1584The English found a colony on Roanoke
Island.
At the encouragement of Sir Walter Raleigh,
Queen Elizabeth I of England sends a company
of soldiers to North America to establish a colony.
The men settle in what is now North Carolina, on
Roanoke Island. The Indians in the area welcome
them as trading partners, and the English, ne-
glecting to plant their own crops, come to rely on
them for food. The dependent colonists soon earn
the Indians’ ill will. When a silver cup is missed
from their supplies, the settlers accuse the Indi-
ans of theft and burn one of their villages to the
ground. Afraid that an Indian attack is imminent,
many of the English return home in late 1585.
The colony is kept alive by a new group of 110
settlers, who arrive at Roanoke in 1587. (See also
entry for 1590.)John White uses drawings and paintings
to document Indian life.
Soon after the founding of Roanoke in present-
day North Carolina, English settler John White
begins work on a collections of drawings and
watercolors illustrating the customs of Indians
living nearby. The images record the Indians’An image from the Florentine Codex showing the devastating effects of the Aztec’s exposure to smallpox, a dis-
ease introduced to them by the Spanish (Neg. no. 286821, Photo by Bierwers, courtesy the Library, American Museum
of Natural History)