The Beginnings of English-America
The first European who is known to have visited, explored and described the coast of North Carolina was Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine navigator in the service of France. Some…
From: 1524 C.E. To: 1585 C.E.
Location: North Carolina
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“The Beginnings of English-America” from History of North Carolina by R. D. W. Connor, 1919.
The first European who is known to have visited, explored and described the coast of North Carolina was Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine navigator in the service of France. Some writers, it is true, suppose that the Cabots preceded Verrazzano to this region by more than a quarter of a century; but the voyages of the Cabots are involved in so much obscurity, and present so many points for controversy, that it is impossible to ascertain with any degree of certainty just what parts of North America they visited. Verrazzano, on the contrary, left a long and detailed account of his voyage. His purpose, like that of the other explorers of his time, was to find a westward route to Cathay [China]. "With a crew of fifty men, well provided with "victuals, weapons, and other ship munition" for an eight-months' voyage, he set sail in the ship Dauphine, January 24, 1524, from a "dishabited rocke by the isle of Madera." After a long and stormy voyage, and when in the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude, he reached a low-lying coast, "a newe land," he declared, "never before scene of any man either ancient or moderne."
The Arrival of the English in “Virginia” (Roanoke Island.) From the De Bry Engravings of the John White Paintings, 1590. Images from book.
Verrazzano's landfall was off the coast of what is now North Carolina near Cape Fear. Turning northward, and occasionally sending his men ashore, he skirted the Atlantic coast as far as Newfoundland; thence he set sail for France, and cast anchor in the harbor of Dieppe early in July. At Dieppe on July 8, 1524, he wrote and dispatched to the king, Francis I, "the earliest description known to exist of the shores of the United States." His observations on the people and the country, all the circumstances considered, are remarkably accurate and enlightening. Although his discoveries led to no settlements, nevertheless they form an important link in the chain of evidence that was slowly revealing to Europe the truth about the New World; and as his report was included in Hakluyt's ''Divers Voyages," in 1582, it probably was not without influence upon Sir Walter Raleigh in the formulation of his plans for planting English colonies in America.
The marvelous deeds by which Raleigh and his associates—a group of brilliant soldiers, sailors, adventurers, and scholars—laid the foundation of England's vast colonial empire, found their inspiration in loyalty to the Crown and country, love of liberty, and devotion to religion. At various times in English history an attack on any one of these sentiments has been sufficient to call forth the mightiest exertions of the English nation; during the closing years of the sixteenth century all three were attacked at one and the same time by one and the same arrogant power. Philip II of Spain, proclaiming Elizabeth of England an usurper, had laid claim to her throne, and throughout his boundless dominions had levied and equipped mighty fleets and armies for the purpose of establishing the despotism of Castile by overthrowing the liberties of England. The Pope of Rome had commissioned His Most Catholic Majesty to lead a crusade against the national church of England and "to inaugurate on English soil the accursed work of the Inquisition." As one man, without regard to religious convictions or sectarian prejudices, the English people sprang to the defence of the throne, the Constitution, and the Church with an enthusiasm that stirs our blood even to this day.
In this contest with Spain, says an eminent American historian, England was "pitted against the greatest military power that had existed in Europe since the days of Constantine the Great.” The source of Spain's power was her colonial possessions whence she drew the treasure that enabled her to fit out and maintain the armaments with which she threatened England's existence as an independent power. "For England the true policy was limited by circumstances. She could send troops across the Channel to help the Dutch in their stubborn resistance [to Spanish rule], but to try to land a force in the Spanish peninsula for aggressive warfare would be sheer madness. The shores of America and the open sea were the proper field of war for England. Her task was to paralyze the giant by cutting off his supplies and in this there was hope of success, for no defensive fleet, however large, could watch all Philip's enormous possessions at once." It was as the storehouse of the enemy's treasure and the source of his supplies that America first excited real interest among the English people.
The man who best understood England's problem was Walter Raleigh. Hawkins, Grenville, Drake, Cavendish, and those other glorious English "sea kings" of the sixteenth century, understood it well enough so far as it involved the ravaging of Spanish coasts and the plundering of Spanish treasure ships. But Raleigh understood that something more permanent was needed to establish the supremacy of England in Europe and America. It was not enough for English statesmanship to destroy the power of Spain; it must at the same time build up the power of England, and as a step toward this end, Raleigh conceived the policy of establishing English colonies in North America.
