1599 Acoma Tribe Massacre

In 1599, as retaliation for the killing of 11 Spanish soldiers, Juan de Oñate led punitive expedition to slaughter the natives at the Acoma mesa.

1599 Acoma Tribe Massacre

In the late 1500s, the Spanish began their conquest of the Pueblo people in northern New Spain & in 1595 the conquistador Don Juan de Oñate was granted permission from King Philip II to colonize Santa Fe de Nuevo México, the present-day New Mexico. Relations between the Spanish & the Acoma people had been mostly peaceful for several decades after the 2 groups first came into contact around 1540.

In 1598, the Acoma leader, Zutacapan, learned that the Spanish intended to conquer Acoma Pueblo. Initially, the natives planned to defend themselves; however, their belief that the Spanish were immortal & their knowledge of Spanish atrocities committed in the past led the Acoma to try to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict. Accordingly, Don Oñate sent his nephew, Captain Juan de Zaldívar, to the pueblo to consult with Zutacapan. When Zaldivar arrived on December 4, 1598, one of the first things he did was to take 15 of his men up the mesa on which the pueblo was located to demand food from the natives. After being denied the food they had demanded, the Spaniards allegedly attacked some Acoma women. A fight ensued, leaving Zaldivar & eleven of his men dead.

When Oñate learned of the incident, he ordered Juan de Zaldivar's brother, Vicente de Zaldívar, to lead an expedition to punish the Acoma & set an example for other pueblos. Taking about 70 men, Vincente de Zaldivar left San Juan Pueblo in late December or early January & arrived at Acoma Pueblo on January 21, 1599.

The battle began the following morning, January 22. For the first 2 days the Spanish & Acoma skirmished inconclusively until Zaldívar developed a plan to breach the pueblo using a small cannon. On the third day, Zaldívar & 12 of his men ascended the mesa & opened fire on the pueblo with the cannon. After some time, several Acoma homes caught on fire & were destroyed while the conquistadors stormed through the settlement. There were an estimated 6,000 natives living at or around the Acoma Pueblo in 1599, at least 2,000 of whom were warriors. Of the 2,000, about 500 were killed in the battle, along with about 300 women & children. Some 500 prisoners were taken & later sentenced to a variety of punishments. Don Oñate ordered that every male above the age of 25 would have his right foot cut off & be enslaved for a period of 20 years. However, only 24 men actually received amputations. Males between the age of 12 & 25 were also enslaved for 20 years along with all of the females above the age of 12. Many of these natives were dispersed among the residences of government officials or at Franciscan missions. Sixty of the youngest women were deemed not guilty & sent to Mexico City where they were "parceled out among Catholic convents". Two Hopi men were taken prisoner at the pueblo; after each had one of his hands cut off, they were released to spread the word of Spain's resolve.

When King Philip heard the news of the massacre, & the punishments, Don Oñate was banished from New Mexico for his cruelty towards the natives & later returned to Spain to live out the remainder of his life. Several Acomas escaped capture by the Spanish in 1599 & by 1601 they had rebuilt their pueblo, which still stands.

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Aged Man

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598 Aged Native American Man  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1588 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1100 The Acoma Nation & its Mesa-Top Pueblo

1846 Print of the Acoma Pueblo

The Acoma Nation & its Mesa-Top Pueblo
US National Park Service 

Set within the vast desert of northern New Mexico, a massive, 357-foot tall mesa stands proud. Known as Acoma Rock, the craggy, flat-topped mountain is home to Acoma, a National Historic Landmark, & one of the oldest continuously occupied communities in what is now the United States. The pueblo’s lofty, isolated location made it virtually impenetrable throughout the precontact period, which allowed the village & its people to flourish & develop distinct cultural traditions.

Founded as early as 1100 A.D & evolving throughout the centuries, Acoma illustrates the significance of early native peoples in New Mexico & the profound influence of Spanish culture in the Southwest beginning in the 16th century. The pueblo is home to the San Esteban del Rey Mission Church, which the Spanish Franciscan friars built in the early 1600s. The mission is the oldest surviving European church in New Mexico & an impressively large, stately presence among Acoma Pueblo’s adobe homes. The pueblo illustrates the amalgamation of European & Native cultures in New Mexico & helps illuminate the history of Spanish contact & interaction with the ancient peoples of the United States.

Opinions differ on the age of the Acoma Nation & its mesa-top pueblo. Traditional Acoma oral history tells of an ancient city far older than our imaginations & current calendars can comprehend. “Acoma” itself translates in local dialects to a “place that always was” & legend tells that the Acoma people have lived on the mesa forever. 

Scientific, historical & archeological evidence dates the Pueblo’s oldest extant remains to around 1100 A.D. & suggests that the Acoma people likely lived in the desert surrounding the mesa during earlier times & at some point decided to scale the massive rock & move their village to the top. An extensive archeological survey of the pueblo in the 1950s revealed the ancient people to be prolific potters, & skilled artisans & architects.

In the early 1500s, Viceroy of New Spain Antonio de Mendoza called for the first explorations into the lands north of Spain’s holdings at the time, which are now in modern-day Mexico. Rumors flew of vast cities of gold & incredible riches waiting for the Spanish Crown to claim them. Throughout the 16th & 17th centuries, many expeditions traveled into present-day Arizona & New Mexico. Even though Acoma sat isolated on its mesa, several Spanish explorers visited it, including Hernando de Alvarado in 1540 (a member of the Francisco Vásquez de Coronado mission), the Chamuscado-Rodriguez expedition in 1581, Antonio de Espejo in 1583, & Juan de Oñate in 1598.

Early Spanish reports indicate that the pueblo was a village of roughly 500 three or four stories tall adobe houses. Windows were small & limited & doors at the ground level did not exist. Instead, residents entered buildings via ladders placed through holes in the roof. At the time, the only way to the mesa’s top was a series of hand & toeholds carved into the steep rock. The people had to carry all of the materials used to construct the original community up the cliffs on their backs.

Because of its location, Acoma was one of the most resistant pueblos to Spanish rule. During early Spanish contact, reports indicate that the Acoma were friendly, often meeting expedition parties at the bottom of the mesa to greet & assist them. As time moved on & the Spanish presence became more & more persistent, however, the Acoma retaliated. In December 1598, residents lured Captain Juan de Zaldívar, one of Oñate's officers, into the pueblo & murdered him & 14 of his men. This had dire consequences for the village two months later when Zaldívar’s brother arrived with a force of 70 Spanish soldiers to avenge the deaths. A bitter battle resulted in the sacking & burning of much of the pueblo & the death of approximately 1,500 residents. The Spanish forced those who remained to surrender the pueblo to the Spanish. Oñate himself demanded sentencing survivors to indentured servitude & bodily mutilation. Oñate’s harsh & unfair treatment of the Acoma people would later lead to his legal expulsion from New Mexico & Mexico City.

