{"id":4598,"date":"2018-07-30T14:26:10","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T18:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/?page_id=4598"},"modified":"2026-07-19T11:10:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T15:10:53","slug":"the-secret-token-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/the-secret-token-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Token"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 fusion-flex-container has-pattern-background has-mask-background nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling fusion-no-small-visibility\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-padding-top:30px;--awb-padding-bottom:0px;--awb-margin-top:0px;--awb-margin-bottom:0px;--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-flex-start fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:1144px;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:100%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:1.92%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:1.92%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\" style=\"--awb-content-alignment:center;--awb-margin-top:30px;\"><p>BOOK AUTHOR | MAGAZINE WRITER | TRAVELER<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"fusion-title title fusion-title-1 fusion-sep-none fusion-title-center fusion-title-text fusion-title-size-one\" style=\"--awb-margin-top-small:10px;--awb-margin-right-small:0px;--awb-margin-bottom-small:10px;--awb-margin-left-small:0px;\"><h1 class=\"fusion-title-heading title-heading-center fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" style=\"font-family:&quot;Public Sans&quot;;font-style:normal;font-weight:900;margin:0;letter-spacing:10px;--fontSize:38;line-height:1.1;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Public Sans'; font-weight: 900;\" data-fusion-font=\"true\" data-fusion-google-font=\"Public Sans\" data-fusion-google-variant=\"900\">ANDREW LAWLER<\/span><\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-2 fusion-flex-container has-pattern-background has-mask-background nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling fusion-no-small-visibility fusion-no-medium-visibility\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-flex-start fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:1144px;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-1 fusion_builder_column_1_3 1_3 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:33.333333333333%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:0%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:39px;--awb-spacing-left-large:11.808%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-image-element\" style=\"--awb-caption-title-font-family:var(--h2_typography-font-family);--awb-caption-title-font-weight:var(--h2_typography-font-weight);--awb-caption-title-font-style:var(--h2_typography-font-style);--awb-caption-title-size:var(--h2_typography-font-size);--awb-caption-title-transform:var(--h2_typography-text-transform);--awb-caption-title-line-height:var(--h2_typography-line-height);--awb-caption-title-letter-spacing:var(--h2_typography-letter-spacing);\"><span class=\" fusion-imageframe imageframe-none imageframe-1 hover-type-none\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"472\" height=\"700\" title=\"secret_cover\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover.png\" alt class=\"img-responsive wp-image-14056\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover-200x297.png 200w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover-400x593.png 400w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover.png 472w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 950px) 100vw, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-2 fusion_builder_column_2_3 2_3 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-padding-top:20px;--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:66.666666666667%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:2.88%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:0px;--awb-spacing-left-large:0%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-testimonials classic awb-testimonials-layout-fade awb-testimonial-content-flex-start awb-speech-bubble-show awb-testimonial-author-inline fusion-testimonials-1\" style=\"--awb-flex-align-items:stretch;--awb-backgroundcolor:#fffcfc;--awb-testimonial-border-style:solid;--awb-testimonial-border-color:#fffcfc;--awb-testimonial-text-font-size:18px;--awb-testimonial-text-line-height:1.5;--awb-textcolor:#747474;--awb-content-valign:center;--awb-initials-bg-color:var(--primary_color);--awb-initials-text-color:#ffffff;--awb-testimonial-icon-size:2em;--awb-navigation-size:12px;--awb-margin-top:20px;--awb-margin-right:20px;--awb-margin-left:20px;--awb-border-top-left-radius:0px;--awb-border-top-right-radius:0px;--awb-border-bottom-left-radius:0px;--awb-border-bottom-right-radius:0px;--testimonial-border-width-top:0px;--testimonial-border-width-right:0px;--testimonial-border-width-bottom:0px;--testimonial-border-width-left:0px;\"><div class=\"reviews awb-carousel awb-swiper awb-swiper-dots-position-below\" data-touchscroll=\"touch\" data-loop=\"yes\" data-pagination=\"bullets\" data-autoplay=\"yes\" data-autoplayspeed=\"3000\" data-autoplaypause=\"no\" style=\"--awb-arrow-bgcolor:#999999;--awb-arrow-color:#fff;--awb-arrow-hover-bgcolor:#808080;--awb-arrow-hover-color:#fff;--awb-dots-align:center;--awb-arrow-position-vertical-transform:none;\" data-slide-effect=\"fade\" data-itemmargin=\"0\"><div class=\"swiper-wrapper\"><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;Just plain fascinating&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;The Washington Post<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;A book that is hard to put down&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;American Archaeology<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;A lively and engaging read&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;The Economist<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;A thoughtful and timely discourse about race and identity&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;Publishers Weekly<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;The most authoritative account of the Lost Colony to date, if not the last word&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;Wall Street Journal<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;[An] enjoyable historical adventure&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;Kirkus<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-pagination testimonial-pagination\" id=\"fusion-testimonials-1\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-2\" style=\"--awb-margin-top:30px;\"><h5 class=\"\" style=\"text-align: center; --fontsize: 18; line-height: 1.3; --minfontsize: 18;\" data-fontsize=\"18\" data-lineheight=\"23.4px\">Order <em>The Secret Token <\/em>at these booksellers, or visit your local bookstore!<\/h5>\n<\/div><div style=\"text-align:center;\"><a class=\"fusion-button button-flat fusion-button-default-size button-default fusion-button-default button-1 fusion-button-default-span fusion-button-default-type\" style=\"--awb-margin-top:20px;--awb-margin-bottom:20px;--button-border-radius-top-left:0;--button-border-radius-top-right:0;--button-border-radius-bottom-right:0;--button-border-radius-bottom-left:0;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"#\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.secrettokenbuyingoptions2\"><span class=\"fusion-button-text awb-button__text awb-button__text--default\">Buy Now<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-1 secrettokenbuyingoptions2\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-1\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Secret Token<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Order <em>The Secret Token<\/em>, including its audiobook, here, or visit your local bookstore!<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"flex-container\" style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 10px; justify-content: center;\">\n<div class=\"flex-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0385542011\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"no-border alignleft wp-image-3718 size-full\" title=\"Amazon.com\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/amazon.png\" alt=\"Amazon logo\" 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style=\"--awb-max-width:300px;--awb-caption-title-font-family:var(--h2_typography-font-family);--awb-caption-title-font-weight:var(--h2_typography-font-weight);--awb-caption-title-font-style:var(--h2_typography-font-style);--awb-caption-title-size:var(--h2_typography-font-size);--awb-caption-title-transform:var(--h2_typography-text-transform);--awb-caption-title-line-height:var(--h2_typography-line-height);--awb-caption-title-letter-spacing:var(--h2_typography-letter-spacing);\"><span class=\" fusion-imageframe imageframe-none imageframe-2 hover-type-none\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"472\" height=\"700\" title=\"secret_cover\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover.png\" alt class=\"img-responsive wp-image-14056\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover-200x297.png 200w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover-400x593.png 400w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover.png 472w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 950px) 100vw, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-4 fusion_builder_column_2_3 2_3 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-padding-top:20px;--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:66.666666666667%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:2.88%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:0px;--awb-spacing-left-large:0%;--awb-width-medium:66.666666666667%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:0%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:0%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-testimonials classic awb-testimonials-layout-fade awb-testimonial-content-flex-start awb-speech-bubble-show awb-testimonial-author-inline fusion-testimonials-2\" style=\"--awb-flex-align-items:stretch;--awb-backgroundcolor:#fffcfc;--awb-testimonial-border-style:solid;--awb-testimonial-border-color:#fffcfc;--awb-testimonial-text-font-size:18px;--awb-testimonial-text-line-height:1.5;--awb-textcolor:#747474;--awb-content-valign:center;--awb-initials-bg-color:var(--primary_color);--awb-initials-text-color:#ffffff;--awb-testimonial-icon-size:2em;--awb-navigation-size:12px;--awb-margin-top:20px;--awb-border-top-left-radius:0px;--awb-border-top-right-radius:0px;--awb-border-bottom-left-radius:0px;--awb-border-bottom-right-radius:0px;--testimonial-border-width-top:0px;--testimonial-border-width-right:0px;--testimonial-border-width-bottom:0px;--testimonial-border-width-left:0px;\"><div class=\"reviews awb-carousel awb-swiper awb-swiper-dots-position-below\" data-touchscroll=\"touch\" data-loop=\"yes\" data-pagination=\"bullets\" data-autoplay=\"yes\" data-autoplayspeed=\"3000\" data-autoplaypause=\"no\" style=\"--awb-arrow-bgcolor:#999999;--awb-arrow-color:#fff;--awb-arrow-hover-bgcolor:#808080;--awb-arrow-hover-color:#fff;--awb-dots-align:center;--awb-arrow-position-vertical-transform:none;\" data-slide-effect=\"fade\" data-itemmargin=\"0\"><div class=\"swiper-wrapper\"><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;Just plain fascinating&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;The Washington Post<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;A book that is hard to put down&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;American Archaeology<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;A lively and engaging read&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;The Economist<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;A thoughtful and timely discourse about race and identity&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;Publishers Weekly<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;The most authoritative account of the Lost Colony to date, if not the last word&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;Wall Street Journal<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3>&#8220;[An] enjoyable historical adventure&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>&#8211;Kirkus<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-pagination testimonial-pagination\" id=\"fusion-testimonials-2\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-3\" style=\"--awb-margin-top:30px;\"><h5 class=\"\" style=\"text-align: center; --fontsize: 18; line-height: 1.3; --minfontsize: 18;\" data-fontsize=\"18\" data-lineheight=\"23.4px\">Order <em>The Secret Token <\/em>at these booksellers, or visit your local bookstore!<\/h5>\n<\/div><div style=\"text-align:center;\"><a class=\"fusion-button button-flat fusion-button-default-size button-default fusion-button-default button-2 fusion-button-default-span fusion-button-default-type\" style=\"--awb-margin-top:20px;--awb-margin-bottom:20px;--button-border-radius-top-left:0;--button-border-radius-top-right:0;--button-border-radius-bottom-right:0;--button-border-radius-bottom-left:0;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"#\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.secrettokenbuyingoptions2\"><span class=\"fusion-button-text awb-button__text awb-button__text--default\">Buy Now<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-2 secrettokenbuyingoptions2\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-2\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-2\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Secret Token<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Order <em>The Secret Token<\/em>, including its audiobook, here, or visit your local bookstore!<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"flex-container\" style=\"display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; gap: 10px; justify-content: center;\">\n<div class=\"flex-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0385542011\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"no-border alignleft wp-image-3718 size-full\" title=\"Amazon.com\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/amazon.png\" alt=\"Amazon logo\" width=\"96\" height=\"37\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex-item\"><a 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src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/kobo.png\" alt=\"Kobo logo\" width=\"96\" height=\"37\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-4 fusion-flex-container has-pattern-background has-mask-background nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling fusion-no-medium-visibility fusion-no-large-visibility\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-padding-top:30px;--awb-padding-bottom:0px;--awb-margin-top:0px;--awb-margin-bottom:0px;--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-flex-start fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:1144px;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-5 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-padding-bottom-small:0px;--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:100%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:1.92%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:1.92%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-4 fusion-text-no-margin\" style=\"--awb-content-alignment:center;--awb-font-size:12px;--awb-margin-top:30px;--awb-margin-bottom:0px;\"><p>BOOK AUTHOR | MAGAZINE WRITER | TRAVELER<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"fusion-title title fusion-title-2 fusion-sep-none fusion-title-center fusion-title-text fusion-title-size-one\" style=\"--awb-margin-top-small:10px;--awb-margin-right-small:0px;--awb-margin-bottom-small:10px;--awb-margin-left-small:0px;--awb-font-size:25px;\"><h1 class=\"fusion-title-heading title-heading-center fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" style=\"font-family:&quot;Public Sans&quot;;font-style:normal;font-weight:900;margin:0;letter-spacing:6px;font-size:1em;--fontSize:25;line-height:1.1;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Public Sans'; font-weight: 900;\" data-fusion-font=\"true\" data-fusion-google-font=\"Public Sans\" data-fusion-google-variant=\"900\">ANDREW LAWLER<\/span><\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-5 fusion-flex-container has-pattern-background has-mask-background nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling 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style=\"--awb-padding-bottom-medium:0px;--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:33.333333333333%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:0%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:39px;--awb-spacing-left-large:11.808%;--awb-width-medium:33.333333333333%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:0%;--awb-margin-bottom-medium:0px;--awb-spacing-left-medium:11.808%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-image-element sm-text-align-center\" style=\"--awb-max-width:300px;--awb-caption-title-font-family:var(--h2_typography-font-family);--awb-caption-title-font-weight:var(--h2_typography-font-weight);--awb-caption-title-font-style:var(--h2_typography-font-style);--awb-caption-title-size:var(--h2_typography-font-size);--awb-caption-title-transform:var(--h2_typography-text-transform);--awb-caption-title-line-height:var(--h2_typography-line-height);--awb-caption-title-letter-spacing:var(--h2_typography-letter-spacing);\"><span class=\" fusion-imageframe imageframe-none imageframe-3 hover-type-none\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"472\" height=\"700\" title=\"secret_cover\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover.png\" alt class=\"img-responsive wp-image-14056\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover-200x297.png 200w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover-400x593.png 400w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/secret_cover.png 472w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 950px) 100vw, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-7 fusion_builder_column_2_3 2_3 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-padding-top:20px;--awb-padding-top-small:0px;--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:66.666666666667%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:2.88%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:0px;--awb-spacing-left-large:0%;--awb-width-medium:66.666666666667%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:0%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:0%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-testimonials classic awb-testimonials-layout-fade awb-testimonial-content-flex-start awb-speech-bubble-show awb-testimonial-author-inline fusion-testimonials-3\" style=\"--awb-flex-align-items:stretch;--awb-backgroundcolor:#fffcfc;--awb-testimonial-border-style:solid;--awb-testimonial-border-color:#fffcfc;--awb-testimonial-text-font-size:18px;--awb-testimonial-text-line-height:1.5;--awb-textcolor:#747474;--awb-content-valign:center;--awb-initials-bg-color:var(--primary_color);--awb-initials-text-color:#ffffff;--awb-testimonial-icon-size:2em;--awb-navigation-size:12px;--awb-margin-top:20px;--awb-margin-right:20px;--awb-margin-left:20px;--awb-border-top-left-radius:0px;--awb-border-top-right-radius:0px;--awb-border-bottom-left-radius:0px;--awb-border-bottom-right-radius:0px;--testimonial-border-width-top:0px;--testimonial-border-width-right:0px;--testimonial-border-width-bottom:0px;--testimonial-border-width-left:0px;\"><div class=\"reviews awb-carousel awb-swiper awb-swiper-dots-position-below\" data-touchscroll=\"touch\" data-loop=\"yes\" data-pagination=\"bullets\" data-autoplay=\"yes\" data-autoplayspeed=\"3000\" data-autoplaypause=\"no\" style=\"--awb-arrow-bgcolor:#999999;--awb-arrow-color:#fff;--awb-arrow-hover-bgcolor:#808080;--awb-arrow-hover-color:#fff;--awb-dots-align:center;--awb-arrow-position-vertical-transform:none;\" data-slide-effect=\"fade\" data-itemmargin=\"0\"><div class=\"swiper-wrapper\"><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;Just plain fascinating&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8211;The Washington Post<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;A book that is hard to put down&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8211;American Archaeology<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;A lively and engaging read&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8211;The Economist<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;A thoughtful and timely discourse about race and identity&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8211;Publishers Weekly<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;The most authoritative account of the Lost Colony to date, if not the last word&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8211;Wall Street Journal<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-slide review alignment-left no-avatar\"><blockquote><div class=\"awb-quote\"><div class=\"awb-quote-content\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8220;[An] enjoyable historical adventure&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8211;Kirkus<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><span class=\"awb-triangle\"><\/span><\/blockquote><div class=\"author\"><span class=\"company-name\"><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"swiper-pagination testimonial-pagination\" id=\"fusion-testimonials-3\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-5\" style=\"--awb-margin-top:30px;--awb-margin-right:10px;--awb-margin-left:10px;\"><h5 class=\"\" style=\"text-align: center; --fontsize: 18; line-height: 1.3; --minfontsize: 18;\" data-fontsize=\"18\" data-lineheight=\"23.4px\">Order <em>The Secret Token <\/em>at these booksellers, or visit your local bookstore!