Such colonies would not only offset the Spanish settlements in the West Indies, Mexico, and South America, and serve as bases of operations against them; they would also develop English commerce and afford an outlet for English manufactures. All this the far-seeing mind of Raleigh perceived in his great design. The work of Hawkins and Drake, of Grenville and Cavendish, and their fellow sea-rovers, though of great importance in the accomplishment of England's destiny, was destructive; Raleigh's work was constructive in the highest degree, and entitles him to first place among those who won North America for English-speaking peoples.
The first steps which Raleigh took toward carrying his great scheme into execution were in conjunction with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert. In November, 1577, some one presented Queen Elizabeth with "A discourse how Her Majesty may annoy the Kinge of Spaine by fitting out a fleet of shippes of war under pretence of Letters Patent, to discover and inhabit strange places, with special proviso, for their safeties whom policy requires to have most annoyed—by which means the doing the contrary shall be imputed to the executor's fault; your Highness 's letters patent being a manifest show that it was not your Majesty's pleasure so to have it."
The writer offered to destroy the great Spanish fleets which went every year to the banks of Newfoundland to catch fish for the Spanish fast days. "If you will let us do this," he continued, "we will next take the West Indies from Spain. You will have the gold and silver mines and the profit of the soil. You will be monarch of the seas and out of danger from every one. I will do it if you will allow me; only you must resolve and not delay or dally—the wings of man's life are plumed with the feathers of death." There is no signature to this letter, but the same idea is expressed in several places by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and historians believe this to be his. At any rate within less than a year Gilbert obtained letters patent for planting an English colony in America, with "special proviso" that there should be no robbing "by sea or by land."
In the fall of 1578 Gilbert sailed with a fleet of seven ships, one of which was commanded by Walter Raleigh; but a fight with Spaniards compelled the fleet to put back into Plymouth. Five years later Gilbert sailed again, but this time without Raleigh, "for the Queen's mind had been full of forebodings and she had refused to let him go." The unhappy ending of this voyage is one of the most dramatic episodes in American history.
In 1584 Gilbert's patent was renewed in Raleigh's name. By this patent, dated March 25, 1584, Raleigh was given "free liberty & license * * * to discover, search, finde out, and view such remote, heathen and barbarous lands, contreis, and territories, not actually possessed of any Christian prince, nor inhabited by Christian people." Two provisions of Raleigh's charter deserve especial mention. One declared the colonists "shall and may have all the privileges of free Denizens, and persons native of England, and within our allegiance in such like ample manner and forme, as if they were borne and personally resident within our said Realme of England, any law, customs, or usage to the contrary not-withstanding." The other provision authorized Raleigh, his heirs and assigns to enact such laws as they judged proper for the government of the colony provided only such laws were not inconsistent with the laws of England.
Raleigh was prompt to take advantage of his patent. Within less than a month he had an expedition ready to sail for America under the command of two experienced navigators, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow. They sailed from the west coast of England April 27, 1584, "with two barkes well furnished with men and victuals." A voyage of sixty-seven days brought them, July 2, to "shole water, wher," they said, "we smelt so sweet, and so strong a smel, as if we had bene in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with all kinde of odoriferous flowers, by which we were assured, that the land could not be farre distant: and keeping good watch, and bearing but slacke saile, the fourth of the same moneth we arrived upon the coast, which we supposed to be a continent and firme lande, and we sayled along the same a hundred and twentie English miles before we could finde any entrance, or river issuing into the Sea. The first that appeared to us, we entred, though not without some difficultie, & cast anker about three harquebuz-shot within the havens mouth, on the left hand of the same: and after thankes given to God for our safe arrival thither, we manned our boats, and went to view the land next adjoining, and to take possession of the same, in the right of the Queenes most excellent Majestie, as rightfull Queene, and Princesse of the same, and after delivered the same over to your [Raleigh's] use, according to her Majesties grant, and letters patent, under her Highnesse great scale." These important proceedings were performed " according to the ceremonies used in such enterprises."
Sir Walter Raleigh. The Founder of English-speaking America.