With the rebuilding of the pueblo under Spanish rule in the early 1600s, missionary efforts began to convert the Acoma to Catholicism & Spanish ways of life. Still, strong resistance remained among the natives, & the Spanish did not have a mission church constructed until the late 1620s.  Although earlier priests visited the pueblo, Father Juan Ramirez is noteworthy as the first permanent Franciscan father to live in Acoma. It is likely that he began the building of San Esteban del Rey Mission Church upon his arrival in 1629, but the exact dates of its construction are unknown. The huge church, which still stands today, is an impressive work of architecture – especially considering that native workers had to carry all of its materials up the mountain. These materials included the church’s 40-foot long roof beams, originally hewn in the San Mateo Mountains, 30 miles away.

The church is simple in plan, with a long nave & a polygonal sanctuary at its western end. Its exterior is impressively tall due to battered walls that are up to seven-feet high from the base, tapering up to a mere 30 inches at their peak. Two square bell towers flank the main façade & contain bells brought from Mexico during the 1800s. A one-story convento sits along the north side of the church & once housed living space, workrooms, & storage for the father & friars who were in residence. A large cemetery surrounded by a low wall sits in front of the church & contains the remains of both native & Spanish residents from throughout the centuries.

During the 1600s, tensions remained high between the Spanish & native peoples throughout the Southwest. Most of the conflict centered on religious disagreements, & in 1680, many villages, including Acoma, took part in a large pueblo rebellion. The rebellion resulted in the death of several hundred Franciscan fathers, the destruction of many churches, & the death or banishment from pueblo towns of many Spanish residents. Acoma’s priest, Fray Lucas Maldonado, & the other Spaniards living in the pueblo did not survive the rebellion, but San Esteban del Rey Mission Church remained largely unharmed. It has continued to serve Acoma’s Catholic residents since Spanish re-conquest of Acoma Pueblo in 1699.  

Theodor de Bry 1588 Embellished Engravings of Copied Images of Native Americans - Man & Woman Cooking in a Pot

1588 Theodor de Bry 1528-1598  Cooking in a Pot  A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was an engraver & publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. In 1590 Theodor de Bry & his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's 1588 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in North Carolina). His illustrations were loosely based on the 1585 eye-witness watercolor paintings of English colonist & artist John White.

1598 Native American Hopi Nation

Juan de Oñate (c 1550–1626)

On November 15, 1598, Juan de Oñate declared possession of Hopi land (in what is now northern Arizona) in the name of the Spanish crown. Four hundred years later, the Hopi have still never signed any treaty with any non-Indian nation.

Juan de Oñate
By Gerald F. Kozlowski for the Texas State Historical Association

Juan de Oñate (ca. 1550–1626), explorer & founder of the first European settlements in the upper Rio Grande valley of New Mexico, son of Cristóbal de Oñate & Catalina de Salazar, was born around 1550, most likely in the frontier settlement of Zacatecas, Mexico. His father was a prominent Zacatecas mine owner & encomendero. In his early twenties Oñate was leading campaigns against the unsubdued Chichimec Indians along the turbulent northern frontier around Zacatecas & prospecting for silver. He aided the establishment of missions in the newly conquered territory. He married Isabel de Tolosa Cortés Moctezuma, a descendant of the famous conquistador Hernán Cortés & the Aztec emperor Moctezuma. They had a son & a daughter.

On September 21, 1595, Oñate was awarded a contract by King Philip II of Spain to settle New Mexico. Spreading Catholicism was a primary objective, but many colonists enlisted in hopes of finding a new silver strike. After many delays Oñate began the entrada in early 1598. He forded the Rio Grande at the famous crossing point of El Paso del Norte, which he discovered in May 1598, after making a formal declaration of possession of New Mexico on April 30 of that year. By late May he had made contact with the first of the many pueblos of the northern Rio Grande valley. In July 1598 he established the headquarters of the New Mexico colony at San Juan pueblo, thus effectively extending the Camino Real by more than 600 miles. It was the longest road in North America for several subsequent centuries. While awaiting the slow-moving main caravan of colonists, Oñate explored the surrounding area & solidified his position. Construction of the mission at San Francisco & a mission for the Indians of San Juan soon began. Mutiny, desertion, & dissent plagued the new colony when riches were not instantly found. Oñate dealt with these problems with a firm hand. Some of his men explored east beyond Pecos pueblo towards the Texas border in search of buffalo; they probably reached the headwaters of the Canadian River, twenty-five miles northwest of the site of present Amarillo. Oñate visited Acoma pueblos as well as the Hopi & Zuni pueblos far to the west; one party in his group went as far as the San Francisco mountains in Arizona, finding silver ore & staking claims. Upon Oñate's return to Acoma he put down a revolt that left 11 colonists dead. He severely punished the rebellious Indians.

Prospecting expeditions continued in an attempt to bring prosperity to the colony. The colony was reinforced in late 1600, but hardships, including cold weather & short food supplies, continued. On June 23, 1601, Oñate began an expedition to Quivira in search of wealth & an outlet to the sea. He followed the Canadian River across the Texas Panhandle & near the Oklahoma border headed northeast. Probably in the central part of what is now Kansas, Oñate's expedition arrived at the first of the Quivira villages. The great settlements of Quivira proved to be a disappointment to men who had come looking for easy wealth, however, & they soon turned back. While Oñate was on this expedition, conditions deteriorated in the New Mexico colony because the land was poor, the Indians were troublesome, & there were no silver strikes. The colony was subsequently abandoned except for some of Oñate's most devoted followers. The deserters spread the news of conditions in the colony when they returned to New Spain, & the government soon initiated an inquiry into the situation in New Mexico & Oñate's treatment of the Indians. At the same time Oñate launched his last major expedition, from the Zuni pueblos to the Colorado River & down it to the Gulf of California.

