The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery

by Edwin M. Bacon; Richard Hakluyt

All was changed by Lane’s safe return with the whole of his party, and by the reports of their adventures made to Pemisapan by three of his own savages whom Lane had had with him besides Manteo; also by the knowledge that Menatonon had been made prisoner, and his favourite son Skyko taken and brought to Roanoke. “Old Ensenore” again became potent in Pemisapan’s councils. He reasoned that the English were the servants of God and could not be destroyed by them. Contrariwise, that those savages that sought their destruction would find their own. That the English “being dead men were able to doe them more hurt than now” they “could do being alive.” It was an opinion confidently held by the “wisest” among the tribes, as well by their old men, that at night when a hundred miles from any of the living English some of their people had been shot at in the air, and stricken by English men that had died among them from sickness. And many of them believed that the English were “dead men returned into the world againe, and that we doe not remaine dead but for a certaine time, and that then we returne againe.”

Ensenore’s influence and such reasoning temporarily restored the Englishmen’s power. But that which had the largest effect was an act of Menatonon’s in bringing one of the kings to formal allegiance to the English queen and to Sir Walter Raleigh:

“Within certaine dayes after my returne from the sayd journey [up the Roanoke] Menatonon sent a messenger to visite his sonne the prisoner with me, and sent me certaine pearle for a present, or rather, as Pemisapan tolde mee, for the ransome of his sonne, and therefore I refused them: but the greatest cause of his sending then, was to signifie unto mee that hee had commanded Okisko, King of Weopomiok, to yeelde himselfe servant, and homager to the great Weroanza of England, and after her to Sir Walter Ralegh: to perfourme which commandement received from Menatonon the sayd Okisko joyntly with this Menatonons messenger sent foure and twentie of his principallest men to Roanoke to Pemisapan, to signifie that they were ready to perfourme the same, and so had sent those his men to let me knowe that from that time forwarde, hee, and his successours were to acknowledge her Majestie their onely Soveraigne and next unto her as aforesaid.”

This done and acknowledged by them all in the presence of Ensenore, and Pemisapan and his council, apparently quite changed Pemisapan’s disposition. At all events he agreed with Ensenore that his people should set up weirs for the colonists, and sow his land. This was done, and by the end of April the Indians had sown sufficient land to produce a crop that would have kept the whole company for a year. The king also gave the colonists a plot of land for themselves to sow. These proceedings put them in “marvellous comfort,” for if they could keep themselves till the opening of July, which was the beginning of the Indian harvest, they would then have, even though their expected new supplies from England had not then arrived, enough store of their own to sustain them.

But Ensenore died within a few days after these promising arrangements, and now Pemisapan perfected his conspiracy. The plot was artfully contrived. First king Okisko of Weopomiok, who had so dramatically given his allegiance to the English queen, was to be moved through the agency of a “great quantitie of copper” to take a hand in it with the Mangoaks to the number of seven or eight hundred bows. They of Weopomiok were to be invited ostensibly to a “certaine kind of moneths mind,” or ceremony which the savages were wont to hold in memory of a dead personage, in this case Ensenore. At the same time the Mangoaks and the Chespians with their allies, to the number of seven hundred, were to be assembled at “Dasamonguepeio” or Dasamonguepeuk—the mainland lying west of Roanoke Island. The clans here were to lie low in ambush till signals were exchanged with the other forces, the signals to be fires, denoting the moment for action. Then Pemisapan and his fellows were to seize and execute Lane and some of his principal men, while the Dasamonguepeuk bands were to cross to Roanoke and despatch the rest of the colony. It was expected that they would then be dismayed by hunger and scattered over the island and elsewhere, seeking crabs and fish for food. For it was to be agreed that from the time of the formation of the conspiracy no corn or other supplies should be sold the colony, and that the weirs which had been built for them should be robbed at night and broken up. By these means Pemisapan felt assured that Lane would be enforced for lack of sustenance at Roanoke to disband his people into sundry places to live upon shell fish as the savages themselves were accustomed to do while their corn was growing.