The purpose of Amadas and Barlow was to explore the country and fix upon a site for the first settlement. Immediately after the ceremony of taking possession they "viewed the land" about them, which they found "very sandie and low towards the waters side. * * * We passed from the Sea side towardes the toppes of those hilles next adjoining, being but of meane higth, and from thence wee behelde the Sea on both sides to the North, and to the South, finding no ende any of both waves."
A few days later Barlow, with seven of his crew, "went twentie miles" across the sound, "and the evening following," he said, "wee came to an Island which they [the natives] call Roanoak, distant from the Harbour by which we entered, seven leagues: * * *Beyond this Island there is the maine lande. * * *When we first had sight of this countrey, some thought the first land we saw to bee the continent: but after we entered into the Haven, we saw before us another mighty long Sea: for there lyeth along the coast a tracte of Island, two hundreth miles in length, adjoyning to the Ocean sea: * * * when you entred betweene them then there appeareth another great Sea: and in this inclosed Sea there are above an hundreth Islands of divers bignesses, whereof one is sixteene miles long, at which we were, finding it a most pleasant and fertile ground. * * * Besides this Island there are many, as I have sayd, * * * most beautiful and pleasant to behold."
The visitors seemed to think they had reached a veritable paradise. Their report glowed with enthusiasm for the new country and its people. The "soile" was "the most plentiful, sweete, fruitful! and wholesome of all the world." There were "above fourteene severall sweete smelling timber trees," while the "underwoods," were mostly of "Bayes and such like." They found the same "okes" as grew in Europe "but farre greater and better." In the woods grew "the highest and reddest Cedars of the world." The island was "so full of grapes as the very beating and surge of the Sea overflowed them," and they were "in such plenty * * * both on the sand and on the greene soile on the hills, as in the plaines, as well as on every little shrubbe, as also climing towardes the tops of high Cedars" that in "all the world the like abundance” could not be found. As the men strolled down the coast "such a flock of Cranes (the most part white) arose under" them "with such a cry redoubled by many ecchoes as if an armie of men had showted all together." The island "had many goodly woodes full of Deere, Conies, Hares, and Fowle, * * * in incredible abundance;" while the waters were alive "with the goodliest and best fish in the world." The Indians sent them "divers kindes of fruits, Melons, Walnuts, Cucumbers, Gourdes, Pease, and divers rootes, and fruites very excellent good, and of their Countrey corne, which is very white, faire and well tasted."
The Englishmen were as much delighted with the natives as with their country. They found them "very handsome and goodly people, and in their behaviour as mannerly and civill as any of Europe." The chief of the country, Wingina, who was disabled by a wound received in battle, sent his brother, Granganimeo, to welcome the strangers. Granganimeo "made all signes of joy and welcome, striking on his head and breast and afterwards on ours, to shew wee were all one, smiling and making shewe of the best he could of all love and familiaritie."
When the Englishmen visited the natives in their villages they "were entertained with all love and kindnesse, and with as much bountie (after their maner) as they could possibly devise.” Thus the visitors were deceived into the belief that their hosts were "most gentle, loving and faithful, voide of all guile and treason, and such as live after the maner of the golden age." Immediately after this bit of rhapsody the report adds: "their warres are very cruell and bloody, by reason whereof, and of their civil dissentions which have happened of late yeares amongst them, the people are marvelously wasted and in some places the countrey left desolate.”
Indian Warriors of Roanoke. From the De Bry Engravings of the John White Paintings.
The explorers of course did not neglect the opportunity which the friendliness of the natives gave them for trade. They had brought with them the usual trinkets for which the Indians were always ready to trade furs and skins, gold and silver, pearls and coral. "We fell to trading with them," says Barlow, "exchanging some things we had, for Chamoys, Buffe, and Deere skinnes." A bright tin dish especially pleased Granganimeo and he gave for it "twentie skinnes, woorth twentie Crownes"; while for a copper kettle he exchanged "fiftie skinnes, woorth fiftie Crownes." Granganimeo 's wife, on her visit to the English ships, wore about her forehead "a bande of white Corall"; and ''in her ears shee had bracelets of pearles hanging downe to her middle * * * and these were of the bignes of good pease." Some of the women "of the better sort," and "some of the children of the kings brother and other noble men" had copper pen- dants hanging from their ears. Granganimeo "himself had upon his forehead a broade plate of golde, or copper, for being unpolished we knew not what mettal it should be.” He "had great liking of our armour, a sword and divers other things which we had: and offered to lay a great boxe of pearle in gage for them, but we refused it for this time, because we would not make them know, that we esteemed thereof, until we had understoode in what places of the countrey the pearle grew.”