In 1606 King Philip III ordered Oñate to Mexico City until allegations against him could be investigated. Unaware of the order, Oñate resigned his office in 1607 because of the condition of the colony & financial problems. He remained in New Mexico to see the town of Santa Fe established. King Philip III decided to continue supporting the colony. A new governor was appointed, & Oñate was summoned to Mexico City in 1608. In 1613 he finally faced charges of using excessive force during the Acoma rebellion, hanging two Indians, executing mutineers & deserters, & adultery. He was fined, banished from New Mexico permanently, & banished from Mexico City for four years. He spent much of the rest of his life trying to clear his name, with some evident success. Eventually he went to Spain, where the king gave him the position of mining inspector. He died in Spain on or around June 3, 1626.

See
Herbert Eugene Bolton, ed., Spanish Exploration in the Southwest, 1542–1706 (New York: Scribner, 1908; rpt., New York: Barnes & Noble, 1959).
Carlos E. Castañeda, Our Catholic Heritage in Texas (7 vols., Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1936–58; rpt., New York: Arno, 1976).
George P. Hammond & Agapito Rey, eds., Don Juan de Oñate: Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595–1628 (Santa Fe: Patalacio, 1927; rpt., Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953).
Marc Simmons, The Last Conquistador: Juan de Oñate & the Settling of the Far Southwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Old Man

Watercolor drawing Old Indian Man by John White (created 1585-1586)

The man is standing to the front, his face half-left, with feet apart. His greying hair is drawn flat at the sides and caught up in a knot at the back, leaving a roach down the middle of his head. Some facial hair is visible on his chin, cheeks, and upper hp. He wears a large fringed deerskin mantle thrown over his left shoulder and reaching below the knee, leaving the right shoulder bare, with the top edge turned down to reveal the hairy side. A neat seam is visible down the left side. His right hand lies across his body clasping his mantle, his left is extended at the side and points down with the index finger. He is perhaps wearing an ear ornament.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, along the top, "The aged man in his wynter garment. "

John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings.  During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.  They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.

The 16C Native American work force of the Spanish colonials - The 1542 New Laws & Slavery

Bartolome de Las Casa, the first priest ordained in the Western hemisphere & chief architect of the now-defunct "New Laws" against Indian enslavement, wrote in 1542 & published in 1552 Brief Relations of the Destruction of the Indies, which provided many gruesome examples of the Spanish colonists' treatment of Indians.

The New Laws (Leyes Nuevas), also known as the New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment & Preservation of the Native Americans were issued on November 20, 1542, by King Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (Charles I of Spain) about Spanish colonization of the Americas.  The New Laws were the results of the failure of the less effective, Laws of Burgos issued by King Ferdinand II of Aragon on December 27, 1512. These new laws were the first set of rules created to regulate relations between the Spaniards & the recently conquered indigenous people. While some encomenderos opposed the restrictions imposed by the new laws as against their interests, others were opposed because they regarded the laws as legalizing the system of forced Indian labor. During the reign of King Charles I, the reformers gained strength, with a number of Spanish missionaries making the case for stricter rules, including Bartolomé de las Casas & Francisco de Vitoria. The goal was to protect the Native Americans against forced labor & expropriation & to preserve their lifestyle.

The new laws included the prohibition of the enslavement of the Native Americans & provisions for the gradual abolition of the encomienda system in America. The New Laws stated that the Native Americans would be considered free persons, & the encomenderos could no longer demand their labor. Actually, the enslavement of Native Americans had been illegal in Castile since 1501, when Isabella I declared native Americans subjects of the Castilian crown.

The encomienda system, however, was abused in America to create conditions akin slavery assigning to Native Americans the most unpleasant or dangerous jobs. As a result, the New Laws required the Native Americans to pay the encomenderos tribute; and, if they worked, they would be paid wages in exchange for their labor. The laws also prohibited the sending of indigenous people to work in the mines unless it was absolutely necessary & under the same conditions than Spanish mine workers, & required that they be taxed fairly & treated well. It ordered public officials or clergy with encomienda grants to return them immediately to the Crown, & stated that encomienda grants would not passed on via inheritance, but would be cancelled at the death of the individual encomenderos.

Blasco Núñez Vela, the first Viceroy of Peru, enforced the New Laws, resulting in a revolt of some encomenderos in which he was killed in 1546 by the landowning faction wishing to maintain a political structure.  Although in New Spain (Mexico), the initial reaction of encomenderos was noncompliance, there was no outright rebellion as in Peru. New Spain's first viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza prudently refrained from enforcing the parts of the New Laws most objectionable to the encomenderos & avoided rebellion. Over time, there was compliance with most aspects of them. With the Native population loss due to epidemic disease, encomenderos' incomes dropped. Finally, in 1545, the rule stating that the encomienda system would no longer be hereditary was revoked, & the place of the encomienda system was again secure. Although the New Laws were only partly successful, they did result in the liberation of thousands of indigenous workers.  A weaker issue of the New Laws was issued in 1552. The Spanish began importing salves from Africa.

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Women already on the Atlantic coast of America when the English arrived

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman and Baby of Pomeiooc

The woman is standing to the left, her back to the observer, her head turned towards the front, looking over her left shoulder. She carries a naked child on her back who grips her shoulders with both arms and whose left leg is tucked under and through her left arm, while the right leg hangs down. Her hair forms what now appears to be a grey cap and from it some straggling hairs emerge in a fringe at the front and loosely at the neck. Her upper arms are decorated with bands of zigzag and other patterns, either painted or tattooed. She wears a double apron-skirt of fringed skin which reaches half-way down her thighs.

Inscribed in brown ink, along the top, "The wyfe of an Herowan of Pomeiooc."

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape and the native Algonkin peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative eyewitness illustrations of an early Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.

1542 Spanish Slavery of Native Americans - Bartolomé de las Casas A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies

Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566) A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies written 1542, published 1552
Excerpted by the National Humanities Center, 2006

PRESENTATION by Bishop don Fray Bartolomé de las Casas or Casaus, to the most high and potent lord Prince of all the Spains don Felipe, our lord_________Most high and potent lord: Because divine providence has ordered in this world that for the direction and common utility of the human lineage the world be constituted by Kingdoms and peoples, with their kings like fathers and shepherds (as Homer has called them) and therefore the most noble and generous members of the republics, for that reason no doubt of the rectitude of the royal spirits of those kings may be held, or with right reason might be held. And if any wrongs, failings, defects, or evils should be suffered in those kingdoms, the only reason for that is that the kings have no notice of them. For these wrongs &c, if they be present and reported, it is the duty of the king, with  greatest study and vigilant industry, to root  them out. . . .  Considering, then, most potent lord, the evils and harm, the perditions and ruin the equals or likes of which,  ever were men imagined capable of doing considering, as I say, those evils which as a man of fifty years’ and more experience, being in those lands  present, I have seen committed upon those so many and such great kingdoms, or better said, that entire vast and new world of the Indies lands conceded and given in trust by God and His Church to the king and queen of Castile, to rule and govern them, convert them to belief in Christ and the Holy Catholic Church, and give them to prosper temporally and spiritually, this subject was not able to contain himself from supplicating with Your Majesty, most importunely, that Your Majesty not concede such licence nor allow those terrible things that the tyrants did invent, pursue, and have committed against those peaceable, humble, and meek Indian peoples, who offend no person. . . .

