What was the first colony and what happened to it?

Question

Also who contributed to the success of the colony?

Answer 1

What sort of colony are you thinking of? If you think of settlers walking away from their homeland and colonizing new land, this happened since mankind invented agriculture. The Celts did it and settled in many spots all over Europe. Sea peoples, Greek and Phoenicians made sea voyages to find suitable places for colonizing the Mediterranean. And so on, even prehistoric people will have colonized.
Or are you thinking of an "imperialist" colony, won by conquest and subjugation of the locals? This concept also dates back very far, at least to ancient Egypt which conquered and dominated other areas by force, like the lands of Kush, Palestine, or Cyprus. I don't think you can find the one and only "first" colony in history today.

Answer 2

Well if you are talking about the English Colonization of the New World then we are talking about the Roanoke Colony. Roanoke Colony is the first colonization attempt by the English in the new World. It is also known more famously as the "Lost Colony".

Sir Walter Raleigh had ambitions to establish an English speaking colony in the New World so that England could compete with Spain in that market. In 1584, an expediton was sent out to explore what Raleigh named "Virginia" in honor of Queen Elizabeth I' unmarried state. This expedition explored the eastern coast of North America for a location. Two of the explorers were Phillip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe. When they returned to England they brought back with them fauna and flora from the area as well as two natives: Manteo and Wanchese. The following year it was set that Richard Grenvile would go with about 75 men and further explore the area and establish a colony.

Grenvile left after for England after establishing Roanoke. He left Ralph Lane in charge of the colony promising to return from England with more men and the supplies they needed. He promised to return in April of 1586. The colony was abandoned for the first time after Grenvile did not return. Sir. Francis Drake visited the colony and offered to take the men home, and they took him up on the offer. A few days later Grenvile showed up and found the colony abandoned. He left about 18 men there to protect England's holding and sailed back to England.

In 1587, another group set out to establish an English colony in the New World. This group is sometimes considered the second or third colony depending on what source you are looking at. In this group there were 91 men, 17 women and 9 children. Two of the women were pregnant at the time of their departure from England. John White was put in charge and the plan was to stop by Roanoke and pick up the remaining men of Grenvile and head further North into the Chesapeake Bay Area. However, that is not what happened. The colonists upon arriving found that all 18 men had disappeared. They ended up establishing their colony there and on August 18 1587 Virginia Dare (John White's granddaughter) was born.

John White returned to England in order to secure more supplies and people for the colony. However, England's war with Spain detained him in England for three years. He was finally able to get passage out of England in 1590 and returned to Roanoke to find the colony abandoned. There was no sign of struggle or battle. The missing colonist left one clue as to their possible location. On a post of the fort was carved "Croatoan" and on a tree "Cro". White took this as a sign that they had moved closer to the friendly native tribe of the Croatoans. He wanted to search further but a hurricane forced his return to England.

It wasn't until 1607, that England was able to send out another colonization attempt. This time it was Jamestown that was founded in May of 1607. Jamestown is not the first English colony in the New World but it is the first PERMENENT colony. Part of the orders of the new colony was to find out what happened to the "Lost Colonists".

No one really knows what happened to that last group of colonists on Roanoke Island but there are so many theories as to what could have happened to them. There are theories in which some historians believe that the colonists were adopted into native tribes marrying and becoming one with that tribe. Others believe that Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas, killed many of the colonists and those who did survive were sold into slavery. If you are interested the link below goes into more detail about these theories and I could provide more information.

Basically to sum it all up no one has any idea what happened to these poor people.