Set Fair for Roanoke: Voyages and Colonies, 1584-1606

by David Beers Quinn

Quinn's study brings together the results of his nearly fifty years of research on the voyages outfitted by Sir Walter Raleigh and the efforts to colonize Roanoke Island. It is a fascinating book, rich in details of the colonists' experiences in the New World. Quinn "solves" the mystery of the Lost Colony with the controversial conclusion that many of the colonists lived with the Powhatans until the first decade of the seventeenth century when they were massacred.

Genres: History

492 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1985

About the author

David Beers Quinn was an Irish historian who wrote extensively on the voyages of discovery and colonisation of America. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he graduated from Queen's University, Belfast in 1931. He then completed a PhD on the early Tudor administration in Ireland at King's College London. He subsequently spent five years as lecturer at University College, Southampton (now Southampton University). Returning Belfast in 1939 he taught Irish history.

Reviews

[Joseph Ficklen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a better researched book than David Stick's "Roanoke Island," much more conservative in its reconstruction of the narrative, which appears to be based on the most recent scholarship and archaeology from around the time of the quadricentenial. There were assumptions Stick made about certain facts which Quinn could only admit as doubtful from the sources. But at a certain point, Quinn had to start speculating too, especially after August 1587 when John White left his colonists on Roanoke Island. I noted the phrases "if", "must of necessity", "althought it might have", "could more probably", "we might wonder (with no evidence at all to back it up)", appearing all within a single paragraph (p. 368). Quinn uses such phrases to present his hypothesis that the majority of the Lost Colonists travelled, not to Croatan Island or to another place in the Outer Banks, but north to the Chesapeake region, where White had originally intended to plant the 1587 colony. A smaller party left behind on Roanoke may indeed have relocated to Croatan Island (which explains certain evidence found later of Indians with grey eyes whose ancestors lived in houses and read from books).

But if most of the Lost Colonists were to be found in the Chesapeake, why didn't Newport and Smith and the other early Virginia settlers find traces of them in the region from 1607 onward? Well, they may have done. They did hear reports of "four men" who looked and dressed like them to the south on the Roanoke River, but a party sent out to make contact with them failed to reach them. Quinn hypothesizes that these four men did indeed exist, and that they were the survivors of a massacre by the Powhatan indians, which took place shortly before the arrival of Newport in 1607, when Powhatan made war on the Chesepian Indians and heavily decimated their population. There was , according to Quinn, a systematic destruction of any English-style buildings that may have existed along the Elizabeth River in the modern-day area of Chesapeake and Norfolk.

On one hand, it's a good story, too good! And it actually fits with evidence gleaned by the early Virginia settlers, who knew about the Lost Colony and were very curious about its fate. On the other hand, it relies on Powhatan having clairvoyant knowledge of the arrival of the Jamestown colonists in 1607. The fact that no trace has been found of any English occupation in the region prior to 1607, (explained by Quinn as a result of systematic destruction) to me is the dog that doesn't bark in the night. But I must admit, it is a good story...

I would recommend this book as an academic reconstruction of events at Roanoke Island, with a special focus on the life and culture of the people involved.

[Harold Titus · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Set Fair for Roanoke" by David Beers Quinn is not a book that would appeal to the general reading public. There are other secondary source books about the attempted English settlements at Roanoke (inside the Outer Banks of North Carolina) that are faster-moving and more entertaining reads. What the reader gets from Quinn’s book that elevates it is detailed, insightful speculation.

Primary sources do not explain sufficiently what happened at Roanoke. Historians have available to them five reports sent to Walter Raleigh that narrate the 1584 expedition and the settlements of 1585-1586 and 1587. The reports inadvertently and intentionally omit needed information. They are also biased. Our knowledge of the local Algonquians is limited to what those who wrote the reports chose to declare. Given these limitations, what can a credible historian do? Narrate what was reported, question its objectivity, seize upon bits and pieces of information made available, and speculate. Of the four Roanoke historians that I have read, David Quinn does this best.

Here is much of what Quinn addresses.

Just how much influence did the Roanoke chief Wingina have over native villages along the banks of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds? Not very much? A lot? Historians don’t know. Identifying the native warriors that wounded him in early 1584 is important, given Governor Lane’s assertion that Wingina was plotting to have warriors from distant villages assist him in destroying the 1585-1586 colony.

The two Englishmen who provided the best information about the native population were the scientist Thomas Harriot and the artist John White. They may have been members of the first voyage to Roanoke in 1584, but historians are not certain. Both were indispensable members of the 1585-1586 settlement. One of their important achievements was their survey of the waterways and villages of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds. Yet we don’t know all of the villages they visited. Near the end of 1585 Governor Lane sent a party of about 20 men to the Chesapeake Bay to scout suitable land for a possible future settlement. We have no report of their experiences. All we know is what Lane scarcely mentions. It is assumed that Harriot, who had some knowledge of the Algonquian language, participated. Nobody knows whether White accompanied him. He may very well have returned to England several months earlier. Reasonable arguments can be made to support or refute each conclusion. How much White knew about the Chesapeake land and the local natives residing there is germane to what in 1587 he must have advised his settlers to do if, feeling threatened, they decided to relocate.

Most historians agree that Governor Lane’s account of the events of 1586 that culminated with Wingina’s murder is suspect. Lane was convinced that Wingina had plotted to annihilate his settlers using friendly warriors from villages fifty miles or farther away. It had been Wingina, Lane reported, that in the early spring had caused distant villages to deny his men food during their exploration of the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers. We have Lane’s point of view only. Was he paranoid?

Why did Simon Fernandes, the pilot of John White’s 1587 voyage to Roanoke, force White’s settlers to disembark on the Island? Why didn’t he take them to the Chesapeake Bay as White and Sir Walter Raleigh had planned? Was it to provide himself enough time to privateer? Was he following the orders of Walter Raleigh’s enemies in England that White’s venture must fail, a theory proposed by one imaginative historian? White believed that Fernandes did intend to privateer. The pilot’s actions during the Atlantic crossing and passage through the Caribbean suggest another motive.

Finally, what happened to White’s settlers after they forced White to return to England to try to persuade investors to send ships to Roanoke to take them to the Chesapeake? When White returned to Roanoke in 1590, he found not one Algonquian or settler to question. Historians give us theories of where they believe the settlers might have settled and what afterward might have happened to them – speculation based on sketchy information provided by descendants of Croatoan natives, John Smith of Jamestown, and an exploratory party sent south from Jamestown.

I appreciated the extent to which David Beers Quinn analyzed source information and the alternative theories he imparted to expand our understanding of England’s failed attempt in the 1580s to establish a North American colony.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic work. Very academic and research driven!!!