Roanoke Island

Island in Dare County, east North Carolina; length 16 km/10 mi from northwest-southeast; width 3 km/2 mi. It is located near the south entrance to Albemarle Ssound, between Roanoke and Croatan sounds, 64 km/40 mi north of Cape Hatteras. Manteo, the administrative headquarters of Dare County, is its chief town; population (1990) 1,000.

At the north end of the island is Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, location of the first English settlement in North America, established here by Walter Raleigh in 1585; it lasted only 10 months. In July 1587, a second colony was organized by John White, who had been appointed governor by Raleigh. By 1591 the colonists had vanished, among them Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas. Their fate has been debated ever since. The enigmatic word ‘Croatoan’, carved on a tree, has been taken to mean that they joined the Croatan (Lumbee) tribe on the mainland.