<\/h5>\n<\/div><div style=\"text-align:center;\"><a class=\"fusion-button button-flat fusion-button-default-size button-default fusion-button-default button-3 fusion-button-default-span fusion-button-default-type\" style=\"--awb-margin-top:20px;--awb-margin-bottom:20px;--button-border-radius-top-left:0;--button-border-radius-top-right:0;--button-border-radius-bottom-right:0;--button-border-radius-bottom-left:0;\" target=\"_self\" href=\"#\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.secrettokenbuyingoptions2\"><span class=\"fusion-button-text awb-button__text awb-button__text--default\">Buy Now<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-3 secrettokenbuyingoptions2\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-3\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-3\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Secret Token<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">Order <em>The Secret Token<\/em>, including its audiobook, here, or visit your local bookstore!<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"flex-container\" style=\"display: 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target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"no-border alignleft wp-image-3720 size-full\" title=\"Barnes &amp; Noble\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/BN.png\" alt=\"Barnes &amp; Noble logo\" width=\"96\" height=\"37\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/audiobooks\/details?id=AQAAAICdhRUFmM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"no-border alignleft wp-image-3721 size-full\" title=\"Google Play\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/google-play.png\" alt=\"Google Play logo\" width=\"96\" height=\"37\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/a-perfect-frenzy\/21527951?ean=9780802164131\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"no-border wp-image-17970 size-full alignleft\" title=\"bookshop\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/boookshop2.png\" alt=\"bookshop logo\" width=\"98\" height=\"39\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex-item\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kobo.com\/us\/en\/ebook\/the-secret-token\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"no-border wp-image-3725 size-full alignleft\" title=\"Kobo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/kobo.png\" alt=\"Kobo logo\" width=\"96\" height=\"37\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-6 fusion-flex-container has-pattern-background has-mask-background nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-padding-top:0px;--awb-padding-bottom:0px;--awb-margin-bottom:0px;--awb-background-image:linear-gradient(180deg, #efefef 0%,#ffffff 100%);--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-center fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:1144px;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-8 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-padding-top:19px;--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:100%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:1.92%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:1.92%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:9.6%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-title title fusion-title-3 fusion-sep-none fusion-title-text fusion-title-size-one\" style=\"--awb-text-color:#000000;--awb-margin-left:40px;--awb-margin-top-small:10px;--awb-margin-right-small:0px;--awb-margin-bottom-small:10px;--awb-margin-left-small:0px;--awb-font-size:1.5em;\"><h1 class=\"fusion-title-heading title-heading-left fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" style=\"font-family:&quot;Public Sans&quot;;font-style:normal;font-weight:900;margin:0;letter-spacing:6px;font-size:1em;--fontSize:22.5;line-height:1.1;\">REVIEWS<\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-7 fusion-flex-container has-pattern-background has-mask-background nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-padding-right:40px;--awb-padding-left:40px;--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-flex-start fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:1144px;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-9 fusion_builder_column_1_3 1_3 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:33.333333333333%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:5.76%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:8.352%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.washington post\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>The Washington Post<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-4 washingtonpost\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-4\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-4\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The Washington Post<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\u2013<i>Gregory S. Schneider<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/outlook\/the-confusing-impossible-mystery-of-the-lost-colony-of-roanoke\/2018\/07\/19\/045eb2c0-4f19-11e8-84a0-458a1aa9ac0a_story.html?utm_term=.be4af0e937da\">Read on washingtonpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The lost colony of Roanoke Island will always be one of the weirdest episodes in American history. It has managed to stay in the news, off and on, for 431 years: the case of 100-plus English settlers vanishing in the woods and marshes of coastal North Carolina. But most Americans who know the basic mystery have no idea of the deep, tantalizing layers of strangeness that underlie almost every aspect of the tale.<\/p>\n<p>Things were off-kilter from the beginning. Sir Walter Raleigh had bankrolled a settlement for the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. But when the ship containing some 115 settlers arrived in the New World in July 1587, the captain and pilot mysteriously dumped them at Roanoke Island instead. Tucked behind today\u2019s Outer Banks, the island was reachable through some of the most dangerous waters of the East Coast. The native inhabitants had already been insulted and mistreated by other Englishmen, so this wasn\u2019t the most welcoming location.<\/p>\n<p>The man Raleigh chose to lead the colony, John White, was an artist, not an explorer. He brought his pregnant daughter and her husband. A few weeks after landing, daughter Eleanor gave birth to the first English baby born in America, Virginia Dare. At which point White \u2014 who was supposed to be running things \u2014 sailed all the way back to England to ask for more supplies.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t return for three years. By then, the settlers were gone. There were intriguing clues to their whereabouts carved on a tree and a post, including the name of a nearby native village. But rather than check that out, White sailed again for England.<\/p>\n<p>And the colony has been lost ever since.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s human nature to wonder what happened to those men, women and children. Capt. John Smith tried to figure it out after arriving at Jamestown in 1607. But it seems that every effort to solve the mystery has spun out strange tendrils of its own.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Lawler warns in his new book, \u201cThe Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke,\u201d that Lost Colony fever is a kind of madness. Happily, that doesn\u2019t stop him from plunging into the wild terrain of theories and conflicting evidence where so many others have disappeared. Lawler manages to do this in a clear-eyed way, conscious of whether he, too, is getting lost. He makes a good case that the search itself goes to the heart of what it means to be American. Plus, it\u2019s just plain fascinating.<\/p>\n<p>As a writer for Science magazine, National Geographic and Smithsonian, Lawler has a polished, pop-history writing style \u2014 informative without seeming dense, entertaining but not pandering.<\/p>\n<p>One of the strengths of the first section of the book is its depiction of the civilizations that had already been clashing for generations when Raleigh sent out his settlers. Not only were the sophisticated nations of native peoples disrupted by European colonization, but the Spanish had explored and settled along the East Coast for decades before the English arrived. The city of St. Augustine, Fla., boasted 250 houses more than a century before any English colony could claim such a number.<\/p>\n<p>One of Lawler\u2019s most fascinating points \u2014 which he touches on too briefly \u2014 is that the English pirate Sir Francis Drake may have left a large group of formerly enslaved workers on the Carolina coast in the year before the Lost Colony. Drake had captured the Africans and native South Americans during a raid on the Spanish port of Cartagena. If he left them at Roanoke, as some accounts suggest, they would \u201cform a mysterious other lost colony,\u201d Lawler writes. \u201cTheir presence on Roanoke would mean that the bulk of the first permanent settlers of England\u2019s initial New World colony were neither Christian nor European but North African Muslims as well as followers of West African and South American traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawler also does a good job conveying the strangeness of one of the central figures of the Lost Colony mystery: the wayward governor, John White. After describing White\u2019s return to find the colony abandoned and no sign of his daughter or granddaughter, Lawler puts his finger on something that by now has been nagging at the reader. \u201cThe record White left behind has a hallucinatory quality unlike almost anything in early American literature,\u201d Lawler writes. \u201cBonfires ignite as if by ghosts. There are footprints in the sands of a silent forest. .\u2009.\u2009. There is an otherworldly detachment to his tale, as if the governor were a disembodied witness rather than the main character in an emotionally wrenching journey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s right. White\u2019s narrative seems like a surreal dream. It brings to mind another strange account of adventures: Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s novel \u201cThe Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,\u201d which reads as though written by someone who never traveled the seas and made it up as he went along. Possibly while taking laudanum.<\/p>\n<p>So, what does it all mean? That\u2019s part two of the book, where Lawler tries to mop up the historical mess with centuries of theories about what really happened. He roams from John Smith\u2019s sighting of white children among the Indians, to the mid-20th-century craze for messages supposedly left on stones by Eleanor Dare, to the collection of misfits and competing scholars who toil away at the question today.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s frustrating stuff. Every idea that seems to have merit \u2014 complete with secret details discovered on ancient maps \u2014 either evaporates or remains unresolved. There have been intriguing recent developments, but we won\u2019t spoil some of the book\u2019s juicy tidbits.<br \/>\nThough he presents himself as a skeptical arbiter who will hold any charlatans accountable, Lawler falls into the habit of ending chapters with suggestive cliffhangers. It works, for a while, but gets distracting.<\/p>\n<p>The third and final section of the book aims for a cultural reckoning with the legacy of the Lost Colony. The heavier tone \u2014 who knew that Virginia Dare was once a symbol for white supremacists? \u2014 is a bit of a comedown after the crazy fun of the conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n<p>But the themes of mingled races, of cultures clashing to create something new, are surprisingly fresh and powerful. The issues raised by the Lost Colony are still playing out. It\u2019s a mystery in which all Americans have a stake.<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.wallstreetjournal\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>The Wall Street Journal<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-5 wallstreetjournal\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-5\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-5\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The Wall Street Journal<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\u2013<em>A. Roger Ekirch<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/the-secret-token-review-americas-first-unsolved-mystery-1529258523\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read on WSJ.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2018Would to God my wealth were answerable to my will,\u201d despaired John White in 1593, having been forced to sail back to England, never again able to return to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to search for the \u201cLost Colony\u201d of men, women and children marooned 4,000 miles from home. Not for four centuries would anyone make a systematic effort to resume the hunt.<\/p>\n<p>The narrative of America\u2019s oldest mystery unfolds between 1584 and 1590. Over the course of three voyages backed by Sir Walter Raleigh, two dozen vessels and more than 1,000 people crossed the Atlantic trying to establish England\u2019s first permanent New World settlement. Ambitions ran high. In cost and scale, the voyages far exceeded later efforts by the Jamestown settlers and the Pilgrims of Plymouth. \u201cIt was the Elizabethan equivalent of the Apollo program,\u201d writes Andrew Lawler in \u201cThe Secret Token.\u201d Yet, unlike later ventures, Roanoke was a dismal failure.<\/p>\n<p>After an exploratory expedition of the Carolina coast, some 100 men disembarked in 1585 on a small island within the Outer Banks, only to desert their primitive fort for England when fresh supplies from home didn\u2019t arrive. In 1587 a second attempt landed 118 settlers, including 17 women and 11 children, followed soon afterward by the birth of Virginia Dare, the granddaughter of the colony\u2019s governor, John White.<\/p>\n<p>The rest is well-known. At the colonists\u2019 urging, White returned to England later in 1587 to organize a re-supply mission, but the Battle of the Spanish Armada, pirates off Morocco and harsh weather all thwarted his return until August 1590, when he found Roanoke deserted and its makeshift houses dismantled. The only clues were letters carved into a tree (\u201cCRO\u201d) and a post with an inscription in capital letters (\u201cCROATOAN\u201d). Missing was the emblem of a cross, \u201ca secret token\u201d that the colonists had earlier agreed to leave, if necessary, as a sign of distress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Secret Token,\u201d spanning more than 400 years, offers the most authoritative account of the Lost Colony to date, if not the last word. After describing the failed attempts to establish a beachhead, Mr. Lawler jumps from the 1580s to the 20th century, when fortune hunters tried to resolve the colonists\u2019 fate. Amateur sleuths, genealogists and gold diggers joined the quest\u2014as did con artists, resulting in the sensational \u201cdiscovery,\u201d in 1937, of a large stone about 60 miles to the west of Roanoke Island. Inscribed on it were not only a cross but also the words of Gov. White\u2019s daughter, Eleanor Dare, lamenting the deaths in 1591 of her husband and the infant Virginia at the hands of Indians.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cDare Stone\u201d captured far-flung attention, from university geologists to President Franklin Roosevelt, who visited Roanoke Island and commissioned a commemorative stamp in celebration of Virginia Dare\u2019s birth. Notwithstanding the persistence of true believers, the stone proved to be a hoax, as did subsequent \u201cDare\u201d gravestones located in South Carolina by a Georgia stonecutter. No artifacts were ever found at the supposed site of the \u201cDare Stone\u201d\u2014or, for that matter, any subsequent trace of the California couple whose discovery first ignited the frenzy.<\/p>\n<p>Today, rather than Roanoke Island, two spots have excited historians and archaeologists as plausible destinations of the lost colonists. No longer is it thought likely that they migrated to a location in Virginia just south of the Chesapeake Bay. Instead, if they didn\u2019t fall victim to hostile Indians, starvation and sickness, a clutch of survivors or perhaps the entire company may have trickled south to Croatoan (today known as Hatteras Island), where fish and oysters were abundant and the natives were thought to be friendly. John White himself in 1590 had believed this their likely destination from the clues left on Roanoke. Excavation of a site at Cape Creek on Hatteras Island began in 1995, netting a copper signet ring and a rusted rapier, among other tantalizing artifacts. All, however, were of uncertain provenance.<\/p>\n<p>Alternately, in 2012 the discovery of an \u201cX\u201d beneath a patch of paper on an early map of North Carolina in the British Library received widespread publicity, supposedly for disclosing a site lying at the head of the Albemarle Sound, 50 miles west of Roanoke. (Like Croatoan, it would have afforded a central spot for viewing arriving ships.) But digs have yet to yield little more than shards of English pottery of indeterminate age.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou look lost,\u201d a bartender on Roanoke Island said to Mr. Lawler as she poured him a beer. After months of trudging through swamps and dense underbrush, grappling with misleading claims\u2014to say nothing of ticks, mosquitoes and poison ivy\u2014the author might be forgiven his confusion. In truth, he recounts his arduous travels with clarity and insight.<\/p>\n<p>This much seems possible, perhaps even likely (precious little is certain about the Lost Colony): Bands of colonists may have ventured to both Hatteras Island and Albemarle Sound and joined natives by whom they were assimilated. This theory, in fact, was first publicized in 1834 by the famous historian George Bancroft. Mr. Lawler even speculates that the survivors, embraced by their newfound families, may have hidden upon Gov. White\u2019s return, preferring, in short, to \u201cremain lost.