INTRODUCTION
. . . Into and among these gentle sheep, endowed by their Maker and Creator with all the qualities aforesaid, did creep the Spaniards, who no sooner had knowledge of these people than they became like fierce wolves and tigers and lions who have gone many days without food or nourishment. And no other thing have they done for forty years until this day,1 and still today see fit to do, but dismember, slay, perturb, afflict, torment, and destroy the Indians by all manner of cruelty new and divers and most singular manners such as never before seen or read of heard of some few of which shall be recounted below, and they do this to such a degree that on the Island of Hispaniola, of the above three millions souls that we once saw, today there be no more than two hundred of those native people remaining. The island of Cuba is almost as long as from Valladolid to Rome; today it is almost devoid of population. The island of San Juan [Puerto Rico] and that of Jamaica, large and wellfavoured and lovely islands both, have been laid waste. On the Isles of the Lucayos [Bahamas] . . . where there were once above five hundred thousand souls, today there is not a living creature. All were killed while being brought, and because of being brought, to the Island of Hispaniola where the Spaniards saw that their stock of the natives of that latter island had come to an end. . . . Two principal and general customs have been employed by those, calling themselves Christians, who have passed this way, in extirpating and striking from the face of the earth those suffering nations. The first being unjust, cruel, bloody, and tyrannical warfare. The other after having slain all those who might yearn toward or suspire after or think of freedom, or consider escaping from the torments that they are made to suffer, by which I mean all the native-born lords and adult males, for it is the Spaniards’ custom in their wars to allow only young boys and females to live being to oppress them with the hardest, harshest, and most heinous bondage to which men or beasts might ever be bound into. . . . The cause for which the Christians have slain and destroyed so many and such infinite numbers of souls, has been simply to get, as their ultimate end, the Indians’ gold of them, and to stuff themselves with riches in a very few days, and to raise themselves to high estates without proportion to their birth or breeding, it should be noted owing to the insatiable greed and ambition that they have had, which has been greater than any the world has ever seen before. . . [A]ll the Indians of all the Indies never once did aught hurt or wrong to Christians, but rather held them to be descended from heaven, from the sky, until many times they or their neighbours received from the Christians many acts of wrongful harm, theft, murder, violence, and vexation. . . .

TESTAMENT
I, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, or Casaus, friar of the order of Saint Dominic, who by the mercy of God am here today in this court of Spain, was persuaded by the same notable persons resident in this Court . . . to set down an accounting of the hell that is the Indies, so that those infinite masses of souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ may not die for all eternity without any help for it, but rather know their Creator and be saved. And by the compassion that I have for my native land, which is Castile, I pray that God not destroy it for the great sins committed against its faith and honour. . . .  I have great hope that the emperor and king of Spain, our lord Don Carlos, the  ifth of that name, may come to understand (for until now the truth has always been most industriously covered over) the acts of malice and treachery which have been and still are being done upon those nations and lands, against the will of God and his own, and that he may bring an end to so many evils and bring relief to that New World which God has given

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Chief

 Watercolor drawing Indian Elder or Chief by John White (created 1585-1586)

An elderly man stands facing half-left, his feet somewhat apart and his arms folded. He is wearing a single apron skirt of fringed deerskin edged with blue (or black) beads or pearls. His hair is thin at the sides and caught up at the back, leaving a roach down the middle of his head. He wears an ear ornament consisting of at least nine dark blue beads or pearls hanging by a loop of skin from the lobe. Around his neck is a short single-string necklace of bluish white pearls or beads and a string suspending, through a hole, a rectangular gorget of yellowish metal, some 6 inches square, which hangs on his chest. He also wears a single bracelet of pearls on the right wrist.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, at the top, "A cheife Herowan."

John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings.  During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.  They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.

Native American Mound Builders & Pueblos

The first Indian group to build mounds in what is now the United States are often called the Adenans. They began constructing earthen burial sites & fortifications around 600 B.C. Some mounds from that era are in the shape of birds or serpents, andprobably served religious purposes not yet fully understood.

The Adenans appear to have been absorbed or displaced by various groups collectively known as Hopewellians. One of the most important centers of their culture was found in southern Ohio, where the remains of several thousand of these mounds still remain. Believed to be great traders, the Hopewellians used & exchanged tools & materials across a wide region of hundreds of kilometers.

By around 500 A.D., the Hopewellians, too, disappeared, gradually giving way to a broad group of tribes generally known as the Mississippians or Temple Mound culture. One city, Cahokia, just east of St. Louis, Missouri, is thought to have had a population of about 20,000 at its peak in the early 12th century. At the center of the city stood a huge earthen mound, flatted at the top, which was 30 meters high & 37 hectares at the base. Eighty other mounds have been found nearby.

Cities such as Cahokia depended on a combination of hunting, foraging, trading & agriculture for their food & supplies. Influenced by the thriving societies to the south, they evolved into complex hierarchical societies which took slaves & practiced human sacrifice.

In what is now the southwest United States, the Anasazi, ancestors of the modern Hopi Indians, began building stone & adobe pueblos around the year 900. These unique & amazing apartment-like structures were often built along cliff faces; the most famous, the "cliff palace" of Mesa Verde, Colorado, had over 200 rooms. Another site, the Pueblo Bonito ruins along New Mexico's Chaco River, once contained more than 800 rooms.

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Women already on the Atlantic coast of America when the English arrived

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman of Secoton

The woman is standing, facing half-right with arms folded. Her hair is fringed in front and hangs in wisps at the side and back and is secured by a headband of twisted material. There is a suggestion of an ear ornament. She is wearing a double apron-skirt of fringed skin, ornamented with a double row of beads or pearls. The tassels of the fringe below the waist are heightened, as they are on the lower fringe, with white (oxidized) and show traces of gold. The skirt reaches nearly half-way down the thighs. She is elaborately painted or tattooed with bluish lines on her cheeks, forehead and chin, a simulated necklace ending at a point between her breasts, and patterns on the upper and lower arms and on the calves and instep.


