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Show FATE OF FIRST AMERICAN BORN Little Known of Virginia Dare, First White Child Born in America. It seems most unfortunate that the first child born in America of white parentage should have so absolutely disappeared when but a mere .babe and that no trace of her, or her parents, was ever discovered. All that we know about Virginia Dare. America's first-born, was that the event took place at Roanoke, in August, 1578, Virginia was the granddaughter ofJohn "White, who was the Governor Gover-nor of the colony sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh to found an agricultural agri-cultural State. The White colony left Plymouth, Ply-mouth, England, on April 26, 1587. They reached Roanoke in April of the same year. The mother of the child was the wife of Mr. Dare, one of her father's assistants. She was born about a month after the arrival of the expedition. Nine days after her birth Governor White sailed for England, and when he returned, a year later, all vestiges of the colony had disappeared. disap-peared. An inscription on the bark of a tree pointed to Croatan a place supposed to belong to a friendly tribe of Indians, "but Croatan also was never found. This new expedition. that Raleigh Ral-eigh had sent out was composed of seven vessels and carried one hundred and eight colonists to the shores of America, John White was appointed the Governor, and to him with eleven assistants the administration of the colony was entrusted. When they reached Isle of Roanoke, to search for the handful of men whom Grenville had left there, on the previous Raleigh expedition, as a garrison, they found the tenements deserted and overgrown with weeds; human hu-man bones lay scattered on the field where wild deer were reposing. re-posing. The fort was in ruins. No vestige of surviving life appeared. ap-peared. It Avas a desolate place to estab-ish estab-ish an agricultural colony, and the first disaster they met with was the killing of a number of natives by the colonists whom they thought unfriendly, but instead they discovered, too late, that they were of a tribe who before had befriended the English. The vanities of life they failed to forget, for by the command of Sir Walter Raleigh, Manteo, the faithful Indian chief, after receiving receiv-ing Christian baptism, was invested invest-ed with the rank of baron, as the (Lord of Roanoke. When the ship returned Whito embarked for England under the excuse of interceding for reinforcements rein-forcements and supplies. He left behind him his daughter Eleanor Dare, with her recently-born baby, Virginia, named from the place for her birth. When he took his departure the colony was composed of eighty-nine men, seventeen women and two children, whose names arc all preserved. It was but reasonable rea-sonable to expect that White would return speedily it for tio other reason than to see his child and grandchild. More than three years elapsed before affairs had shaped themselves them-selves in such a way in England to permit of his return to search for his colony and his offspring, and when he did reach this country he found the Island of Roanoke was a desert. The conditions he found prompted prompt-ed him to make an almost immediate immedi-ate return. The coniecture has been hazarded that the deserted colony, neglected by their own countrymen, was hosnitably adopted into the tribe of Ilatter-as Ilatter-as Indians. Raleigh long cherished the hone of discovering some vestiges of its existence, and sent at his own charge and, it is said, several times, to search for his liege .men But it was never possible to trace, in an3r way, the fate of the colony of Roanoke. The Croatans of today claim descent de-scent from the "lost colony." Their habits, disposition and mental men-tal ehnracteristifVQ slmw Imfins both of savage and civilized ancestors. an-cestors. Their language is the English of 300 years ago, aud their names, in many cases, are the same as those borne by the original colonists. No other theory the-ory of their origin has been advanced. Chancellor and ITewes, in their recent "History of the United States," state: "If the evidence of blue eyes and tawny hair and of tradition is to be trusted, not a few of certain earlier adventurers had made the Indian women of Roanoke's 'Goldcr Age' the mothers moth-ers of their children.' In 1602 Raleigh sent out another an-other man to find the colony, but his agent made no serious effort to succeed. We believe now that seven of tho cploriiBta miryi:e,d. het climate and an Indian massacre mas-sacre six men and boys and one girl, whom the Hatteras Indians claim among their ancestors. |