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is tempting to exaggerate the enduring fascination of the ill-starred English colony. Occasionally the author overreaches in stressing its \u201cpowerful grip\u201d on our imaginations and, in particular, the attraction of Virginia Dare, America\u2019s first offspring of English descent, who over the years has been adopted by movements as disparate as feminists and white supremacists. \u201cThis is a haunting as much as history,\u201d the author asserts, \u201ca spooky tale reinterpreted by each generation to reflect our current national dreams and anxieties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Mr. Lawler\u2019s case, his notions of the New World as a multicultural melting pot come closer to reflecting current conceptions of \u201csocial justice\u201d than do traditional stories of massacres and mayhem. Would that his vision had been so.<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.theeconomist\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>The Economist<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-6 theeconomist\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-6\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-6\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The Economist<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/books-and-arts\/2018\/06\/07\/the-tale-of-the-lost-colony-is-a-chronicle-of-delusion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read on\u00a0economist.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The tale of the \u201cLost Colony\u201d is a 400-year chronicle of madness and delusion. As Andrew Lawler recounts in \u201cThe Secret Token\u201d, it begins in 1587 with the ill-conceived, ill-executed attempt to found the New World\u2019s first English settlement on Roanoke Island, and continues to this day in the obsessive quest to discover how and why the colony disappeared. Both the original settlers and those who, over the subsequent centuries, have quixotically tried to trace them seem equally deluded. They are all mirage-chasers, confident (despite ample evidence to the contrary) that the ultimate prize is within their grasp.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of the colonists, that prize was mountains of diamonds or gold, or a quick passage to Asia. For historians, archaeologists and amateur sleuths, it is the equally elusive object or text that will reveal the Lost Colony\u2019s fate. Yet in truth there is nothing very mysterious about the failure of the Roanoke settlement.<\/p>\n<p>This bid to establish a European outpost off what is now the coast of North Carolina was doomed by ignorance of the basic facts of geography, geology and geopolitics. Conceived by Sir Walter Raleigh, a favoured courtier of Elizabeth I, as a means to \u201cwrest the keys of the world from Spain\u201d, the site was chosen \u201cbecause on the mainland there is much gold\u201d\u2014and because Raleigh assumed it was strategically placed near an easy passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.<\/p>\n<p>None of these assumptions was grounded in reality. And reality quickly struck back, in the form of disease, starvation, hostile natives and even more hostile Spaniards. Hoping to obtain desperately needed supplies, John White, the governor, sailed for England. Delays caused by war, storms and other catastrophes meant it was three years before he was able to make it back. By then, the colony\u2014which included his granddaughter, Virginia Dare, the first English child born in North America, according to legend\u2014had vanished, leaving only a few tantalising clues behind.<\/p>\n<p>Thus begins the second part of this saga: the fruitless search for answers\u2014and the strange form of madness that seems to overcome anyone who gets too close to the subject. \u201cThe Lost Colony has a kind of inexorable pull, like a black hole,\u201d a researcher tells Mr Lawler. But if the hunt itself is a matter of \u201cchasing ghosts\u201d, Mr Lawler is on firmer ground in his effort to explain its hold on the American imagination. Above all, the legend of the Lost Colony fulfils the need for an origin story, one that is all the more powerful for its pathos.<\/p>\n<p>Still, it is an origin story of an exclusionary, even racist, cast. Given the devastation wrought on native populations, the obsessive focus on a handful of Anglo-Saxon settlers\u2014including, most poignantly, the infant Virginia\u2014is overblown. The notion that America began here, in the bogs and shifting sands of Roanoke Island, provides a distinctly Waspy pedigree for a nation with a far more complicated heritage.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Lawler is an intrepid guide to this treacherous territory. When he attempts to track down one of the most controversial artefacts associated with the Lost Colony, he confesses: \u201cNo scholar in his right mind would risk his reputation on the Dare Stone, which by now was academically radioactive. Fortunately, I was no scholar.\u201d This can-do spirit serves him well. His willingness to chase down every lead, no matter how outlandish, and his enthusiasm for the journey as much as the destination, make \u201cThe Secret Token\u201d a lively and engaging read.<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.publishersweekly\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Publishers Weekly<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-7 publishersweekly\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-7\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-7\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Publishers Weekly<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">Read on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/9780385542012\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">publishersweekly.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Part detective novel, part historical reckoning, Lawler\u2019s engrossing book traces the story of\u2014and the obsessive search for\u2014the lost colony of Roanoke, the first English settlement in the New World, which disappeared without a trace in 1590, save for a \u201csecret token\u201d carved into a tree: \u201cCroatoan.\u201d Lawler (Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?), a contributing editor for\u00a0Archaeologymagazine, provides detailed historical context about early North American colonization and brings to life the personalities behind the colony, including Walter Raleigh, its powerful backer, and Sim\u00e3o Fernandes, a Portuguese-born pilot often painted as the villain of the expedition. Digging in archives, visiting archeological excavations, and consulting previous leads, Lawler tries to wring a conclusion from the extant evidence: did the settlers die; did they merge with local Native American villages; did they leave the area? In the end, he decides it is more important to ponder why the story of Roanoke still resonates today, leading to a thoughtful and timely discourse about race and identity centered on Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas, and since appropriated by both pro- and anti-immigrant voices. Without solving a long-standing (and likely unsolvable) historical mystery, Lawler makes a strong case for why historical myths matter.<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.salon\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Salon<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-8 salon\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-8\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-8\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Salon<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\u2013<em>MATTHEW ROZSA<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2018\/06\/17\/why-white-nationalists-love-the-mystery-of-roanoke-the-lost-colony\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read on Salon.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke&#8221; is\u00a0a very special kind of popular history. While most students of American colonial history are at least vaguely familiar with the mystery of Roanoke Island \u2014 the famous &#8220;lost colony,&#8221; the first permanent English settlement in the so-called New World that seemingly vanished into thin air \u2014\u00a0this new book by Andrew Lawler explores not only what might have happened to those colonists, but why their disappearance is shrouded in\u00a0enigma for so many Americans.<\/p>\n<p>In 1587, the colony of 115 people settled in what is now Hatteras Island, North Carolina, to form the very first outpost in what would eventually become the American colonies.\u00a0Development of the colony seemed promising at first, but when colonial governor John White returned in 1590 on a resupply mission, he found that all of the inhabitants had\u00a0vanished. The only clue as to what had happened to them was a &#8220;lost token&#8221; carved into a post on the fence around the village \u2014 the word &#8220;CROATOAN.&#8221; The letters &#8220;C-R-O&#8221; has also been carved into the wood of a tree.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the failure of the Roanoke Colony did not put an end to the British imperial project in North America, not by a long shot. By 1607, the colony of Jamestown in modern Virginia was founded and made to last, and less than 170 years after that (a blink of an eye in terms of human history), a collection of\u00a013 much larger colonies would rebel against the Crown to form their own country, where this writer can be found in 2018 writing his review of &#8220;The Secret Token.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yet the legend of the Roanoke Colony has endured, a haunting reminder both of the perils of the early colonial days and a giant question mark at the center of America&#8217;s origin story. This is where Lawler&#8217;s book comes into the picture,\u00a0diving headfirst into the latest developments regarding the fate of the colonists and providing colorful, affectionate portraits of the modern men and women who have\u00a0been involved in\u00a0cutting-edge forensic and archaeological investigations into the Lost Colony.\u00a0Most importantly, though, Lawler sheds light on why the story of the Roanoke Colony remains so important today.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t just the archaeology,&#8221; Lawler told Salon. &#8220;I went into it as a science writer following this mystery that archaeologists were going to solve. And in the course of that, I began to dig into the history of the Lost Colony itself and I asked a simple question: When did the term &#8216;Lost Colony&#8217; come into use? And this is what led to what I think is an even more interesting aspect to this story than &#8216;solving the mystery,&#8217; and that is that the &#8216;Lost Colony&#8217; is a product of the 19th century. It was only in the 19th century that the Lost Colony was &#8216;lost.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As Lawler explained, there was a specific reason why Americans in the 19th century were so attracted to the story of the Roanoke Colony \u2014 namely, that it played into prevalent ideas about race.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And the reason I discovered it was &#8216;lost&#8217;\u00a0was\u00a0that the idea of the colonists assimilating with the Native Americans was a taboo,&#8221; Lawler told Salon. &#8220;Not only was it a taboo, the very idea was illegal, because at that point it was illegal\u00a0[for]\u00a0&#8216;colored&#8217; \u2014 or non-whites, or blacks \u2014 to mix with one another.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So I realized there was something more interesting here than a mystery,&#8221; Lawler continued. &#8220;There was a way in which the &#8216;Lost Colony&#8217; told us a lot about American anxieties about race, and also about immigration. Because the Lost Colony and Virginia Dare, who was the first English child born in America and born on Roanoke Island, they became legends in the 19th century.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The 19th century, as Lawler points out, was a time when Andrew Jackson became a widely beloved populist president in large part by stoking fears of slave rebellions and Native American uprisings. It was also a time when new immigrants from\u00a0places like Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe poured onto America&#8217;s shores \u2014\u00a0immigrants who were not considered white by the Americans who already lived here. These fears about interracial mingling and foreign influence were at the root of the Roanoke Colony&#8217;s mystery, especially since one of the most likely explanations for its disappearance is that the colonists\u00a0were absorbed into the nearby Native American tribes.<\/p>\n<p>This history of racism was not far from Lawler&#8217;s mind when I spoke to him about his book;\u00a0he pointed out how at least one popular anti-immigrant website (which has\u00a0published work by white nationalists) directly references Virginia Dare.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can check out VDare.com, which is a website run by a man named Peter Brimelow, an English immigrant who has an anti-immigrant website, a website where he raises concerns about the influx of particularly African and South American peoples into the United States, basically &#8216;the brown peoples,'&#8221; Lawler told Salon. &#8220;So it&#8217;s very much alive. And this idea of white Americans being surrounded and endangered and encircled by &#8216;brown people&#8217; is a very old idea, it&#8217;s not new, and the &#8216;Lost Colony&#8217; is very much a way into that story.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lawler perhaps\u00a0identified the political relevance of his book, and the Lost Colony&#8217;s story, most poignantly in a May\u00a0editorial\u00a0for the Washington Post:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Virginia Dare\u2019s story reveals our desire to assimilate and our anxiety about doing just that. This conflict is at the root of the cultural battle that led to violence last summer in Charlottesville, as white Americans confront the growing numbers of black and brown people with whom they share a country. The infant of Roanoke offers us two very different futures. We can be martyred for some imagined race, or we can recognize that to be American is, in its essence, to be willing to redefine our beliefs, goals and even our ethnicity. Only by getting lost can we become something new.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.kirkus\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Kirkus<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-9 kirkus\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-9\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-9\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Kirkus<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkusreviews.com\/book-reviews\/andrew-lawler\/the-secret-token\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read on\u00a0kirkusreviews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Early settlers vanish, spawning centuries of speculation.<\/p>\n<p>In 1587, more than 100 men, women, and children landed on Roanoke Island to become the first English settlers in the New World. In 1590, when the group\u2019s leader returned from England with supplies, the settlement had disappeared, never to be found again. Lawler (Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization, 2014, etc.), a contributing writer for\u00a0Science\u00a0and contributing editor for\u00a0Archaeology,\u00a0clearly has been infected with the \u201cLost Colony syndrome\u2026an urgent and overwhelming need to resolve the question of what happened to the colonists.\u201d He creates a vivid picture of the roiling, politically contentious, economically stressed Elizabethan world from which they sailed and a thorough\u2014sometimes needlessly so\u2014recounting of historical, archaeological, and weird theories to explain the disappearance. Besides visiting numerous archaeological digs, historical archives, and libraries in America, Portugal, and Britain and interviewing scores of experts, the author doggedly traces down frauds and hoaxes, no matter how improbable. The Zombie Research Society, he reports, warns of \u201csomething sinister still in the ground on Roanoke Island, waiting to be released into a modern population that is more advanced, more connected, but just as unprepared as ever.\u201d Something sinister certainly emerged in the settlers\u2019 relationship with Native Americans. At first, they \u201ctraded peacefully,\u201d learned each other\u2019s languages, and \u201cformed mutually advantageous alliances.\u201d But the English spread deadly disease among tribes with no immunities to Old-World pathogens, decimating communities, and although some leaders tried to treat Native Americans with gentleness, others lashed out against those they considered depraved savages. Native Americans responded with ruthless violence. Massacre is one theory of the settlers\u2019 fate; another, equally possible, is assimilation. Most historians believe that the colonists, \u201cif they survived, merged with indigenous society,\u201d miscegenation that some found unpalatable. An 18th-century traveler, for example, \u201crecoiled\u201d from the idea that \u201cwhite women found Indian husbands.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In this enjoyable historical adventure, an unsolved mystery reveals violent political and economic rivalries and dire personal struggles.<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.Amarchreview4\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>American Archaeology Magazine<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-10 Amarchreview4\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-10\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-10\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">American Archaeology Review<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\"><em>\u2014Mark Michel<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In July 1587, ninety men, seventeen women, and eleven children sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth landed on Roanoke Island in Pamlico Sound on the North Carolina coast.\u00a0 Their mission was to create the first English colony in the New World.\u00a0 Soon after landing, the governor\u2019s daughter gave birth to the first English child born in America, Virginia Dare.<\/p>\n<p>Because of hostile natives and lack of food and supplies, Governor John White returned to England that fall to resupply the colony.\u00a0 Due to various circumstances and the outbreak of war with Spain, White was unable to return for three years.\u00a0 When he finally reached the colony, it was deserted and the buildings dismantled. The word \u201cCroatoan\u201d was carved on the stockade and the letters C-R-O were carved on a nearby tree.\u00a0 But there was no carved cross, which was meant to signal that the colonists were under duress. White found no graves or other signs of foul play, and his search turned up nothing of interest.<\/p>\n<p>Croatoan presumably referred to a friendly tribe on the Outer Banks, but a storm was approaching and White was unable to travel there.\u00a0 No confirmed trace of the \u201cLost Colony\u201d has ever been found, even though a lot of people have been looking for some 400 years. This volume details the many attempts to answer, often with a touch of humor and irony, the question of what became of the colony by archaeologists, historians, hoaxers, actors, priests, Native Americans, and others.<\/p>\n<p>The author, Andrew Lawler, is a free-lance science writer who has more than thousand newspaper and magazine articles (including in <em>American Archaeology<\/em>) to his credit.\u00a0 He chases clues from the Mid-Atlantic to London and encounters a cast of characters worthy of a great novel, including serious scholars and cranks.\u00a0 He visits archives and archaeological digs to get first hand impressions from the experts.\u00a0 Everyone has a theory of what happened to the Lost Colony, but no smoking gun of evidence is forthcoming.\u00a0This is also the story of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World.