title: Roanoke Colony

text: The fleet sailed through an inlet at Wococon Island (near present-day Ocracoke Inlet) on June 26. "Tiger" struck a shoal, ruining most of the food supplies and nearly destroying the ship. There are indications that Grenville's fleet was supposed to spend the winter with the new colony, perhaps to immediately begin using it as a privateering base. The wreck of "Tiger", however, made that impossible. The remaining provisions could not support a settlement as large as had been planned. Moreover, the shallow inlets of the Outer Banks made the region unsuitable for a base to support large ships. The colony's top priority would now be to locate a better harbour.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: After repairs, "Tiger" continued with the rest of the fleet to Port Ferdinando, where they reunited with "Roebuck" and "Dorothy". The men left behind by "Red Lion" were presumably also located during this time. On August 5, John Arundell took command of one of the faster vessels and set sail for England, to report the expedition's safe arrival.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The loss of provisions from the "Tiger" meant that the colony would support far fewer settlers than originally planned. Grenville decided that only about one hundred would stay with Lane, which would be enough to fulfill the colony's objectives until another fleet, scheduled to leave England in June 1585, could deliver a second wave of colonists and supplies. However, Grenville could not know that this expedition had been redirected to Newfoundland, to alert fishing fleets that the Spanish had begun seizing English commercial vessels in retaliation for attacks by English privateers. Until a resupply mission could be arranged, Lane's colony would be heavily dependent on the generosity of the natives.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: While the "Tiger" was under repair, Grenville organized an expedition to explore Pamlico Sound and the Secotan villages of Aquascogoc, Pamlico, and Secotan. His party made contact with the locals, presenting Harriot and White with an opportunity to extensively study Native American society. Although much of their research did not survive the 1586 evacuation of the colony, Harriot's extensive survey of Virginia's inhabitants and natural resources was published in 1588, with engravings of White's illustrations included in the 1590 edition.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Following this initial exploration, a silver cup was reported missing. Believing the item stolen, Grenville sent Amadas to lead a detachment back to Aquascogoc to demand the return of the missing property. When the villagers did not produce the cup, the English decided that severe retribution was necessary in order to avoid the appearance of weakness. Amadas and his men burnt down the entire town and its crops, sending the natives fleeing.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Manteo arranged a meeting for Grenville and Lane with Granganimeo, to provide land for the English settlement on Roanoke Island. Both sides agreed that the island was strategically located for access to the ocean and to avoid detection from Spanish patrols. Lane began construction of a fort on the north side of the island. There are no surviving renderings of the Roanoke fort, but it was likely similar in structure to the one at Mosquetal.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Grenville set sail for England aboard the "Tiger" on August 25, 1585. Days later, in Bermuda, Grenville raided a large Spanish galleon, the "Santa Maria de San Vicente", which had become separated from the rest of its fleet. The merchant ship, which Grenville took back to England as a prize, was loaded with enough treasure to make the entire Roanoke expedition profitable, spurring excitement in Queen Elizabeth's court about Raleigh's colonisation efforts.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The "Roebuck" left Roanoke on September 8, 1585, leaving behind one of the pinnaces under the command of Amadas. Records indicate 107 men remained with Lane at the colony, for a total population of 108. However, historians disagree as to whether White returned to England with Grenville, or spent the winter at Roanoke despite his absence from the list of colonists.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Many of the colonists had joined the mission expecting to discover sources of gold and silver. When no such sources were located, these men became dispirited and decided the entire operation was a waste of their time. The English also researched where the local Native Americans obtained their copper, but ultimately never tracked the metal to its origin.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The colonists spent the autumn of 1585 acquiring corn from the neighboring villages, to augment their limited supplies. The colony apparently obtained enough corn (along with venison, fish, and oysters) to sustain them through the winter. Little information survives, however, about what transpired at the colony between September 1585 and March 1586, making a full assessment of the winter impossible. The colonists most likely exhausted their English provisions and American corn by October, and the resulting monotony of their remaining food sources no doubt contributed to the men's low morale.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Amadas spent the winter exploring Chesapeake Bay, traveling as far as Cape Henry and the James River. While there his party made contact with the Chesapeake villages of Chesepioc and Skicóak. The Secotans had described Skicóak as the largest city in the region, possibly leading the English to expect something like the wealthy Inca and Aztec kingdoms encountered by the Spanish. Amadas instead found a more modest settlement, although he was impressed with the area's climate and soil quality. Harriot and Gans explored the Virginia territory, meeting Native American tribes and taking stock of natural resources. During his travels, Harriot and his assistants collected data that would eventually be used to produce White's "La Virginea Pars" map.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Although 16th-century science could not explain the phenomenon, Harriot noticed that each town the colonists visited quickly suffered a deadly epidemic, which may have been influenza or smallpox. Some of the Secotan suspected the disease was caused by supernatural forces unleashed by the English. When Wingina fell sick, his own people could not treat him, but he recovered after requesting prayers from the English. Impressed, Wingina asked the colonists to share this power with other stricken communities, which only hastened the spread of disease. The epidemic likely had a severe impact on the fall harvest, at a time when Lane's colony would be heavily dependent on its neighbors to supplement its limited food supply.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: By spring, relations between the Secotan and the colony were strained, most likely due to the colony's over-reliance on Secotan food. The death of Granganimeo, who had been a powerful advocate for the colony, apparently helped to turn Wingina against the English. Wingina changed his name to "Pemisapan" ("one who watches"), suggesting a newly cautious and vigilant policy, and established a new temporary tribal capital on Roanoke Island. The English did not initially recognize these developments represented a threat to their interests.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In March, Lane consulted Pemisapan about a plan to explore the mainland, beyond Secotan territory. Pemisapan supported the plan and advised Lane that the Chowanoke leader Menatonon was meeting with his allies to plan an attack on the English, and that three thousand warriors had gathered at Choanoac. At the same time, Pemisapan sent word to Menatonon that the English would be coming, ensuring both sides would expect hostilities. When Lane's well-armed party arrived at Choanoac, he found representatives of the Chowanoke, Mangoak, Weapemeoc, and Moratuc. Since this gathering was not planning an attack, Lane caught them by surprise. He easily captured Menatonon, who informed him that it was Pemisapan who had requested the council in the first place.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Menatonon quickly gained Lane's trust by offering information about lucrative opportunities in lands the English had not yet discovered. He described a rich and powerful king to the northeast (presumably the leader of the Powhatan), warning that Lane should bring a considerable force if he sought to make contact. Menatonon also corroborated rumors Lane had heard about a sea just beyond the head of the Roanoke River, apparently confirming English hopes of finding access to the Pacific Ocean. The chief's son Skiko described a place to the west called "Chaunis Temoatan" rich in a valuable metal, which Lane thought could be copper or perhaps even gold.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Based on this information, Lane envisioned a detailed plan in which his forces would divide into two groups – one traveling north up the Chowan River, the other along the Atlantic coastto resettle at Chesapeake Bay. However, he decided to defer this mission until the colony received fresh supplies, which Grenville had promised would arrive by Easter. In the meantime, Lane ransomed Menatonon and had Skiko sent back to Roanoke as a hostage. He proceeded with forty men for about up the Roanoke River in search of Chaunis Temotan, but they found only deserted villages and warriors lying in ambush. Lane had expected the Moratuc to provide provisions for him along his route, but Pemisapan had sent word that the English were hostile and villagers should withdraw from the river with their food.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Lane and his party returned to the colony shortly after Easter, half-starved and empty-handed. During their absence, rumors had spread that they'd been killed, and Pemisapan had been preparing to withdraw the Secotan from Roanoke Island and leave the colony to starve. There was no sign of Grenville's resupply fleet, which had not yet even left England. According to Lane, Pemisapan was so surprised that Lane returned alive from the Roanoke River mission that he reconsidered his plans. Ensenore, an elder among Pemisapan's council, argued in favor of the English. Later, an envoy for Menatonon informed Lane that the Weapemeoc leader Okisko has pledged fealty to Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh. This shift in the balance of power in the region further deterred Pemisapan from following through on his plans against the colony. He instead ordered his people to sow crops and build fishing weirs for the settlers.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The renewed accord between the English and the Secotan was short-lived. On April 20 Ensenore died, depriving the colony of its last advocate in Pemisapan's inner circle. Wanchese had risen to become a senior advisor, and his time among the English had convinced him that they were a threat. Pemisapan evacuated the Secotan from Roanoke, destroyed the fishing weirs, and ordered them not to sell food to the English. Left to their own devices, the English had no way to produce enough food to sustain the colony. Lane ordered his men to break up into small groups to forage and beg for food in the Outer Banks and the mainland.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Lane continued to keep Skiko as a hostage. Although Pemisapan met regularly with Skiko and believed him sympathetic to the anti-English cause, Skiko sought to honor his father's intention of maintaining relations with the colony. Skiko informed Lane that Pemisapan planned to organize a war council meeting on June 10 with various regional powers. With the copper the Secotan had gained from trading with the colony, Pemisapan was able to offer substantial inducements to other tribes to side with him in a final offensive against the English. Oksiko declined to get involved, although individual Weapemeocs were permitted to participate. The plan of attack was to ambush Lane and other key leaders as they slept at the colony, and then signal for a general attack on the rest. Based on this information, Lane sent disinformation to the Secotan indicating that an English fleet had arrived, to force Pemisapan's hand.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Forced to accelerate his schedule by the possibility of English reinforcements, Pemisapan gathered as many allies as he could for a meeting on May 31 at Dasamongueponke. That evening, Lane attacked the warriors posted at Roanoke, hoping to prevent them from alerting the mainland the following morning. On June 1, Lane, his top officers, and twenty-five men visited Dasamongueponke under the pretense of discussing a Secotan attempt to free Skiko. Once they were admitted into the council, Lane gave the signal for his men to attack. Pemisapan was shot and fled into the woods, but Lane's men caught up to him and brought back his severed head. The head was impaled outside the colony's fort.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In June, the colonists made contact with the fleet of Sir Francis Drake, on his way back to England from successful campaigns in Santo Domingo, Cartagena, and St. Augustine. During these raids, Drake had acquired refugees, slaves, and hardware with the intent of delivering them to Raleigh's colony. Upon learning of the colony's misfortunes, Drake agreed to leave behind four months of supplies and one of his ships, the "Francis". However, a hurricane hit the Outer Banks, sweeping the "Francis" out to sea.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: After the storm, Lane persuaded his men to evacuate the colony, and Drake agreed to take them back to England. Manteo and an associate, Towaye, joined them. Three of Lane's colonists were left behind and never heard from again. Because the colony was abandoned, it is unclear what became of the slaves and refugees Drake had meant to place there. There is no record of them arriving in England with the fleet, and it is possible Drake left them on Roanoke with some of the goods he had previously set aside for Lane. Drake's fleet, along with Lane's colonists, reached England in July 1586. Upon arrival, the colonists introduced tobacco, maize, and potatoes to England.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: A single supply ship, sent by Raleigh, arrived at Roanoke just days after Drake evacuated the colony. The crew could not find any trace of the colonists and left. Two weeks later, Grenville's relief fleet finally arrived with a year's worth of supplies and reinforcements of 400 men. Grenville conducted an extensive search and interrogated three natives, one of which finally related an account of the evacuation. The fleet returned to England, leaving behind a small detachment of fifteen men both to maintain an English presence and to protect Raleigh's claim to Roanoke Island.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: According to the Croatan, this contingent was attacked by an alliance of mainland tribes shortly after Grenville's fleet left. Five of the English were away gathering oysters when two of the attackers, appearing unarmed, approached the encampment and asked to meet with two Englishmen peacefully. One of the Native Americans concealed a wooden sword, which he used to kill an Englishman. Another 28 attackers revealed themselves, but the other Englishman escaped to warn his unit. The natives attacked with flaming arrows, setting fire to the house where the English kept their food stores, and forcing the men to take up whatever arms were handy. A second Englishman was killed; the remaining nine retreated to the shore, and fled the island on their boat. They found their four compatriots returning from the creek, picked them up, and continued into Port Ferdinando. The thirteen survivors were never seen again.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Despite the desertion of the Lane colony, Raleigh was persuaded to make another attempt by Hakluyt, Harriot, and White. However, Roanoke Island would no longer be safe for English settlers, following the hostilities between Lane's men and the Secotan, and the death of Wingina. Hakluyt recommended Chesapeake Bay as the site for a new colony, in part because he believed the Pacific coast lay just beyond the explored areas of the Virginia territory. On January 7, 1587, Raleigh approved a corporate charter to found "the Cittie of Raleigh" with White as governor and twelve assistants. Approximately 115 people agreed to join the colony, including White's pregnant daughter Eleanor and her husband Ananias Dare. The colonists were largely middle-class Londoners, perhaps seeking to become landed gentry. Manteo and Towaye, who had left the Lane colony with Drake's fleet, were also brought along. This time, the party included women and children, but no organized military force.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The expedition consisted of three ships: The flagship "Lion", captained by White with Fernandes as master and pilot, along with a flyboat (under the command of Edward Spicer) and a full-rigged pinnace (commanded by Edward Stafford). The fleet departed on May 8.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: On July 22, the flagship and pinnace anchored at Croatoan Island. White planned to take forty men aboard the pinnace to Roanoke, where he would consult with the fifteen men stationed there by Grenville, before continuing on to Chesapeake Bay. Once he boarded the pinnace however, a "gentleman" on the flagship representing Fernandes ordered the sailors to leave the colonists on Roanoke.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The following morning, White's party located the site of Lane's colony. The fort had been dismantled, while the houses stood vacant and overgrown with melons. There was no sign that Grenville's men had ever been there except for human bones that White believed were the remains of one of them, killed by Native Americans.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Following the arrival of the flyboat on July 25, all of the colonists disembarked. Shortly thereafter, colonist George Howe was killed by a native while searching alone for crabs in Albemarle Sound.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: White dispatched Stafford to re-establish relations with the Croatan, with the help of Manteo. The Croatan described how a coalition of mainland tribes, led by Wanchese, had attacked Grenville's detachment. The colonists attempted to negotiate a truce through the Croatan, but received no response. On August 9, White led a pre-emptive strike on Dasamongueponke, but the enemy (fearing reprisal for the death of Howe) had withdrawn from the village, and the English accidentally attacked Croatan looters. Manteo again smoothed relations between the colonists and the Croatan. For his service to the colony, Manteo was baptized and named "Lord of Roanoke and Dasamongueponke".


