovery sites.
• The Kid Info page with many links to further information.

Books, etc. about Raleigh's colonisation attempts.

Type	Title	Author	Details
	* against the title means that we have a copy
Book	The Roanoke Voyages, 1584-1590	David B. Quinn (Editor)	Documents to Illustrate the English Voyages to North America Under the Patent Granted to Walter Raleigh in 1584. Published by Dover, 1991; ISBN: 0 4862 6513 7
Book	Sir Walter Raleigh and the New World	John W Shirley	Published by the U.S. Dept of Cultural Resources & History, 1985. ISBN: 0 8652 6206 3. Often difficult to obtain.
Book	The traces of Thomas Hariot	Muriel Rukeyser	Published by Gollancz, London, 1972.
Book	The Virginia Handbook	Juliam Smith	A guide to the State.
Book	The Roanoke Voyages		Published by The Hakluyt Society in 2 volumes, London, 1955.
Book	* The First Colonists		Published by The Folio Society, 1986. With many examples of John White's pictures. Also Hariot's "Brief and True report.." and Raleigh's Letters-Patent. It has no index.

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This page last updated 20th. February 2021.
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