Cherokee Revealed - Translated Moravian records disclose a forgotten history

Hat Tip: Laree

Cherokee Revealed - Translated Moravian records disclose a forgotten history

CHURCH MISSIONS: 19TH-CENTURY DOCUMENTS

Courtesy of Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, PA.

This map showing the settlements of the Cherokee Nation was drawn by Moravian missionary John Daniel Hammerer and is dated to 1766.

Published: September 8, 2009

In front of the house stands a long, open shed covered with clapboards adequately provided with benches and other seats, as well as a raised plank for writing on. The Talk was held under this shed. At a short distance from this stands a tall pole. A designated Indian took his position at this pole with a drum, and beat the drum as a sign of the beginning of the meeting. He kept drumming until Indians were seen coming in lines. In the heat, the Indians used turkey wings in stead of fans to make a breeze for themselves. -- Report from Abraham Steiner, a Moravian missionary to the Cherokee at Springplace, Ga., May 22, 1801, translated from the German.

This glimpse into the shared history of Moravians and Cherokees was shrouded in archaic German script for over 200 years at the Moravian Archives in Winston-Salem.

The words were found among hundreds of diaries, letters and other papers that recorded about 100 years of history between the Moravian missionaries and their Cherokee brethren. The records constitute the only known account of daily life in the Cherokee nation.

In 1992, workers began to translate and transcribe the documents. But money grew tight and work slowed on the project because the staff had to consider prioritizing other projects and possibly cutting back hours or staff, said Daniel Crews, the archivist of the Moravian Church, Southern Province.

Then earlier this year, members of the Cherokee Nation made a $125,000 grant, to be paid over five years, to translate and transcribe the documents. The archives have committed two archivists to work on the collection two days a week for the next five years, Crews said, with the hope of publishing their findings in a series of books after the work is complete.

The Cherokee Nation is made up of those people descended from ancestors who survived the Trail of Tears, the removal of the Cherokee in 1838 from the Eastern United States to the Indian Territory, which is now Oklahoma.

The Eastern Band, the Cherokee whose ancestors went into the mountains rather than accept removal, have also agreed to help pay for the project, Crews said, but have not announced how much they will donate.

The records contain details about what the Cherokee ate, how they built their villages, and the way they danced and dressed.
Jack Baker, a member of the Cherokee Nation tribal council, said that such information is available nowhere else.

Cont. here:

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/cherokee-revealed---translated-moravian-records-disclose-a-forgotten/article_7ab2e4dc-e315-5a72-ad4d-d9d99a15db1a.html



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Native Americans Descended From a Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms

April 28, 2009

For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations.

Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: Virtually without exception the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory.

“Our work provides strong evidence that, in general, Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations, except those that live at the very edge of the Bering Strait,” said Kari Britt Schroeder, a lecturer at the University of California, Davis, and the first author on the paper describing the study.

“While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations,” said Schroeder, who was a Ph.D. student in anthropology at the university when she did the research.

The study is published in the May issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Cont. here:

http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9101

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Speech by Powhatan, as recorded by John Smith, 1609

Why will you take by force what you may obtain by love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food? What can you get by war? . . . We are unarmed, and willing to give you what you ask, if you come in a friendly manner. . . .

I am not so simple as not to know it is better to eat good meat, sleep comfortably, live quietly with my women and children, laugh and be merry with the English, and being their friend, trade for their copper and hatchets, than to run away from them. . . .

Take away your guns and swords, the cause of all our jealousy, or you may die in the same manner.

Read more here:

© History Chasers

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Aftershocks from Plecker's Abuse of Human Rights in Virginia

by Janet Crain

Today is May 15th, Bloggers Unite for Human Rights Day. Yesterday, we published some preliminary background material about a man many people depise, who caused a great injustice in American to American citizens in the 20th Century. His efforts would, in fact, still be implemented into the 1960's. A rigid, autocratic man, Walter Ashby Plecker fancied himself a white knight defending and protecting the racial purity of the white race. Born into a well-to-do Virginian family he became a doctor. He was married, but never had children. He listed his hobbies as birds and books. He worked hard delivering many babies in poor households lacking basic hygiene and what most consider necessities. Many of these people were black or Indian. Concerned by a high incidence of syphilitic blindness, he began dispensing silver nitrate to be put in the eyes of newborns. He also contrived an incubator that could be put together in the poorest of homes.