Inscribed in dark brown ink, along the top, "The wyfe of an Herowan of Secotan." 

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape and the native Algonkin peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.

Native American Mound Builders. Homer, & The Illiad

Mound-Builders around the World. 

The Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XIX, 1881

 by E. L. & W. J. Youmans, p 614

The term mound-builder is distinctively applied to the race that constructed the remarkable earthworks of the valley of the Ohio, and of the interior of the United States in general, but it is true that in nearly all parts of the world the practice of mound-building has prevailed, sometimes among nations that come within historical epochs. Mounds are found among the Celts and the Scythians, in the Sandwich Islands and in New Zealand, in Japan and India, and throughout the central parts of the Eastern Continent, as well as in both Americas, from the country of the Esquimaux to Chili and Fuegia. The earliest of human records refer distinctly to this method of honoring the dead. The heroic age of Greece, as sung by Homer, abounded with ceremonies and curious details relating to the tumulus erected over the bones of the slain hero. The burial of Patroclus, as related in the 23rd book of the “Iliad,” is an illustration of the practice of mound-building by the ancient Greeks:

“The sacred relics to the tent they bore, 
The urn a veil of line covered o'er. 
That done they bid the sepulchre aspire, 
And cast the deep foundations round the pyre; 
High in the midst they heap the selling bed 
Of rising earth, memorial of the dead.”

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Indian Village of Pomeiooc

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Village of Pomeiooc 

A bird's-eye view of an Indian village enclosed by a circular palisade of quite irregular light poles, with two entrances, one in the foreground and one in the background at bottom and top left.  The path leading to the front entrance is bordered with hooped sticks. The village consists of eighteen buildings of pole and mat (and perhaps bark) construction, many of them with open ends or sides or both, and some with door openings at the ends, usually off-centre. Most are rectangular in ground-plan, but some may have rounded ends. Several are seen to contain an interior platform along one or both sides and across one end, supported by two rows of posts independent of the house posts. All have simple arched roofs, except the largest, where the cupola-like roof is constructed on ridges springing from the corners and coming to a point in the centre. In three houses the open sides seem to be shaded by an arched section of roof supported on longer vertical poles. The houses are grouped irregularly about a large open space in the centre where a fire is burning and around which a number of apparently naked Indians are sitting with rattles in their hands. Other groups of men, women and children are seen standing or walking near the houses, several of them making signs with their hands towards the fire and one man is splitting timber with an axe, another is carrying wood on his back, yet another carries a bow, while a cloaked figure is dimly seen emerging from a house to the left of the fire. A dog with longish legs and tail is also shown.

Inscribed in brown ink, at the foot, "The towne of Pomeiock and true forme of their howses, couered | and enclosed some wth matts, and some wth barcks of trees. All compassed | abowt wth smale poles stock thick together in stedd of a wall."

John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of Britain's efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina & Virginia in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape and the native Algonkin peoples. These works are significant, as they are the most informed, eyewitness contemporary illustrations of an early Native American society of the North America's Eastern seaboard.

The Early Native American Mystery

Spruce Tree House Mesa Verde Colorado Built 1278 AD by Anasazi Indians

Time-worn pueblos and dramatic "cliff towns," set amid the stark, rugged mesas & canyons of Colorado & New Mexico, mark the settlements of some of the earliest inhabitants of North America, the Anasazi (a Navajo word meaning "ancient ones").

By 500 A.D. the Anasazi had established some of the first identifiable villages in the American Southwest, where they hunted & grew crops of corn, squash & beans. The Anasazi flourished over the centuries, developing sophisticated dams & irrigation systems; creating a masterful, distinctive pottery tradition; & carving intricate, multi-room dwellings into the sheer sides of cliffs that remain among the most striking archaeological sites in the United States today.

Yet by the year 1300, they had abandoned their settlements, leaving their pottery, implements, even clothing -- as though they intended to return -- & seemingly disappeared into history. Their homeland remained empty of human beings for more than a century -- until the arrival of new tribes, such as the Navajo & the Ute, followed by the Spanish & other European settlers.

The story of the Anasazi is tied inextricably to the beautiful but harsh environment in which they chose to live. Early settlements, consisting of simple pithouses scooped out of the ground, evolved into sunken kivas that served as meeting & religious sites. Later generations developed the masonry techniques for building square, stone pueblos. But the most dramatic change in Anasazi living -- for reasons that are still unclear -- was the move to the cliff sides below the flat-topped mesas, where the Anasazi carved their amazing, multilevel dwellings.

The Anasazi lived in a communal society that evolved very slowly over the centuries. They traded with other peoples in the region, but signs of warfare are few & isolated. & although the Anasazi certainly had religious & other leaders, as well as skilled artisans, social or class distinctions were virtually nonexistent.

Religious & social motives undoubtedly played a part in the building of the cliff communities & their final abandonment. But the struggle to raise food in an increasingly difficult environment was probably the paramount factor. As populations grew, farmers planted larger areas on the mesas, causing some communities to farm marginal lands, while others left the mesa tops for the cliffs. But the Anasazi couldn't halt the steady loss of the land's fertility from constant use, nor withstand the region's cyclical droughts. Analysis of tree rings, for example, shows that a final drought lasting 23 years, from 1276 to 1299, finally forced the last groups of Anasazi to leave permanently.

Although the Anasazi dispersed from their ancestral homeland, they did not disappear. Their legacy remains in the remarkable archaeological record that they left behind, & in the Hopi, Zuni & other Pueblo peoples who are their descendants.

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Cooking in a Pot

Watercolor drawing Cooking in a Pot by John White (created 1585-1586)

A large cylindrical earthenware pot with conical base, the sides near the base somewhat concave, with horizontal parallel lines on the walls, is resting on a small fire made of stout trimmed pieces of timber. It contains liquid of a bluish color in which ears of maize and other foodstuffs are cooking.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, to the left and right of the pot, in the centre, "The seething of their meate. | in Potts of earth. "

John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings.  During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.  They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.

Norse Invaders & Native Americans

The Landing of the Vikings in North America. Wood engraving, American, 19C.

The Norse colonization of North America began in the late 10C AD, when Norsemen explored & settled areas of the North Atlantic including the northeastern fringes of North America. At this time, it was believed that the 1st European contact was made with the indigenous Native Americans. Continental North American settlements were small & did not develop into permanent colonies. While voyages, for example to collect timber, are likely to have occurred for some time, there is no evidence of any lasting Norse settlements on mainland North America.