Two months were thus spent in exploring the country, visiting the natives, gathering information, and trading. "Then," says Barlow, "contenting ourselves with this service at this time, which we hope hereafter to inlarge, as occasion and assistance shal be given, we resolved to leave the countrey and to apply ourselves to returne to England, which we did accordingly, and arrived safely in the West of England about the middest of September. * * * We brought home also two of the savages, being lustie men, whose names were Wanchese and Manteo."
The story of this voyage was heard in England with wonder and delight. Everybody was charmed with this wonderful new country and its "gentle, loving" people. Elizabeth, delighted that her reign had been signalized by so great an event, declared that in honor of her virgin state the new country should be called "Virginia.'
Raleigh lost no time in preparing a colony for "Virginia." The queen conferred upon him the honor of knighthood as a reward for his gift of "Virginia" to the Crown. He was wealthy and famous, high in the favor of his sovereign, and men were anxious to enlist in his service. He found no difficulty, therefore, in securing a colony led by picked men. For governor he selected Ralph Lane. Lane, who had already seen considerable service, was then on duty for the Crown in Ireland, but the queen ordered a substitute to be appointed in his government of Kerry and Clanmorris, "in consideration of his ready undertaking the voyage to Virginia for Sir Walter Raleigh at Her Majesty's command."
Others who were members of Lane's colony were "the wonderful Suffolk boy," Thomas Cavendish, aged twenty-two years, who, before he reached his twenty-ninth year rivaled the exploits of Sir Francis Drake in the Pacific and circumnavigated the globe; Philip Amadas, one of the commanders in the first expedition to Roanoke, and now "admiral" of "Virginia"; John White, the artist of the expedition, sent by Raleigh to make paintings of the country and its people, afterwards governor of the "Lost Colony"; and Thomas Hariot, the historian and scientist of the colony, "a mathematician of great distinction, who materially advanced the science of Algebra, and was honored by Descartes, who imposed some of Hariot 's work upon the French as his own."
To none who bore a part in the efforts to plant a colony on Roanoke Island, save Raleigh alone, do we owe more than to White and Hariot. The work of "these two earnest and true men"—the splendid pictures of the one and the scholarly narrative of the other—preserve for us the most valuable information that we have of Raleigh's colonial enterprises. Two others who sailed in Lane's expedition were Wanchese and Manteo, the two "lustie" natives who had accompanied Amadas and Barlow to England. The fleet was under the command of the famous Sir Richard Grenville, whose heroic death in the most wonderful sea fight in all history is nobly commemorated by Tennyson in one of the most stirring ballads in our language.
The colony was composed of 108 men. "With marvelous energy, enterprise, and skill Raleigh collected and fitted out in an incredibly short time a fleet of seven ships well stocked and well manned to transport his 'first colonie' into the wilds of America. * * * Never before did a finer fleet leave the shores of England, and never since was one more honestly or hopefully dispatched. There were the 'Tyger,' and the 'Roe Buck,' of 140 tons each, the 'Dorothea,' a small bark, and two pinnaces, hardly big enough to bear distinct names, yet small enough to cross dangerous bars and enter unknown bays and rivers.” The fleet sailed from Plymouth April 9, 1585, followed the usual route by way of the Canaries and the West Indies, reached "the maine of Florida" June 20, and three days later narrowly escaped wreck "ona breach called the Cape of Feare." June 26 brought them to Wocokon, part of the North Carolina banks, on the modern map called, Ocracoke. The next month was spent in exploring the coast and making the acquaintance of the natives. In the course of these explorations an Indian stole a silver cup from one of the visitors, whereupon the Englishmen "burned and spoiled their corn," and thus sowed seeds of hostilitv that were soon to ripen into a harvest of blood and slaughter. July 27 the fleet reached Hatteras "and there rested." A month later, lacking two days, Grenville weighed anchor for England, leaving at Roanoke the first English colony that had landed on the shores of America.
Connor, R. D. W. History of North Carolina. Vol. 1, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1919.
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