Gilbert starts a colony at New Foundland. Drake returns the Roanoke settlers to England. The second Roanoke group disappears.
As the 16th century neared its end, England was busy preparing to conquer a new world, namely America. In 1583, England sent Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailing across the ocean to where he attempted to start a colony at New Foundland. Like others who would follow in his wake, in the New World he thought he had located the river that would lead them to Asia. Along this believed Northwest Passage, Gilbert began his settlement.
Believing to have accomplished his goal, Sir Humphrey read to the local population the patent that had been issued to him by Queen Elizabeth I, ordering him to discover new lands-in the name of England, of course. He then removed a piece of New Foundland soil, wrapped it for transport home, then removed himself from the New World. On his watery way home to England the adventurer was lost at sea. The rights to his claim now reverted to Gilbert's half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh.
The following year, 1584, Raleigh dispatched an exploring party, which spent two months in the summer scouting the South Atlantic coast. The reports of the scouting party were so favorable that the following year 108 brave English souls sailed across the Atlantic. Their aim was to take over these lands filled with godless savages, and to find another God that civilized Christian men had long worshiped--gold. A very important section of the patent granted these voyagers permission to settle on Roanoke Island on Albemarle Sound. It was important because Queen Elizabeth I had been extremely impressed by the report of Roanoke.
These new adventurers-turned-settlers were far less impressed with the location. So disenchanted were they that when, in 1586, Sir Francis Drake stopped by to see how they were getting on all of the settlers asked and were granted passage back to England.
In 1587, another attempt was made to begin a settlement on Roanoke. How long these men, women and children, numbering 116 persons, survived is still today unknown. Left on their own, when a supply ship returned to Roanoke in 1591, no trace of the English settlers was found.
Before Jamestown continued.
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