For centuries it remained unclear whether the Icelandic stories represented real voyages by the Norse to North America. The sagas first gained serious consideration when, in 1837, the Danish antiquarian Carl Christian Rafn pointed out the possibility of a Norse settlement in, or voyages to, North America. North America, by the name Winland, 1st appeared in written sources in a work by Adam of Bremen from approximately 1075. The most important works about North America & early Norse invasions there, The Sagas of Icelanders, appeared written form only in the 13C & 14C. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, Norsemen from Iceland settled Greenland in the 980s. 

Landing Of Norsemen The Northmen Inhabitants Of Norway & Sweden Claim To Have Been The Discoverers Of America from A Brief History Of The United States Published By A S Barnes And Company

There is evidence of Norse trade with the Native Americans, called Skraelings by the Vikings. Some translate Skraelings as “skin wearers,” which may be true as to how they described them. The Norse generally wore woolen or linen clothing, & North American Natives generally wore animal skins. The Skræling & Thule people were commonly referred to by the Norse. The island of Thule, which is now called Qaanaaq, is located in northwest Greenland towards Canada and is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is believed the Thule people are the ancestors of the modern Inuit (Eskimo), linked biologically, culturally, & linguistically. The Norse would have encountered both Native Americans (the Beothuk, related to the Algonquin) & the Thule, the ancestors of the Inuit. Items such as comb fragments, pieces of iron cooking utensils & chisels, chess pieces, ship rivets, carpenter's planes, & oaken ship fragments used in Inuit boats have been found far beyond the traditional range of Norse colonization.

In 1004, the storey goes that Leif's brother Thorvald Eiriksson sailed with a crew of 30 men to Vinland & spent the following winter at Leif's camp. In the spring, Thorvald attacked 9 of the local people who were sleeping under 3 skin-covered canoes. The 9th victim escaped & soon came back to the Norse camp with a force of local Natives. Thorvald was killed by an arrow. Although brief hostilities ensued, the Norse explorers stayed another winter & left the following spring. 

Norsemen & Native Americans meet 1900 print.

In 1009 Thorfinn Karlsefni, or "Thorfinn the Valiant", supplied 3 ships with livestock & 160 men & women (although another source sets the number of settlers at 250). After a cruel winter, he headed south & landed at Straumfjord. A sign of peaceful relations between the Native Americans & the Norse invaders seemed to occur here. The 2 sides bartered with furs & gray squirrel skins for milk & red cloth, which the Native Americans tied around their heads as a sort of headdress. There are conflicting stories, but one account relates that a bull belonging to Karlsefni came storming out of the wood, so frightening the Native Americans, that they ran to their skin-boats & rowed away. They returned 3 days later, in force to confront the European interlopers. 

Norsemen in North America John Clark Ridpath. History of the United States. 1891, American Book Company.

These European settlements in continental North America aimed to exploit natural resources such as furs & in particular lumber, which was in short supply in Greenland. It is unclear why the short-term settlements did not become permanent, though it was likely due to the harsh winters & to hostile relations with the Native Americans. Nevertheless, it appears that sporadic voyages to Markland for timber & trade with Native Americans could have lasted as long as 400 years. Evidence of continuing trips includes the Maine Penny, a Norwegian coin from King Olaf Kyrre's reign (1067–1093) allegedly found in a Native American archaeological site in the U.S. state of Maine, suggesting an exchange between the Norse & the Native Americans late in or after the 11th century.  An entry in the Icelandic Annals from 1347 refers to a small Greenlandic vessel with a crew of 18 that arrived in Iceland while attempting to return to Greenland from Markland with a load of timber presumably from the Native Americans.

 Norsemen Trading with Native Americans

Recent research noted in a book by Njord Kane, “Chapter 14 – The Skræling.” The Vikings:The Story of a People. 2nd ed. Yukon: Spangenhelm notes DNA evidence has led scientists to identify more than 80 living Icelanders with a genetic variation similar to one found mostly in Native Americans. One theory is that this mother-to-child DNA probably entered Icelandic bloodlines around 1000 AD, when the 1st Viking-American Indian child may have been born. Possibly a Native American female was transported from Vinland to Iceland on one of the Viking voyages, as the Norse were known to capture inhabitants on their raids. Further new archaeological & DNA research has revealed, that Europeans probably had visited North American shores far earlier than the Vikings. These findings date arrivals to approximately 17,000 years before Columbus was born. This was a time when the 2 geographical regions were connected by land-ice bridges.  Read more here.   

16C ‘Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus’ ‘The History of the Northern Peoples’ by Olaus Magnus,  Norsemen transporting their longship on land. 

 Busy Vikings -

789AD Vikings begin attacks on England

840AD Viking settlers found Dublin in Ireland

844AD Vikings raid Seville but are repulsed

860AD Rus Vikings attack Constantinople

866AD York is captured by a Viking army

870AD Vikings colonise Iceland

981AD Erik the Red discovers Greenland

986AD Bjarni Herjolfsson sights North America after being blown off course

1002AD Leif Ericsson, son of Erik the Red, explores the coast of North America, named them Karland, Helluland and Vinland

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Conjuror

 Watercolor drawing Indian Conjuror by John White (created 1585-1586)

The man, facing half-right, is shown in a dancing posture with the left leg raised behind, the right arm lifted, and the left arm above his head. He has a girdle of skin (or string) around the waist from which hang his breech-clout and bag. The former is a reddish skin reaching nearly to the knees and folded over the girdle to leave the animal's mask hanging down in front. The bag of greyish-white colour at his right side is also made of pieces of skin sewn together, the ends of which make a long fringe hanging down below his knee. Little of his hair is visible but a small roach can be seen. To the right of his head is attached a bird, seen from beneath, with wings outspread, a long bill and plumage of dark brownish-grey, possibly a small woodpecker.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, in the upper left-hand corner, "The flyer. "

John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings.  During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.  They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.

1590 Croatoan The Native American Mystery - John White's Return to Roanoke - All Had Vanished -

Return To Ronoake of John White (1590)

Theodor de Bry included this plate made from a drawing by John White in his volume America, published in 1590.

Text from Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, Voyages of the English Nation, III (1600).