A devout Presbyterian, he actually believed the mixing of races to be a sin. He helped establish churches around the state and supported fundamentalist missionaries. Plecker belonged to a conservative Southern branch of the church that believed the Bible was infallible and condoned segregation. Members of Plecker’s branch maintained that God flooded the earth and destroyed Sodom to express his anger at racial interbreeding. He carried out a life long attempt to prevent this from happening, carrying his efforts to the most extreme measures.

The Eugenics Movement suited his needs perfectly. He was proud to be a scientist, practicing what he believed to be the latest scientific methods to improve mankind. He became a celebrity within the eugenics movement, which eventually began to lose support among scientists and furnish a platform for white supremacy. He spoke around the country, was widely published and wrote to every governor in the nation to urge passage of racial laws just as tough as Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act. He dined at the New York home of Nazi sympathizer, Harry H. Laughlin, the nation’s leading eugenics advocate.

In 1932, Plecker gave a keynote speech at the Third International Conference on Eugenics in New York. Among those in attendance was Ernst Rudin of Germany who, 11 months later, would help write Hitler’s eugenics law.

In 1935, Plecker wrote to Walter Gross, the director of Germany’s Bureau of Human Betterment and Eugenics. Writing on state stationery, he outlined Virginia’s racial purity laws and asked to be put on a mailing list for bulletins from Gross’ department. Complimenting the Third Reich for sterilizing 600 children in Algeria who were born to German women and black men, he commented; “I hope this work is complete and not one has been missed,” he wrote. “I sometimes regret that we have not the authority to put some measures in practice in Virginia.”


The Racial Integrity Act essentially narrowed race classifications on birth and marriage certificates to two choices: “white person” or “colored.” The law defined a white as one with no trace of black blood. A white person could have no more than a one-sixteenth trace of Indian blood—an exception, much to Plecker’s regret, legislators made to appease the descendants of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, who were considered among Virginia’s first families.

The act forbade interracial marriage and lying about race on registration forms. Violators faced felony convictions and a year in prison.

Plecker strongly supported sterilization laws, arguing that feebleminded whites were prone to mate with Indians and blacks. He had no role in administering the law, however.

The Racial Integrity Act, on the other hand, was his to enforce, and Plecker went about it obsessively. He sold copies of eugenics books in his office and mailed his diatribes against racial interbreeding at government expense, stretching the Racial Integrity Act when necessary.

Plecker served in his powerful position as the first registrar of Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912 until 1946. Working with a vengance, he led the effort to purify the white race in Virginia by forcing Indians and other nonwhites to classify themselves as blacks. It amounted to bureaucratic genocide. He not only altered records and refused to register children as their rightful identity, he wrote insulting letters to new mothers which surely caused a lifetime of grief and frustration. The aftershocks are still being felt today. Indian tribes seeking recognition cannot provide the proof of their existance required because of Plecker's altered records. Families separated due to his draconian actions will never be reunited as the brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles because they have passed on in many cases. A lifetime lost. And genealogical brickwalls and roadblocks are encountered every day by persons trying to research their families.


"Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." ---George Santayana

You can read more about this abuse of human rights here:

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2004/09/the_black_white.php

Recent Discoveries at Monte Verde Push Back Human Arrival Date

Ancient Seaweed Tells of Earliest Americans

Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press


Monte Verde

May 8, 2008 -- Remains of meals that included seaweed are helping confirm the date of a settlement in southern Chile that may offer the earliest evidence of humans in the Americas.
Researchers date the seaweed found at Monte Verde to more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than the well-studied Clovis culture.

And the report comes just a month after other scientists announced they had found coprolites
fossilized human feces -- dating to about 14,000 years ago in a cave in Oregon.