\u00a0 Lawler documents how her compelling story drives the search for the Lost Colony, how she became a symbol for feminine innocence and white Americans subjected to the cruelty of people of color.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Secret Token<\/em> is a highly readable story of myth and history, science and fraud, and of mystery and adventure.\u00a0 It is a book that is hard to put down. The mystery of the Lost Colony may never be solved, but it is intriguing to explore.<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.thenorthcarolinahistoricalreview\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>The North Carolina Historical Review<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-11 thenorthcarolinahistoricalreview\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-11\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-11\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The North Carolina Historical Review<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.47.21-PM.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4798\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.47.21-PM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"880\" height=\"639\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.47.21-PM-200x145-1.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.47.21-PM-300x218-1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.47.21-PM-400x290-1.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.47.21-PM-600x436-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.47.21-PM-768x558-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.47.21-PM-800x581-1.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.47.21-PM.jpg 880w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.52.44-PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4801 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.52.44-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"644\" height=\"958\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.52.44-PM-200x298.png 200w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.52.44-PM-202x300.png 202w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.52.44-PM-400x595.png 400w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.52.44-PM-600x893.png 600w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.52.44-PM.png 644w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 644px) 100vw, 644px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.55.29-PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4803 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.55.29-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"645\" height=\"957\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.55.29-PM-200x297.png 200w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.55.29-PM-202x300.png 202w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.55.29-PM-400x593.png 400w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.55.29-PM-600x890.png 600w, https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Screen-Shot-2019-06-11-at-10.55.29-PM.png 645w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 645px) 100vw, 645px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.chapter16\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Chapter 16<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-12 chapter16\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-12\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-12\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Chapter 16<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p><em>-Emily Choate<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/chapter16.org\/pursuers-of-the-myth\/\">Read on Chapter16.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<em>The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and The Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke,<\/em>\u00a0Andrew Lawler ironically makes a decent case against getting too curious about the first English settlement in North America. Get too close to the puzzling details of Roanoke \u2014 a vanished community, a handful of contradictory clues, a cast of eccentric characters making inexplicable decisions \u2014 and you might just find yourself sucked into an enigma with no end.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler creates a vibrant portrait of the historical events surrounding the establishment of the Roanoke colony in the Outer Banks region of North Carolina and the colony\u2019s subsequent disappearance. He also illuminates the \u201cgravitational attraction\u201d of this mystery for generations of historians, archaeologists, genealogists, and conspiracists. After more than four centuries, the search for answers about the fate of the vanished settlers continues to lure fresh recruits.<\/p>\n<p>From the start, Lawler presents the story of Roanoke as a \u201chaunting as much as a history.\u201d \u201cTo die is tragic,\u201d Lawler writes in his introduction, \u201cbut to go missing is to become a legend, a mystery.\u201d Lawler argues that the \u201cdelicious dread\u201d Roanoke provokes in us feeds the part of our story-loving psyches that are drawn to unresolved destinies.<\/p>\n<p>As an extension of that fascination, Lawler also positions Roanoke as a potent, emblematic national myth. One purpose of his investigation is to reveal the legacy of the\u00a0<em>story<\/em>, not just the events. Such national myths, he writes, \u201chelp us get our bearings in each age.\u201d The Roanoke story acts as a touchstone for the cultural landscape surrounding it in any given era.<\/p>\n<p>In the book\u2019s first section, Lawler provides detailed context for the motives and hopes that likely drove 115 middle-class Elizabethan Londoners to brave huge unknowns in order to reach the New World, which at the time was dominated by Spanish colonizers, not English ones. Immune to romanticism about the European explorers, Lawler recounts the series of disastrous blunders the earliest English settlers made toward the Native American communities whose lives they disrupted or destroyed. His descriptions of this 16th-century world are seamless and atmospheric.<\/p>\n<p>Part Two of\u00a0<em>The Secret Token<\/em>\u00a0focuses on the search for the lost colonists and features an array of figures who are\u2014like the Roanoke mystery itself\u2014vexing and fascinating. For example, the late-19th-century North Carolina politician Hamilton McMillan used the rumor of the Roanoke settlers\u2019 white lineage blended into the local Lumbee tribe as pretext to offer the Lumbee concessions that raised their status above African Americans, thereby securing the tribe\u2019s vote. But McMillan didn\u2019t stop with political maneuvering; the legend hooked him, and he set out to research the truth for himself.<\/p>\n<p>Modern-day Roanoke researchers include engaging figures like the British archaeologist Mark Horton, a scruffy \u201chuman Google\u201d determined to discover from evidence in the marshy landscape whether or not the colonists fled to live with the nearby Croatoan tribe.<\/p>\n<p>Acknowledging the evolving place of Roanoke in the larger picture of our world, Lawler concedes that \u201con a planet with a surfeit of missing people and forgotten refugees, this search feels at best quixotic and at worst perverse.\u201d But stories like McMillan\u2019s underscore the darker elements of racial turmoil that are interwoven through our history, stretching all the way back to those first settlers. Tracking this national origin myth through centuries inevitably raises stark questions about where we stand now.<\/p>\n<p>Like America itself, Roanoke\u2019s myth is by turns grand and maddening, full of loose ends and red herrings. Through lively prose, Lawler succeeds in making this story as irresistible as it is emblematic of our nation\u2019s complex history.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.theashevillecitizentimes\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>The Asheville Citizen Times<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-13 theashevillecitizentimes\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-13\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-13\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The Asheville Citizen Times<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2014<em>Patricia Furnish<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen-times.com\/story\/entertainment\/2018\/05\/29\/what-happened-lost-colony-roanoke-malaprops-author-explores\/649722002\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CitizenTimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" data-fontsize=\"18\" data-lineheight=\"23.4px\">In search of the Lost Colony<\/h4>\n<p>Since elementary school, children from North Carolina and the surrounding area have learned about\u00a0one of the founding mysteries of the state: what happened to the Lost Colony?<\/p>\n<p>In his book \u201cThe Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke,\u201d Andrew Lawler writes engagingly,\u00a0and with a sense of humor, about how this mystery can overtake you.<\/p>\n<p>Even the straightforward narrative of how the English tried to establish a colony off the coast of North Carolina in 1587 is layered in misdirection and falsehoods. Yes, the new arrivals consisted of 115 men, women and children who landed on Roanoke Island to create the first English settlement in the \u201cNew World.\u201d But\u00a0how they landed and what followed is unclear.<\/p>\n<p>When the colony\u2019s leader, John White, left for provisions and returned after a three-year delay, the settlers had vanished from the site. The only piece of evidence was a \u201csecret token\u201d carved into a tree. That agreed-upon sign and a lot of other clues are hotly debated in their meaning.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler\u2019s research did not take him where he thought it would. At a key point, he realized, \u201cThis story will not be so easily solved.\u201d Archaeological work has not even found the actual location of the town now known as \u201cThe Lost Colony.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Lawler, he had \u201cbumped up against what we know from hard science.\u201d He, then, decided to find out what the amateur investigators and history buffs were doing.<\/p>\n<p>Archeologists have been digging in and around the location thought to be where the colony was established, but that has led to many false starts and a few misleading discoveries. It\u2019s frustrating to professionals and amateurs who think this mystery can be solved. The investigations continue to this day.<\/p>\n<p>For me, as a student of history, this is where Lawler\u2019s book capably straddles the two overlapping worlds of experts and amateurs. What better subject than the Lost Colony, where people feel passionately about conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and verifiable facts?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Secret Token\u201d also delves into how the Lost Colony became known as \u201clost\u201d in the first place and when the obsession with finding out what happened began. The answers are surprising.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler has discovered a larger historical truth: The Lost Colony tells us about ourselves as a nation. The enigma of what happened to the English settlers reveals our nation\u2019s own intermingled early history, which includes Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans. We have what Lawler described as \u201can anxiety about assimilation\u201d and the idea of America\u2019s Manifest Destiny.<\/p>\n<p>While it doesn\u2019t fit the definition of true crime, Lawler rightly calls the mystery of the Lost Colony \u201cAmerica\u2019s first cold case<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.greensboronewsandrecord\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Greensboro News and Record<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-14 greensboronewsandrecord\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-14\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-14\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Greensboro News and Record<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2013<em>Linda C. Brinson<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.greensboro.com\/go_triad\/arts\/books\/book-review-the-secret-token-sheds-new-light-on-lost\/article_eb607d51-e840-54e1-8396-47c515f64edc.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read on greensboro.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Virginia has Jamestown, Massachusetts has Plymouth, but the failed English colony on Roanoke Island in North Carolina has the most enduring place in the imagination of the nation that arose from these early settlements.<\/p>\n<p>North Carolinians, reared on tales of The Lost Colony and Virginia Dare, taken as schoolchildren to see the outdoor drama at Manteo, may think we know all there is to know about this story.<\/p>\n<p>But in his new book, \u201cThe Secret Token,\u201d Andrew Lawler, an award-winning journalist and author, sheds new light on the colony and \u2014 equally fascinating \u2014 on the myths that have grown up around the mystery and their importance in the national story that Americans tell ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>We know the basic facts: The colony that was supposed to have been the first permanent English settlement in the New World was established in 1587, organized by Sir Walter Raleigh, a knight who had a favored place in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. John White, a middle-age English merchant who was a keen observer and good artist, was the governor. Not long after the 115 colonists arrived on Roanoke Island, White\u2019s daughter, Eleanor Dare, gave birth to the first English child born in America, a daughter named Virginia in honor of the queen. Late in 1587, White returned to England to get supplies for the fledgling colony, but various complications, most notably the war with Spain, prevented him from returning for three years, until the summer of 1590.<\/p>\n<p>When White did return, he found that the colonists had vanished, leaving the three letters \u201cCRO\u201d carved into a tree, and the word Croatoan carved into a fencepost. That word is the \u201csecret token\u201d of Lawler\u2019s title. According to White\u2019s account, he and the colonists had agreed that if they left the island, they would leave behind the name of the place they went. If their departure was an emergency, they were to carve a cross over the name.<\/p>\n<p>There was no cross, and there was also no other clue as to where the colonists had gone. There are many more questions than answers, giving rise over the next 400 years to all sorts of theories, speculations and claims.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler grew up not in North Carolina but just over the Virginia line in Norfolk, and his family\u2019s summers on the Outer Banks included treks to see \u201cThe Lost Colony\u201d drama. He grew up to be a freelance journalist who writes for such publications as Science, Archaeology, National Geographic and Smithsonian.<\/p>\n<p>In the book\u2019s introduction, he tells how, despite warnings, he was drawn into the \u201cblack hole\u201d of obsession about the fate of the vanished colony.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately for readers, Lawler\u2019s obsession led him into extensive research on both sides of the Atlantic. He learned a great deal about the politics and ambitions that led to the attempted colony, the explorations that preceded it and what can be known about the personalities involved. North Carolinians may find themselves wishing that our state capital were not named in honor of Walter Raleigh, and those who have seen the outdoor drama may revise their opinion of the supposed villain, Fernandes, the Portuguese-born ship\u2019s pilot.<\/p>\n<p>What Lawler tells us about the origins and context of the attempted colony, as well as about Manteo, Wanchese and other Native Americans who were involved, is an engrossing story.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s only the beginning, however. The story gets livelier as he recounts various theories and claims over the years about the fate of the colonists, some fraudulent, others downright wacky, and even the more scientific ones speculative and incomplete. He talks about the Dare Stones, the Lumbee Indians, searches on Hatteras Island, the recent announcements about evidence that some of the colonists might have taken refuge in Bertie County, among other things.<br \/>\nLawler\u2019s investigations led him to wonder about the nature of the obsession he now shares. Because so little is known, he says, the Lost Colony gave Americans a legend and a story in which they could fill in the blanks as they see fit.<br \/>\nHe relates how this story of failure was transformed over the years into an enduring mystery and a romantic story, how Virginia Dare was made into a symbol and something of a saint, and how she\u2019s been used by various causes including the white supremacist movement.<br \/>\nHe makes a good case that the story and the ways in which it has been spun, have much to do with the historic and continuing struggles in this country to deal with our complex racial heritage and identity.<\/p>\n<p>Does Lawler solve the mystery of the Lost Colony? He has his theories.<\/p>\n<p>He may have learned more, though, and helped readers to learn more, about why this enigma has such a lasting and compelling place in our national consciousness.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-10 fusion_builder_column_1_3 1_3 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:33.333333333333%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:5.76%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:5.76%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.libraryhub\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Library Hub<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-15 libraryhub\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-15\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-15\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Library Hub<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p><em>\u2013Molly Odintz, Crime Reads Associate Editor<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-we-loved-this-week-5-18-2018\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read on\u00a0lithub.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been on a true crime kick this week, immersing myself in my favorite childhood mystery: the lost colony of Roanoke. I spent many hours (or, you know, minutes) contemplating the the mystery of the word Croatoan as a child, but have only intermittently thought of the lost colonists since. As a rabid fan of\u00a0<em>American Horror Story<\/em>, I adored Ryan Murphy\u2019s take on the denizens of Roanoke, and I enjoyed the Roanoke chapter in\u00a0<em>Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South<\/em>, which posits that the colonists of Roanoke formed a swampy socialist utopia with the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina. Yet not since childhood have I dived into the Roanoke mystery as thoroughly as I have over the past week, as I\u2019ve been reading\u00a0<strong><em>The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession<\/em><em>, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke<\/em><\/strong>, by Andrew Lawler. Does Lawler solve the mystery? You\u2019ll have to read the book (and I\u2019ll have to finish reading the book) to find that out.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.openlettersreview\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Open Letters Review<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-16 openlettersreview\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-16\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-16\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Open Letters Review<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2013\u00a0<em>Steve Donoghue<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/openlettersreview.com\/open-letters-review\/the-secret-token-by-andrew-lawler\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read on\u00a0openlettersreview.