The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke by Andrew Lawler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
My sister knows me well. About a month ago she sent me a news article about the possibility that at least one of the controversial Dare stones might be real. If so it would solve one of the oldest mysteries of American history: what became of the famed Lost Colonists?
Lawler’s book is the clearinghouse for all of the recent Roanoke Colony research and lore, including the most recent archaeological efforts and the discovery of a hidden inland fort on one of the 16th century maps of the region. He also doesn’t shy away from the more controversial items like the Dare stones.
I learned some new things as well, most intriguingly that in addition to the famous 115 colonists (possibly) lost to Croatoan, another wave of inadvertent colonists may have been lost as well. After a 1585 raid on the Spanish colony of Cartagena, Sir Francis Drake made for the new Roanoke colony with African, South American, and Ottoman Turkish captives. The Turks were likely repatriated but it’s suspected that the Africans and South Americans were simply left to fend for themselves in what became North Carolina. The origins of immigration to what became the United States were evidently multicultural from the beginning.
Which is where the most interesting part of Lawler’s book comes in: modern fascination with the fate of the lost colonists (and which colonists count as “lost” and why) speaks to the very definition of who we think of as “American”. Highly recommended.