Editing Roanoke Colony (section)

===Integration with local tribes===
[[File:North carolina algonkin-dorf.jpg|thumb|Watercolor of a Secotan village, by John White]]

The possibility that the missing colonists could have assimilated into nearby Native American tribes has been suggested since at least 1605.{{Sfn|Lawler|2018|p=113}} If this integration was successful, the assimilated colonists would gradually exhaust their European supplies (ammunition, clothing) and discard European culture (language, style of dress, agriculture) as Algonquian lifestyle became more convenient.{{Sfn|Lawler|2018|p=328}} Colonial era Europeans observed that many people removed from European society by Native Americans for substantial periods of time – even if captured or enslaved – were reluctant to return; the reverse was seldom true. Therefore, it is reasonable to postulate that, if the colonists were assimilated, they or their descendants would not seek reintegration with subsequent English settlers.{{Sfn|Lawler|2018|p=331}}

This leaves open the question of which tribe, or tribes, the colonists assimilated into. It is widely accepted that the Croatan were ancestors of the 18th-century Hatteras, although evidence of this is circumstantial.{{Sfn|Brooks|2014|p= 180}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Dunbar |first=Gary S. |title=The Hatteras Indians of North Carolina |journal=Ethnohistory |volume=7 |number=4 |date=Autumn 1960 |pages=410–418 |publisher=Duke University Press |jstor=480877 |doi=10.2307/480877}}</ref> The present-day [[Hatteras Indians|Hatteras]] tribe identifies as descendants of both the Croatan and the Lost Colonists by way of the Hatteras.{{Sfn|Lawler|2018|pp=339–344}}

Some 17th-century maps use the word "Croatoan" to describe locations on the mainland, across Pamlico Sound from Roanoke and Hatteras. By 1700, these areas were associated with the Machapunga.{{Sfn|Lawler|2018|p=334}} Oral traditions and legends about the migration of the Croatan through the mainland are prevalent in eastern North Carolina.{{Sfn|Kupperman|2007|p= 137}} For example, the "Legend of the [[Coharie]]" in [[Sampson County, North Carolina|Sampson County]] was transcribed by Ernest M. Bullard in 1950.{{Sfn|Fullam|2017|pp= 102–110}}

More famously, in the 1880s, state legislator Hamilton McMillan proposed that the Native American community in [[Robeson County]] (then considered [[free people of color]]) retained surnames and linguistic characteristics from the 1587 colonists.<ref name="McMillan 1888">{{cite book |last=McMillan |first=Hamilton |title=Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony |quote=An historical sketch of the attempts of Sir Walter Raleigh to establish a colony in Virginia, with the traditions of an Indian tribe in North Carolina. Indicating the fate of the colony of Englishmen left on Roanoke Island in 1587. |year=1888 |publisher=Advance Presses |location=Wilson, North Carolina |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DFUVAAAAYAAJ |access-date=September 10, 2019 |archive-date=April 17, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230417064546/https://books.google.com/books?id=DFUVAAAAYAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> His efforts convinced the North Carolina legislature to confer tribal recognition to the community in 1885, with the new designation of "Croatan". The tribe petitioned to be renamed in 1911, eventually settling on the name [[Lumbee]] in 1956.{{Sfn|Lawler|2018|pp=301–307}}

Other tribes purportedly linked to the Roanoke colonists include the [[Catawba people|Catawba]] and the [[Coree]].{{Sfn|Gabriel-Powell|2016|p= 128}} [[Samuel A'Court Ashe|S. A'C. Ashe]] was convinced that the colonists had relocated westward to the banks of the Chowan River in Bertie County, and [[Conway Whittle Sams]] claimed that after being attacked by Wanchese and Wahunsenacawh, they scattered to multiple locations: The Chowan River, and south to the Pamlico and Neuse Rivers.{{Sfn|Stick|1983|p= 233}}

Reports of encounters with pale-skinned, blond-haired people among various Native American tribes occur as early as 1607. Although this is frequently attributed to assimilated Lost Colonists, it may be more easily explained by dramatically higher rates of [[albinism]] in Native Americans than in people of European descent.{{Sfn|Lawler|2018|p=116}} Dawson (2020)<ref>{{cite book |title=The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island |url=https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467144339 |date=June 2020 |isbn=978-1467144339 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |access-date=5 September 2020 |archive-date=September 4, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200904011832/https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467144339 |url-status=live }}</ref> proposed that the colonists merged with the Croatoan people; he claims, "They were never lost. It was made up. The mystery is over."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.pilotonline.com/news/vp-nw-not-lost-20200817-qgmblubzt5dyjm3jrcop25ssoq-story.html |title="The mystery is over": Researchers say they know what happened to 'Lost Colony' |last=Hampton |first=Jeff |newspaper=[[The Virginian-Pilot]] |date=August 17, 2020 |access-date=August 24, 2020 |archive-date=August 23, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200823224818/https://www.pilotonline.com/news/vp-nw-not-lost-20200817-qgmblubzt5dyjm3jrcop25ssoq-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Yuhas |first1=Alan |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/us/Roanoke-lost-colony.html |title=Roanoke's 'Lost Colony' was never lost, new book says |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=September 2020 |access-date=5 September 2020 |archive-date=September 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200905233346/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/us/Roanoke-lost-colony.html |url-status=live }}</ref> However, this conclusion has been called into question. Alain Outlaw, an archaeologist and faculty member at [[Christopher Newport University]], called Dawson's conclusion as "storytelling, not evidence-based information", while archaeologist Nick Luccketti wrote "I have not seen any evidence at Croatoan of artifacts that indicate that Englishmen were living there." In addition, the actual text of Dawson's 2020 book ''The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island'' admitted that there was no "[[smoking gun]]" of evidence that the colonists had assimilated with the tribe. The book was also not subject to peer review, leaving the question open in spite of the sensationalist headlines that accompanied its publication.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://stlukesmuseum.org/edu-blog/mystery-of-the-lost-colony-solved-not-so-fast/ |title=Mystery of the Lost Colony Solved? Not So Fast! |last=Ericson |first=John |date=September 24, 2020 |publisher=[[St. Luke's Historic Church & Museum]] |access-date=20 July 2022 |archive-date=December 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221206001844/https://stlukesmuseum.org/edu-blog/mystery-of-the-lost-colony-solved-not-so-fast/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

An archaeological dig by Mark Horton, an archaeologist from the University of Bristol, found European artifacts at the site of a Native American village on Hatteras Island, including part of a sword and part of a gun. This may be conclusive proof that the settlers did indeed assimilate with local Native Americans.<ref name="natgeo 2020"/>