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The sheer unlikeliness of Andrew Lawler\u2019s previous book,\u00a0Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization, threw into sharp relief the author\u2019s writing ability; he carried the whole thing off so smartly and engagingly that he made a book about chickens a wholesale success. In light of the fact that Lawler has been freelancing newspaper and magazine articles for many, many venues for a long time, this is probably not surprising; he\u2019s long since learned how to turn any subject into an interesting reading experience. Readers who missed all those articles and only discovered Lawler through\u00a0Why Did the Chicken Cross the World\u00a0might naturally have wondered what amazing things this author could do if he turned his skills to a subject with a bit more inherent dramatic potential than the international poultry industry.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler\u2019s newest is just such a book.\u00a0The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke\u00a0focuses not just on the very sturdy evergreen mystery the lost colony of Roanoke (which, as he points out, historians and archeologists have for years been patiently pointing out was not actually \u201clost\u201d) but also on the origin and growth of the legend itself.<\/p>\n<p>The story was once a familiar part of any elementary-school American history education: in 1587, an English expedition of 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island off the North Carolina coast with the intention of establishing the first English colony in the New World. But when a re-supply mission reached the colony three years later, they found it deserted \u2013 even the houses and barricades were gone. The only clue was the \u201csecret token\u201d of Lawler\u2019s title, carved into a tree at the settlement site. Nearly a century later, when a beaver trader made his way to the island, a native calling himself \u201cthe emperor of Roanoke\u201d offered to show the man \u201cthe ruins of Sir Walter Raleigh\u2019s fort.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The New World expedition had been the darling project of Raleigh, who features prominently in Lawler\u2019s book. Indeed,\u00a0The Secret Token\u00a0is even stronger in its extensive sections back in Elizabethan England than it is on the shores of the Chesapeake; readers are taken on a fascinating, readable inquiry into the allure \u2013 not just financial but also imaginative \u2013 that the New World had the merchants, privateers, speculators, and ordinary citizens of the Old. All this careful grounding and broadening makes Lawler\u2019s the best account of Roanoke to appear in many years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGeography colluded with the final passing of the Roanoke generation to consign the fate of the vanished settlers to oblivion \u2013 at least among Europeans,\u201d Lawler writes. \u201cSailors steered clear of the treacherous shoals of the Outer Banks, considered the most dangerous waters south of Nova Scotia.\u201d \u00a0Likewise the \u201cmystery\u201d of the disappearance of the Roanoke colony was accidentally deepened by the prevailing cultural attitudes that prevailed for centuries after the event \u2013 cultural attitudes that avoided the obvious solution to the mystery: that the colonists, faced with fierce weather, grudging soil, and the threat of disease and starvation, willingly assimilated themselves into Native populations near and far \u2013 no mysterious disappearance, just a failed colony desperate to scatter and survive.<\/p>\n<p>Of course\u00a0The Secret Token\u00a0won\u2019t stop or even stall the outlandish speculation about Roanoke\u2019s fate (space aliens have, inevitably, been dragged into the whole thing many times), but readers who prefer the facts need look no further.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.alternet\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Alternet<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-17 alternet\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-17\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-17\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Alternet<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2013Matthew Rozsa<\/p>\n<p>Read on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/heres-why-white-nationalists-love-mystery-roanoke-lost-colony\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">alternet.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke\u201d is a very special kind of popular history. While most students of American colonial history are at least vaguely familiar with the mystery of Roanoke Island \u2014 the famous \u201clost colony,\u201d the first permanent English settlement in the so-called New World that seemingly vanished into thin air \u2014\u00a0this new book by Andrew Lawler explores not only what might have happened to those colonists, but why their disappearance is shrouded in\u00a0enigma for so many Americans.<\/p>\n<p>In 1587, the colony of 115 people settled in what is now Hatteras Island, North Carolina, to form the very first outpost in what would eventually become the American colonies.\u00a0Development of the colony seemed promising at first, but when colonial governor John White returned in 1590 on a resupply mission, he found that all of the inhabitants had\u00a0vanished. The only clue as to what had happened to them was a \u201clost token\u201d carved into a post on the fence around the village \u2014 the word \u201cCROATOAN.\u201d The letters \u201cC-R-O\u201d has also been carved into the wood of a tree.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the failure of the Roanoke Colony did not put an end to the British imperial project in North America, not by a long shot. By 1607, the colony of Jamestown in modern Virginia was founded and made to last, and less than 170 years after that (a blink of an eye in terms of human history), a collection of\u00a013 much larger colonies would rebel against the Crown to form their own country, where this writer can be found in 2018 writing his review of \u201cThe Secret Token.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet the legend of the Roanoke Colony has endured, a haunting reminder both of the perils of the early colonial days and a giant question mark at the center of America\u2019s origin story. This is where Lawler\u2019s book comes into the picture,\u00a0diving headfirst into the latest developments regarding the fate of the colonists and providing colorful, affectionate portraits of the modern men and women who have\u00a0been involved in\u00a0cutting-edge forensic and archaeological investigations into the Lost Colony.\u00a0Most importantly, though, Lawler sheds light on why the story of the Roanoke Colony remains so important today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just the archaeology,\u201d Lawler told Salon. \u201cI went into it as a science writer following this mystery that archaeologists were going to solve. And in the course of that, I began to dig into the history of the Lost Colony itself and I asked a simple question: When did the term \u2018Lost Colony\u2019 come into use? And this is what led to what I think is an even more interesting aspect to this story than \u2018solving the mystery,\u2019 and that is that the \u2018Lost Colony\u2019 is a product of the 19th century. It was only in the 19th century that the Lost Colony was \u2018lost.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Lawler explained, there was a specific reason why Americans in the 19th century were so attracted to the story of the Roanoke Colony \u2014 namely, that it played into prevalent ideas about race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd the reason I discovered it was \u2018lost\u2019\u00a0was\u00a0that the idea of the colonists assimilating with the Native Americans was a taboo,\u201d Lawler told Salon. \u201cNot only was it a taboo, the very idea was illegal, because at that point it was illegal\u00a0[for]\u00a0\u2018colored\u2019 \u2014 or non-whites, or blacks \u2014 to mix with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I realized there was something more interesting here than a mystery,\u201d Lawler continued. \u201cThere was a way in which the \u2018Lost Colony\u2019 told us a lot about American anxieties about race, and also about immigration. Because the Lost Colony and Virginia Dare, who was the first English child born in America and born on Roanoke Island, they became legends in the 19th century.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yet the legend of the Roanoke Colony has endured, a haunting reminder both of the perils of the early colonial days and a giant question mark at the center of America\u2019s origin story. This is where Lawler\u2019s book comes into the picture,\u00a0diving headfirst into the latest developments regarding the fate of the colonists and providing colorful, affectionate portraits of the modern men and women who have\u00a0been involved in\u00a0cutting-edge forensic and archaeological investigations into the Lost Colony.\u00a0Most importantly, though, Lawler sheds light on why the story of the Roanoke Colony remains so important today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just the archaeology,\u201d Lawler told Salon. \u201cI went into it as a science writer following this mystery that archaeologists were going to solve. And in the course of that, I began to dig into the history of the Lost Colony itself and I asked a simple question: When did the term \u2018Lost Colony\u2019 come into use? And this is what led to what I think is an even more interesting aspect to this story than \u2018solving the mystery,\u2019 and that is that the \u2018Lost Colony\u2019 is a product of the 19th century. It was only in the 19th century that the Lost Colony was \u2018lost.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Lawler explained, there was a specific reason why Americans in the 19th century were so attracted to the story of the Roanoke Colony \u2014 namely, that it played into prevalent ideas about race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd the reason I discovered it was \u2018lost\u2019\u00a0was\u00a0that the idea of the colonists assimilating with the Native Americans was a taboo,\u201d Lawler told Salon. \u201cNot only was it a taboo, the very idea was illegal, because at that point it was illegal\u00a0[for]\u00a0\u2018colored\u2019 \u2014 or non-whites, or blacks \u2014 to mix with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I realized there was something more interesting here than a mystery,\u201d Lawler continued. \u201cThere was a way in which the \u2018Lost Colony\u2019 told us a lot about American anxieties about race, and also about immigration. Because the Lost Colony and Virginia Dare, who was the first English child born in America and born on Roanoke Island, they became legends in the 19th century.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Virginia Dare\u2019s story reveals our desire to assimilate and our anxiety about doing just that. This conflict is at the root of the cultural battle that led to violence last summer in Charlottesville, as white Americans confront the growing numbers of black and brown people with whom they share a country. The infant of Roanoke offers us two very different futures. We can be martyred for some imagined race, or we can recognize that to be American is, in its essence, to be willing to redefine our beliefs, goals and even our ethnicity. Only by getting lost can we become something new.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.bookmarks\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Bookmarks<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-18 bookmarks\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-18\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-18\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Bookmarks<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/book-reviews.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4603\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/book-reviews-300x75.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.coastalreviewonline\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Coastal Review Online<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-19 coastalreviewonline\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-19\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-19\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Coastal Review Online<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2013Kip Tabb<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coastalreview.org\/2018\/07\/secret-token-casts-new-light-on-lost-colony\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read on\u00a0coastalreview.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p>MANTEO \u2013 The question of what happened to the 115 men, women and children of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island has endured in the American psyche for generations.<\/p>\n<p>Established in 1587 and soon abandoned in a land of warring Native American tribes, short on supplies and lacking the skills needed to survive, the mystery of their fate has been unsolved since John White found the word \u201cCroatoan\u201d carved into a tree in 1590.<\/p>\n<p>Using his perspective as a journalist and science writer,\u00a0Andrew Lawler\u00a0weaves a compelling and remarkable tale in \u201cThe Secret Token: Myth, Obsession and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke.\u201d\u00a0Lawler is also the author of \u201cWhy Did the Chicken Cross the World? The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization,\u201d the\u00a0story of how a semi-flightless Asian bird spread across the globe and\u00a0become a source of food and power.\u00a0As a journalist, his byline has appeared in\u00a0The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Smithsonian\u00a0and others. He is a contributing writer for\u00a0Science\u00a0and contributing editor for\u00a0Archaeology.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler\u2019s research bringing \u201cThe Secret Token\u201d to life is astonishing, traipsing back and forth across the Atlantic to research original sources. Interviewing researchers, archaeologists, historians and the occasional quixotic theorists in his quest to discover what truly happened, he guides the reader on a journey of discovery, and he is a wide-eyed guide, as astonished at what he discovers as his tour group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought I knew the story when this all began,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The writing reflects Lawler\u2019s journalism background. The sense of wonder comes in the sheer volume of information; the style though is objective and fact-based, and if there are conclusions to be drawn, it is because of the details that are presented in the book and not because of any opinion that he ventures.<\/p>\n<p>Because he avoids expressing an opinion, as the facts build, \u201cThe Secret Token\u201d seems, at times, like a mystery novel constructing a compelling case. Yet there is no smoking gun in this instance, saying \u201cThis is what happened.\u201d What there is, rather, is the tapestry of the American experience as it has evolved over 400 years.<\/p>\n<p>The search for the lost colonists becomes a reflection of the evolution of American thought.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was lost by us only in the 19th\u00a0century,\u201d he said, pointing to the first comprehensive history of this country, George Bancroft\u2019s \u201cA History of the United States.\u201d The first three volumes of his 10-volume set were published in 1834 and covered the time from the first attempt at colonizing America to the Revolution.<\/p>\n<p>Although Harvard-trained Bancroft had spent considerable time in Europe, especially Germany, at a time of rising romanticism in thought and a belief in myth to define an emerging German society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe cast it in those Gothic terms,\u201d Lawler said<\/p>\n<p>Seeped in the romantic writings of Europe, Bancroft wove a tale that fit the narrative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe called Virginia Dare the first English child born in the New World. He made her into a national symbol,\u201d Lawler said.<\/p>\n<p>That romanticized 19th\u00a0century view of a white babe born among the \u201csavages\u201d still lingers. It can be seen even today in Paul Green\u2019s \u201cThe Lost Colony,\u201d the outdoor drama performed, in theory, upon the very land of the Lost Colony.<\/p>\n<p>The play ends with the weakened yet determined colonists walking off into the wilderness, her father Anais dead at the hands of the savages, her mother holding the babe in her hands.<\/p>\n<p>Green, though, was a radical in his day. During a period in U.S. history when miscegenation was illegal, especially in the South, his English settler Old Tom and native Agona marry, foretelling, perhaps what many archaeologists and historians feel eventually did happen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe (Green) supposed an assimilation there, with Old Tom and Agona marrying,\u201d Lawler said.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler does not just look at the influence of the Lost Colony on American thought, he also examines in detail the events that were occurring in Europe at the time.<\/p>\n<p>What emerges is a place of political machination and intrigue. Spain, the dominant power of its time, pitted against England, an impoverished backwater land suspicious of science and innovation.<\/p>\n<p>The detail is extraordinary but important in carrying the story forward.<\/p>\n<p>In Green\u2019s play the colonists are terrified of the Spanish. History demonstrates they were justified in their fear. On more than one occasion, all the inhabitants of a non-Spanish colony were put to the sword, and Roanoke Island was well within land Spain claimed.<\/p>\n<p>The power struggle for control of the Americas and the seas played out in those 115 colonists. The colonists were seeking opportunity \u2014 a chance to better themselves economically and socially.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the game Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth and Simao Fernandes may have been playing is not as clear.<\/p>\n<p>Fernandes, the pilot who insisted the colonists be deposited on Roanoke Island even though plans called for them to begin their life in the Chesapeake area, has always been suspect. But in Lawler\u2019s nuanced examination of the man and the times his motivation does not seem nearly as sinister.<\/p>\n<p>The modern characters who comprise the search for the Lost Colony may be the most fascinating. A remarkable conglomerate of scientists, quasi-scientists and crackpots fill the pages.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler\u2019s eye for detail in describing them is wonderful.<\/p>\n<p>There is British archaeologist Mark Horton, who \u201c\u2026 to the dismay of his dig team, refuses to wear a belt around his perpetually sagging trousers.\u201d Nor does the man bathe as often as the people he is working with would wish.<\/p>\n<p>Fred Willard, who lived on the Outer Banks, was convinced the\u00a0Dare Stone, a rock brought to light in the 1930s that seemed to tell the story of Virginia Dare\u2019s demise, was real. He led his own excavations trying to find proof. \u201cHis bald pate, scraggly beard and piercing eyes gave him the look of a vengeful marsh prophet,\u201d Lawler writes in describing him.<\/p>\n<p>But the physical descriptions are the frame of a picture, a way to introduce the personalities. What emerges from Lawler\u2019s interviews and observations are nuanced and complex characters who believe the quest for the truth will have an ending.