derbOac 1 day ago

I have family in the area and my impression from archeological and historical news, articles and books from there is there isn't really one definitive moment where everyone in the colony just kind of up and left to the same place at the same time. If I had to bet, there was a kind of gradual process of degradation of the colony and some went one way and others went another.

This was interesting to read and it seems kind of definitive, and my impression is it's consistent with other things I've read. But if I recall correctly, there's also evidence from other sites that some from the colony also went elsewhere.

It seems reasonable to me to think that if things were breaking down, there might be differences of thought or preference about where to go, and that they might have also assumed they weren't totally cutting off contact from one another, being in the same area.

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the_real_cher 1 day ago

Where did they go?

Were there other settlements ?

lmm 1 day ago

There were native people living there (in ways that leave little trace in the archaeological record), I've heard it argued that many colonists may have chosen to join them.

schainks 1 day ago

Related, some good examples of this elsewhere during the colonies, with first person evidence cited in Tribe (http://www.sebastianjunger.com/tribe-by-sebastian-junger)

labster 1 day ago

This may come as a surprise to you, but there were many settlements in America before Europeans ever showed up.

No other British settlements in the hemisphere, though. Failed expeditions did end up in other nations colonies, but this was never pleasant for either side. But they would have had to go hundreds of kilometers by sea to find other Europeans, without a proper ship and on meager supplies. Joining the natives was the best way to survive… but which natives?

heavyset_go 1 day ago

Perhaps the one they had somewhat "okay" relations with and whose leader's son made several trips to Europe with John White.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manteo_(Native_American_leader...

Spooky23 1 day ago

The 1619 project touched on this well. Slaves and indentured servants snuck away and joined native settlements and even had fringe settlements of their own eventually.

Working in one of the colonies for some rich guy prioritizing tobacco to pay dividends over food wasn’t a fun time.