title: Roanoke Colony

text: On August 18, 1587, Eleanor Dare gave birth to a daughter, christened "Virginia" in honor of being "the first Christian born in Virginia". Records indicate Margery Harvye gave birth shortly thereafter, although nothing else is known about her child.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: By the time the fleet was preparing to return to England, the colonists had decided to relocate up Albemarle Sound. The colonists persuaded Governor White to return to England to explain the colony's desperate situation and ask for help. White reluctantly agreed, and departed with the fleet on August 27, 1587.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: After a difficult journey, White returned to England on November 5, 1587. By this time reports of the Spanish Armada mobilizing for an attack had reached London, and Queen Elizabeth had prohibited any able ship from leaving England so that they might participate in the coming battle.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: During the winter, Grenville was granted a waiver to lead a fleet into the Caribbean to attack the Spanish, and White was permitted to accompany him in a resupply ship. The fleet was set to launch in March 1588, but unfavorable winds kept them in port until Grenville received new orders to stay and defend England. Two of the smaller ships in Grenville's fleet, the "Brave" and the "Roe", were deemed unsuitable for combat, and White was permitted to take them to Roanoke. The ships departed on April 22, but the captains of the ships attempted to capture several Spanish ships on the outward-bound voyage (in order to improve their profits). On May 6 they were attacked by French mariners (or pirates) near Morocco. Nearly two dozen of the crew were killed, and the supplies bound for Roanoke were looted, leaving the ships to return to England.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in August, England maintained the ban on shipping in order to focus efforts on organising a Counter Armada to attack Spain in 1589. White would not gain permission to make another resupply attempt until 1590.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The Spanish Empire had been gathering intelligence on the Roanoke colonies since Grenville's capture of "Santa Maria de San Vicente" in 1585. They feared that the English had established a haven for piracy in North America, but were unable to locate such a base. They had no cause to assume Lane's colony had been abandoned, or that White's would be placed in the same location. Indeed, the Spanish greatly overestimated the success of the English in Virginia; rumors suggested the English had discovered a mountain made of diamonds and a route to the Pacific Ocean.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Following a failed reconnaissance mission in 1587, Philip II of Spain ordered Vicente González to search Chesapeake Bay in 1588. González failed to find anything in Chesapeake, but on the way back he chanced to discover Port Ferdinando along the Outer Banks. The port appeared abandoned. González left without conducting a thorough investigation. Although the Spanish believed González had located the secret English base, the defeat of the Spanish Armada prevented Phillip from immediately ordering an attack upon it. In 1590, a plan was reportedly made to destroy the Roanoke colony and set up a Spanish colony in Chesapeake Bay, but this was merely disinformation designed to misdirect English intelligence.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Eventually, Raleigh arranged passage for White on a privateering expedition organized by John Watts. The fleet of six ships would spend the summer of 1590 raiding Spanish outposts in the Caribbean, but the flagship "Hopewell" and the "Moonlight" would split off to take White to his colony. At the same time, however, Raleigh was in the process of turning the venture over to new investors.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: "Hopewell" and "Moonlight" anchored at Croatoan Island on August 12, but there is no indication that White used the time to contact the Croatan for information. On the evening of August 15, while anchored at the north end of Croatoan Island, the crews sighted plumes of smoke on Roanoke Island; the following morning, they investigated another column of smoke on the southern end of Croatoan, but found nothing. White's landing party spent the next two days attempting to cross Pamlico Sound with considerable difficulty and loss of life. On August 17 they sighted a fire on the north end of Roanoke and rowed towards it, but they reached the island after nightfall and decided not to risk coming ashore. The men spent the night in their anchored boats, singing English songs in hopes that the colonists would hear.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: White and the others made landfall on the morning of August 18 (his granddaughter's third birthday). The party found fresh tracks in the sand, but were not contacted by anyone. They also discovered the letters "CRO" carved into a tree. Upon reaching the site of the colony, White noted the area had been fortified with a palisade. Near the entrance of the fencing, the word "CROATOAN" was carved in one of the posts. White was certain these two inscriptions meant that the colonists had peacefully relocated to Croatoan Island, since they had agreed in 1587 that the colonists would leave a "secret token" indicating their destination, or a cross pattée as a duress code.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Within the palisade, the search party found that houses had been dismantled, and anything that could be carried had been removed. Several large trunks (including three belonging to White, containing the belongings he left behind in 1587) had been dug up and looted. None of the colony's boats could be found along the shore. The party returned to "Hopewell" that evening, and plans were made to return to Croatoan the following day. However, "Hopewell"s anchor cable snapped, leaving the ship with only one working cable and anchor. The search mission could not continue given the considerable risk of shipwreck. "Moonlight" set off for England, but the crew of "Hopewell" offered a compromise with White, in which they would spend winter in the Caribbean and return to the Outer Banks in the spring of 1591. This plan fell through, though, when "Hopewell" was blown off course, forcing them to stop for supplies in the Azores. When the winds prevented landfall there, the ship was again forced to change course for England, arriving on October 24, 1590.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Although White failed to locate his colonists in 1590, his report suggested they had simply relocated and might yet be found alive. However, it served Raleigh's purposes to keep the matter in doubt; so long as the settlers could not be proven dead, he could legally maintain his claim on Virginia. Nevertheless, a 1594 petition was made to declare Ananias Dare legally dead so that his son, John Dare, could inherit his estate. The petition was granted in 1597.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: During Raleigh's first transatlantic voyage in 1595, he claimed to be in search of his lost colonists, although he later admitted this was disinformation to cover his search for El Dorado. On the return voyage, he sailed past the Outer Banks, and later claimed that weather had prevented him from landing.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Raleigh later sought to enforce his monopoly on Virginia – based on the potential survival of the Roanoke colonists – when the price of sassafras skyrocketed. He funded a 1602 mission to the Outer Banks, with the stated goal of resuming the search. Led by Samuel Mace, this expedition differed from previous voyages in that Raleigh bought his own ship and guaranteed the sailors' wages so that they would not be distracted by privateering. However, the ship's itinerary and manifest indicate that Raleigh's top priority was harvesting sassafras far south of Croatoan Island. By the time Mace approached Hatteras, bad weather prevented them from lingering in the area. In 1603, Raleigh was implicated in the Main Plot and arrested for treason against King James, effectively ending his Virginia charter.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: There was one final expedition in 1603 led by Bartholomew Gilbert with the intention of finding the Roanoke colonists. Their intended destination was Chesapeake Bay, but bad weather forced them to land in an unspecified location near there. The landing team, including Gilbert himself, was killed by a group of Native Americans for unknown reasons on July 29. The remaining crew were forced to return to England empty-handed.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Following the establishment of the Jamestown settlement in 1607, John Smith was captured by the Powhatan and met with both their leader Wahunsenacawh (often referred to as "Chief Powhatan") and his brother Opechanacanough. They described to him a place called "Ocanahonan", where men wore European-style clothing; and "Anone", which featured walled houses. Later, after Smith returned to the colony, he made arrangements with Wowinchopunk, the king of the Paspahegh, to investigate "Panawicke", another place reportedly inhabited by men in European dress. The colony produced a crude map of the region with labels for these villages. The map also featured a place called "Pakrakanick" with a note indicating, "Here remayneth 4 men clothed that came from Roonocok to Ocanahawan."