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Secret Token\u201d is a great read. It does not give a definitive answer to what happened to the Lost Colony. And in reading the book, the thought that there may not be a definitive answer seems likely. Yet what Lawler has done is expand the search for the inexplicable and unknowable into an examination of how we think of ourselves and our history.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.richmondtimesdispatch\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Richmond Times-Dispatch<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-20 richmondtimesdispatch\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-20\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-20\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Richmond Times-Dispatch<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2013Drew Gallagher<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.richmond.com\/entertainment\/books\/book-review-nonfiction-delve-into-epic-american-mystery-in-the\/article_3a46a501-bf8c-54fb-9ec7-8cca06c02852.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read on Richmond.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you are headed to the Outer Banks this summer, pick up a copy of Andrew Lawler\u2019s \u201cThe Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s probably not a bad idea to pick up a shovel and metal detector while you\u2019re at it, because after you finish Lawler\u2019s book, you\u2019ll have some notion that you are now prepared to solve the single greatest mystery in American history.<\/p>\n<p>That is what happened to the English settlers who were left on Roanoke Island in North Carolina to establish the first colony in North America in 1587. Circumstances forced the colony\u2019s governor, John White, to sail back to England and abandon his colonists and settlement, but with the vow that he would return in a few months with much-needed supplies and more colonists.<\/p>\n<p>For myriad reasons, the desperate White was unable to return to Roanoke Island until 1590, and when he finally did, there was no living trace of the colonists.<br \/>\nWhite discovered two messages (the \u201cSecret Token\u201d) carved into wood at the abandoned colony that indicated the colonists had moved 50 miles south to Croatoan Island (now Hatteras Island).<\/p>\n<p>But when White tried to sail the following day, fate intervened again. He was never able to reach the island and confirm their existence or story. His ship returned to England, and White was never able to return to the New World. His colony was \u201clost\u201d to both White and to history.<\/p>\n<p>The mystery of the Lost Colony has hounded scholars and sleuths for centuries, and Lawler delves deep into the pages of history and follows some threads and rumors all the way to Spain and Portugal in search of sailors\u2019 logs and clues tucked away in musty old libraries.<br \/>\nHe also joins a number of current excavations in North Carolina as assorted parties attempt to locate the Lost Colony over 400 years later. Spoiler alert: They have yet to find it.<\/p>\n<p>There are many theories as to what became of the colonists. The one that is most pervasive skews similar to the plot of the play \u201cThe Lost Colony\u201d that is produced every summer in Manteo mostly because every visitor to the Outer Banks has seen the play at some point in their visits.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler sifts through these theories at length. What emerges is a brilliant work of scholarship that may not explain the fate of the colonists, but it certainly gives plenty of fodder for the next generation of amateur history sleuths.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.outerbankscommongood\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Outer Banks Common Good<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-21 outerbankscommongood\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-21\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-21\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Outer Banks Common Good<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2013Kip Tabb<\/p>\n<p>Read on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/obxcommongood.org\/review-of-bestselling-author-andrew-lawler-and-his-new-book-the-secret-token\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">obxcommongood.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Andrew Lawler is a master storyteller. The author of\u00a0The Secret Token-Myth, Obsession and the Search for the Lost Colony\u00a0visited the Outer Banks to talk about his book\u2014just released last month\u2014and what the search for the 115 colonists has meant to him.<\/p>\n<p>The Bryan Cultural Series was host to two events this past weekend featuring Lawler. On Friday evening he was at All Saints Episcopal Church in Southern Shores and he appeared Sunday afternoon with ECU archaeologist Charles Ewen at the Dare County Arts Council Gallery in Manteo.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler began his talk in Southern Shores by telling the audience that at one time he thought he knew the story of the Lost Colony.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrowing up in Norfolk, Virginia, (visiting the Outer Banks) was the thing we would do every summer. There were two things to do. Bingo and cross the bridge to Roanoke Island and sit on the park benches for three and a half hours. I did that every year from when I was three until I was 18. So I thought I knew everything there was to know about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>A science writer whose articles have appeared in the New York Times and National Geographic, Lawler was in England working on a story and a chance encounter began his obsession.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne evening on a rainy night in Oxford or Cambridge I was seated by an English archaeologist and I asked him where he was digging,\u201d Lawler said. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018Zanzibar.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Curious, Lawler asked if there were any digs in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh there\u2019s a place but you\u2019ve never heard of it. It\u2019s called Hatteras\u201d his British archaeologist said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I said \u2018Hatteras Island.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I asked, \u2018Have you found the lost Colony?\u2019 And he said, \u2018As a matter of fact we did.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The archaeologist was Mark Horton who with Hatteras naive Scott Dawson has been digging at Buxton since 2009.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0The Secret Token, Horton portrays the artifacts that have been found at Buxton as conclusive.<\/p>\n<p>Other archaeologists are not so sure.<\/p>\n<p>When ECU Charles Ewen joined Lawler for a discussion of\u00a0The Secret Token\u00a0and what the various artifacts mean, he began by noting that our entire body of historic documentation for the Lost Colony consists of the writings of John White.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince there is so little factual evidence I always have to say, \u2018How much of what John White actually wrote is all the truth?\u2019\u201d he asked. \u201cThere are two camps. One of them has a bumper sticker that says, \u2018John White said it. I believe it. That settles it.\u2019 And then there\u2019s the more skeptical.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ewen is clearly in the skeptical camp.<\/p>\n<p>He pointed out that although there is suggestive evidence at the Hatteras dig, none of it is conclusive and all of it can be explained in equally as convincing ways that would not include the Lost Colonists.<\/p>\n<p>In his book, Lawler discusses at some length those very issues, and it is that full range of discussion that makes\u00a0The Secret Token\u00a0such a absorbing book.<\/p>\n<p>The book is rich in detail, filled with facts that trace the historic and political forces at work that created the Lost Colony in the 1580s.<\/p>\n<p>In the world Lawler uncovers, England is a backward nation lacking trained navigators, scientists and resources to colonize the New World. He explains how Sir Walther Raleigh, very much in Queen Elizabeth\u2019s favor, was granted the right to license all liquor establishments in England and that revenue is how he financed a venture the government did not have the money to undertake.<\/p>\n<p>The world the Colonists enter in 1587 is far more complex than they realize with Indian tribes and kingdoms forming alliances and seeking political advantage with a lust for power that was remarkably similar to Europe.<\/p>\n<p>What Lawler has done\u2014and it is what makes\u00a0The Secret Token\u00a0so compelling\u2014is examine what the disappearance of the 115 colonist has come to mean.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t until the 1830s that most people in America realized there was a Lost Colony\u2014and that came about because of Harvard trained historian George Bancroft\u2019s\u00a0A History of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Heavily influenced by the romantic philosophies that were sweeping across Europe at the time, he cast the birth of Virginia Dare as an innocent child born in a world of savages.<\/p>\n<p>Before that time, if it was contemplated at all, the Roanoke colony was thought of as a failed attempt. But when Bancroft recast its fate, Virginia Dare became an icon of the struggle to tame the United States and create a world in which an innocent white child would be safe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe made her into a national symbol,\u201d Lawler said.<\/p>\n<p>That symbolism continues until this day.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Green was radical for his time. During a period when miscegenation was illegal\u2014even a felony in some states\u2014he has Old Tom, the comic relief, marrying the Native woman Agona. And it is Old Tom who, with Agona asleep at his feet as he stands guard, talks about personal redemption and his hope for the future.<\/p>\n<p>But in the end, the weak but determined colonists, walk off into the wilderness, Virginia Dare in her mother\u2019s arms and her father dead at the hands of Wanchese and his tribe of savages.<\/p>\n<p>If that is the myth, the reality, however, is something we still don\u2019t know, and Lawler explores in wonderful detail the archaeologists, historians and occasional crackpot that have spent their lives in search of the answer to the Lost Colony.<\/p>\n<p>The book is a fantastic read, very well written with an amazing amount of research. It is detailed, with each fact carefully layered upon other facts so that the entire fantastic story of the 115 men, women and children who sailed from England hoping to discover a new life for themselves, becomes the story of who we are as a nation and a people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I discovered, is this is really the American creation story. This is the story about how we became who we are. It\u2019s where our national DNA formed,\u201d Lawler said.<\/p>\n<p>Next on the schedule for the Bryan Cultural Series is the 4th\u00a0Annual Surf and Sounds Chamber Music Series.\u00a0 These free concerts are scheduled from Tuesday August 21 through Friday August 24 at sites scattered from Duck to Buxton.\u00a0 The concerts feature a group of talented professional musicians offering exceptional performances.\u00a0 For more information about the concerts visit bryanculturalseries.org<\/p>\n<p>The Bryan Cultural Series is a non-profit organization formed in 2012.\u00a0 The board of directors is composed of nine community leaders dedicated to offering a series of high quality cultural events.\u00a0 These events will include a variety of visual, literary and performing arts.\u00a0 The board strives to glean from talent that has attained regional as well as national recognition to maintain a high standard.<\/p>\n<p>Substantial support for this annual cultural offering of events is provided by Towne Bank, Village Realty, Ramada Plaza Hotel of Kill Devil Hills and Hilton Garden Inn of Kitty Hawk.\u00a0 For more information about this events and future programs, visit bryanculturalseries.org.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.theintelligencer\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>The Intelligencer<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-22 theintelligencer\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-22\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The Intelligencer<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2013Gregory S. Schneider<\/p>\n<p>Read on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theintelligencer.com\/entertainment\/article\/Book-World-The-confusing-impossible-mystery-of-13091182.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">theintelligencer.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The lost colony of Roanoke Island will always be one of the weirdest episodes in American history. It has managed to stay in the news, off and on, for 431 years: the case of 100-plus English settlers vanishing in the woods and marshes of coastal North Carolina. But most Americans who know the basic mystery have no idea of the deep, tantalizing layers of strangeness that underlie almost every aspect of the tale.<\/p>\n<p>Things were off-kilter from the beginning. Sir Walter Raleigh had bankrolled a settlement for the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. But when the ship containing some 115 settlers arrived in the New World in July 1587, the captain and pilot mysteriously dumped them at Roanoke Island instead. Tucked behind today\u2019s Outer Banks, the island was reachable through some of the most dangerous waters of the East Coast. The native inhabitants had already been insulted and mistreated by other Englishmen, so this wasn\u2019t the most welcoming location.<\/p>\n<p>The man Raleigh chose to lead the colony, John White, was an artist, not an explorer. He brought his pregnant daughter and her husband. A few weeks after landing, daughter Eleanor gave birth to the first English baby born in America, Virginia Dare. At which point White \u2013 who was supposed to be running things \u2013 sailed all the way back to England to ask for more supplies.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t return for three years. By then, the settlers were gone. There were intriguing clues to their whereabouts carved on a tree and a post, including the name of a nearby native village. But rather than check that out, White sailed again for England.<\/p>\n<p>And the colony has been lost ever since.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s human nature to wonder what happened to those men, women and children. Capt. John Smith tried to figure it out after arriving at Jamestown in 1607. But it seems that every effort to solve the mystery has spun out strange tendrils of its own.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Lawler warns in his new book, \u201cThe Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke,\u201d that Lost Colony fever is a kind of madness. Happily, that doesn\u2019t stop him from plunging into the wild terrain of theories and conflicting evidence where so many others have disappeared. Lawler manages to do this in a clear-eyed way, conscious of whether he, too, is getting lost. He makes a good case that the search itself goes to the heart of what it means to be American. Plus, it\u2019s just plain fascinating.<\/p>\n<p>As a writer for Science magazine, National Geographic and Smithsonian, Lawler has a polished, pop-history writing style \u2013 informative without seeming dense, entertaining but not pandering.<\/p>\n<p>One of the strengths of the first section of the book is its depiction of the civilizations that had already been clashing for generations when Raleigh sent out his settlers. Not only were the sophisticated nations of native peoples disrupted by European colonization, but the Spanish had explored and settled along the East Coast for decades before the English arrived. The city of St. Augustine, Fla., boasted 250 houses more than a century before any English colony could claim such a number.<\/p>\n<p>One of Lawler\u2019s most fascinating points \u2013 which he touches on too briefly \u2013 is that the English pirate Sir Francis Drake may have left a large group of formerly enslaved workers on the Carolina coast in the year before the Lost Colony. Drake had captured the Africans and native South Americans during a raid on the Spanish port of Cartagena. If he left them at Roanoke, as some accounts suggest, they would \u201cform a mysterious (BEGIN ITAL)other(END ITAL) lost colony,\u201d Lawler writes. \u201cTheir presence on Roanoke would mean that the bulk of the first permanent settlers of England\u2019s initial New World colony were neither Christian nor European but North African Muslims as well as followers of West African and South American traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawler also does a good job conveying the strangeness of one of the central figures of the Lost Colony mystery: the wayward governor, John White. After describing White\u2019s return to find the colony abandoned and no sign of his daughter or granddaughter, Lawler puts his finger on something that by now has been nagging at the reader. \u201cThe record White left behind has a hallucinatory quality unlike almost anything in early American literature,\u201d Lawler writes. \u201cBonfires ignite as if by ghosts. There are footprints in the sands of a silent forest. \u2026 There is an otherworldly detachment to his tale, as if the governor were a disembodied witness rather than the main character in an emotionally wrenching journey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s right. White\u2019s narrative seems like a surreal dream. It brings to mind another strange account of adventures: Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s novel \u201cThe Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,\u201d which reads as though written by someone who never traveled the seas and made it up as he went along. Possibly while taking laudanum.<\/p>\n<p>So, what does it all mean? That\u2019s part two of the book, where Lawler tries to mop up the historical mess with centuries of theories about what really happened. He roams from John Smith\u2019s sighting of white children among the Indians, to the mid-20th-century craze for messages supposedly left on stones by Eleanor Dare, to the collection of misfits and competing scholars who toil away at the question today.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s frustrating stuff. Every idea that seems to have merit \u2013 complete with secret details discovered on ancient maps \u2013 either evaporates or remains unresolved. There have been intriguing recent developments, but we won\u2019t spoil some of the book\u2019s juicy tidbits.<\/p>\n<p>Though he presents himself as a skeptical arbiter who will hold any charlatans accountable, Lawler falls into the habit of ending chapters with suggestive cliffhangers. It works, for a while, but gets distracting.<\/p>\n<p>The third and final section of the book aims for a cultural reckoning with the legacy of the Lost Colony. The heavier tone \u2013 who knew that Virginia Dare was once a symbol for white supremacists? \u2013 is a bit of a comedown after the crazy fun of the conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n<p>But the themes of mingled races, of cultures clashing to create something new, are surprisingly fresh and powerful. The issues raised by the Lost Colony are still playing out. It\u2019s a mystery in which all Americans have a stake.