Lost Colony

Why does the whole Lost Colony saga generate so little interest here?

WI Francis Drake hadn't removed the first 107 colonists of 1585 and they were joined by the 115 colonists of 1587? Would the colony have been 'lost' with over 200 people including several women?
 
See what I mean, 240 views and not a single comment on the idea that the USA starts 20 years earlier.
 
Alright, I'll bite.

If the first colonists hadn't been removed, many would have died, as was the case in most early attempts. The additional colonists show up, White leaves again for supplies, and the OTL poor weather and conflicts prevent him from returning until the same date as OTL. In the meantime, the not-much-larger than OTL population of Roanoke flees and joins the natives/dies as OTL, since the population change hasn't affected their circumstances.

Basically, all that happens is that more people die than OTL. The big problem with a Roanoke TL is that, while the disappearance may capture the imagination, weather and conflicts in England are what stopped White from mounting his return mission, rather than wherever the colonists may have gone.
 
Here's a timeline of events:


  • June 1585 Grenville's 4 ships begin Gathering off the Carolina/Virginia Coast
  • August 1585 107 colonists are left at Roanoke
  • May 1586 Francis Drake arrives and with no supplied to spare takes the colonists back to England (they had survived for 9 months without external help)
  • May 1586 Grenville's relief 'fleet' arrives days after Drake and finds the colony abandoned, he leave 15 men as a garrison for the fort
  • July 1587 A colony of 115 is left at Roanoke, there is little sign of the garrison Grenville left 13 months earlier
  • Late 1587 Governor White leaves for England to seek assistance for the colony, in October 1587 he lands in the west of Ireland
  • April 1588 The Roe and Brave set out for Virginia with supplies and 15 colonists including the wives of some of the 1587 colonists, but engage in piracy and lose so head back to England.
  • March 1590 White heads for Virginia with 2 ships, but after much piracy doesn't arrive until August, finding the colony abandoned in good order.
It appears to me that more than a reasonable amount of luck and chance went against the colonists in this series of events, and it would not be unreasonable for this series of events to turn out differently with a much different result. The biggest thing for me is the closeness of Drake's departure and Grenville's arrival with the relief fleet. If these arrivals were reversed I doubt the 1585 colonists would be removed, and if their survival for 9 months is any indication then there's a good chance they survive for 13 months when the next lot of colonists arrive, especially if they move to Chesapeake as they had planned.
 
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Honestly, comparing that to Jamestown, Botany Bay, or many other colonies, it looks like a lot of things actually went in the colonists favor.

And even if they do survive, it doesn't mean that they'll be successful.
 
Honestly, comparing that to Jamestown, Botany Bay, or many other colonies, it looks like a lot of things actually went in the colonists favor.

.

How do you figure that? Because 100 were evacuated and only 130 vanished, as opposed to 440 of 500 dying in Jamestown? The convict colony in Sydney suffered hardship, but nothing like Jamestown level of deaths, nor the complete disappearance of an entire plantation of colonists. Despite the hardships Jamestown did survive and Sydney did thrive, I suspect because both had a 'critical mass' of colonists, something that the 1585-90 colony plantings lacked due to the vagaries of wind and weather and the misfortune of people.
 
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