The 15 of August towards Euening we came to an anker at Hatorask, in 36 degr. and one third, in fiue fadom water, three leagues from the shore. At our first comming to anker on this shore we saw a great smoke rise in the Ile Roanoak neere the place where I left our Colony in the yeere 1587, which smoake put vs in good hope that some of the Colony were there expecting my returne out of England.

The 16 and next morning our 2 boates went a shore, & Captaine Cooke, & Captain Spicer, & their company with me, with intent to passe to the place at Roanoak where our countreymen were left. At our putting from the ship we commanded our Master gunner to make readie 2 Minions and a Falkon well loden, and to shoot them off with reasonable space betweene euery shot, to the ende that their reportes might bee heard to the place where wee hoped to finde some of our people.

This was accordingly performed, & our twoe boats put off vnto the shore, in the Admirals boat we sounded all the way and found from our shippe vntill we came within a mile of the shore nine, eight, and seuen fadome: but before we were halfe way betweene our ships and the shore we saw another great smoke to the Southwest of Kindrikers mountes: we therefore thought good to goe to that second smoke first: but it was much further from the harbour where we landed, then we supposed it to be, so that we were very sore tired before wee came to the smoke.

But that which grieved us more was that when we came to the smoke, we found no man nor signe that any had bene there lately, nor yet any fresh water in all this way to drinke. Being thus wearied with this iourney we returned to the harbour where we left our boates, who in our absence had brought their caske a shore for fresh water, so we deferred our going to Roanoak vntill the next morning, and caused some of those saylers to digge in those sandie hilles for fresh water whereof we found very sufficient. That night wee returned aboord with our boates and our whole company in safety.

The next morning being the 17 of August, our boates and company were prepared againe to goe vp to Roanoak, but Captaine Spicer had then sent his boat ashore for fresh water, by meanes whereof it was ten of the clocke aforenoone before we put from our ships which were then come to an anker within two miles of the shore. The Admirals boat was halfe way toward the shore, when Captaine Spicer put off from his ship.

The Admirals boat first passed the breach, but not without some danger of sinking, for we had a sea brake into our boat which filled vs halfe full of water, but by the will of God and carefull styrage of Captaine Cooke we came safe ashore, sauing onely that our furniture, victuals match and powder were much wet and spoyled. For at this time the winde blue at Northeast and direct into the harbour so great a gale, that the Sea brake extremely on the barre, and the tide went very forcibly at the entrance. By that time our Admirals boate was halled ashore, and most of our things taken out to dry, Captaine Spicer came to the entrance of the breach with his mast standing vp, and was halfe passed ouer, but by the rash and vndiscreet styrage of Ralph Skinner his Masters mate, a very dangerous Sea brake into their boate and ouerset them quite, the men kept the boat some in it, and some hanging on it, but the next sea set the boat on ground, where it beat so, that some of them were forced to let goe their hold, hoping to wade ashore, but the Sea still beat them downe, so that they could neither stand nor swimme, and the boat twise or thrise was turned the keele vpward; whereon Captaine Spicer and Skinner hung vntill they sunke, & seene no more.

But foure that could swimme a litle kept themselues in deeper water and were saued by Captain Cookes meanes, who so soone as he saw their ouersetting, stripped himselfe, and foure other that could swimme very well, & with all haste possible rowed vnto them, & saued foure. They were a 11 in all, & 7 of the chiefest were drowned, whose names were Edward Spicer, Ralph Skinner, Edward Kelley, Thomas Beuis, Hance the Surgion, Edward Kelborne, Robert Coleman. This mischance did so much discomfort the saylers, that they were all of one mind not to goe any further to seeke the planters. But in the end by the commandement & perswasion of me and Captaine Cooke, they prepared the boates: and seeing the Captaine and me so resolute, they seemed much more willing.

Our boates and all things fitted againe, we put off from Hatorask, being the number of 19 persons in both boates: but before we could get to the place, where our planters were left, it was so exceeding darke, that we ouershot the place a quarter of a mile: there we espied towards the North end of the Iland ye light of a great fire thorow the woods, to the which we presently rowed: when wee came right ouer against it, we let fall our Grapnel neere the shore, & sounded with a trumpet a Call, & afterwardes many familiar English tunes of Songs, and called to them friendly; but we had no answere, we therefore landed at day-breake, and comming to the fire, we found the grasse & sundry rotten trees burning about the place. From hence we went thorow the woods to that part of the Iland directly ouer against Dasamongwepeuk, & from thence we returned by the water side, round about the Northpoint of the Iland, vntill we came to the place where I left our Colony in the yeere 1586.

In all this way we saw in the sand the print of the Saluages feet of 2 or 3 sorts troaden yt night, and as we entred vp the sandy banke vpon a tree, in the very browe thereof were curiously carued these faire Romane letters C R O: which letters presently we knew to signifie the place, where I should find the planters seated, according to a secret token agreed vpon betweene them & me at my last departure from them, which was, that in any wayes they should not faile to write or carue on the trees or posts of the dores the name of the place where they should be seated; for at my comming away they were prepared to remoue from Roanoak 50 miles into the maine. Therefore at my departure from them in Anno 1587 I willed them, that if they should happen to be distressed in any of those places, that then they should carue ouer the letters or name, a Crosse in this forme, but we found no such signe of distresse. And hauing well considered of this, we passed toward the place where they were left in sundry houses, but we found the houses taken downe, and the place very strongly enclosed with a high palisado of great trees, with cortynes and flankers very Fort-like, and one of the chiefe trees or postes at the right side of the entrance had the barke taken off, and 5. foote from the ground in fayre Capitall letters was grauen CROATOAN without any crosse or signe of distresse; this done, we entred into the palisado, where we found many barres of Iron, two pigges of Lead, foure yron fowlers, Iron sacker-shotte, and such like heauie things, throwen here and there, almost ouergrowen with grasse and weedes. From thence wee went along by the water side, towards the poynt of the Creeke to see if we could find any of their botes or Pinnisse, but we could perceiue no signe of them, nor any of the last Falkons and small Ordinance which were left with them, at my departure from them.

At our returne from the Creeke, some of our Saylers meeting vs, tolde vs that they had found where diuers chests had bene hidden, and long sithence digged vp againe and broken vp, and much of the goods in them spoyled and scattered about, but nothing left, of such things as the Sauages knew any vse of, vndefaced. Presently Captaine Cooke and I went to the place, which was in the ende of an olde trench, made two yeeres past by Captaine Amadas: wheere wee found fiue Chests, that had been carefully hidden of the Planters, and of the same chests three were my owne, and about the place many of my things spoyled and broken, and my bookes torne from the couers, the frames of some of my pictures and Mappes rotten and spoyled with rayne, and my armour almost eaten through with rust; this could bee no other but the deede of the Sauages our enemies at Dasamongwepeuk, who had watched the departure of our men to Croatoan; and assoone as they were departed, digged vp euery place where they suspected any thing to be buried: but although it much grieued me to see such spoyle of my goods, yet on the other side I greatly ioyed that I had safely found a certaine token of their safe being at Croatoan, which is the place where Manteo was borne, and the Sauages of the Iland our friends.