Taken together, the finds move back evidence of people in the Americas by a millennium or more, with settlements in northern and southern coastal areas.

The prevailing theory has been that people followed herds of migrating animals across an ancient land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, and then moved southward along the West coast. Proof has been hard to come by, however. The sea was about 200 feet lower at the time and as it rose it would have inundated the remains of coastal settlements.

Full Article Here:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/05/08/seaweed-monte-verde.html

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_of_migration_to_the_New_World#Land_bridge_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_of_migration_to_the_New_World#Clovis_culture

Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation and University of Pavia Publish Most Comprehensive Answers to Date on Genetic Origins of Native Americans

In the most comprehensive study to date on the genetic origins of Native Americans, an international research team confirmed that Native Americans who descended from ancestors who crossed from Asia to the Americas approximately 20,000 years ago are offspring of six founding, or ancestral, mothers. The study also confirms the presence of genetic subgroups of more rare, less known and geographically limited genetic groups who arrived later. This study is the first time all known Native American mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences and lineages have been compiled, corrected and organized into a single tree with branches dated.

Researchers from the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF), a non-profit foundation building the world's largest collection of integrated genetic and family history information, the department of genetics and microbiology at the University of Pavia, and others today published online at the Public Library of Science (http://www.plos.org) the results of their study of more than 200 full mtDNA sequences from Native Americans. mtDNA traces maternal ancestry for both men and women and is inherited exclusively from mothers.

Researchers combed GenBank, the National Institutes of Health genetic sequence database, and earlier scientific publications for scans of Native American mitochondrial lineages and added previously unpublished sequences to this work, said study co-author Ugo Perego, director of operations at SMGF. The genetic sequences are pan-American, including native North, Central and South American populations.

"This is the first comprehensive overview of the principal pan-American branches of the Native American mtDNA tree," said Antonio Torroni, study co-author heading the University of Pavia group. Torroni is considered one of the fathers of genetic research on Native Americans and was the first to discover, 15 years ago, the four major genetic groups to which 95 percent of Native Americans belong.

The study released today identifies the six surviving Native American mtDNA lineages that are dated to approximately 20,000 years ago, designated as A2, B2, C1b, C1c, C1d and D1. Today's study also confirms the presence of five more rare, less known and geographically limited genetic groups: X2a, D2, D3, C4c and D4h3.

The five more rare genetic groups will help researchers isolate branches within the pan-American groups that are younger or come from a better-defined geographic area, said lead author Dr. Alessandro Achilli, researcher at the University of Pavia and assistant professor at the University of Perugia. "For example, we learned one branch is only found among Aleuts and Eskimos," he said. "The presence of these additional subgroups suggests different migratory events from Asia or the Bering Straits. This study will be used as a reference for all future research on Native Americans. It is essential for reconstructing the history of specific Native American groups and for reliable association studies between mtDNA haplogroups and complex disorders," said Achilli.

Comprehensive data from the study is available online at www.plos.org, said Perego, and may be used to improve tests by commercial genetic genealogy firms, such as GeneTree. GeneTree (www.genetree.com) is a DNA-enabled family history-sharing Website helping people understand where their personal histories belong within the greater human genetic story. GeneTree was developed by the Sorenson family of companies and draws on the expertise of the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation.

People are increasingly using genetic testing to learn about their roots, said Perego. "I receive calls and emails regularly asking, 'With a DNA test, can you prove I have Native American ancestry?' Our new research has the potential to fine-tune genetic genealogy tests for these people." He noted genetic testing is not currently accepted as proof of ancestry for admission into a tribe.

About Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation

The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF; www.smgf.org) is a non-profit research organization that has created the world's largest repository of correlated genetic and genealogical information. The SMGF database currently contains information about more than six million ancestors through linked DNA samples and pedigree charts from more than 170 countries, or approximately 90 percent of the nations of the world. The foundation's purpose is to foster a greater sense of identity, connection and belonging among all people by showing how closely we are connected as members of a single human family. For more information about the foundation's free, publicly available database, visit

http://www.smgf.org.