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In the summer of 1608, Smith sent a letter about this information, along with the map, back to England. The original map is now lost, but a copy was obtained by Pedro de Zúñiga, the Spanish ambassador to England, who passed it on to Philip III of Spain. The copy, now commonly referred to as the "Zúñiga Map", was rediscovered in 1890.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Smith planned to explore Pakrakanick, but a dispute with the Paspahegh ended the mission before it could begin. He also dispatched two search parties, possibly to look for the other villages reported to him, with instructions to find "the lost company of Sir Walter Rawley". Neither group could find any sign of the Roanoke colonists living in the area.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: By May 1609, word had reached England's Royal Council for Virginia that the 1587 colonists had been massacred by Wahunsenacawh. The source of this allegation is unknown. Machumps, Wahunsenacawh's brother-in-law, is known to have provided information about Virginia, and he had recently arrived in England. It has been speculated that the same voyage could have also delivered a letter from Smith, although no evidence for this exists.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Based on this intelligence, as well as Smith's earlier report, the Council drafted orders for the Jamestown colony to relocate. These orders recommended "Ohonahorn" (or "Oconahoen"), near the mouth of the Chowan River, as a new base. Among the purported advantages of this location were proximity to "Riche Copper mines of Ritanoc" and "Peccarecamicke", where four of Raleigh's colonists were supposed to be held by a chieftain named "Gepanocon". These orders, along with the new acting governor, Thomas Gates, were delayed due to the shipwreck of the "Sea Venture" at Bermuda. Gates arrived at Jamestown in May 1610, several months into the Starving Time. The crisis may have deterred the colonists from attempting the proposed relocation. An expedition was sent to the Chowan River, but there is no record of its findings.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: William Strachey arrived in Jamestown, along with Gates and Machumps, in May 1610. By 1612, he had returned to England, where he wrote "The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia", an overview of the Virginia territory. He described "Peccarecamek", "Ochanahoen", "Anoeg", and "Ritanoe" in a manner consistent with Smith's map and the Virginia Council's orders to Gates. However, Strachey introduced additional details about "the slaughter at Roanoak".


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Strachey suggested that the lost colonists had spent twenty years living peacefully with a tribe beyond Powhatan territory. Wahunsenacawh, he claimed, carried out the unprovoked attack at the recommendation of his priests, shortly before the arrival of the Jamestown colonists. Based on this account, seven English – four men, two boys, and one woman – survived the assault and fled up the Chowan River. They later came under the protection of a chieftain named "Eyanoco", for whom they beat copper at "Ritanoe".


title: Roanoke Colony

text: "The Historie of Travaile" never directly identifies the tribe that supposedly hosted the Roanoke colonists. However, Strachey did describe an attack against the Chesepians, in which Wahunsenacawh's priests warned him that a nation would arise in Chesapeake Bay to threaten his dominion. It has been inferred that the colonists had relocated to Chesapeake, and both groups were massacred in the same attack.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Strachey believed that the Powhatan religion was inherently Satanic, and that the priests might literally be in communion with Satan. He advocated for England to facilitate the Powhatans' conversion to Christianity. To that end, he recommended a plan in which King James would show mercy to the Powhatan people for the massacre of the Roanoke colonists, but demand revenge upon the priests. However, the London Company did not publish "The Historie of Travaile", which fell into obscurity until 1849. There is no indication that any actions were taken against Wahunsenacawh or his priests in retaliation for the alleged massacre.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: After the Powhatan attacked Jamestown in 1622, there was a dramatic shift in English commentary on Native Americans, as writers increasingly questioned their humanity. The London Company sponsored propaganda arguing that the massacre had justified genocidal retaliation, in order to assure potential backers that their investment in the colony would be safe.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In this context, Samuel Purchas wrote "Virginia's Verger" in 1625, asserting England's right to possess and exploit its North American claim. He argued that the natives, as a race, had forfeited their right to the land through bloodshed, citing the 1586 ambush of Grenville's garrison, an alleged attack on White's colonists, and the 1622 Jamestown massacre. Purchas offered no evidence for his claim about the 1587 colony except to state, "Powhatan confessed to Cap. Smith, that hee had beene at their slaughter, and had divers utensills of theirs to shew."


title: Roanoke Colony

text: It is possible Smith related the story of Wahunsenacawh's confession to Purchas, as they are known to have spoken together. Smith's own writings, however, never mention the confession, leaving Purchas' claim to stand alone in what historian Helen Rountree dismisses as "an anti-Indian polemic". Even if taken at face value, the alleged confession is not persuasive, as Wahunsenacawh might have invented the story in an attempt to intimidate Smith. The European artifacts allegedly offered as "proof" of a raid on the Roanoke colonists could just as easily have been obtained from other sources, such as Ajacán.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Sea traffic through Roanoke Island fell into decline in the 17th century, owing to the dangerous waters of the Outer Banks. In 1672, the inlet between Hatorask and Croatoan Islands closed, and the resulting landmass became known as Hatteras Island.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: During John Lawson's 1701–1709 exploration of northern Carolina, he visited Hatteras Island and encountered the Hatteras people. Although there is evidence of European activity in the Outer Banks throughout the 17th century, Lawson was the first historian to investigate the region since White left in 1590. Lawson was impressed with the influence of English culture on the Hatteras. They reported that several of their ancestors had been white, and some of them had gray eyes, supporting this claim. Lawson theorized that members of the 1587 colony had assimilated into this community after they lost hope of regaining contact with England. While visiting Roanoke Island itself, Lawson reported finding the remains of a fort, as well as English coins, firearms, and a powder horn.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Research into the disappearance of the 1587 colonists largely ended with Lawson's 1701 investigation. Renewed interest in the Lost Colony during the 19th century eventually led to a wide range of scholarly analyses.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The ruins that Lawson encountered in 1701 eventually became a tourist attraction. U.S. President James Monroe visited the site on April 7, 1819. During the 1860s, visitors described the deteriorated "fort" as little more than an earthwork in the shape of a small bastion, and reported holes dug nearby in search of valuable relics. Production of the 1921 silent film "The Lost Colony" and road development further damaged the site. In the 1930s, J. C. Harrington advocated for the restoration and preservation of the earthwork. The National Park Service began administration of the area in 1941, designating it Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. In 1950, the earthwork was reconstructed in an effort to restore its original size and shape.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Archaeological research on Roanoke Island only began when Talcott Williams discovered a Native American burial site in 1887. He returned in 1895 to excavate the fort, but found nothing of significance. Ivor Noël Hume would later make several compelling finds in the 1990s, but none that could be positively linked to the 1587 colony, as opposed to the 1585 outpost.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: After Hurricane Emily uncovered a number of Native American artifacts along Cape Creek in Buxton, North Carolina, anthropologist David Sutton Phelps Jr. organized an excavation in 1995. Phelps and his team discovered a ring in 1998, which initially appeared to be a gold signet ring bearing the heraldry of a Kendall family in the 16th century. The find was celebrated as a landmark discovery, but Phelps never published a paper on his findings, and neglected to have the ring properly tested. X-ray analysis in 2017 proved the ring was brass, not gold, and experts could not confirm the alleged connection to Kendall heraldry. The low value and relative anonymity of the ring make it more difficult to conclusively associate with any particular person from the Roanoke voyages, which in turn increases the likelihood that it could have been brought to the New World at a later time.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: A significant challenge for archaeologists seeking information about the 1587 colonists is that many common artifacts could plausibly originate from the 1585 colony, or from Native Americans who traded with other European settlements in the same era. Andrew Lawler suggests that an example of a conclusive find would be female remains (since the 1585 colony was exclusively male) buried according to Christian tradition (supine, in an east–west orientation) which can be dated to before 1650 (by which point Europeans would have spread throughout the region). However, few human remains of any kind have been discovered at sites related to the Lost Colony.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: One possible explanation for the extreme deficiency in archaeological evidence is shoreline erosion. The northern shore of Roanoke Island, where the Lane and White colonies were located, lost 928 feet (283 m) between 1851 and 1970. Extrapolating from this trend back to the 1580s, it is likely that portions of the settlements are now underwater, along with any artifacts or signs of life.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In November 2011, researchers at the First Colony Foundation noticed two corrective patches on White's 1585 map "La Virginea Pars". At their request, the British Museum examined the original map with a light table. One of the patches, at the confluence of the Roanoke and Chowan rivers, was found to cover a symbol representing a fort.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: As the symbol is not to scale, it covers an area on the map representing thousands of acres in Bertie County, North Carolina. However, the location is presumed to be in or near the 16th-century Weapemeoc village of Mettaquem. In 2012, when a team prepared to excavate where the symbol indicated, archaeologist Nicholas Luccketti suggested they name the location "Site X", as in "X marks the spot."


