Tom Shields
ENGL 6005, “Bibliography and Methods”
Spring 2000
Ralph Lane's Narrative of the 1585-86
Expedition to Roanoke Island:
A Bibliographic Survey
In the summer of 1585, the first English colony in what is now the United
States was established on Roanoke Island in what is today North Carolina.
Under the leadership of its governor, Ralph Lane, a group of 115 men lived
on Roanoke Island until the spring of the following year. During that time
the expedition explored a good part of the Albemarle and Pamlico regions
of present-day North Carolina, going perhaps as far north as the Chesapeake
Bay. The expedition also had encounters with the indigenous people of the
region, sometimes positive ones, sometimes not so positive. In the end,
the colony was abandoned when, in the spring of 1586, the tired and hungry
colonists were offered passage back to England by a passing fleet of British
ships. Among the documents that we have today to explain the history of
this colony, the narrative by Governor Lane is one of the longest. An interesting
source of historical information, Lane's narrative is also a fascinating
study in the rhetoric used by the leader of an expedition that fails.
Lane wrote his narrative after returning to England to report what had
happened under his leadership on Roanoke Island. It tells stories interactions
with the local Native Americans, including an incident in which a missing
English silver cup is found at a Native American village. In retribution
for the theft, Lane's company burns down the village. Lane's narrative
also tells how in the spring of 1586, Sir Francis Drake arrives at Roanoke
Island to check on the colony following raids on the Spanish Caribbean.
Following the loss of a ship and supplies during a storm, Drake and Lane
decide that Lane should abandoned the colony rather than wait for the overdue
resupply ship from England. As a document that needs to explain the difficulties
and failures of the colony, Lane also writes about what he could have done
had there been enough men and supplies.
Lane's narrative makes an interesting study in not only how documents from
the past can provide factual information about past events, but also makes
an interesting study in the language the leader of an expedition uses to
describe the successes and, even more, the failures of his expedition.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
-
Lane, Ralph. "An account of the particularities
of the imployments of the English men left in Virginia by Sir Richard Greeneuill
vnder the charge of Master Ralfe Lane of the same, from the 17. of August,
1585, vntill the 18. of Iune 1586, at which they departed the Countrie:
sent, and directed to Sir Walter Raleigh." The Principall Navigations,
Voiages and Discoveries of the English nation, made by Sea or ouer Land,
to the most remote and farthest distant Quarters of the earth at any time
within the compasse of these 1500 yeeres. Ed. Richard Hakluyt. London:
George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, 1589. 737-748.
-
---. "An account of the particularities
of the imployments of the English men left in Virginia by Sir Richard Greeneuill
vnder the charge of Master Ralfe Lane of the same, from the 17. of August,
1585, vntill the 18. of Iune 1586, at which they departed the Countrie:
sent, and directed to Sir Walter Raleigh." The Roanoke Voyages 1584-1590:
Documents to Illustrate the English Voyages to North America Under the
Patent Granted to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584. Ed. David Beers Quinn.
2 vols. Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser. 104. London: The Hakluyt Society,
1955. New York: Dover, 1991. 1: 255-94.
-
Hakluyt, Richard. The Principal Navigations,
Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation, Made by Sea
or Over-Land to the Remote and Farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth at
Any Time within the Compasse of these 1600 Yeeres. Glasgow, Scotland:
J. MacLehose and Sons, 1903-05. Rpt. New York: A. M. Kelley, 1969.
Secondary
-
Fletcher, Inglis. Roanoke Hundred.
Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1948. New York: Bantam, 1972.
-
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. Roanoke,
the Abandoned Colony. New York : Rowman & Allanheld, 1984.
-
Lefler, Hugh T. “Promotional Literature
of the Southern Colonies.”
The Journal of Southern History 33 (1967):
3-25.
-
Mackenthun, Gesa. Metaphors of Dispossession:
American Beginnings and the Translation of Empire, 1492-1637. Norman:
U of Oklahoma P, 1997.
-
Oberg, Michael Leroy. Dominion and
Civility : English Imperialism and Native America, 1585-1685. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell UP, 1999.
