The Spanish Colony of St. Augustine and the English Colony of Jamestown were the first European settlements in North America. But before their success, many others failed. “The Spaniards had become rich in Mexico and the Yucatán, and everyone else was convinced that they too could find the incredible riches that must have existed there,” says David “Mac” MacDonald, co-author of We could see no sign of them: Failed colonies in North America. The ‘Lost Colony’ of Roanoke may be the best-known abandoned colony, but the stories of these seven failed colonies are reminiscent of the perils faced by early explorers, who often fell to disease, mutiny or a storm of disaster. .
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1. San Miguel de Gualdape, 1526
San Miguel de Gualdape is a colony of many firsts. It was the first known European colony on the American continent, the first to bring enslaved Africans to the continent, and the site of the first slave revolt in North America. In 1526, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón landed in present-day South Carolina or Georgia with 500 settlers and 100 enslaved Africans. Their installation only lasted a few months. The ship containing most of the settlers’ food supplies sank and they had arrived too late to plant crops. Then, an unknown disease struck 350 of the 500 settlers and an unrecorded number of their captives. A group of slaves took matters into their own hands, burning down an owner’s house, killing him, and escaping into the forest. The remaining Spanish settlers abandoned the colony and sailed for home.
2. Ochusa (Pensacola), 1559
Forty-eight years before the English founded Jamestown, the conquistador Tristán de Luna y Arrellano established a Spanish colony at Pensacola in 1559. Sailing north from Veracruz, Mexico, he arrived in what is now Florida with 1 500 soldiers, settlers, slaves and Aztecs. Upon their arrival, a hurricane sank their ships, causing widespread loss of life and provisions. With food scarce, 1,500 people chose to march inland, leaving behind 50 soldiers and a few enslaved Africans. From 1560 to 1561 the remaining occupants mutinied and in 1561 the site was abandoned.
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3. Ajacan, 1570
The colony of Ajacán was founded by nine Jesuit missionaries in 1570 in the Chesapeake Bay. They had brought a member of the Powhatan tribe, Paquiquineo, a man the Spaniards had kidnapped to the area nine years earlier as part of their mission to convert his people to Catholicism. With supplies dwindling, the missionaries followed their captive into the forest in search of food, giving him the chance to escape and exact his revenge. Paquiquineo banded together with the Powhatan to destroy the Spanish mission and assassinate the settlers who had attempted to colonize their lands.
“Early explorers tended to think of Indigenous peoples as simple-minded people and didn’t realize that very often they were being manipulated by them,” MacDonald explains. “A frequent story in the stories of lost colonies was that there is enormous wealth, gold and jewels just at the other side of this mountain. It was a wonderful way to get the Europeans out.
4.Roanoke, 1585
John White discovers the word ‘Croatoan’ carved into a tree on his return to the abandoned settlement of Roanoke in 1590.
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The “Lost Colony” of Roanoke was the first English colony in North America. Founded by Sir Walter Raleigh in August 1585, it was soon plagued by food shortages and conflict with local tribes. In 1586 Sir Francis Drake brought the first settlers from Roanoke back to England by ship, but a year later another 100 settlers under John White were sent to replace them, including wife, daughter and granddaughter of White. White returned to England to resupply the colony but was delayed by the Spanish Armada’s attack on the British Navy. The settlers he left behind were never seen again.
By the time White returned in 1590, the site had been abandoned. The only clue to what had happened was a discovered word carved into the wooden fence around the settlement – “Croatoan”. Croatoan was the name of an island 50 miles away and was home to a Native American tribe of the same name.
5. Sable Island, 1589/1599
Called “the cemetery of the Atlantic” for the number of shipwrecks on its shores, Sable Island was first settled by the Marquis de La Roche in 1589 or 1599. Faced with a lack of volunteers, La Roche approached men imprisoned for crimes and gave them a choice: execution or a second chance on Sable Island. Seventy ex-convicts joined him, though the settlement, located off the coast of Nova Scotia, was soon plagued by crime and infighting. In 1602, La Roche stopped supplying it. He relented a year later, although by 1603 only 11 of the 70 settlers were still alive. Sable Island is still populated by wild horses from cattle imported by Europeans.
6. St. Croix Island, 1604
Sainte-Croix Island, circa 1604
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Founded by Pierre Dugua de Mons and cartographer Samuel Champlain in 1604, Sainte-Croix was one of the first French attempts to colonize North America. A freezing winter isolated the island colony, located near the current Canada-US border, leading to food shortages and scurvy, and prompting Champlain to proclaim “there are six months of winter in this country”. . Thirty-five of the 79 colonists died during the winter of 1604-1605. In August, de Mons gave the order to move the colony to the more favorable location of Port Royal, although this too was abandoned in 1607.
7. Popham Colony, 1606
Like Jamestown, the Popham Colony was founded by the Virginia Company in 1606. Located at the mouth of what is now the Kennebec River in Maine, Popham was intended as a trading colony. The 120 settlers built defensive walls, houses, a church and the very first British ship to be built in North America, “The Virginia”. Their success was short-lived. In 1607, food shortages sent half of its original 120 inhabitants back to England.
When the leader of the expedition, the nobleman George Popham, died of unknown causes in 1608, his second in command, Raleigh Gilbert – nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh – took over. The nail in the colony’s coffin came in September of that year with the news that Gilbert had inherited his family’s estate in England. He and the 45 remaining residents of Popham returned home, abandoning New England’s first settlement in England.
READ MORE: 13 facts about the 13 colonies
