A Roanoke Story

In the summer of 1587, 115 English men, women, and children disappeared from the eastern shores of what is now called the United States of America, in northern North Carolina, leaving not a button, nor shoe, nor note, only some ambiguous carvings on trees, an incident commonly referred to as “The Mystery of the Roanoke Colony.” A Roanoke Story visits this unsolved puzzle from the perspective of the Roanoke, the Native people who watched the English ships come into their bay and a people who had lived on this shore since the beginning of history. This simple change of point of view turns common myths on their heads, and guides us to confront the true beginnings of European colonization. James Horn, author of A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, has praised A Roanoke Story as follows: “A Roanoke Story takes us as close as we are likely to get to an understanding of the thoughts, feelings, words, and actions of Native American men and women who could not leave any trace in the written record of themselves or of what they thought of the strangers who entered their lands.”