In 1587, the English again attempted to settle Roanoke Island. John White, father of colonist Eleanor Dare, and grandfather to Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World, left the colony to return to England for supplies. He expected to return to Roanoke Island within three months. Instead, he found England at war with Spain, and all ships were confiscated for use of the war efforts. White's return to Roanoke Island was delayed until 1590, by which time all the colonists had disappeared. The settlement was abandoned. Th
e only clue White found was the word "CROATOAN" carved into a tree.[3][4] Before leaving the colony three years earlier, White had left instructions that, if the colonists left the settlement, they were to carve the name of their destination, with a Maltese cross if they left due to danger.[5]
"CROATOAN" was the name of an island to the south (modern-day Hatteras Island), where a friendly native tribe was known to live. Colonists might have tried to reach that island. However, foul weather kept White from venturing south to search on Croatoan for the colonists, and he returned to England. White would never return to the New World. The fate of the colony was never authoritatively ascertained, and it became known as "The Lost Colony".
In the 1880s, a man living in North Carolina wrote about what the Natives looked like there. He wrote that he had noticed that some of them had "fair skin and light eyes and hair, with Anglo bone structure."