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In an October 2017 statement, the First Colony Foundation reported finding fragments of Tudor pottery and weapons at Site X, and concluded that these indicate a small group of colonists residing peacefully in the area. The challenge for this research is to convincingly rule out the possibility that such finds were brought to the area by the 1585 Lane colony, or the trading post established by Nathaniel Batts in the 1650s. In 2019, the Foundation announced plans to expand the research into land that has been donated to North Carolina as Salmon Creek State Natural Area.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In 1998, a team led by climatologist David W. Stahle (of the University of Arkansas) and archaeologist Dennis B. Blanton (of the College of William and Mary) concluded that an extreme drought occurred in Tidewater between 1587 and 1589. Their study measured growth rings from a network of bald cypress trees, producing data ranging from 1185 to 1984. Specifically, 1587 was measured as the worst growing season in the entire 800-year period. The findings were considered consistent with the concerns the Croatan expressed about their food supply.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Since 2005, computer scientist Roberta Estes has founded several organisations for DNA analysis and genealogical research. Her interest in the disappearance of the 1587 colony motivated various projects to establish a genetic link between the colonists and potential Native American descendants. Examining autosomal DNA for this purpose is unreliable, as so little of the colonists' genetic material would remain after five or six generations. However, testing of Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA is more reliable over large spans of time. The main challenge of this work is to obtain a genetic point of comparison, either from the remains of a Lost Colonist or one of their descendants. While it is conceivable to sequence DNA from 430-year-old bones, there are as yet no bones from the Lost Colony to work with. As of 2019, the project has yet to identify any living descendants, either.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Without evidence of the Lost Colony's relocation or destruction, speculation about their fate has endured since the 1590s. The matter has developed a reputation among academics for attracting obsession and sensationalism with little scholastic benefit.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Conjecture about the Lost Colonists typically begins with the known facts about the case. When White returned to the colony in 1590, there was no sign of battle or withdrawal under duress, although the site was fortified. There were no human remains or graves reported in the area, suggesting that everyone was alive when they left. The "CROATOAN" message is consistent with the agreement with White to indicate where to look for them, suggesting they expected White to look for them and wanted to be found.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: David Beers Quinn concluded that the 1587 colonists sought to relocate to their original destination – Chesapeake Bay – using the pinnace and other small boats to transport themselves and their belongings. A small group would have been stationed at Croatoan, to await White's return and direct him to the transplanted colony. Following White's failure to locate any of the colonists, the main body of the colonists would have quickly assimilated with the Chesepians, while the lookouts on Croatoan would have blended into the Croatan tribe.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Quinn suggested that Samuel Mace's 1602 voyage might have ventured into Chesapeake Bay and kidnapped Powhatans to bring back to England. From there, these abductees would be able to communicate with Thomas Harriot, and might reveal that Europeans were living in the region. Quinn evidently believed circumstances such as these were necessary to explain optimism about the colonists' survival after 1603.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Although Strachey accused Wahunsenacawh of slaughtering the colonists and Chesepians in separate passages, Quinn decided that these events occurred in a single attack on an integrated community, in April 1607. He supposed that Wahunsenacawh could have been seeking revenge for the speculative kidnappings by Mace. In Quinn's estimation, John Smith was the first to learn of the massacre, but for political considerations he quietly reported it directly to King James rather than revealing it in his published writings. Despite Quinn's reputation on the subject, his peers had reservations about his theory, which relies heavily on the accounts of Strachey and Purchas.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: People have considered the possibility that the missing colonists could have assimilated into nearby Native American tribes since at least 1605. 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. 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.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Most historians today believe this to be the most likely scenario for the surviving colonists' fate. However, 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. The present-day Roanoke-Hatteras tribe identifies as descendants of both the Croatan and the Lost Colonists by way of the Hatteras.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: 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. Oral traditions and legends about the migration of the Croatan through the mainland are prevalent in eastern North Carolina. For example, the "Legend of the Coharie" in Sampson County was transcribed by Edward M. Bullard in 1950.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: 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. 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.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Other tribes purportedly linked to the Roanoke colonists include the Catawba and the Coree. 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.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: 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. Dawson (2020) proposed that the colonists merged with the Croatoan people; he claims, "They were never lost. It was made up. The mystery is over." However, this conclusion has been called into question. Dr. 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.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The colonists could have decided to rescue themselves by sailing for England in the pinnace, left behind by the 1587 expedition. If such an effort was made, the ship could have been lost with all hands at sea, accounting for the absence of both the ship and any trace of the colonists. It is plausible that the colony included sailors qualified to attempt the return voyage. Little is known about the pinnace, but ships of its size were capable of making the trip, although they typically did so alongside other vessels.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The colonists may have feared that taking a standard route across the Atlantic Ocean, with a stop in the Caribbean, would place them at risk of a Spanish attack; and thus chosen to attempt a direct course to England instead. Making such a voyage was not infeasiblein 1563, French settlers at the failed Charlesfort colony on what is now Parris Island, South Carolina built a crude boat and successfully (albeit desperately) returned to Europe. Alternatively, the Roanoke colonists could have sailed north along the coast, in the hopes of making contact with English fishing fleets in the Gulf of Maine.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The pinnace would not have been large enough to carry all of the colonists. Additionally, the provisions needed for a transatlantic voyage would further restrict the number of passengers. The colonists may have possessed the resources to construct another seaworthy vessel, using local lumber and spare parts from the pinnace. Considering the ships were built by survivors of the 1609 "Sea Venture" shipwreck, it is at least possible that the Lost Colonists could produce a second ship that, with the pinnace, could transport most of their party. Even in these ideal conditions, however, at least some colonists would remain in Virginia, leaving open the question of what became of them.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Anthropologist Lee Miller proposed that Sir Francis Walsingham, Simon Fernandes, Edward Strafford, and others participated in a conspiracy to maroon the 1587 colonists at Roanoke. The purpose of this plot, she argued, was to undermine Walter Raleigh, whose activities supposedly interfered with Walsingham's covert machinations to make England a Protestant world power, at the expense of Spain and other Catholic nations. This conspiracy would have impeded Raleigh and White from dispatching a relief mission until Walsingham's death in 1590. Miller also suggested that the colonists may have been separatists, seeking refuge in America from religious persecution in England. Raleigh expressed sympathy for the separatists, while Walsingham considered them a threat to be eliminated.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: According to Miller, the colonists split up, with a small group relocating to Croatoan while the main body sought shelter with the Chowanoke. The colonists, however, would have quickly spread European diseases among their hosts, decimating the Chowanoke and thereby destabilising the balance of power in the region. From there Miller reasoned that the Chowanoke were attacked, with the survivors taken captive, by the "Mandoag", a powerful nation to the west that the Jamestown colonists only knew from the vague accounts of their neighbors. She concluded that the "Mandoag" were the Eno, who traded the captured surviving Lost Colonists as slaves, dispersing them throughout the region.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Miller's theory has been challenged based on Walsingham's considerable financial support of Raleigh's expeditions, and the willingness of Fernandes to bring John White back to England, instead of abandoning him with the other colonists.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Local legends in Dare County refer to an abandoned settlement called "Beechland", located within what is now the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. The area has had reports of small coffins, some with Christian markings, encouraging speculation of a link to the Lost Colony. Based on these legends, engineer Phillip McMullan and amateur archaeologist Fred Willard concluded that Walter Raleigh dispatched the 1587 colonists to harvest sassafras along the Alligator River. All records suggesting the colony's intended destination was Chesapeake Bay, and that England had lost contact with the colony, were supposedly falsified to conceal the operation from Spanish operatives and other potential competitors.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: According to McMullan, Raleigh quietly re-established contact with the colony by 1597, and his sassafras expeditions were simply picking up the colonists' harvests. In this view, the colony was not truly abandoned until the secret of the colony's location died with Raleigh in 1618. After that point, McMullan argued, the colonists would have begun to assimilate with the Croatan at Beechland.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: This hypothesis largely depends upon oral traditions and unsubstantiated reports about Beechland, as well as a 1651 map that depicts a sassafras tree near the Alligator River. A significant problem with the hypothesis is that Raleigh supposedly planned a sassafras farm in 1587, to capitalize on a dramatic increase in crop prices, so that he could quickly compensate for the great expense of the failed 1585 colony. The proposed financial motivation overlooks the fact that Richard Grenville's privateering recovered the cost of the 1585 expedition. Additionally, sassafras prices did not skyrocket in value until the late 1590s, well after the establishment of the 1587 colony.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: P. Green, while collecting material for a 1937 stage play, noticed that Spanish records from the period contained abundant references to Raleigh and his settlements.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Spanish forces knew of English plans to establish a new Virginia base in 1587, and were searching for it before White's colonists had even arrived. The Spanish Empire had included most of North America in their Florida claim, and did not recognize England's right to colonize Roanoke or Chesapeake Bay. Given the Spanish sack of Fort Caroline in 1565, the colonists likely recognized the threat they represented.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: However, the Spanish were still searching for the colony in Chesapeake Bay as late as 1600, suggesting that they also were unaware of its fate.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In 2006, writer Scott Dawson proposed that a Southern live oak tree on Hatteras Island, which bears the faint inscription "CORA" in its bark, might be connected to the Lost Colony. The CORA tree had already been the subject of local legends, most notably a story about a witch named "Cora" that was popularized in a 1989 book by C.H. Whedbee. Nevertheless, Dawson argued that the inscription might represent another message from the colonists, similar to the "CROATOAN" inscription at Roanoke. If so, "CORA" might indicate that the colonists left Croatoan Island to settle with the Coree (also known as the Coranine) on the mainland, near Lake Mattamuskeet.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: A 2009 study to determine the age of the CORA tree was inconclusive. Damage to the tree, caused by lightning and decay, has made it impossible to obtain a valid core sample for tree-ring dating. Even if the tree dates back to the 16th century, establishing the age of the inscription would be another matter.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: From 1937–1941, a series of inscribed stones were discovered that were claimed to have been written by Eleanor Dare, mother of Virginia Dare. They told of the travelings of the colonists and their ultimate deaths. Most historians today believe that they are a fraud because investigations linked all but one to stonecutter Bill Eberhardt. The first one is sometimes regarded as different from the rest, based on a linguistic and chemical analysis, and as possibly genuine.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Raleigh was publicly criticized for his apparent indifference to the fate of the 1587 colony, most notably by Sir Francis Bacon. "It is the sinfullest thing in the world," Bacon wrote in 1597, "to forsake or destitute a plantation once in forwardness; for besides the dishonour, it is the guiltiness of blood of many commiserable persons." The 1605 comedy "Eastward Hoe" features characters bound for Virginia, who are assured that the lost colonists have by that time intermarried with Native Americans to give rise to "a whole country of English".