What Really Happened to the Lost Colony?

UNC professor shares his theory

Click-2-Listen
By BRENDA KLEMAN
Staff Writer
Friday, February 22, 2008

BARCO — What really happened to the Lost Colony? That's a question that has baffled historians for more than 400 years. One University of North Carolina professor shared his theory as to what happened to the ill-fated colonists during a lecture Saturday, Feb. 16 at the Currituck Public Library.

In the last half of the 20th century historians have concluded that the 120 English colonists were either killed by American Indians, or that they left the island and joined various Indian tribes, said professor David La Vere, of UNC at Wilmington.

Historian David La Vere discusses his opinion of what happened to the Lost Colony during a forum held at the Currituck Public Library in Barco Saturday.

However, La Vere believes the colonists' disappearance was due to a combination of both beliefs. La Vere has devoted years to investigating the disappearance of the settlers, who in 1587 landed on the shores of Roanoke Island. Three years later the settlers had vanished and the only clue left behind was a mysterious inscription found on a tree. The vanishing settlers are remembered in history as the "Lost Colony."

Historians believe that the settlers were hindered by a bad drought, which made it difficult for them to grow crops, La Vere said. That's when their leader, Gov. John White, sailed back to England to get more supplies. White was unable to return to Roanoke Island until 1590, a delay that La Vere said he believes was due to England's politics and it's war with Spain.

When White finally made it back to Roanoke Island, all that remained of any sign of the settlers was the word "Croatan" inscribed on a tree. La Vere said he believes Croatan is a reference to an island of the same name near Buxton, where he believes about 20 of the settlers went after waiting as long as possible for White to return before giving up and leaving. At Croatan, the settlers would wait and watch for the return of supply ships. He said he believes the remaining settlers tried to make it north to Virginia in hopes of finding other white settlements, La Vere said.

While anthropologists, archeologists and other scientists are still studying disappearance of the Lost Colony, La Vere said he believes the 100 or so colonists who tried to reach Virginia mistakenly traveled up the Chowan River and were either killed or captured and put into slavery by the Mangoak Native American tribe.

"It makes most sense to me that the Mangoaks killed or captured the colonists," La Vere said.
He also said that he believes Croatan was friendly Indian territory, and the survivors of the group of 20 were probably adopted into Indian society, married and had children.

La Vere said there have been reports of blond-haired American Indians spotted in the early 17th century, but as of now, there is no information to confirm they were descendants of the Lost Colony.

La Vere has performed extensive research on American Indians who lived in parts of North Carolina and Virginia during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and how they may have played a role in the colonists' disappearance. To help explain his theory, La Vere discussed the tribes that inhabited North Carolina's Albemarle and Piedmont areas, as well as the area known today as Chesapeake, Va.

Full Article Here:

http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/02/22/022208currlostcolony.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=7

"The First Colony" Television Show's Last Broadcast Tonight

In a show produced by a local man, archaeologists say Spanish artifacts in western N.C. predate 'Lost Colony'

Click-2-Listen

By Ginger LivingstonThe Daily Reflector

Thursday, January 31, 2008

A public television show produced by a local man and airing tonight (repeats Sunday) features archeological work that could change how North Carolinians view the early history of the state.

"The First Lost Colony" is the segment airing locally at 8:30 p.m. on UNC-TV's "Exploring North Carolina" on Suddenlink channel 4. The show was co-produced and photographed by Pitt County resident Joe Albea.

Archaeologists studying the site of a 16th century Spanish fort in Burke County have found pottery shards from olive jars, finishing nails and lead balls used in muskets.

"The First Lost Colony" examines the work archeologists from North Carolina, South Carolina and Illinois are doing at a Burke County farm. Scientists are certain it is the location of Fort San Juan, one of five colonies the Spanish established in the interior United States about 20 years before the British sent its failed colony to Roanoke Island in what is now Dare County. That group of men and women became the storied "Lost Colony" that vanished, leaving only the word "Croatoan" carved on a tree.

