11 First English Voyage to Virginia (1584)

Captain Arthur Barlowe (1550-1620) left England in 1584 under instructions from Sir Walter Raleigh to find lands in North America to claim for Queen Elizabeth I. After stopping for supplies in the West Indies, he and Philip Amadas sailed up the Florida coast to North Carolina. Barlowe was very impressed with both the land and the people, which led to the settlement of Roanoke Island and later Virginia. The account below is from a letter he wrote to Raleigh.

We passed from the seaside towards the tops of those hills next adjoining and from thence we beheld the sea on both sides to the north and to the south, finding no end any of both ways. This land lay stretching itself to the west, which after we found to be but an island of twenty miles long and not above six miles broad. Under the bank or hill whereon we stood, we beheld the valleys replenished with goodly cedar trees and having discharged our harquebuss-shot, such a flock of cranes (the most part white) arose under us with such a cry redoubled by many echoes, as if an army of men had shouted all together.

This island had many goodly woods full of deer, conies, hares, and fowl; even in the midst of summer in incredible abundance. The woods are not such as you find in Bohemia, Moscovia, or Hercynia [Central Europe], barren and fruitless, but the highest and reddest cedars in the world, far bettering the cedars of the Azores, of the Indies, or Lybanus [Lebanon]. We remained by the side of this island two whole days before we saw any people of the country. The third day we espied one small boat rowing towards us, having in it three persons. This boat came to the island side, four harquebuss-shot from our ships. And there two of the people remaining, the third came along the shoreside towards us. And after he had spoken of many things not understood by us, we brought him with his own good liking aboard the ships and gave him a shirt, a hat, and some other things and made him taste of our wine and our meat, which he liked very well. And after having viewed both barks, he departed and went to his own boat again, which he had left in a little cove or creek adjoining. As soon as he was two bow shots into the water, he fell to fishing and in less than half an hour he had laden his boat as deep as it could swim, with which he came again to the point of land and there he divided his fish [and] (as much as he might) requited the former benefits received, departed out of our sight.

The next day there came unto us diverse boats and in one of them the Kings brother, accompanied with forty or fifty men, very handsome and goodly people and in their behavior as mannerly and civil as any in Europe. His name was Granganimeo and the king is called Wingina, the country Wingandacoa. A day or two after this, we fell to trading with them, exchanging some things that we had for chamois, buffe, and deer skins. When we showed him all our packet of merchandise, of all things that he saw, a bright tin dish most pleased him which he presently took up and clapt it before his breast. And after made a hole in the brim thereof and hung it about his neck, making signs that it would defend him against his enemies’ arrows. We exchanged our tin dish for twenty skins worth twenty Crowns and a copper kettle for fifty skins worth fifty Crowns. They offered us good exchange for our hatchets and axes and for knives, and would have given anything for swords, but we would not part with any. After two or three days the King’s brother came aboard the ships and drank wine and ate of our meat and of our bread and liked exceedingly thereof. And after a few days overpassed, he brought his wife with him to the ships, his daughter and two or three children. His wife was very well favored, of mean stature and very bashful. She had on her back a long cloak of leather with the fur side next to her body, and before her a piece of the same. About her forehead she had a band of white coral and so had her husband many times. The rest of her women of the better sort had pendants of copper hanging in either ear, and the king’s brother had upon his head a broad plate of gold or copper, for being unpolished we knew not what metal it should be. Neither would he by any means suffer us to take it off his head. His apparel was as his wives, only the women wear their hair long on both sides, and the men but on one. They are of color yellowish and their hair black for the most part, and yet we saw children that had very fine auburn, and chestnut colored hair.

After they had been diverse times aboard our ships, myself with seven more went twenty miles into the river that runs toward the city of Skicoak and the evening following, we came to an Island which they call Roanoak, distant from the harbor by which we entered seven leagues. And at the north end thereof was a village of nine houses, built of cedar and fortified round about with sharp trees to keep out their enemies.

Beyond this island there is the mainland and over against this island falls into this spacious water the great river called Occam by the inhabitants, on which stands a town called Pomeiock. And six days journey from the same is situated their greatest city, called Skicoak, which this people affirm to be very great. Towards the southwest four days journey is situated a town called Secotan which is the southernmost town of Wingandacoa. Near unto which, six and twenty years past, there was a ship cast away whereof some of the people were saved and those were white people whom the country people preserved.

Other than these, there was never any people appareled or white of color either seen or heard of amongst these people. And these aforesaid were seen only by the inhabitants of Secotan, which appeared to be very true, for they wondered marvelously when we were amongst them at the whiteness of our skins, ever coveting to touch our breasts and to view the same. Besides they had our ships in marvelous admiration and all things else were so strange unto them, as it appeared that none of them had ever seen the like. When we discharged any piece, were it but an harquebuss, they would tremble thereat for very fear and for the strangeness of the same. For the weapons which themselves use are bows and arrows; the arrows are but of small canes headed with a sharp shell or tooth of a fish sufficient enough to kill a naked man. Their swords be of wood hardened; likewise they use wooden breastplates for their defense. They have beside a kind of club in the end whereof they fasten the sharp horns of a stag or other beast. When they go to wars they carry about with them their idol, of whom they ask counsel as the Romans were wont of the oracle of Apollo. They sing songs as they march towards the battle instead of drums and trumpets. Their wars are very cruel and bloody, by reason whereof, and of their civil dissensions which have happened of late years amongst them, the people are marvelously wasted and in some places the country left desolate.

Adjoining to this country aforesaid called Secotan begins a country called Pomouik belonging to another king whom they call Piamacum. Beyond this island called Roanoak are main islands very plentiful of fruits and other natural increases, together with many towns and villages along the side of the continent, some bounding upon the islands and some stretching up further into the land.

We brought home also two of the savages being lusty men, whose names were Wanchese and Manteo.

Source: “First Voyage to Virginia” (1584), Captain Arthur Barlowe. Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Voyages, Traffics, and Discoveries of the English Nation III (London, 1599-1600), 246-251. American History Told By Contemporaries, Alfred Bushnell Hart, 1897, 89-95. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.45493/page/n109/mode/2up