title: Roanoke Colony

text: United States historians largely overlooked or minimized the importance of the Roanoke settlements until 1834, when George Bancroft lionized the 1587 colonists in "A History of the United States". Bancroft emphasized the nobility of Walter Raleigh, the treachery of Simon Fernandes, the threat of the Secotan, the courage of the colonists, and the uncanny tragedy of their loss. He was the first since John White to write about Virginia Dare, calling attention to her status as the first English child born on what would become US soil, and the pioneering spirit exhibited by her name. The account captivated the American public. As Andrew Lawler puts it, "The country was hungry for an origin story more enchanting than the spoiled fops of Jamestown or the straitlaced Puritans of Plymouth... Roanoke, with its knights and villains and its brave but outnumbered few facing an alien culture, provided all the elements for a national myth."


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The first known use of the phrase "The Lost Colony" to describe the 1587 Roanoke settlement was by Eliza Lanesford Cushing in an 1837 historical romance, "Virginia Dare; or, the Lost Colony". Cushing also appears to be the first to cast White's granddaughter being reared by Native Americans, following the massacre of the other colonists, and to focus on her adventures as a beautiful young woman. In 1840, Cornelia Tuthill published a similar story, introducing the conceit of Virginia wearing the skin of a white doe. An 1861 "Raleigh Register" serial by Mary Mason employs the premise of Virginia being magically transformed into a white doe. The same concept was used more famously in "The White Doe", a 1901 poem by Sallie Southall Cotten.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The popularity of the Lost Colony and Virginia Dare in the 19th and early 20th centuries coincided with American controversies about rising numbers of Catholic and non-British immigrants, as well as the treatment of African Americans and Native Americans. Both the colony and the adult Virginia character were embraced as symbols of white nationalism. Even when Virginia Dare was invoked in the name of women's suffrage in the 1920s, it was to persuade North Carolina legislators that granting "white" women the vote would assure white supremacy. By the 1930s this racist connotation apparently subsided, although the VDARE organisation, founded in 1999, has been denounced for promoting white supremacists.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Celebrations of the Lost Colony, on Virginia Dare's birthday, have been organized on Roanoke Island since the 1880s. To expand the tourist attraction, Paul Green's play "The Lost Colony" opened in 1937, and remains in production today. President Franklin D. Roosevelt attended the play on August 18, 1937 – Virginia Dare's 350th birthday.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: Bereft of its full context, the colonists' sparse message of "CROATOAN" has taken on a paranormal quality in Harlan Ellison's 1975 short story "Croatoan" and Stephen King's 1999 television miniseries "Storm of the Century", as well as being a human-like villain (portrayed by William Shatner) in the 5th series of Stephen King's "Haven", which is based on the Stephen King's novel "The Colorado Kid". Croatoan, coincidentally, was the murderer of the Colorado kid in "Haven" and Croatoan also appears in the 2005 television series "Supernatural." The 1994 graphic novel "" states that "Croatoan" was the name of a powerful demon who, in the 20th century, attempts to sacrifice the entirety of Gotham City to Satan.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In the 1999 comic fiction book "100 Bullets", an organisation of powerful European families known as The Trust massacred the Roanoke Colony as a warning to the kings of Europe, as they wished to claim the riches of the New World for themselves. The word "Croatoa" is used to "reactivate" agents of The Minutemen, an organisation which polices The Trust, who have been placed in hiding with their memories of The Minutemen suppressed.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: The 2011 "American Horror Story" episode "Birth" relates a fictional legend in which the Lost Colonists mysteriously died, and their ghosts haunted the local Native Americans until a tribal elder banished them with the word "Croatoan". This premise is expanded upon in the sixth season of the series, "", which presents a series of fictional television programs documenting encounters with the ghost colonists. The leader of the undead colonists, "", is depicted as John White's wife Thomasin, although there is no historical evidence that she was one of the colonists.


title: Roanoke Colony

text: In the 2015 novel "The Last American Vampire", the colonists are the victims of a vampire named "Crowley"; the inscription "CRO" was thus an incomplete attempt to implicate him.


title: Fallen angel

text: In the Abrahamic religions, fallen angels are angels who were expelled from heaven. The literal term "fallen angel" never appears in any Abrahamic religious texts, but is used to describe angels cast out of heaven or angels who sinned. Such angels often tempt humans to sin.


title: Fallen angel

text: The idea of fallen angels derived from the Book of Enoch, a Jewish pseudepigraph, or the assumption that the "sons of God" () mentioned in Genesis 6:1–4 are angels. In the period immediately preceding the composition of the New Testament, some sects of Judaism, as well as many Christian Church Fathers, identified these same "sons of God" as fallen angels. During the late Second Temple period the biblical giants were sometimes considered the monstrous offspring of fallen angels and human women. In such accounts, God sends the Great Deluge to purge the world of these creatures; their bodies are destroyed, yet their peculiar souls survive, thereafter roaming the earth as demons. Rabbinic Judaism and Christian authorities after the third century rejected the Enochian writings and the notion of an illicit union between angels and women producing giants. Christian theology indicates the sins of fallen angels occur before the beginning of human history. Accordingly, fallen angels became identified with those led by Lucifer in rebellion against God, also equated with demons.


title: Fallen angel

text: Evidence for the belief in fallen angels among Muslims can be traced back to reports attributed to some of the companions of Muhammad, such as Ibn Abbas (619–687) and Abdullah ibn Masud (594–653). On the other hand, some Islamic scholars opposed the belief in fallen angels by stressing the piety of angels supported by verses of Quran, such as 16:49 and 66:6, although none of these verses declare angels as immune from sin. One of the first opponents of the concept of fallen angels was the early and influential Islamic ascetic Hasan of Basra (642–728). To support the doctrine of infallible angels, he pointed at verses which stressed the piety of angels, while simultaneously reinterpreting verses which might imply acknowledgement of fallen angels. For that reason, he read the term "mala'ikah" (angels) in reference to Harut and Marut, two possible fallen angels mentioned in 2:102, as "malikayn "(kings) instead of "malā'ikah" (angels), depicting them as ordinary men and advocated the belief that Iblis was a jinn and had never been an angel before. The precise degree of angelic fallibility is not clear even among scholars who accepted fallen angels; according to a common assertion, impeccability applies only to the messengers among angels or as long as they remain angels.


title: Fallen angel

text: Academic scholars have discussed whether or not the Quranic jinn are identical to the biblical fallen angels. Although the different types of spirits in the Quran are sometimes hard to distinguish, the jinn in Islamic traditions seem to differ in their major characteristics from fallen angels.