"The 16th century for the large part is forgotten but there was a lot of exploration of the continent at that time," Albea said.

The N.C. Natural History Museum hosted a premiere of the show Wednesday night in Raleigh. About 250 attended the event, including the site's discoverer, Warren Wilson College professor and archeologist David Moore, and his colleagues Robin Beck with Southern Illinois University and Christopher Rodning with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

http://www.archaeologynews.org/story.asp?ID=259706&Title=In%20a%20show%20produced%20by%20a%20local%20man,%20archaeologists%20say%20Spanish%20...

To read more about the work at the Berry site, visit http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~storyteller/NEWS/NEWS-jbowers-2006-9-14-11-2-53.shtml

Read more:

http://www.worldsedge.net/desoto/BECK_FROM%20JOARA%20TO%20CHIAHA.htm

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:GLvXxydhHfYJ:www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/collateral/articles/F05.first.people.pdf+de+soto+fort+burke+county&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

Virginia Indian Tribes

Part 1

The Chickahominy Indian Tribe, whose name has been translated as “course ground corn people,” was officially recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia General Assembly on March 25, 1983. With approximately 875 Chickahominy people living in the vicinity of the Tribal Center, the Chickahominy are based in Charles City County near the many towns along the Chickahominy River where the tribe lived in 1600. The Chickahominy had early contact with the English settlers because of their proximity to Jamestown, and they taught early colonists how to survive by growing and preserving their own food. As the English prospered and claimed more land, the Chickahominy tribe was forced out of their homeland. The treaty of 1646 awarded reservation land to the Chickahominy and other tribes in the “Pamunkey Neck” area of Virginia where the Mattaponi reservation exists todays. After 1718, they were forced off this reservation, and over the ensuing years Chickahominy families moved to Chickahominy Ridge in present day Charles City County where they now reside. Here the tribe purchased land and established the Samaria Baptist Church, which remains an important focal point for the community.

The Chickahominy Indian Eastern Division (CIED) also originated with the historic Chickahominy tribe. This tribe, based in New Kent County, was established in the early 20th century and has approximately 130 members today. Their members established the Tsena Commocko Baptist Church, and in recent years have purchased approximately 40 acres as tribally held land.

Roanoke Colonies

The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in Dare County in present-day North Carolina was an enterprise financed and organized by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 16th century to establish a permanent English settlement in the Virginia Colony. Between 1585 and 1587, groups of colonists were left to make the attempt, all of which either abandoned the colony or disappeared. The final group disappeared after a period of three years elapsed without supplies from England, leading to the continuing mystery known as "The Lost Colony." The principal hypothesis is that the colonists disappeared and were absorbed by one of the local indigenous populations, although the colonists may possibly have been massacred by the Spanish. Other theories include a massacre by some of the hostile local tribes.

Sir Walter Raleigh had received a charter for the colonization of the area of North America known as Virginia from Queen Elizabeth I of England. The charter specified that Raleigh had ten years in which to establish a settlement in North America or lose his right to colonization.

Raleigh and Elizabeth intended that the venture should provide riches from the New World, and a base from which to send privateers on raids against the treasure fleets of Spain.

In 1584, Raleigh dispatched an expedition to explore the eastern coast of North America for an appropriate location. The expedition was led by Phillip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, who chose the Outer Banks of modern North Carolina as an ideal location from which to raid the Spanish, who had settlements to the South, and proceeded to make contact with local American Indians, the Croatan tribe of the Carolina Algonquians.

First Group

The following spring, a colonizing expedition composed solely of men, many of them veteran soldiers who had fought to establish English rule in Ireland, was sent to establish the colony. The leader of the settlement effort, Sir Richard Grenville, was assigned to further explore the area, establish the colony, and return to England with news of the venture's success. The establishment of the colony was initially postponed, perhaps because most of the colony's food stores were ruined when the lead ship struck a shoal upon arrival at the Outer Banks. After the initial exploration of the mainland coast and the native settlements located there, the natives in the village of Aquascogoc were blamed for stealing a silver cup. In response the last village visited was sacked and burned, and its weroance (tribal chief) executed by burning.

