In 1587, 115 colonists established England’s first small colony of the Americas on Roanoke—a swampy, coastal island that would eventually be considered part of North Carolina. The governor of the colony, John White, returned to England shortly after. Three years later, he returned to find the colony gone. There was nothing: no corpses, no burned buildings, and no signs of struggle. The only thing left of the lost colony was a word scratched into a tree: CROATOAN.
Andrew Lawler outlines the history, disappearance, and the eventual mythologizing of the Roanoke colony in his new book, The Secret Token. Lawler is a journalist who’s written for publications like Science and Smithsonian, and his level-headed approach works well for considering a mystery that’s been the subject of pseudo-science and pseudo-history.