The Roanoke colony that disappeared was the first to include what?

Sir Walter Raleigh, got the idea for a permanent English settlement in the New World. Since Raleigh was willing to finance the venture out of his own pocket, Queen Elizabeth I agreed to the trip.

Raleigh's first shipload of colonists set out in 1585. They chose for their settlement a small sandy island off the coast of what is now North Carolina.

Because it was an island, Roanoke offered some protection from Indians. The shallow waters around it also protected the settlers from Spanish ships. But the spot that the settlers had chosen was too desolate.

When Sir Francis Drake stopped by after one of his raids on the Spanish treasure ships, they went home with him. In 1587, Raleigh sent out another party of 150 colonists, but the war with Spain prevented him from contacting the settlement for four years.

When a relief ship finally appeared at Roanoke in 1591, the colonists were gone. There were no bodies nor any signs of violence and only one clue - the Word "Croatan" carved on a tree.

The Croatans were neighboring Indians. Whether they attacked the settlement or whether the colonists gave up and went to live with the Indians we shall never know.

This event in United States History, would become known as, "The Lost Colony."