Lane and his chief men were to be despatched in this fashion. Two of Pemisapan’s principal braves, “very lustie fellows,” with twenty more, were charged with Lane’s taking off. “In the dead time of the night they would have beset my house and put fire in the reedes that the same was covered with: meaning (as it was likely) that my selfe would have come running out of a sudden amazed in my shirt without armes, upon the instant whereof they would have knockt out my braines. The same order was given to certaine of his fellowes for M. Heriots: so for the rest of our better sort, all our houses at one instant being set on fire as afore is saide, and that as well for them of the fort as for us at the towne.” It was arranged that the blow should be struck on the tenth of June.

In the meantime Pemisapan continued an ostentatious show of friendship. But Lane was aware of his designs. He was kept informed by young Skyko, his prisoner, who was in the confidence of Pemisapan, the plotter believing that he was secretly the Englishmen’s “enemy to the death.” At one time he had attempted to escape, when Lane put him in the “bylboes” and threatened to cut off his head, but refrained from that drastic punishment at Pemisapan’s earnest entreaty. So Pemisapan held him his true friend, for favours received. Afterward, however, he was well used by Lane, while the colonists generally made much of him, and he became attached to them. Lane accepted Pemisapan’s show of friendship while the scheme was maturing, and bided his time to spring a trap on his savage enemies.

While laying his plans Pemisapan went over to Dasamonguepeuk for three causes. One was to see his grounds there broken up and sowed for a second crop; another to avoid Lane’s daily calls upon him for the sale of victuals for the colonists, his stock of excuses apparently having become exhausted; the third, to despatch his messengers to Weopomiok and to the Mangoaks. King Okisko declined to be a party to the conspiracy and retired with his forces into the mainland. The others joined it. Lane relied on Menatonon and the Chaonists who since his last visit to them had given tokens of a desire to join in perfect league with the English. One expectation of Pemisapan’s was realized. The shortage of food had become so serious that Lane was obliged to scatter the colonists. Captain Stafford with twenty men was sent to Croatoan, “My Lord Admirals Island,” there to find food for themselves, and also to watch for any shipping that might appear upon the coast, the expected relief fleet, or any other, and give warning of the approach. Master Pridiox and the “Provost Marshal,” with ten others, were sent in the pinnace to Hastorask, there to live as best they could, and look for shipping. Sixteen or twenty of the rest of the colony were sent every week to the mainland “over against us,” to live on “casada” and oysters.

To put “suspicion out of his head” that his conspiracy was known, and to draw him on, Lane sent word to Pemisapan that he was presently to go to Croatoan, since he had heard of the arrival of his relief fleet from England (which he had not), and asking him to loan some of his men to fish for the colonists. Pemisapan made reply that he would come himself. But he deferred from day to day. At length on the last day of May his savages began to “make their assembly at Roanoak at his commandement sent abroad to them.” Now Lane took the aggressive.

"I resolved not to stay longer upon his comming over, since he meant to come with so good company, but thought good to go and visit him with such as I had, which I resolved to do the next day: but that night I meant by the way to give them in the Island a canvisado, and at the instant to seize upon all the canoas about the Island to keepe him from advertisements. But the towne tooke the alarme before I meant it to them: the occasion was this. I had sent the Master of the light horsman, with a few with him, to gather up all the canoas in the setting of the Sun, & to take as many as were going from us to Dasamonguepeio, but to suffer any that came from thence, to land. He met with a Canoa going from the shore, and overthrew the Canoa and cut off two Savages heads: this was not done so secretly but he was discovered from the shore; whereupon the cry arose: for in trueth they, privy to their owne villanous purposes against us, held as good espiall [spy] upon us, both by day and night, as we did upon them. The allarme given they tooke themselves to their bowes and we to our armes: some three or foure of them at the first were slaine with our shot: the rest fled into the woods.