Roanoke

(noun)

An English colony established in the late 16th century in what is today's North Carolina by Sir Walter Raleigh; also known as the Lost Colony because of the inhabitants' mysterious disappearance.

Related Terms

Examples of Roanoke in the following topics:

  • John Randolph and the Old Republicans

    • Virginia congressman John Randolph of Roanoke was the leader of the "Old Republican" faction of Democratic-Republicans that insisted on a strict adherence to the Constitution and opposed any innovations.
    • Photograph at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington of John Randolph of Roanoke, VA.

  • The Coming of the English

    • He called his new privately-funded colony, Roanoke, and founded it on an island off the coast of present-day North Carolina, where it would be relatively isolated from existing settlements in North America.
    • Roanoke is still called “the Lost Colony” today.

  • The Contraband Camps

    • From a camp on Roanoke Island that started in 1862, Horace James developed the Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island (1863–1867).

  • Madison and the Pressure for War

    • The term "hawk" was coined by the prominent Virginia congressman and Old Republican, John Randolph (of Roanoke), a staunch opponent to the entry into war.

  • Settling the Southern Colonies

    • The name "Virginia" was first applied by Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I in 1584, when Raleigh established a colony on the island of Roanoke off the coast of Virginia.

  • Troubled Neighbors

    • Note the spelling Ocracoke (Okok) and Roanoke (Roanoak).

  • Early Opposition to Slavery

    • After the rebellion, and after a second conspiracy was discovered in 1802 among enslaved boatmen along the Appomattox and Roanoke Rivers, the Virginia Assembly banned hiring out of slaves in 1808 and required freed blacks to leave the state within 12 months or face re-enslavement (1806).

  • The "Era of Good Feelings"

    • Old Republican critics of the new nationalism, among them John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia, had warned that the abandonment of the Jeffersonian scheme of Southern preeminence would provoke a sectional conflict between the North and the South that would threaten the Union.

  • The British Empire

    • As a result, the Roanoke settlement is being referred to as the "Lost Colony. " There are multiple hypotheses as to the fate of the colonists, including integration into local native tribes.

  • Conclusion: Growth and Development of the Colonies

    • After Roanoke Colony failed in 1587, the English found more success with the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth in 1620.