Eleanor Dare (née White; 1568 – disappeared between 1587 and 1590) of

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

, London, England, was a member of the English

Roanoke Colony The Roanoke Colony ( ) refers to two attempts by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in North America. The first colony was established at Roanoke Island in 1585 as a military outpost, and was evacuated in 1586. ...

in North America and the daughter of John White, the colony's governor. While little is known about her life, more is known about her than most of the sixteen other women who left England in 1587 as part of the Roanoke expedition. She married

Ananias Dare Ananias Dare (c. 1560 – 1587, ''legal death'') was a colonist of the Roanoke Colony of 1587. He was the husband of Eleanor White, whom he married at St Bride's Church in London, and the father of Virginia Dare, the first English child born ...

. It is known that she gave birth to their daughter

Virginia Dare Virginia Dare (born August 18, 1587; date of death unknown) was the first English people, English child born in an Americas, American English overseas possessions, English colony. What became of Virginia and the other colonists remains a mystery ...

on Roanoke Island, in what is now

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

. The girl was the first child of English parents to be born in North America, on 18 August 1587, shortly after their arrival. Eleanor Dare, along with everyone else remaining in the "Lost Colony", disappeared during the three years before her father returned to the colony with supplies from England.

Roanoke colony

In her book '' Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony'' (2000), anthropologist Lee Miller speculates that Eleanor and the other members of the Roanoke Colony were religious Separatists who left England at a time when the political climate in England was difficult for such religious dissidents. She suggests that this might be why the colonists, two of whom were pregnant women and several of whom were parents with young children, were willing to undertake the dangerous journey to

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

with low supplies and at a time when England was on the verge of war with

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. The colonists, including the women, signed a petition urging White to return to England for supplies, even though he was reluctant to leave his daughter and granddaughter. Miller suggests that this democratic action would have been typical of a religious

Separatist Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seekin ...

group.

Historical explanations

John Smith and other members of the

Jamestown Colony The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James River, about southwest of present-day Williamsburg. It was established by the L ...

sought information about the fate of the colonists in 1607. One report indicated that the Lost Colonists took refuge with the friendly Chesapeake, but

Chief Powhatan Powhatan (), whose proper name was Wahunsenacawh (alternately spelled Wahunsenacah, Wahunsunacock, or Wahunsonacock), was the leader of the Powhatan, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans living in Tsenacommacah, in the Tidewat ...

claimed his

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

had attacked the group and killed most of the colonists. Powhatan showed Smith certain artifacts he said had belonged to the colonists, including a

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually dis ...

barrel and a

brass Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve different colours and mechanical, electrical, acoustic and chemical properties, but copper typically has the larger proportion, generally copper and zinc. I ...

mortar. The Jamestown Colony received reports of some survivors of the Lost Colony and sent out search parties, but none were successful. Eventually they determined that the early colonists had all died. But, in her 2000 book ''Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony'' (2000), Miller postulated that some of the Lost Colony survivors sought shelter with a neighboring tribe, the Chowanoc. This group was attacked by another tribe, identified by the Jamestown Colony as the "Mandoag." Miller thinks these were the Eno, also known as the Wainoke. Survivors were eventually sold into slavery and held captive by differing bands of the Eno tribe, who, Miller wrote, were known slave traders. Miller wrote that English settlers with the

heard reports in 1609 of the captive Englishmen, but the reports were suppressed because they had no way to rescue the captives and didn't want to panic the Jamestown colonists.

William Strachey William Strachey (4 April 1572 – buried 16 August 1621) was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonisation of North America. He is best remembered today as the eye-witness reporter ...

, a secretary of the Jamestown Colony, wrote in his ''The History of Travel Into Virginia Britania'' (1612) that, at the native settlements of Peccarecanick and Ochanahoen, there were reportedly two-story houses with stone walls,built in the English fashion. The natives supposedly learned how to build them from the Roanoke settlers.Stick (1983), p. 222 There were also reported sightings of European captives at various native settlements during the same time period. Strachey wrote in 1612 that four English men, two boys, and one girl had been sighted at the Eno settlement of Ritanoc, under the protection of a chief called Eyanoco. The captives were forced to beat

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

. The captives, he reported, had escaped the attack on the other colonists and fled up the Choanoke river, the present-day

Chowan River The Chowan River (cho-WAHHN)
, from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

Bertie County, North Carolina Bertie County ( )Talk Like a Tarheel
, from the North Carolina Col ...

Possible descendants

The Chowanoc tribe was eventually absorbed into the Tuscarora. The Eno tribe was also associated with the Shakori tribe and was later absorbed by the Catawba or the Saponi tribes. From the early 17th century to the middle 18th century, European colonists reported encounters with gray-eyed Native Americans or with Welsh-speaking natives who claimed descent from the colonists. In 1669, a Welsh cleric named Morgan Jones was taken captive by the Tuscarora. He feared for his life, but a visiting Doeg war captain spoke to him in Welsh and assured him that he would not be killed. The Doeg warrior ransomed Jones and his party and Jones remained with their tribe for months as a preacher. In 1701, surveyor John Lawson encountered members of the Hatteras tribe living on Roanoke Island who claimed some of their ancestors were white people. Lawson wrote that several of the Hatteras tribesmen had gray eyes. Some present-day Native American tribes in

and

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

, among them the

Coree The Coree were a very small Native American tribe, who once occupied a coastal area south of the Neuse River in southeastern North Carolina in the area now covered by Carteret and Craven counties. Early 20th-century scholars were unsure of w ...

and the

Lumbee The Lumbee, also known as People of the Dark Water, are a mixed-race community primarily located in Robeson County, North Carolina, which claims to be descended from myriad Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands who once inhabited th ...

, also claim partial descent from surviving Roanoke colonists. A

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

, the Lost Colony Center for Science and Research, has launched a Lost Colony DNA Project to test possible descendants.

Eleanor Dare stones

From 1937 until 1941, the so-called "Dare Stones" were in the news. The carved stones were allegedly found in northern

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

and the

Carolinas The Carolinas, also known simply as Carolina, are the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina considered collectively. They are bordered by Virginia to the north, Tennessee to the west, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the southwes ...

. The first bore an announcement of the death of Eleanor's daughter, Virginia Dare and her husband, Ananias Dare, at the hands of "savages" in 1591. Successive stones describe Eleanor's eventual marriage to a Native American and her death. Most of the stones were exposed as forgeries in 1941, but some scholars believe that the first "Dare Stone" is authentic.

Notes

References

*Miller, Lee, ''Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony'' (2000), Penguin Books, *White,Robert W., ''A Witness For Eleanor Dare'' (1992), Lexikos,

External links

Ananias Dare at the Lost Colony
Retrieved April 2011

Retrieved April 2011 {{DEFAULTSORT:Dare, Eleanor 1560s births 1580s missing person cases 16th-century English women Missing person cases in North Carolina People of the Roanoke Colony Women in North Carolina Year of birth uncertain 16th-century North American women