-
---. “Indians and Englishmen at the First
Roanoke Colony: A Note on Pemisapan's Conspiracy, 1585-86.” American
Indian Culture and Research Journal 18 (1994): 75-89.
-
Quinn, David Beers. Set Fair for Roanoke:
Voyages and Colonies, 1584-1606. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P,
1985.
-
Sponsler, Claire. “Medieval America:
Drama and Community in the English Colonies, 1580-1610.” Journal of
Medieval and Early Modern Studies 28 (1998): 453-78.
-
Stick, David. Roanoke Island: The
Beginnings of English America. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P,
1984.
-
Vaughan, Alden T. “From White Man to
Redskin: Changing Anglo-American Perceptions of the American Indian.” American
Historical Review 87 (1982): 917-53.
Review of Sources
A review of the publication history of Lane's narrative develops an interesting
question for the study of many of the documents related to the 1580s Roanoke
voyages—how did the context of the printing affect the way the works were
read. Lane's narrative was first published in the 1589 edition of Richard
Hakluyt's
Principal Navigations, a collection of narratives about
English voyages of discovery around the world, including the voyages to
Roanoke Island. However, by 1589, the final and most famous chapter on
the Roanoke expeditions had not yet been written, John White's narrative
of returning to Roanoke Island in 1590 to find the colony he had left there
gone—the famous “Lost Colony.” Lane's narrative was reprinted in the 1598-1600
edition of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, which did include White's
narrative of his 1590 expedition. While there are no substantial difference
in Lane's narrative in the two editions, the context has changed.
Any one of three sources provides modern standard editions for Lane's narrative.
It is available in the facsimile edition of the 1589 edition of Hakluyt's
Principal
Navigations, edited by David Beers Quinn. The 1903-05 Glasgow edition
of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations still remains the standard modern
edition of Hakluyt's work, based on the 1598-1600 edition. And Quinn's
1955 collection of documents about the Roanoke Island expeditions, both
from Hakluyt's Principal Navigations and from other sources, is
the major collection of all documents concerning these events.
The secondary sources that discuss Lane and his narrative are almost all
histories. The standard history of the Roanoke voyages is Quinn's Set
Fair for Roanoke (1985). Other good histories include Karen Kupperman's
Roanoke (1984) and David Stick's Roanoke Island: The Beginnings
of English America (1984). As can be seen, the predominance of book-length
histories come from the mid-1980s, at the time of the four-hundredth anniversary
celebrations of the Roanoke island expeditions and colonies.
Some sources do discuss Lane as a writer, but the emphasis is on how Lane
portrays Native Americans.1
For example, Alden T. Vaughan in “From White Man to Redskin” uses Lane's
narrative as an example of how Englishmen used skin color to described
Native Americans. And Michael Leroy Oberg in his book Dominion and Civility
as well as his earlier “Indians and Englishmen at the First Roanoke Colony”
is doing ethnohistory—examining the known documents, such as Lane's narrative,
from the perspective of the Native Americans being written about rather
than from the traditional perspective of the English who wrote about them.
One other interesting type of source is fictional representations of Ralph
Lane, such as Inglis Fletcher's Roanoke Hundred. Her portrayal of
Lane as an unsympathetic blowhard can be easily seen as an indirect comment
on his writing style.
Future Research
A great deal of work is possible on Ralph Lane's narrative from a literary
and/or rhetorical perspective—as is true with almost all the other narratives
from the Roanoke voyages. Aside from the tropes that Lane uses to describe
Native Americans, which a few writers have begun to explore, the other
tropes he uses to describe the land he has attempted to colonize would
make an interesting study. My own emphasis for future research would be
on Lane's rhetorical style—which seems to be an apology for his leadership
(an apology in the sense of an explanation, not an admission of wrong doing).
Lane's rhetorical style needs to be examined in light of not only the historical
events that occurred under his leadership, but in comparison to similar
works by other English and European leaders of expeditions, both those
that were successful and those that did not live up to their sponsors'
expectations.
Endnotes
1
One possible exception
may be Gesa Mackenthun's
Metaphors of Dispossession, which I was
unable to examine before this project was due. |