title: Fallen angel

text: The concept of fallen angels derives mostly from works dated to the Second Temple period between 530 BC and 70 AD: in the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees and the Qumran "Book of Giants"; and perhaps in Genesis 6:1–4. A reference to heavenly beings called "Watchers" originates in Daniel 4, in which there are three mentions, twice in the singular (v. 13, 23), once in the plural (v. 17), of "watchers, holy ones". The Ancient Greek word for watchers is (, plural of ), literally translated as "wakeful". Some scholars consider it most likely that the Jewish tradition of fallen angels predates, even in written form, the composition of Gen 6:1–4. In the Book of Enoch, these Watchers "fell" after they became "enamored" with human women. The Second Book of Enoch ("Slavonic Enoch") refers to the same beings of the (First) Book of Enoch, now called "Grigori" in the Greek transcription. Compared to the other Books of Enoch, fallen angels play a less significant role in 3 Enoch. 3 Enoch mentions only three fallen angels called Azazel, Azza and Uzza. Similar to The first Book of Enoch, they taught sorcery on earth, causing corruption. Unlike the first Book of Enoch, there is no mention of the reason for their fall and, according to 3 Enoch 4.6, they also later appear in heaven objecting to the presence of Enoch.


title: Fallen angel

text: According to 1 Enoch 7.2, the Watchers become "enamoured" with human women and have intercourse with them. The offspring of these unions, and the knowledge they were giving, corrupt human beings and the earth (1 Enoch 10.11–12). Eminent among these angels are Shemyaza, their leader, and Azazel. Like many other fallen angels mentioned in 1 Enoch 8.1–9, Azazel introduces men to "forbidden arts", and it is Azazel who is rebuked by Enoch himself for illicit instruction, as stated in 1 Enoch 13.1. According to 1 Enoch 10.6, God sends the archangel Raphael to chain Azazel in the desert Dudael as punishment. Further, Azazel is blamed for the corruption of earth:


title: Fallen angel

text: An etiological interpretation of 1 Enoch deals with the origin of evil. By shifting the origin of mankind's sin and their misdeeds to illicit angel instruction, evil is attributed to something supernatural from without. This motif, in 1 Enoch, differs from that of later Jewish and Christian theology; in the latter evil is something from within. According to a paradigmatic interpretation, 1 Enoch might deal with illicit marriages between priests and women. As evident from Leviticus 21:1–15, priests were prohibited to marry impure women. Accordingly, the fallen angels in 1 Enoch are the priests counterpart, who defile themselves by marriage. Just like the angels are expelled from heaven, the priests are excluded from their service at the altar. Unlike most other apocalyptic writings, 1 Enoch reflects a growing dissatisfaction with the priestly establishments in Jerusalem in 3rd century BC. The paradigmatic interpretation parallels the Adamic myth in regard of the origin of evil: In both cases, transcending ones own limitations inherent in their own nature, causes their fall. This contrasts the etiological interpretation, which implies another power besides God, in heaven. The latter solution therefore poorly fits into monotheistic thought. Otherwise, the introduction to illicit knowledge might reflect a rejection of foreign Hellenistic culture. Accordingly, the fallen angels represent creatures of Greek mythology, which introduced forbidden arts, used by Hellenistic kings and generals, resulting in oppression of Jews.


title: Fallen angel

text: The concept of fallen angels is also in the Second Book of Enoch. It tells about Enoch's ascent through the layers of heaven. During his journey, he encounters fallen angels imprisoned in the 2nd heaven. At first, he decides to pray for them, but refuses to do so, since he himself as merely human, would not be worthy to pray for angels. In the 5th heaven however, he meets other rebellious angels, here called "Grigori", remaining in grief, not joining the heavenly hosts in song. Enoch tries to cheer them up by telling about his prayers for their fellow angels and thereupon they join the heavenly liturgy.


title: Fallen angel

text: Strikingly, the text refers to the leader of the Grigori as Satanail and not as Azael or Shemyaza, as in the other Books of Enoch. But the Grigori are identified with the Watchers of 1 Enoch.


title: Fallen angel

text: The narration of the Grigori in 2 Enoch 18:1–7, who went down on to earth, married women and "befouled the earth with their deeds", resulting in their confinement under the earth, shows that the author of 2 Enoch knew about the stories in 1 Enoch. The longer recension of 2 Enoch, chapter 29 refers to angels who were "thrown out from the height" when their leader tried to become equal in rank with the Lord's power (2 Enoch 29:1–4), an idea probably taken from Ancient Canaanite religion about Attar, trying to rule the throne of Baal. The equation of an angel called "Satanail" with a deity trying to usurp the throne of a higher deity, was also adapted by later Christian in regard to the fall of Satan.


title: Fallen angel

text: The Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish religious work, accepted as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Beta Israel, refers to the Watchers, who are among the angels created on the first day. However, unlike the (first) Book of Enoch, the Watchers are commanded by God to descend to earth and to instruct humanity. It is only after they copulate with human women that they transgress the laws of God. These illicit unions result in demonic offspring, who battle each other until they die, while the Watchers are bound in the depths of the earth as punishment. In Jubilees 10:1, another angel called Mastema appears as the leader of the evils spirits. He asks God to spare some of the demons, so he might use their aid to lead humankind into sin. Afterwards, he becomes their leader:


title: Fallen angel

text: Both the (first) Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees include the motif of angels introducing evil to humans. However, unlike the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees does not hold that evil was caused by the fall of angels in the first place, although their introduction to sin is affirmed. Further, while the fallen angels in the Book of Enoch are acting against God's will, the fallen angels and demons in the Book of Jubilees seem to have no power independent from God but only act within his power.


title: Fallen angel

text: Although the concept of fallen angels developed from Judaism during the Second Temple period, rabbis from the second century onward turned against the Enochian writings, probably in order to prevent fellow Jews from worship and veneration of angels. Thus, while many angels were individualized and sometimes venerated during the Second Temple period, the status of angels was degraded to a class of creatures on the same level of humans, thereby emphasizing the omnipresence of God. The 2nd-century rabbi Shimon bar Yochai cursed everyone who explained the term "sons of God" as angels. He stated sons of God were actually sons of judges or sons of nobles. Evil was no longer attributed to heavenly forces, now it was dealt as an "evil inclination" ("yetzer hara") within humans. In some Midrashic works, the "evil inclination" is attributed to Samael, who is in charge of several "satans" in order to test humanity. Nevertheless, these angels are still subordinate to God; the reacceptance of rebel angels in Midrashic discourse was posterior and probably influenced by the role of fallen angels in Islamic and Christian lore.


title: Fallen angel

text: However, there are several hints spread throughout the Babylonian Talmud witnessing to the sages’ familiarity with the myth of the fallen angels. First, it transmits the word “Azazel”, the name of one of the angelic leaders. In most cases (Yoma 37a, 62a-b, 67b, and Hullin 11b) it is used as a mere toponym, a name of a cliff from which the scapegoat was supposed to be thrown down. Once, in Yoma 67b the sages disclose that the place is called “Azazel” because it atones for the deeds of “Uzza and Azael”, the malicious angels known from the 3 Book of Enoch (3 Enoch 5) for teaching sorcery to the generation of Enosh. Second, Niddah 61a explains that Og, the Rephaite warlord of gigantic height and strength (Deuteronomy 3:11) is the grandson of Shamhazai, the fallen angelic leader known from the 1 Book of Enoch (1 En 6:1-8; 8:1-3), Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Genesis 6:4, and the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q201 3:6; 4Q202 2:5, and 4Q530 2:3-23). Third, according to Eruvin 18b after witnessing Cain’s murder Adam decides to abstain from cohabitation with Eve in order not to sire any more potentially wicked offspring. This decision proves to be only partially successful because he experiences ejaculations that led to the formation of demons. The text does not explain who the mother of these creatures is, but according to the version of this tradition transmitted in midrash Genesis Rabbah 20:11 the first couple was seduced by evil spirits and gave birth to even more demons. Fourth, according to Sanhedrin 109a the architects of the Tower of Babel are turned into demons and from the contextual works, both Rabbinic (e.g., Genesis Rabbah 31:12, Deuteronomy Rabbah 184) and Christian (e.g., "Praeparatio Evangelica" 9.17.2-3, 9.8.12), it is clear that these artisans could be interpreted as giants. From this perspective, the metamorphosis of the builders of Babel into demons parallels the motif of the giants’ cadavers transformed into evil spirits (e.g., 1 Enoch 15:8-12 and Testament of Solomon 70-71). Hence, it could be concluded that the Talmudic rabbis knew at least some elements of the myth of the fallen angels but modified it so as to differentiate from among other religious and cultural traditions of the era.


title: Fallen angel

text: The idea of rebel angels in Judaism reappears in the Aggadic-Midrashic work Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer, which shows not one, but two falls of angels. The first one is attributed to Samael, who refuses to worship Adam and objects to God favoring Adam over the angels, ultimately descending onto Adam and Eve to tempt them into sin. This seems rooted in the motif of the fall of Iblis in the Quran and the fall of Satan in the Cave of Treasures. The second fall echoes the Enochian narratives. Again, the "sons of God" mentioned in Gen 6:1–4 are depicted as angels. During their fall, their "strength and stature became like the sons of man" and again, they give existence to the giants by intercourse with human women.


title: Fallen angel

text: Although not strictly speaking "fallen", evil angels reappear in Kabbalah. Some of them are named after angels taken from the Enochian writings, such as Samael. According to the Zohar, just as angels can be created by virtue, evil angels are an incarnation of human vices, which derive from the Qliphoth, the representation of impure forces.


title: Fallen angel

text: However, the Zohar also recalls a narration of two angels in a fallen state, called Aza and Azael. These angels are cast down from the heaven after mistrusting Adam for his inclination towards sin. Once on Earth, they complete the Enochian narrative by teaching magic to humans and producing offspring with them, as well as consorting with Lilith (hailed as "the sinner"). In the narrative, the Zohar affirms but simultaneously prohibits magical practices. As a punishment, God puts the angels in chains, but they still copulate with the demoness Naamah, who gives birth to demons, evil spirits and witches.