When we had seene in this place so much as we could, we returned to our Boates, and departed from the shoare towards our Shippes, with as much speede as we could: For the weather beganne to ouercast, and very likely that a foule and stormie night would ensue. Therefore the same Euening with much danger and labour, we got our selues aboard, by which time the winde and seas were so greatly risen, that wee doubted our Cables and Anchors would scarcely holde vntill Morning; wherefore the Captaine caused the Boate to be manned with fiue lusty men, who could swimme all well, and sent them to the little Iland on the right hand of the Harbour, to bring aboard sixe of our men, who had filled our caske with fresh water: the Boate the same night returned aboard with our men, but all our Caske ready filled they left behinde, vnpossible to bee had aboard without danger of casting away both men and Boates; for this night prooued very stormie and foule.

The next Morning it was agreed by the Captaine and my selfe, with the Master and others, to wey anchor, and goe for the place at Croatoan, where our planters were: for that then the winde was good for that place, and also to leaue that Caske with fresh water on shoare in the Il and vntill our returne. So then they brought the cable to the Capston, but when the anchor was almost apecke, the Cable broke, by meanes whereof we lost another Anchor, wherewith we droue so fast into the shoare, that wee were forced to let fall a third Anchor; which came so fast home that the Shippe was almost aground by Kenricks mounts: so that wee were forced to let slippe the Cable ende for ende.

And if it had not chanced that wee had fallen into a chanell of deeper water, closer by the shoare then wee accompted of, wee could neuer have gone cleare of the poynt that lyeth to the Southwardes of Kenricks mounts. Being thus cleare of some dangers, and gotten into deeper waters, but not without some losse; for wee had but one Cable and Anchor left vs of foure, and the weather grew to be fouler and fouler; our victuals scarse, and our caske and fresh water lost: it was therefore determined that we should goe for Saint Iohn or some other Iland to the Southward for fresh water. And it was further purposed, that if wee could any wayes supply our wants of victuals and other necessaries, either at Hispaniola, Sant Iohn, or Trynidad, that then wee should continue in the Indies all the Winter following, with hope to make 2. rich voyages of one, and at our returne to visit our countrymen at Virginia. The captaine and the whole company in the Admirall (with my earnest petitions) thereunto agreed, so that it rested onely to knowe what the Master of the Moonelight our consort would doe herein. But when we demanded them if they would accompany vs in that new determination, they alleged that their weake and leake Shippe was not able to continue it; wherefore the same night we parted, leauing the Moone-light to goe directly for England, and the Admirall set his course for Trynidad, which course we kept two dayes.

On the 28. the winde changed, and it was sette on foule weather euery way: but this storme brought the winde West and Northwest, and blewe so forcibly, that wee were able to beare no sayle, but our forecourse halfe mast high, wherewith wee ranne vpon the winde perforce, the due course for England, for that wee were dryuen to change our first determination for Trynidad, and stoode for the Ilands of Acores, where wee purposed to take in fresh water, and also there hoped to meete with some English men of warre about those Ilands, at whose hands wee might obtaine some supply of our wants. . . .

The 2. of October in the Morning we saw S. Michaels Iland on our Starre board quarter.

The 23. at 10. of the clocke afore noone, we saw Vshant in Britaigne.

On Saturday the 24. we came in safetie, God be thanked, to an anker at Plymmouth.

Eyewitness John White 1585 - Fishing

Watercolor drawing Indians Fishing by John White (created 1585-1586)

A wide stretch of water is represented as a channel between two shore-lines, one in the immediate foreground, one in the distance. On the former sand and turf are shown with sea-shells, grasses and a number of flowering plants which are not depicted sufficiently clearly for identification. Close to the edge of the sand are shown, on the right, a King Crab and part of another at the right-hand edge, and between them a small fish. To the left of the King Crab are two shells, the one on the right apparently containing a Hermit Crab.  Beyond the King Crab is a Hammerhead Shark to the right and a largish fish to the left. An Indian dug-out canoe occupies the center of the drawing. It is stoutly constructed with the stern and bows curved, the latter slightly more sharply. An Indian is standing at the bows wielding a long shovel-bladed paddle to starboard and another Indian stands at the stern holding in the water to port an implement with a long handle and a fan-shaped end-piece, formed by six sticks held flaring apart by two crosswise sticks or rows of twining, the distal end being hidden in the water. In the middle of the canoe two Indians are crouching over a small fire surrounded by piles of large fish (Shad ?).  A small dip-net hangs over the stern to starboard. The two standing Indians are wearing longish breech-clouts secured by strings round the waist, hanging down between their thighs, their hair short at the sides and caught up at the back with a roach in the middle (the right standing figure has reddish hair). The hair of the crouching Indians is similarly dressed and the one on the left is wearing a skin mantle over his left shoulder, while the one on his right may be wearing an apron-skirt. The head of a Catfish is visible to the left of the canoe, beyond the bows; towards the center are three small fish and, beyond, a Bluefish; in the center is a Hammerhead Shark, and towards the right a large fish. From the middle of the left-hand edge a fish-weir extends obliquely right to the farther shore. At the nearer end a rectangular fish-trap protrudes from it in which a number of fish can be distinguished including a Skate or Ray. To the right, in the center, a naked Indian, in water up to his calves, is about to throw a long fish spear held in his right hand. In front of him are two jacks (?) and, beyond, a large fish (a Sturgeon (?) and two smaller fish to the right. Another Indian, similarly posed, is shown on the right facing left, while behind him part of another fisher is visible at the right-hand edge. In the distance, near the far shore, is another canoe containing two figures. On the shore are low undulating sand-hills with a few trees or large bushes. The sky is washed with pink and blue to indicate light clouds. On the left, above the land, two swans are flying towards the left and, on the right, nine ducks(?). In the top left corner flies a Brown Pelican.

Inscribed in brown ink, above the far shore, in the center, "The manner of their fishing." and across the canoe, "A Cannow."

John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings.  During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.  They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.