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.napavalleyregister\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Napa Valley Register<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-23 napavalleyregister\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-23\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-23\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Napa Valley Register<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2013<i>Gregory S. Schneider<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Read on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/napavalleyregister.com\/lifestyles\/the-confusing-impossible-mystery-of-the-lost-colony-of-roanoke\/article_933b6976-d68c-5e5b-bb76-9d07da2fd7b0.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">napavalleyregister.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The lost colony of Roanoke Island will always be one of the weirdest episodes in American history. It has managed to stay in the news, off and on, for 431 years: the case of 100-plus English settlers vanishing in the woods and marshes of coastal North Carolina. But most Americans who know the basic mystery have no idea of the deep, tantalizing layers of strangeness that underlie almost every aspect of the tale.<\/p>\n<p>Things were off-kilter from the beginning. Sir Walter Raleigh had bankrolled a settlement for the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. But when the ship containing some 115 settlers arrived in the New World in July 1587, the captain and pilot mysteriously dumped them at Roanoke Island instead. Tucked behind today\u2019s Outer Banks, the island was reachable through some of the most dangerous waters of the East Coast. The native inhabitants had already been insulted and mistreated by other Englishmen, so this wasn\u2019t the most welcoming location.<\/p>\n<p>The man Raleigh chose to lead the colony, John White, was an artist, not an explorer. He brought his pregnant daughter and her husband. A few weeks after landing, daughter Eleanor gave birth to the first English baby born in America, Virginia Dare. At which point White \u2014 who was supposed to be running things \u2014 sailed all the way back to England to ask for more supplies.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t return for three years. By then, the settlers were gone. There were intriguing clues to their whereabouts carved on a tree and a post, including the name of a nearby native village. But rather than check that out, White sailed again for England.<\/p>\n<p>And the colony has been lost ever since.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s human nature to wonder what happened to those men, women and children. Capt. John Smith tried to figure it out after arriving at Jamestown in 1607. But it seems that every effort to solve the mystery has spun out strange tendrils of its own.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Lawler warns in his new book, \u201cThe Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke,\u201d that Lost Colony fever is a kind of madness. Happily, that doesn\u2019t stop him from plunging into the wild terrain of theories and conflicting evidence where so many others have disappeared. Lawler manages to do this in a clear-eyed way, conscious of whether he, too, is getting lost. He makes a good case that the search itself goes to the heart of what it means to be American. Plus, it\u2019s just plain fascinating.<\/p>\n<p>As a writer for Science magazine, National Geographic and Smithsonian, Lawler has a polished, pop-history writing style \u2014 informative without seeming dense, entertaining but not pandering.<\/p>\n<p>One of the strengths of the first section of the book is its depiction of the civilizations that had already been clashing for generations when Raleigh sent out his settlers. Not only were the sophisticated nations of native peoples disrupted by European colonization, but the Spanish had explored and settled along the East Coast for decades before the English arrived. The city of St. Augustine, Fla., boasted 250 houses more than a century before any English colony could claim such a number.<\/p>\n<p>One of Lawler\u2019s most fascinating points \u2014 which he touches on too briefly \u2014 is that the English pirate Sir Francis Drake may have left a large group of formerly enslaved workers on the Carolina coast in the year before the Lost Colony. Drake had captured the Africans and native South Americans during a raid on the Spanish port of Cartagena. If he left them at Roanoke, as some accounts suggest, they would \u201cform a mysterious other lost colony,\u201d Lawler writes. \u201cTheir presence on Roanoke would mean that the bulk of the first permanent settlers of England\u2019s initial New World colony were neither Christian nor European but North African Muslims as well as followers of West African and South American traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawler also does a good job conveying the strangeness of one of the central figures of the Lost Colony mystery: the wayward governor, John White. After describing White\u2019s return to find the colony abandoned and no sign of his daughter or granddaughter, Lawler puts his finger on something that by now has been nagging at the reader. \u201cThe record White left behind has a hallucinatory quality unlike almost anything in early American literature,\u201d Lawler writes. \u201cBonfires ignite as if by ghosts. There are footprints in the sands of a silent forest. .\u2009.\u2009. There is an otherworldly detachment to his tale, as if the governor were a disembodied witness rather than the main character in an emotionally wrenching journey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s right. White\u2019s narrative seems like a surreal dream. It brings to mind another strange account of adventures: Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s novel \u201cThe Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,\u201d which reads as though written by someone who never traveled the seas and made it up as he went along. Possibly while taking laudanum.<\/p>\n<p>So, what does it all mean? That\u2019s part two of the book, where Lawler tries to mop up the historical mess with centuries of theories about what really happened. He roams from John Smith\u2019s sighting of white children among the Indians, to the mid-20th-century craze for messages supposedly left on stones by Eleanor Dare, to the collection of misfits and competing scholars who toil away at the question today.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s frustrating stuff. Every idea that seems to have merit \u2014 complete with secret details discovered on ancient maps \u2014 either evaporates or remains unresolved. There have been intriguing recent developments, but we won\u2019t spoil some of the book\u2019s juicy tidbits.<br \/>\nThough he presents himself as a skeptical arbiter who will hold any charlatans accountable, Lawler falls into the habit of ending chapters with suggestive cliffhangers. It works, for a while, but gets distracting.<\/p>\n<p>The third and final section of the book aims for a cultural reckoning with the legacy of the Lost Colony. The heavier tone \u2014 who knew that Virginia Dare was once a symbol for white supremacists? \u2014 is a bit of a comedown after the crazy fun of the conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n<p>But the themes of mingled races, of cultures clashing to create something new, are surprisingly fresh and powerful. The issues raised by the Lost Colony are still playing out. It\u2019s a mystery in which all Americans have a stake.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.salisburypost\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Salisbury Post<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-24 salisburypost\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-24\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-24\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Salisbury Post<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>\u2013<i>Gregory S. Schneider<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Read on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/salisburypost.com\/2018\/07\/22\/the-confusing-mystery-of-the-lost-colony\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">salisburypost.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The lost colony of Roanoke Island will always be one of the weirdest episodes in American history. It has managed to stay in the news, off and on, for 431 years: the case of 100-plus English settlers vanishing in the woods and marshes of coastal North Carolina. But most Americans who know the basic mystery have no idea of the deep, tantalizing layers of strangeness that underlie almost every aspect of the tale.<\/p>\n<p>Things were off-kilter from the beginning. Sir Walter Raleigh had bankrolled a settlement for the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. But when the ship containing some 115 settlers arrived in the New World in July 1587, the captain and pilot mysteriously dumped them at Roanoke Island instead. Tucked behind today\u2019s Outer Banks, the island was reachable through some of the most dangerous waters of the East Coast. The native inhabitants had already been insulted and mistreated by other Englishmen, so this wasn\u2019t the most welcoming location.<\/p>\n<p>The man Raleigh chose to lead the colony, John White, was an artist, not an explorer. He brought his pregnant daughter and her husband. A few weeks after landing, daughter Eleanor gave birth to the first English baby born in America, Virginia Dare. At which point White \u2014 who was supposed to be running things \u2014 sailed all the way back to England to ask for more supplies.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t return for three years. By then, the settlers were gone. There were intriguing clues to their whereabouts carved on a tree and a post, including the name of a nearby native village. But rather than check that out, White sailed again for England.<\/p>\n<p>And the colony has been lost ever since.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s human nature to wonder what happened to those men, women and children. Capt. John Smith tried to figure it out after arriving at Jamestown in 1607. But it seems that every effort to solve the mystery has spun out strange tendrils of its own.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Lawler warns in his new book, \u201cThe Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke,\u201d that Lost Colony fever is a kind of madness. Happily, that doesn\u2019t stop him from plunging into the wild terrain of theories and conflicting evidence where so many others have disappeared. Lawler manages to do this in a clear-eyed way, conscious of whether he, too, is getting lost. He makes a good case that the search itself goes to the heart of what it means to be American. Plus, it\u2019s just plain fascinating.<\/p>\n<p>As a writer for Science magazine, National Geographic and Smithsonian, Lawler has a polished, pop-history writing style \u2014 informative without seeming dense, entertaining but not pandering.<\/p>\n<p>One of the strengths of the first section of the book is its depiction of the civilizations that had already been clashing for generations when Raleigh sent out his settlers. Not only were the sophisticated nations of native peoples disrupted by European colonization, but the Spanish had explored and settled along the East Coast for decades before the English arrived. The city of St. Augustine, Fla., boasted 250 houses more than a century before any English colony could claim such a number.<\/p>\n<p>One of Lawler\u2019s most fascinating points \u2014 which he touches on too briefly \u2014 is that the English pirate Sir Francis Drake may have left a large group of formerly enslaved workers on the Carolina coast in the year before the Lost Colony. Drake had captured the Africans and native South Americans during a raid on the Spanish port of Cartagena. If he left them at Roanoke, as some accounts suggest, they would \u201cform a mysterious other lost colony,\u201d Lawler writes. \u201cTheir presence on Roanoke would mean that the bulk of the first permanent settlers of England\u2019s initial New World colony were neither Christian nor European but North African Muslims as well as followers of West African and South American traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawler also does a good job conveying the strangeness of one of the central figures of the Lost Colony mystery: the wayward governor, John White. After describing White\u2019s return to find the colony abandoned and no sign of his daughter or granddaughter, Lawler puts his finger on something that by now has been nagging at the reader. \u201cThe record White left behind has a hallucinatory quality unlike almost anything in early American literature,\u201d Lawler writes. \u201cBonfires ignite as if by ghosts. There are footprints in the sands of a silent forest. .\u2009.\u2009. There is an otherworldly detachment to his tale, as if the governor were a disembodied witness rather than the main character in an emotionally wrenching journey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s right. White\u2019s narrative seems like a surreal dream. It brings to mind another strange account of adventures: Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s novel \u201cThe Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,\u201d which reads as though written by someone who never traveled the seas and made it up as he went along. Possibly while taking laudanum.<\/p>\n<p>So, what does it all mean? That\u2019s part two of the book, where Lawler tries to mop up the historical mess with centuries of theories about what really happened. He roams from John Smith\u2019s sighting of white children among the Indians, to the mid-20th-century craze for messages supposedly left on stones by Eleanor Dare, to the collection of misfits and competing scholars who toil away at the question today.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s frustrating stuff. Every idea that seems to have merit \u2014 complete with secret details discovered on ancient maps \u2014 either evaporates or remains unresolved. There have been intriguing recent developments, but we won\u2019t spoil some of the book\u2019s juicy tidbits.<br \/>\nThough he presents himself as a skeptical arbiter who will hold any charlatans accountable, Lawler falls into the habit of ending chapters with suggestive cliffhangers. It works, for a while, but gets distracting.<\/p>\n<p>The third and final section of the book aims for a cultural reckoning with the legacy of the Lost Colony. The heavier tone \u2014 who knew that Virginia Dare was once a symbol for white supremacists? \u2014 is a bit of a comedown after the crazy fun of the conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n<p>But the themes of mingled races, of cultures clashing to create something new, are surprisingly fresh and powerful. The issues raised by the Lost Colony are still playing out. It\u2019s a mystery in which all Americans have a stake.<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.praise\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>Praise<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-25 praise\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-25\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-25\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Praise for The Secret Token<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<h4 class=\"fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" data-fontsize=\"18\" data-lineheight=\"23.4px\">\u201cThe \u2018Lost Colony\u2019 of Roanoke is one of this country\u2019s most enduring mysteries. Andrew Lawler turns Roanoke into one of our history\u2019s best stories, recounting not only the fascinating, little-known history of the colony itself but that of the incredible swirl of historians, archaeologists, hoaxers, actors, priests, Native Americans, and experts on arcane subjects who have been caught up in the quest to find it. A tale of cock-eyed historical obsession,\u00a0The Secret Token\u00a0is also a serious look at America\u2019s confused ideas about itself.\u201d<\/h4>\n<p><em>\u2014Charles Mann,\u00a0New York Times\u00a0bestselling author of\u00a0The Wizard and the Prophet\u00a0and\u00a01491<\/em><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" data-fontsize=\"18\" data-lineheight=\"23.4px\">\u201cRiveting and carefully researched\u2026. Lawler takes us inside one of the oldest and most intoxicating mysteries in American history.\u201d<\/h4>\n<p><em>\u2014Candice Millard,\u00a0New York Times\u00a0bestselling author of\u00a0Hero of the Empire<\/em><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" data-fontsize=\"18\" data-lineheight=\"23.4px\">\u201cPlumbing the depths of the lost colony at Roanoke, the most enduring riddle of American history, reveals more about who we are today than the actual fate of the doomed expedition of 1587. Andrew Lawler\u2019s exhaustively researched and amusing narrative asks the question, \u2018What is history?\u2019 He deftly shows that the drama of burrowing down rabbit holes and chasing false leads is not simply entertaining, but deeply informative about our past.\u201d<\/h4>\n<p><em>\u2014Rinker Buck,\u00a0New York Times\u00a0bestselling author of\u00a0The Oregon Trail\u00a0and\u00a0Flight of Passage<\/em><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" data-fontsize=\"18\" data-lineheight=\"23.4px\">\u201cThe Secret Token\u00a0dives deep into the mysteries of the Lost Colony, chasing clues across ages, isles, oceans and archives and yielding a beguiling narrative of America\u2019s first English colony. This seminal tale of loss and longing helps explain who we are today.\u201d<\/h4>\n<p><em>\u2014Dean King,\u00a0New York Times\u00a0bestselling author of\u00a0Skeletons on the Zahara\u00a0and\u00a0The Feud<\/em><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" data-fontsize=\"18\" data-lineheight=\"23.4px\">\u201cA fascinating account of one of our country\u2019s great historical mysteries. Fast-paced and wonderfully written, with plenty of surprising turns along the way,\u00a0The Secret Token\u00a0is a delight.\u201d<\/h4>\n<p><em>\u2014Nathaniel Philbrick,\u00a0New York Times\u00a0bestselling author of\u00a0Valiant Ambition<\/em><\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><a class=\"fusion-modal-text-link\" data-toggle=\"modal\" data-target=\".fusion-modal.hrbooksreview\" href=\"#\">\n<h3>HRBooks Review<\/h3>\n<\/a><div class=\"fusion-modal modal fade modal-26 hrbooksreview\" tabindex=\"-1\" role=\"dialog\" aria-labelledby=\"modal-heading-26\" aria-hidden=\"true\" style=\"--awb-border-color:#ebebeb;--awb-background:#f6f6f6;\"><div class=\"modal-dialog modal-lg\" role=\"document\"><div class=\"modal-content fusion-modal-content\"><div class=\"modal-header\"><button class=\"close\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" aria-label=\"Close\">&times;<\/button><h3 class=\"modal-title\" id=\"modal-heading-26\" data-dismiss=\"modal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">HRBooks Review<\/h3><\/div><div class=\"modal-body fusion-clearfix\">\n<p>This book is a must-read for Virginia and North Carolina history buffs and nonfiction mystery enthusiasts.<\/p>\n<p>These days, almost anything written about Sir Walter Raleigh\u2019s \u201cLost Colony\u201d is a popular read. But Andrew Lawler\u2019s compelling, sweeping account is special.<\/p>\n<p>Lawler has aptly brought together all the leads, ideas, plausible scenarios and even some \u201cskeptical\u201d schemes that have developed during the past 400 years in his marvelous book, \u201cThe Secret Token: Myths, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Looking at all the angles of what has been called the \u201cgreatest mystery in American history,\u201d Lawler, a Norfolk native, has developed a research masterpiece that does everything but solve the Lost Colony mystery. But then how do you solve such a complicated whodunit 400 years after the fact with dozens of seemingly unconnected clues?<\/p>\n<p>This Elizabethan tale began with the third of the Roanoke voyages sponsored by Raleigh between 1584 and 1590 in an attempt to create an English settlement in the New World. After an initial exploratory expedition in 1584, Raleigh sent a seven-vessel fleet in April 1585 to \u201cVirginia,\u201d as he proclaimed the land, to establish an English colony. Two Indians \u2014 Wanchese and Manteo \u2014 were taken to England after the first voyage and returned to Virginia on the second. The enterprise was not successful and colonist returned after almost 11 months, forsaking the settlement.