True Enough To Bury The Dead

In August of 1590, John White came home to a colony that no longer existed. He had left three years earlier to fetch supplies and been trapped in England by the war with Spain. When his ship finally reached the coast, the houses were gone, taken down board by board. So were the people, including his daughter Eleanor and his infant granddaughter, Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas. One thing remained. Carved into a post, five feet off the ground, was a single word. CROATOAN Before he sailed, White and the colonists had agreed on a sign. If they were ever forced to flee in danger, they would cut a cross above the name of the place they had gone. There was no cross. White wrote that down carefully. Whatever had happened, it had not happened in distress.