Ralph Lane - Roanoke Colony

Roanoke Colony

Lane is best remembered for his attempt to establish a settlement on Roanoke Island at the request of Sir Walter Raleigh. Queen Elizabeth was looking for places to colonize and the Americas appeared ripe for English expansion. The voyage began on 9 April 1585, when Lane set sail from Plymouth with Raleigh's cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, a scientist who upon return to England wrote a book about his findings in the Chesapeake. The fleet comprised the Tiger (Grenville's), the Roebuck, the Red Lion, the Elizabeth, and the Dorothy. The voyage on the Tiger proved difficult, as Lane quarrelled with the aggressive leadership of Grenville, whom he found a person of intolerable pride and insatiable ambition ( intolerable pride and ambition unsatiable ). Unfortunately, during a severe storm off the coast of Portugal, Tiger was separated from the rest of the fleet. The Tiger arrived on 11 May to Baye's Muskito (Guayanilla, Puerto Rico). While waiting for the other ships, Grenville established relations with the Spanish (whilst at the same time participating in privateering against their ships) and also built a small fortress. The Elizabeth arrived shortly after construction of the fortress.

Finally, Grenville tired of waiting for the remaining ships and departed on 7 June. The fort was abandoned and its location is now unknown. When the Tiger sailed through the Ocracoke Inlet on 26 June, it ran aground on a sand bank, ruining most of the food supply. The expedition managed to repair the ship, and in early July met with Roebuck and Dorothy, who had come to the Outer Banks a few weeks previously. The Red Lion had accompanied them, but just landed its passengers and went to Newfoundland for privateering. After an initial exploration of the continental coast and its Indian settlements, the natives of one village Aquascogoc were accused of stealing a silver cup and in retaliation the village was looted and burned.

Despite this incident and the lack of food, Lane and 107 other settlers were left on Roanoke Island, Virginia on 17 August 1585 to establish a colony on the north end of the island. They built a small fort, probably a structure similar to Guayanilla Bay. Almost immediately, Grenville and crew set sail for England promising to return in April 1586 with more men and fresh supplies. Contact was quickly made with the local Native Americans. The English treated them with suspicious harshness; on several occasions the colonists kidnapped Indians to extract supplies or information.

April 1586 passed without news of Grenville and in June the incident of the stolen cup led to an attack on the fort that the settlers were able to repel. . That month Sir Francis Drake arrived at Roanoke and offered Lane and his men a return voyage to England that Lane readily accepted on account of a weakened food supply and increased tensions with local tribes. Drake's fleet reached the port of Portsmouth on 28 July, after which the settlers of Roanoke introduced snuff, corn and potatoes to England. The Account of Ralph Lane first appeared in Richard Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation in 1589.

The Grenville relief fleet arrived shortly after Drake's departure with the settlers. Finding the colony abandoned, Grenville returned to England with the bulk of his force, leaving behind a small detachment, both to maintain a British presence to protect Raleigh's claim in Virginia.

Lane later participated in other expeditions. In January 1592 he was appointed muster-master general of Ireland and was knighted the following year by Sir William FitzWilliam, the Lord Deputy of Ireland.