title: Fallen angel

text: Luke 10:18 refers to "Satan falling from heaven" and Matthew 25:41 mentions "the Devil and his angels", who will be thrown into hell. All Synoptic Gospels identify Satan as the leader of demons. Paul the Apostle (c. 5 – c. 64 or 67) states in 1 Corinthians 6:3 that there are angels who will be judged, implying the existence of wicked angels. 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6 refer paraenetically to angels who have sinned against God and await punishment on Judgement Day. The Book of Revelation, chapter 12, speaks of Satan as a great red dragon whose "tail swept a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth". In verses 7–9, Satan is defeated in the War in Heaven against Michael and his angels: "the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him". Nowhere within the New Testament writings are fallen angels identified with demons, but by combining the references to Satan, demons and angels, early Christian exegetes equated fallen angels with demons, for which Satan was regarded as the leader.


title: Fallen angel

text: Origen and other Christian writers linked the fallen morning star of Isaiah 14:12 of the Old Testament to Jesus' statement in Luke 10:18 that he "saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven", as well as a passage about the fall of Satan in Revelation 12:8–9. The Latin word "lucifer", as introduced in the late 4th-century AD Vulgate, gave rise to the name for a fallen angel.


title: Fallen angel

text: Christian tradition has associated Satan not only with the image of the morning star in Isaiah 14:12, but also with the denouncing in Ezekiel 28:11–19 of the king of Tyre, who is spoken of as having been a "cherub". The Church Fathers saw these two passages as in some ways parallel, an interpretation also testified in apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works. However, "no modern evangelical commentary on Isaiah or Ezekiel sees Isaiah 14 or Ezekiel 28 as providing information about the fall of Satan".


title: Fallen angel

text: During the period immediately before the rise of Christianity, the intercourse between the Watchers and human women was often seen as the first fall of the angels. Christianity stuck to the Enochian writings at least until the third century. Many Church Fathers such as Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria and Lactantius accepted the association of the angelic descent myth to the sons of God passage in Genesis 6:1–4. However, some ascetics, such as Origen (c. 184 – c. 253), rejected this interpretation. According to the Church Fathers who rejected the doctrine by Origen, these angels were guilty of having transgressed the limits of their nature and of desiring to leave their heavenly abode to experience sensual experiences. Irenaeus referred to fallen angels as apostates, who will be punished by an everlasting fire. Justin Martyr (c. 100 – c. 165) identified pagan deities as fallen angels or their demonic offspring in disguise. Justin also held them responsible for Christian persecution during the first centuries. Tertullian and Origen also referred to fallen angels as teachers of astrology.


title: Fallen angel

text: The Babylonian king, who is described as a fallen "morning star" in Isaiah 14:1–17, was probably the first time identified with a fallen angel by Origen. This description was interpreted typologically both as an angel and a human king. The image of the fallen morning star or angel was thereby applied to Satan by early Christian writers, following the equation of Lucifer to Satan in the pre-Christian century.


title: Fallen angel

text: The subject of fallen angels is covered in a number of catechisms, including Rev. George Hay's in which he answers the question "What was the sin by which they fell?": "It was pride, arising from the great beauty and sublime graces which God had bestowed upon them. For, seeing themselves such glorious beings, they fell in love with themselves, and, forgetting the God that made them, wished to be on an equality with their Creator." The consequence of this fall being that, "they were immediately deprived of all their supernatural graces and heavenly beauty: they were changed from glorious angels into hideous devils; they were banished out of heaven, and condemned to the torments of hell, which was prepared to receive them."


title: Fallen angel

text: In terms of the history of fallen angel theology it is thought to be rooted in Enochian literature, which Christians began to reject by the third century. The sons of God came to be identified merely with righteous men, more precisely with descendants of Seth who had been seduced by women descended from Cain. The cause of evil was shifted from the superior powers of angels, to humans themselves, and to the very beginning of history; the expulsion of Satan and his angels on the one hand and the original sin of humans on the other hand. However, the Book of Watchers, which identified the sons of God with fallen angels, was not rejected by Syriac Christians or the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Augustine of Hippo's work "Civitas Dei" (5th century) became the major opinion of Western demonology and for the Catholic Church. He rejected the Enochian writings and stated that the sole origin of fallen angels was the rebellion of Satan. As a result, fallen angels came to be equated with demons and depicted as non-sexual spiritual entities. The exact nature of their spiritual bodies became another topic of dispute during the Middle Ages. Augustine based his descriptions of demons on his perception of the Greek Daimon. The Daimon was thought to be a spiritual being, composed of ethereal matter, a notion also used for fallen angels by Augustine. However, these angels received their ethereal body only after their fall. Later scholars tried to explain the details of their spiritual nature, asserting that the ethereal body is a mixture of fire and air, but that they are still composed of material elements. Others denied any physical relation to material elements, depicting the fallen angels as purely spiritual entities. But even those who believed the fallen angels had ethereal bodies did not believe that they could produce any offspring.


title: Fallen angel

text: Augustine, in his "Civitas Dei" describes two cities ("Civitates") distinct from each other and opposed to each other like light and darkness. The "earthly city" is caused by the act of rebellion of the fallen angels and is inhabited by wicked men and demons (fallen angels) led by Satan. On the other hand, the "heavenly city" is inhabited by righteous men and the angels led by God. Although, his ontological division into two different kingdoms shows resemblance of Manichean dualism, Augustine differs in regard of the origin and power of evil. In Augustine works, evil originates from free will. Augustine always emphasized the sovereignty of God over the fallen angels. Accordingly, the inhabitants of the earthly city can only operate within their God-given framework. The rebellion of angels is also a result of the God-given freedom of choice. The obedient angels are endowed with grace, giving them a deeper understanding of God's nature and the order of the cosmos. Illuminated by God-given grace, they became incapable of feeling any desire for sin. The other angels, however, are not blessed with grace, thus they remain capable of sin. After these angels decide to sin, they fall from heaven and become demons. In Augustine's view of angels, they cannot be guilty of carnal desires since they lack flesh, but they can be guilty of sins that are rooted in spirit and intellect such as pride and envy. However, after they have made their decision to rebel against God, they cannot turn back. The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not take "the fall of the angels" literally, but as a radical and irrevocable rejection of God and his reign by some angels who, though created as good beings, freely chose evil, their sin being unforgivable because of the irrevocable character of their choice, not because of any defect in infinite divine mercy. Present-day Catholicism rejects Apocatastasis, the reconciliation with God suggested by the Church Father Origen.


title: Fallen angel

text: Like Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity shares the basic belief in fallen angels as spiritual beings who rebel against God. Unlike Catholicism, however, there is no established doctrine about the exact nature of fallen angels, but Eastern Orthodox Christianity unanimously agrees that the power of fallen angels is always inferior to God. Therefore, belief in fallen angels can always be assimilated with local lore, as long it does not break basic principles and is in line with the Bible. Historically, some theologians even tend to suggest that fallen angels could be rehabilitated in the "world to come". Fallen angels, just like angels, play a significant role in the spiritual life of believers. As in Catholicism, fallen angels tempt and incite people into sin, but mental illness is also linked to fallen angels. Those who have reached an advanced degree of spirituality are even thought to be able to envision them. Rituals and sacraments performed by Eastern Orthodoxy are thought to weaken such demonic influences.


title: Fallen angel

text: Unlike most other Churches, the Ethiopian Church accepts 1 Enoch and the "Book of Jubilees" as canonical. As a result, the Church believes that human sin does not originate in Adam's transgression alone, but also from Satan and other fallen angels. Together with demons, they continue to cause sin and corruption on earth.


title: Fallen angel

text: Like Catholicism, Protestantism continues with the concept of fallen angels as spiritual entities unrelated to flesh, but it rejects the angelology established by Catholicism. Martin Luther's (1483–1546) "sermons of the angels" merely recount the exploits of the fallen angels, and does not deal with an angelic hierarchy. Satan and his fallen angels are responsible for some misfortune in the world, but Luther always believed that the power of the good angels exceeds those of the fallen ones. The Italian Protestant theologian Girolamo Zanchi (15161590) offered further explanations for the reason behind the fall of the angels. According to Zanchi, the angels rebelled when the incarnation of Christ was revealed to them in incomplete form. While Mainline Protestants are much less concerned with the cause of angelic fall, arguing that it is neither useful nor necessary to know, other Protestant churches do have fallen angels as more of a focus.


title: Fallen angel

text: The concept of fallen angels is debated in Islam. Opposition to the possibility of erring angels can be attested as early as Hasan of Basra. On the other hand Abu Hanifa (d. 767), founder of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, distinguished between obedient angels, disobedient angels and unbelievers among the angels, who in turn differ from the jinn and devils. Al-Taftazani (1322 AD –1390 AD) argued that angels might slip into error and are rebuked, like Harut and Marut, but could not become unbelievers, like Iblis.


title: Fallen angel

text: The Quran mentions the fall of Iblis in several Surahs. Surah Al-Anbiya states that angels claiming divine honors were to be punished with hell. Further, Surah 2:102 implies that a pair of fallen angels introduces magic to humanity. However, the latter angels did not accompany Iblis. Fallen angels work in entirely different ways in the Quran and Tafsir. According to the Isma'ilism work "Umm al-Kitab", Azazil boasts about himself being superior to God until he is thrown into lower celestial spheres and ends up on earth. Iblis is often described as being chained in the lowest pit of hell ("Sijjin") by various scholars, including Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1150–1210) and commands, according to Al-Tha'alibis (961–1038) Qisas Al-Anbiya, his host of rebel angels ("shayāṭīn") and the fiercest jinn ("ifrit") from there. In a Shia narrative from Ja'far al-Sadiq (700 or 702–765), Idris (Enoch) meets an angel, which the wrath of God falls upon, and his wings and hair are cut off; after Idris prays for him to God, his wings and hair are restored. In return they become friends and at his request the angel takes Idris to the heavens to meet the angel of death. In Shia traditions, a cherub called Futrus was cast out from heaven and fell to the earth in the form a snake.


