By Seddiq Abou El Hassan
Few enduring mysteries have been adapted for the screen as much as the “lost colony of Roanoke”. Since the discovery, a decade ago, of the first known film on the 400-old myth, not a year passes by without new releases on the subject.
A group of researchers from a historical association in North Carolina literally stumbled on a copy of the 1921 outdoor drama “The Lost Colony”, in mint-condition, along with other related documents.
The rekindled media interest for the ill-fated English settlement comes amidst a period of increased momentum around an inclusive approach to American history.
With the advent of digital tools and new technologies, a surge in studies of American history is steadily peeling off its uniform, white Anglo-Saxon wallpaper.
It is only fair to state that the best part of the History departments in the US are taking steps to offer an unbiased, evidence-based curricula, despite the ongoing attempts to reverse the progress toward racial equality.
In a context of enthusiastic deconstruction of the Eurocentric narrative, three community development activists launched “Hidden in Plain Site: Richmond” in 2020 “with a goal of creating conversations about often overlooked African American history”.
Inspired by the success of previous experiences under the same label, a group of friends managed to put together a documentary featuring 12 neglected sites in Richmond using the same comprehensive approach that involved a range of innovative technologies including technical imaging, 3D microscopy, Micro-CT scanning, DNA analysis and spectroscopic methods.
The outcome was so public-engaging that it has been emulated further south, in Roanoke Island.
Launched in May 2023, Hidden in Plain Site Roanoke offers a virtual tour experience through the earliest European settlement in North America, zooming into details, otherwise overlooked, from the black community’s life and culture.
The tour is designed to “inform and educate while changing how residents and visitors see and experience the City of Roanoke.”
But there is more to it than a 3D re-enactment. The project allows the African descendants to reclaim their part in American history by celebrating their anonymous forefathers and unsung heroes.
The organisers raised funds, for instance, to erect a memorial to commemorate Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman who contributed unwillingly to a milestone medical research, but also provided a case-law in the evolution of ethics in clinical research.
The Hidden Histories project is an integral part of a more general dynamic of African-American cultural enhancement mobilising political support and funding. In fact, championing the recognition of the contribution made by persons of African descent resonates growingly more with social appropriateness.
The public appealing factor, in other words the political correctness, is partly to thank for many initiatives promoting the presence of indigenous minorities.
Regrettably, the descendants of the Moorish settlers, no matter how old their presence in the New World or significant their contributions, were thinly spread over other groups and could not self-identify as a visible minority. Hence, the lack of interest for this “scattered community” in American politics.
Whites-only party?
Those who have binge watched every season of Jamestown rejoiced at the sight of an all-white congregation overcoming trials and tribulations in its quest for the blessed land.
Instead of rivers of milk and honey, the settlers faced the hostility of a people not willing to give away their land so easily.
While in the British miniseries, the Pamunkey natives are represented as oddly resigned, almost complicit, to their own demise.
Otherwise, it would be too poignant a show for family-friendly programming. On the European side, black casting is rare, the moors virtually non-existent.
However, the chronicles of the well-documented Roanoke settlement suggest otherwise.
After a failed attempt to establish the first British settlement in the New World, a second expedition funded by the English statesman and writer Sir Walter Raleigh and led by John White landed on July 22, 1587, in Roanoke Island (today’s Outer Banks).
Hoping to set the foundations for a self-sustained economy, White enlisted 120 Englishmen (150 in another reference) and an unspecified number of Muslim slaves.
If we take into consideration the slave labour brought later on to Roanoke by the famous English seaman and discoverer, Francis Drake, the number of Muslim slaves in the colony should be revised upwards.
According to the American theologian Umar Faruq Abd-Allah (born Wymann-Landgraf), Drake “brought at least two hundred Muslims (identified as Turks and Moors) to the newly established English colony of Roanoke on the coast of present-day North Carolina.”
In his contribution to a series titled “Roots of Islam in America”, Dr. Abd-Allah meticulously gathered early references to Muslim groups or individual presence in America from more than 170 occurrences.
“A short time before reaching Roanoke, Drake’s fleet of some thirty ships had liberated these Muslims from Spanish colonial forces in the Caribbean. They had been condemned to hard labour as galley slaves”, he added, putting into historical context the enslavement of this group of Moors to whom Drake promised a safe journey to Islamic shores.
“Historical records indicate that Drake had promised to return the liberated galley slaves to the Muslim world, and the English government did ultimately repatriate about one hundred of them to Ottoman realms”, concluded the Islamic scholar.
“Sir Francis Drake liberated hundreds of black slaves, likely including Muslims, in Caribbean raids in 1586. Many historians argue that he dropped them at Roanoke Island when he rescued the all-male colony and that they intermingled with Carolina Algonquian society”, suggests a thesis put forward by National Geographic.
The “hidden within the hidden”
The fall of Granada, the last remnant of Islamic rule in the Iberic peninsula, happened the same year Columbus reached the Americas. While a part of the Andalusian population – Muslims and Jews alike – was forced into exile, most of them were reduced to a state of slavery.
The Moriscos or “New Christians” were gradually dispossessed of their property and cultural identity. Escaping the persecution, a large number of them attempted to migrate to the New World in the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, through clandestine and legal means.
The first Moriscos came as servants, as guards or even as prisoners drafted for war in the ranks of the Spanish conquistadors.
The arrivals of Moriscos to the colonies were a source of concern for the Spanish nobility who depended heavily on them as cheap labour. But there was another consideration for their reluctance to let go of this literate, highly skilled community.
The Spanish authorities sought to prevent the emergence of resistance hotbeds in the colonies, by thwarting the slightest communication between its Muslim subjects and the Native Americans.
After learning of the existence of a community that practised Islam freely, the infamous Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros issued strict instructions to his followers to suppress Islamic practices and prevent all Muslims from entering the New World.
And in 1501, the Catholic monarchs instructed the governor of the Indies, Nicholas de Obando, to “ban the Moors, the Jews, the heretics, the Christian apostates, and the new converts from entering the American territory”.
In November, 1587, John White sailed back to England to report to the Crown, vowing to return back before too long with fresh supplies. A promise he could not keep for two years, since the maritime routes were blocked by a raging war between his country and Spain.
When he did return, he did not find a living soul in the colony, nor did he notice any sign of fighting, plundering or violence of any sort. The only sign the settlers left was the letters CRO carved on a tree, calling about a multitude of theories.
More than four centuries later, the mystery of the “Lost Colony” is still haunting the imagination of the Americans. But not the fate of hundreds of Moors whose presence is confirmed in contemporary accounts, but oddly absent in debates and artistic representations.
Even when the long recognition process of African-American presence and contributions has started, namely through projects as “Hidden in plain sight”, the Moorish-American remain the “hidden within the hidden in plain sight”.
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