Arthur Barlowe (1550 – 1620) was one of two British captains (the other was Philip Amadas) who, under the direction of

Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebelli ...

, left England in 1584 to find land in North America to claim for

Queen Elizabeth I of England Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". Eliz ...

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survives in a letter written to Raleigh as a report on their journey. It is one of the earliest detailed English commercial reports written from direct observation about any place in North America and has been called "one of the clearest contemporary pictures of the contact of Europeans with North American Indians." Barlowe and Philip Amadas departed England with two ships on April 27, sailing down to the Canary Islands and then on to the West Indies, where they stopped briefly for food and water before sailing north along the eastern coast of Florida. After eleven days they came to shallow water and smelled "so sweet, and so strong a smell, as if we had been in the midst of some delicate garden," indicating that land was nearby. Two days later (July 4), they saw the coast and continued to sail for 120 miles until they could find an entrance or river going in from the sea. They finally landed on the outer banks of what is now th
Pamlico Sound
of North Carolina. Barlowe described the land as a place where "in all the world the like abundance is not to be found...." He and his crew were met by a large group of the

Secotan The Secotans were one of several groups of American Indians dominant in the Carolina sound region, between 1584 and 1590, with which English colonists had varying degrees of contact. Secotan villages included the Secotan, Aquascogoc, Dasamonguep ...

tribe, led by their king's brother Granganimeo. Their king Wingina was unable to be there because of a leg wound sustained during a battle with a neighboring tribe. Several of the natives accompanied them as they sailed north to Roanoke island. There they found a Secotan village, where, according to Barlowe, they were treated with great hospitality and generosity. Barlowe described the people of the village as "gentle, loving and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as live after the manner of the

golden age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the G ...

."''Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Volume Two: The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century''. Ed. Joseph Black. Ontario: Broadview, 2006. Print. He ended up having the King come to the Land with his family and this led to the future colonization of Virginia. The discovery of

Roanoke Island Roanoke Island () is an island in Dare County, bordered by the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States. It was named after the historical Roanoke, a Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the area in the 16th century at the time of Engl ...

and the coast of North Carolina led to the establishment of the

Roanoke Colony The establishment of the Roanoke Colony ( ) was an attempt by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in North America. The English, led by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had briefly claimed St. John's, Newfoundland, in ...

. This colony at Roanoke Island would later be known as the "Lost Colony," whose members are presumed to have either starved to death or been incorporated into one of the local native American Indian populations.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barlowe, Arthur English explorers English sailors Sea captains 1550 births 1620 deaths People of the Elizabethan era