title: Fallen angel

text: Some recent non-Islamic scholars suggest Uzair, who is according to Surah 9:30 called a "son of God" by Jews, originally referred to a fallen angel. While exegetes almost unanimously identified Uzair as Ezra, there is no historical evidence that the Jews called him "son of God". Thus, the Quran may refer not to the earthly Ezra, but to the heavenly Ezra, identifying him with the heavenly Enoch, who in turn became identified with the angel Metatron (also called "lesser YHWH") in merkabah mysticism.


title: Fallen angel

text: The Quran repeatedly tells about the fall of Iblis. According to , the angels object to God's intention to create a human, because they will "cause corruption and shed blood", echoing the account of 1 Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. This happens after the angels observe men causing unrighteousness. However, after God demonstrates the superiority of Adam's knowledge in comparison to the angels, He orders them to prostrate themselves. Only Iblis refuses to follow the instruction. When God asks for the reason behind Iblis' refusal, he boasts about himself being superior to Adam, because he is made of "fire". Thereupon God expels him from heaven. In the early Meccan period, Iblis appears as a degraded angel. But since he is called a "jinni" in Surah 18:50, some scholars argue that Iblis is actually not an angel, but an entity apart, stating he is only allowed to join the company of angels as a reward for his previous righteousness. Therefore, they reject the concept of "fallen angels" and emphasize the nobility of angels by quoting certain Quranic verses like 66:6 and 16:49, distinguishing between infallible angels and jinn capable of sin. However, the notion of "jinni" cannot clearly exclude Iblis from being an angel. According to Ibn Abbas, angels who guard the "jinan" (here: "heavens") are called "Jinni", just as humans who were from Mecca are called "Mecci", but they are not related to the jinn-race. Other scholars assert that a "jinn" is everything hidden from human eye, both angels and other invisible creatures, thus including Iblis to a group of angels. In Surah 15:36, God grants Iblis' request to prove the unworthiness of humans. Surah 38:82 also confirms that Iblis' intrigues to lead humans astray are permitted by God's power. However, as mentioned in Surah 17:65, Iblis' attempts to mislead God's servants are destined to fail. The Quranic episode of Iblis parallels another wicked angel in the earlier "Books of Jubilees": Like Iblis, Mastema requests God's permission to tempt humanity, and both are limited in their power, that is, not able to deceive God's servants. However, the motif of Iblis' disobedience derives not from the Watcher mythology, but can be traced back to the Cave of Treasures, a work that probably holds the standard explanation in Proto-orthodox Christianity for the angelic fall of Satan. According to this explanation, Satan refuses to prostrate himself before Adam, because he is "fire and spirit" and thereupon Satan is banished from heaven. Unlike the majority opinion in later Christianity, the idea that Iblis tries to usurp the throne of God is alien to Islam and due to its strict monotheism unthinkable.


title: Fallen angel

text: Harut and Marut are a pair of angels mentioned in Surah 2:102 teaching magic. Although the reason behind their stay on earth is not mentioned in the Quran, the following narration became canonized in Islamic tradition. The Quran exegete Tabari attributed this story to Ibn Masud and Ibn Abbas and is also attested by Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Briefly summarized, the angels complain about the mischievousness of mankind and make a request to destroy them. Consequently, God offers a test to determine whether or not the angels would do better than humans for long: the angels are endowed with human-like urges and Satan has power over them. The angels choose two (or in some accounts three) among themselves. However, on Earth, these angels entertain and act upon sexual desires and become guilty of idol worship, whereupon they even kill an innocent witness of their actions. For their deeds, they are not allowed to ascend to heaven again. Probably the names "Harut" and "Marut" are of Zoroastrian origin and derived from two Amesha Spentas called Haurvatat and Ameretat. Although the Quran gave these fallen angels Iranian names, recognized them as from the "Book of Watchers". In accordance with 3 Enoch, al-Kalbi (737 AD – 819 AD) named three angels descending to earth, and he even gave them their Enochian names. He explained that one of them returned to heaven and the other two changed their names to Harut and Marut. However, like in the story of Iblis, the story of Harut and Marut does not contain any trace of angelic revolt. Rather, the stories about fallen angels are related to a rivalry between humans and angels. As the Quran affirms, Harut and Marut are sent by God and, unlike the Watchers, they only instruct humans to witchcraft by God's permission, just as Iblis can just tempt humans by God's permission.


title: Fallen angel

text: In the "Divine Comedy" (1308–1320) by Dante Alighieri, fallen angels guard the "City of Dis" surrounding the lower circles of hell. They mark a transition: While in previous circles, the sinners are condemned for sins they just could not resist, later on, the circles of hell are filled with sinners who deliberately rebel against God, such as fallen angels or Christian heretics.


title: Fallen angel

text: In John Milton's 17th-century epic poem "Paradise Lost", both obedient and fallen angels play an important role. They appear as rational individuals: their personality is similar to that of humans. The fallen angels are named after entities from both Christian and Pagan mythology, such as Moloch, Chemosh, Dagon, Belial, Beelzebub and Satan himself. Following the canonical Christian narrative, Satan convinces other angels to live free from the laws of God, thereupon they are cast out of heaven. The epic poem starts with the fallen angels in hell. The first portrayal of God in the book is given by fallen angels, who describe him as a questionable tyrant and blame him for their fall. Outcast from heaven, the fallen angels establish their own kingdom in the depths of hell, with a capital called Pandæmonium. Unlike most earlier Christian representations of hell, it is not the primary place for God to torture the sinners, but the fallen angels' own kingdom. The fallen angels even build a palace, play music and freely debate. Nevertheless, without divine guidance, the fallen angels themselves turn hell into a place of suffering.


title: Fallen angel

text: The idea of fallen angels plays a significant role in the various poems of Alfred de Vigny. In "Le Déluge" (1823), the son of an angel and a mortal woman learns from the stars about the great deluge. He seeks refuge with his beloved on Mount Ararat, hoping that his angelic father will save them. But since he does not appear, they are caught by the flood. "Éloa" (1824) is about a female angel created by the tears of Jesus. She hears about a male angel, expelled from heaven, whereupon she seeks to comfort him, but goes to perdition as a consequence.


title: Foie gras

text: Foie gras (, ; ) is a specialty food product made of the liver of a duck or goose. According to French law, foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by gavage (force feeding).


title: Foie gras

text: Foie gras is a popular and well-known delicacy in French cuisine. Its flavour is rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike an ordinary duck or goose liver. Foie gras is sold whole or is prepared into mousse, parfait, or pâté, and may also be served as an accompaniment to another food item, such as steak. French law states, "Foie gras belongs to the protected cultural and gastronomical heritage of France."


title: Foie gras

text: The technique of gavage dates as far back as 2500 BC, when the ancient Egyptians began keeping birds for food and deliberately fattened the birds through force-feeding. Today, France is by far the largest producer and consumer of foie gras, though there are producers and markets worldwide, particularly in other European nations, the United States, and China.


title: Foie gras

text: Gavage-based foie gras production is controversial, due mainly to animal welfare concerns about force-feeding, intensive housing and husbandry, and enlarging the liver to 10 times its usual volume. A number of countries and jurisdictions have laws against force-feeding and the production, import, or sale of foie gras.


title: Foie gras

text: As early as 2500 BC, the ancient Egyptians learned that many birds could be fattened through forced overfeeding and began this practice. Whether they particularly sought the fattened livers of birds as a delicacy remains undetermined. In the necropolis of Saqqara, in the tomb of Mereruka, an important royal official, there is a bas relief scene wherein workers grasp geese around the necks to push food down their throats. At the side, stand tables piled with more food pellets and a flask for moistening the feed before giving it to the geese.


title: Foie gras

text: The practice of goose fattening spread from Egypt to the Mediterranean. The earliest reference to fattened geese is from the 5th-century-BC Greek poet Cratinus, who wrote of geese-fatteners, yet Egypt maintained its reputation as the source for fattened geese. When the Spartan king Agesilaus visited Egypt in 361 BC, he noted Egyptian farmers fattened geese and calves.


title: Foie gras

text: It was not until the Roman period; however, that foie gras is mentioned as a distinct food, which the Romans named "iecur ficatum"; "iecur" means liver and "ficatum" derives from "ficus", meaning fig in Latin. The emperor Elagabalus fed his dogs on foie gras during the four years of his reign. Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) credits his contemporary, Roman gastronome Marcus Gavius Apicius, with feeding dried figs to geese to enlarge their livers:


title: Foie gras

text: Hence, the term "iecur ficatum", fig-stuffed liver; feeding figs to enlarge a goose's liver may derive from Hellenistic Alexandria, since much of Roman luxury cuisine was of Greek inspiration. "Ficatum" was closely associated with animal liver and it became the root word for "liver" in each of these languages: "foie" in French, "hígado" in Spanish, "fígado" in Portuguese, "fegato" in Italian, "fetge" in Catalan and Occitan and "ficat" in Romanian, all meaning "liver"; this etymology has been explained in different manners.


title: Foie gras

text: After the fall of the Roman empire, goose liver temporarily vanished from European cuisine. Some claim that Gallic farmers preserved the foie gras tradition until the rest of Europe rediscovered it centuries later, but the medieval French peasant's food animals were mainly pigs and sheep. Others claim that the tradition was preserved by the Jews, who learned the method of enlarging a goose's liver during the Roman colonisation of Judea or earlier from Egyptians. The Jews carried this culinary knowledge as they migrated farther north and west to Europe.