TEXT 1 ANSWER KEY

So, today I want to examine, well, really just to sketch the outlines of what is known of the
settlement of the North American continent during the late fifteen hundreds. Now, I'm sure some of
you will have heard of the so-called "Lost Colony of Roanoke." This was the first English
settlement on the North American continent, established on Roanoke Island off the coast of what's
now North Carolina.
The idea of a settlement here was given encouragement by the English queen, Queen Elizabeth.
She had supported the settlement of the New World, and in 1584 the explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh,
was given the job of organizing expeditions to the continent. OK, so these earliest explorers were
told to make contact with the local native tribes and fortify Roanoke Island, a place judged to be
sheltered and inaccessible to enemy ships. As you know, at that time England and Spain were on
the verge of war. Anyway, the first settlers found the island swampy and inhospitable, and relations
with the local tribes soon deteriorated. It seems that the settlers made the mistake of getting on the
wrong side of the tribes by kidnapping some individuals to try to get information from them. Now,
if you consider that the settlers relied on the natives for food supplies this behavior seems, well, a
bit irrational. Anyway, to make a long story short, in the summer of 1586, these original colonists,
frightened and hungry, returned to England on some passing ships.
So then, just three weeks later, ships sent from England and loaded with supplies for the settlers
arrived at Roanoke. When this supply expedition found the original colonists gone, the captain left
a small force of fifteen men to hold the fort and left again for England.
OK. So about a year later a second group of colonists, over a hundred men, women, and children,
arrived at Roanoke. But they found that the holding force, the fifteen men left to defend the fort,
had disappeared. Soon it was revealed that the men, or at least some of them, had been killed by an
unfriendly tribe. So some of these new colonists attacked the natives as an act of revenge.
However, they ignorantly attacked the wrong group of natives, a tribe that until then had been on
friendly terms with the settlers. In retaliation, that tribe refused to help the settlers, and so with the
situation looking desperate, some of the colonists sailed back to England to get assistance, leaving
about a hundred people behind. Unfortunately, their return voyage was delayed due to war that had
broken out between England and Spain.
Now, when the relief, that is . . . the ships bringing supplies, finally got back to Roanoke about
three years later, the crew members found that the fort had been abandoned. Not a trace of the more
than one hundred people remained. Only one clue to their whereabouts was found. At the site of the
fort, the word Croatoan, the Native-American name for a nearby island and also the name of the
friendliest tribe, had been scratched on an entrance post of the fort. At another place on the island
the search party found the first three letters of this same word carved on a tree. Perhaps the carver
had been interrupted and hadn't had time to finish writing.
Well, that's the story in a nutshell, as it were. Of course, there has been much speculation about this
mysterious episode in early American history. Nowadays, it's generally believed that the unlucky
colonists either starved or were killed. Some investigators claim that there were survivors and that

they were adopted by the local tribes. As evidence, they argue that the descendants of the
indigenous people from this area claim that there were colonists among their ancestors.
Incidentally, new research has come up with some interesting findings that throw some light on the
causes of the failure of the Roanoke settlement. Certainly, the colonists themselves must take part
of the blame for their lack of planning and their ignorance in dealing with the Native Americans.
But we now know that the climate conditions at this time were very severe. Evidence taken from
tree ring samples by climatologists shows that during this period there was a severe drought,
probably the most severe in the past 800 years, at least in this part of North America. What this
means is that any crops the colonists planted would not have survived and drinking water might
also have been hard to come by. The Native Americans too would have suffered from the drought,
and this may have worsened the relations between them and the settlers. So, I think we can say that
bad luck, as well as bad organization, played a part in this failed adventure.