Despite this incident and a lack of food, Grenville decided to leave Ralph Lane and approximately 75 men to establish the English colony at the north end of Roanoke Island, promising to return in April 1586 with more men and fresh supplies.

By April 1586, relations with a neighboring tribe had degraded to such a degree that they attacked an expedition led by Lane to explore the Roanoke River and the possibility of the Fountain of Youth. In response he attacked the natives in their capital, where he killed their weroance, Wingina.

As April passed there was no sign of Grenville's relief fleet. The colony was still in existence in June when Sir Francis Drake paused on his way home from a successful raid in the Caribbean, and offered to take the colonists back to England, an offer they accepted. The relief fleet arrived shortly after the departure of Drake's fleet with the colonists. Finding the colony abandoned, Grenville decided to return to England with the bulk of his force, leaving behind a small detachment both to maintain an English presence and to protect Raleigh's claim to Virginia.

Second group

In 1587, Raleigh dispatched another group of colonists. These 121 colonists were led by John White, an artist and friend of Raleigh's who had accompanied the previous expeditions to Roanoke. The new colonists were tasked with picking up the fifteen men left at Roanoke and settling farther north, in the Chesapeake Bay area; however, no trace of them was found, other than the bones of a single man. The one local tribe still friendly towards the English, the Croatans on present-day Hatteras Island, reported that the men had been attacked, but that nine had survived and sailed up the coast in their boat.

The settlers landed on Roanoke Island on July 22 1587. On August 18, White's daughter delivered the first English child born in the Americas: Virginia Dare. Before her birth, White reestablished relations with the neighboring Croatans and tried to reestablish relations with the tribes that Ralph Lane had attacked a year previously. The aggrieved tribes refused to meet with the new colonists. Shortly thereafter, George Howe was killed by natives while searching for crabs alone in Albemarle Sound. Knowing what had happened during Ralph Lane's tenure in the area and fearing for their lives, the colonists convinced Governor White to return to England to explain the colony's situation and ask for help. There were approximately 116 colonists—115 men and women who made the trans-Atlantic passage and a newborn baby, Virginia Dare, when White returned to England.

Crossing the Atlantic as late in the year as White did was a considerable risk, as evidenced by the claim of pilot Simon Fernandez that their vessel barely made it back to England. Plans for a relief fleet were initially delayed by the captains' refusal to sail back during the winter. Then, the coming of the Spanish Armada led to every able ship in England being commandeered to fight, which left White with no seaworthy vessels with which to return to Roanoke. He did manage, however, to hire two smaller vessels deemed unnecessary for the Armada defense and set out for Roanoke in the spring of 1588. This time, White's attempt to return to Roanoke was foiled by human nature and circumstance; the two vessels were small, and their captains greedy. They attempted to capture several vessels on the outward-bound voyage to improve the profitability of their venture, until they were captured themselves and their cargo taken. With nothing left to deliver to the colonists, the ships returned to England.

Because of the continuing war with Spain, White was not able to raise another resupply attempt for two more years. He finally gained passage on a privateering expedition that agreed to stop off at Roanoke on the way back from the Caribbean. White landed on August 18, 1590, on his granddaughter's third birthday, but found the settlement deserted. He organized a search, but his men could not find any trace of the colonists. Some ninety men, seventeen women, and eleven children had disappeared; there was no sign of a struggle or battle of any kind. The only clue was the word "Croatoan" carved into a post of the fort and "Cro" carved into a nearby tree. In addition, there were two skeletons buried. All the houses and fortifications were dismantled. Before the colony disappeared, White established that if anything happened to them they would carve a maltese cross on a tree near their location indicating that their disappearance could have been forced. White took this to mean that they had moved to Croatoan Island, but he was unable to conduct a search; a massive storm was brewing and his men refused to go any further. The next day, White stood on the deck of his ship and watched, helplessly, as they left Roanoke Island.

Full Article Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony