Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, North Carolina — John Shaqi
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, North CarolinaPorter, Charles W., III (Charles Wesley)
History
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, North Carolina
Porter, Charles W., III (Charles Wesley)
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site (N.C.); Roanoke Colony; Roanoke Island (N.C.) -- History
Thomas Hariot remarked that though stone was not found on the island,
there was good clay for making bricks, and lime could be made from
nearby deposits of oyster shells in the same manner that lime was made
“in the Isles of Tenet and Shepy, and also in divers other places of
England.” However, as no evidence of the extensive use of brick has yet
been found, it is perhaps safe to assume that the chief building
material was rough boards. It has already been noted that they had a
forge which they could set up to make nails. Richard Hakluyt, in his
_Discourse of Western Planting_, written at the request of Sir Walter
Raleigh in 1584, about 1 year before the colony sailed, had recommended
as “things to be prepared for the voyadge” that any colonial expedition
should include “men experte in the arte of fortification,” “makers of
spades and shovells,” “shipwrights,” “millwrights, to make milles for
spedy and cheape sawing of timber and boardes for trade, and first
traficque of suertie,” “millwrights, for corne milles,” “Sawyers for
common use,” “Carpinters, for buildinges,” “Brick makers,” “Tile
makers,” “Lyme makers,” “Bricklayers,” “Tilers,” “Thatchers with reedes,
rushes, broome, or strawe,” “Rough Masons,” “Carpinters,” and
“Lathmakers.” The presumption therefore is that typical English thatched
cottages and houses, such as were found in rural Elizabethan England,
were built at Roanoke. (The log cabin appears to have been introduced
into America about 50 years later by the Swedes and Finns on the
Delaware.) The Roanoke cottages were presumably well built. The skilled
labor of the expedition had been able to construct a seaworthy pinnace
at Puerto Rico in less than a month’s time.
LIFE IN THE COLONY.
At first, relations with the Indians continued friendly, though the
Englishmen had their detractors in the Council of the Indian Chief. The
aborigines planted crops and made fish traps for the Englishmen. With
rare foresight, the colonists also induced Chief Wingina (who had
changed his name to Pemisapan) to put into simultaneous cultivation his
lands both on Roanoke Island and on the mainland at Dasamonquepeuc in
order that the Indians might have no excuse for not being able to supply
the colony if need arose. The coast was explored by the English as far
south as Secotan (about 80 miles) and as far north as the Chesapeake
(about 130 miles). Thomas Hariot collected data on plants, animals, and
minerals for his _New Found Land of Virginia_. John White made the
inimitable water-color drawings of the Indians, the animal and plant
life of Roanoke Island, and the coast, which have been engraved many
times. The much rarer facsimile reproductions of these drawings in color
may be seen in the Fort Raleigh museum. These paintings are the first
artistic productions of Englishmen in America. The colonists also
learned to smoke tobacco, using for this purpose Indian pipes or other
pipes of their own modeled on the Indian pipes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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