<\/p>\n<p>Yet another expedition was launched in 1587 headed by John White, an artist on the second expedition. About 150 men, women and boys in this settlement group came to Roanoke Island, in what is now coastal North Carolina, to re-establish the abandoned town.<\/p>\n<p>A child was born to White\u2019s daughter Eleanor and husband Ananias Dare. The babe named Virginia Dare is mentioned only once in historical records but ultimately became one of the legends of the fateful colony.<\/p>\n<p>White soon returned to England, wanting to accelerate plans to resupply and reinforce the colony, but a war with Spain intervened. It was three years later \u2014 1590 \u2014 before White could return. The colonists were gone.<\/p>\n<p>The word \u201cCroatoan\u201d was found carved on a pole of the old fort and White found \u201cCro\u201d also carved on a nearby tree. Lawler explained that these were a \u201csecret token\u201d agreed to by White and the colonists to signify if they had to leave the fort. A cross was to be placed over the letters if there was danger. White found no cross.<\/p>\n<p>Thus began the saga of \u201cThe Lost Colony.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawler, a science writer and inveterate researcher, conducted his own three-year quest. One historian he interviewed noted with some exasperation, \u201cYou just can\u2019t get away from that damn play,\u201d referring to Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paul Green\u2019s symphonic outdoor drama produced almost every summer on Roanoke Island since 1937.<\/p>\n<p>Green took bits and pieces of history, added dialogue, music and dance and a relationship with the local Indians to fashion the ultimate mystery that for tens of thousands of people is their only knowledge of the story of the little colony that was lost. The drama he created has become the foundation of the area\u2019s tourism. The play, with its dramatic licenses, ends with the settlers marching off into the darkness of the wilderness.<\/p>\n<p>During his detailed account, Lawler wrote about three individuals I have known well and written about: playwright Green and two Williamsburg archaeologists: Ivor No\u00ebl Hume and Nick Luccketti.<\/p>\n<p>No\u00ebl Hume, well known for his work at Colonial Williamsburg, conducted his own excavation on Roanoke Island in 1992 in search of the original Roanoke fort. Luccketti later organized the First Colony Foundation to examine a site on the North Carolina mainland where the lost colonists might have sought safety from vengeful local Indians.<\/p>\n<p>Their roles in the years-long archaeological investigations are significant.<\/p>\n<p>Luccketti also examined suppositions that the colonists moved to the area of Chesapeake, and married into neighboring Indian tribes. In the process, Lawler discusses various archaeological digs at the possible location of that original settlement. The archaeologist were unable to solve the mystery.<\/p>\n<p>The Lost Colony quest for many people became a life-long obsession to solve the mystery. After months of personal research and examining other efforts, the obsession also may have overtaken Lawler, who wrote, \u201cin my fever dream of obsession I did glimpse why this story exerts such a powerful grip on our imaginations and haunts us still.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added, \u201cWe weren\u2019t really looking for long-dead Elizabethans,\u201d but were \u201cinstead wrestling with what it meant to be American amid our national mashup of genes and traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawler concludes, \u201cThat drama, as with Green\u2019s play, has no inevitable outcome. It does, however, grant us the courage to do what they likely did, to step into the dark woods in an unfamiliar place and trust that, eventually, we will emerge in some new and unexpected form.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"modal-footer\"><button class=\"fusion-button button-default button-medium button default medium\" type=\"button\" data-dismiss=\"modal\">Close<\/button><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-11 fusion_builder_column_1_3 1_3 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-padding-right:10px;--awb-padding-left:10px;--awb-bg-color:#e5e5e5;--awb-bg-color-hover:#e5e5e5;--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:33.333333333333%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:5.76%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:5.76%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-6\"><p>INTERVIEWS<\/p>\n<\/div><ul style=\"--awb-line-height:23.8px;--awb-icon-width:23.8px;--awb-icon-height:23.8px;--awb-icon-margin:9.8px;--awb-content-margin:33.6px;--awb-circlecolor:#9e9e9e;--awb-circle-yes-font-size:12.32px;\" class=\"fusion-checklist fusion-checklist-1 fusion-checklist-default type-icons\"><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-arrow-alt-circle-right fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hankgarner.com\/episode-388-andrew-lawler-interview\/\">Author Stories Podcast with Hank Garner<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-arrow-alt-circle-right fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wunc.org\/post\/lost-colony-mirror-american-culture#stream\/0\">The Lost Colony: A Mirror for American Culture\u00a0\u2022 WUNC<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-arrow-alt-circle-right fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/authorsontheair\/true-story-andrew-lawler-author-of-the-secret-token\">Authors on the Air Global Radio Network<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-arrow-alt-circle-right fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/yesweekly\/docs\/yes__weekly_-_june_6__2018\/10\">Yes! Weekly<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-arrow-alt-circle-right fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/think.kera.org\/2018\/06\/06\/was-the-colony-of-roanoke-really-lost\/\">Was The Colony of Roanoke Really Lost?\u00a0\u2022 Think<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-arrow-alt-circle-right fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ymFrip91984\">The Breaking Free Show<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-arrow-alt-circle-right fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lemuriablog.com\/jhcl-interview-andrew-lawler\/\">Lemuria<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-arrow-alt-circle-right fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2018\/06\/17\/why-white-nationalists-love-the-mystery-of-roanoke-the-lost-colony\/\">Why white nationalists love the mystery of Roanoke, the lost colony\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>Salon<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-7\" style=\"--awb-margin-top:20px;\"><p>PODCASTS<\/p>\n<\/div><ul style=\"--awb-line-height:23.8px;--awb-icon-width:23.8px;--awb-icon-height:23.8px;--awb-icon-margin:9.8px;--awb-content-margin:33.6px;--awb-circlecolor:#9e9e9e;--awb-circle-yes-font-size:12.32px;\" class=\"fusion-checklist fusion-checklist-2 fusion-checklist-default type-icons\"><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-podcast fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wondery.com\/shows\/american-history-tellers\/episode\/5279-lost-colony-of-roanoke-searching-for-traces\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lost Colony of Roanoke | Searching for Traces | Season 34 Episode 3 | Jul 14, 2021 | 43 min<\/a><\/div><\/li><\/ul><ul style=\"--awb-line-height:23.8px;--awb-icon-width:23.8px;--awb-icon-height:23.8px;--awb-icon-margin:9.8px;--awb-content-margin:33.6px;--awb-circlecolor:#9e9e9e;--awb-circle-yes-font-size:12.32px;\" class=\"fusion-checklist fusion-checklist-3 fusion-checklist-default type-icons\"><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-podcast fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p class=\"listing__title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/7b0e4a9a-ebb2-420c-9884-51187843be97.libsyn.com\/penning-the-past-with-andrew-lawler\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Penning the Past With Andrew Lawler | Jul 15, 2026| 37 min<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-8\" style=\"--awb-margin-top:20px;\"><p>VIDEOS<\/p>\n<\/div><ul style=\"--awb-line-height:23.8px;--awb-icon-width:23.8px;--awb-icon-height:23.8px;--awb-icon-margin:9.8px;--awb-content-margin:33.6px;--awb-circlecolor:#9e9e9e;--awb-circle-yes-font-size:12.32px;\" class=\"fusion-checklist fusion-checklist-4 fusion-checklist-default type-icons\"><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-play-circle fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kFMnMEYwqIM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">What Happened to the Lost Colony at Roanoke \u2022 National Geographic (youtube)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-play-circle fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/video.nationalgeographic.com\/video\/101-video-shorts\/what-happened-to-the-lost-colony-of-roanoke?source=searchvideo\">What Happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? \u2022\u00a0<em>National Geographic<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-play-circle fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wtvr.com\/2018\/06\/19\/re-discovering-the-lost-colony-of-roanoke\/\">Virginia This Morning<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-play-circle fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?445796-1\/the-secret-token\">C-SPAN<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-play-circle fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.archaeologicalconservancy.org\/american-archaeology-magazine\/\">NC Bookwatch<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"fusion-li-item\" style=\"\"><span class=\"icon-wrapper circle-yes\"><i class=\"fusion-li-icon fa-play-circle fas\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><div class=\"fusion-li-item-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0X1Bl_mE3Vo&amp;t=3s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Secret Token Introduction<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-8 fusion-flex-container has-pattern-background has-mask-background nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-padding-top:0px;--awb-padding-bottom:0px;--awb-margin-bottom:0px;--awb-background-image:linear-gradient(180deg, #efefef 0%,#ffffff 100%);--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-center fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:1144px;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-12 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-padding-top:19px;--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:100%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:1.92%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:1.92%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:9.6%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-title title fusion-title-4 fusion-sep-none fusion-title-text fusion-title-size-one\" style=\"--awb-text-color:#000000;--awb-margin-left:40px;--awb-margin-top-small:10px;--awb-margin-right-small:0px;--awb-margin-bottom-small:10px;--awb-margin-left-small:0px;--awb-font-size:1.5em;\"><h1 class=\"fusion-title-heading title-heading-left fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" style=\"font-family:&quot;Public Sans&quot;;font-style:normal;font-weight:900;margin:0;letter-spacing:6px;font-size:1em;--fontSize:22.5;line-height:1.1;\">ADDITIONAL READING<\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-9 fusion-flex-container has-pattern-background has-mask-background nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-flex-start fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:1144px;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-13 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-flex-column\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:100%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:1.92%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:1.92%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-9 awb-text-cols fusion-text-columns-3\" style=\"--awb-columns:3;--awb-column-spacing:2em;--awb-column-min-width:100px;\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/speaking-of-science\/wp\/2016\/12\/21\/the-lost-colony-of-roanoke-loses-its-portrait-of-queen-elizabeth-i\/?utm_term=.2186c3eb852f\">The Lost Colony of Roanoke loses its portrait of Queen Elizabeth I \u2022 <em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/2015\/08\/150807-lost-colony-roanoke-hatteras-outer-banks-archaeology\/\">We Finally Have Clues to How the Lost Roanoke Colony Vanished \u2022 <em>National Geographic<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/history\/mystery-roanoke-endures-yet-another-cruel-twist-180962837\/\">The Mystery of Roanoke Endures Yet Another Cruel Twist \u2022 <em>Smithsonian Magazine<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chestertownspy.org\/2017\/07\/13\/a-new-look-at-the-lost-colony\/\">A New Look At The Lost Colony \u2022 <em>Chestertown Spy<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/made-by-history\/wp\/2018\/05\/24\/how-a-child-born-more-than-400-years-ago-became-a-symbol-of-white-nationalism\/?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.5c8d5c69d7d9\">How a child born more than 400 years ago became a symbol of white nationalism\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2018\/06\/archaeologists-start-new-hunt-fabled-lost-colony-new-world\">Archaeologists start a new hunt for the fabled Lost Colony of the New World\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>Science<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pilotonline.com\/news\/local\/history\/article_6a87ab29-868a-541a-b323-eed4757d35e0.html\">How Virginia Dare, born in the Lost Colony, became a symbol of white nationalism\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>The Virginian-Pilot<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/magazine\/2018\/06\/lost-colony-roanoke-history-theories-croatoan\/?beta=true\">It Was America\u2019s First English Colony. Then It Was Gone.\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>National Geographic\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/2018\/05\/lost-colony-roanoke-virginia-eleanor-dare-stone-mystery\/?beta=true\">Is This Inscribed Stone a Notorious Forgery \u2013 or the Answer to America\u2019s Oldest Mystery?\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>National Geographic<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/magazine\/2018\/06\/lost-colony-roanoke-virginia-mystery-map-interactive\/?beta=true\">Roanoke Wasn\u2019t America\u2019s Only Lost Colony\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>National Geographic<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsobserver.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/article212325244.html\">How Virginia Dare became a symbol of white nationalism\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>The News &amp; Observer<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/2018\/07\/04\/independence-day-july-fourth-colonists-roanoke-disappear-patriotism-column\/756266002\/\">Who really founded America? Hint: There was a whole season of \u2018American Horror Story\u2019 dedicated to them.\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>USA Today<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/retropolis\/wp\/2018\/07\/05\/dismissed-as-a-forgery-could-a-mysterious-stone-found-near-roanokes-lost-colony-actually-be-real\/?utm_term=.79d224181283\">Dismissed as a forgery, could a mysterious stone found near Roanoke\u2019s \u2018Lost Colony\u2019 be real?\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailypress.com\/entertainment\/dp-fea-book-notes-new-releases-0708-story.html\">HRBook notes: Search for Lost Colony leads author close to former home\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>Daily Press\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.greensboro.com\/news\/north_carolina\/could-a-mysterious-stone-found-near-roanoke-s-lost-colony\/article_5d8927a9-d895-5a26-aebe-9ee0b4c67c08.html\">Could a mysterious stone found near Roanoke\u2019s \u2018Lost Colony\u2019 be real?\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<em>Greensboro News &amp; Record<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/crimereads.com\/10-essential-true-crime-books-for-june-2018\/\">10 Essential True Crime Books\u00a0\u2022 CrimeReads<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"100-width.php","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4598","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Secret Token &#8226; Andrew Lawler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/the-secret-token-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Secret Token &#8226; Andrew Lawler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/the-secret-token-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Andrew Lawler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AndrewLawlerAuthor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-07-19T15:10:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/amazon.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"75 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/the-secret-token-2\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/the-secret-token-2\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Secret Token &#8226; Andrew Lawler\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/the-secret-token-2\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/the-secret-token-2\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/content\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/10\\\/amazon.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-07-30T18:26:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-19T15:10:53+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/the-secret-token-2\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/the-secret-token-2\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/the-secret-token-2\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"\",\"contentUrl\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/the-secret-token-2\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Secret Token\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"Andrew Lawler\",\"description\":\"Andrew Lawler is author of four books\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/cbc9a5140b6f2e4922d45f0726e70022\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/cbc9a5140b6f2e4922d45f0726e70022\",\"name\":\"AndrewLawler\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/content\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/02\\\/ST-LawlerJacketPic-1x1.jpg\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/content\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/02\\\/ST-LawlerJacketPic-1x1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/content\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/02\\\/ST-LawlerJacketPic-1x1.jpg\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":1920,\"caption\":\"AndrewLawler\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.andrewlawler.com\\\/content\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/02\\\/ST-LawlerJacketPic-1x1.jpg\"},\"description\":\"Andrew Lawler is author of three books, Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World\u2019s Most Contested City, The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke, a national bestseller, and Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization. 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As a journalist, he has written more than a thousand newspaper and magazine articles from more than two dozen countries. His byline has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and many others. He is contributing writer for Science and contributing editor for Archaeology. 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