What’s up with our cultures fascination with the “Lost” colony of Roanoke?

[Konradleijon]

To the first why are people so surprised about the mass hysteria surrounding the Salem witch Trials?

Like the Puritans where less radical then the Pilgrims, but still where very Strict., not to mention their relations with the Indigenous folk, that went all the way to America, even through the Dutch what have taken them In but they thought their kids where getting to Dutch. And banned Christmas and plays. https://newengland.com/today/living/...ned-christmas/

So yeah them getting all hysterical and Hanging scapegoats/witch’s isn’t that odd.

Let’s get on to the Roanoke colony the most common theory amount historians is that they went to live with the Croatoan tribe. But 16th to 19th century WASPs couldn’t fathom why any Good God-fearing English folk. Could “downgrade” the,pmselves to living with “Savages”

And the Salem Witch Trials

So they concocted all this elaborate conspiracy theories https://www.salon.com/2018/06/17/why...e-lost-colony/

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Side note for W:tA: All the better that the Three Brothers are getting name changes. So long, inherent connection to racist conspiracy theory!

[Heavy Arms]

The basic answer seems easy enough:

US mainstream culture is built on a paradox of wanting to be independent from European culture, while also wanting to be seen as the next step if Western Civilization (aka... being part of European culture).

As such, mainstream American culture has a long history of sensationalizing anything that can somehow mix American specific cultural elements, while also promoting a sense of moral superiority on the European aspect of things... which is also why white nationalists love this stuff.

Obsession with events like the Roanoke colony allow the creation of a "unique" American cultural mythology/folk lore without having to cease being a European culture in character.

[Konradleijon]

Side note for W:tA: All the better that the Three Brothers are getting name changes. So long, inherent connection to racist conspiracy theory!

Including younger brother? Because that’s like to use a pop cultural example like the ministry of magic calling themselves “Voldemort’s” cool what are the new names?

[AnubisXy]

I mean people in general are interested in unexplained stuff. Whether it's ghost ships or the Bermuda Triangle or whatever, people are going to be interested in it.

As to the Roanoke colony disappearance specifically, after they vanished there was a ton of legal maneuvering that played out in the English courts as well is in the court of public opinion. Walter Raleigh had the legal claim to Virginia, but only so long as the Roanoke colonists were still alive. No colonists meant he had no claim. Meanwhile some of the families of vanished colonists wanted them to be declared legally dead so that they could inherent bank accounts and the like.

Raleigh was trying legally make the case that the colonists were still out there somewhere because he didn't want to lose his claims, and family members were trying to make their case that the colonists were dead, but nobody had any proof, just conjecture. Rayleigh sent a lot of expeditions with very public declarations that they would "find the colonists and bring them back home," but never did. This all played out in public, and the legal proceedings took almost a decade before the courts finally declared the colonists were legally dead. That was a long time and by that point everyone in England was somewhat familiar with the disappearance of the Roanoke colonists, and everyone had their own theories or conjectures about what had happened.

As a result of all of this playing out in public over an extended period of time, it managed to settle into the general public's consciousness and histories in a way that other similar disappearances never did, since other disappearances didn't really blow up and take as long to resolve in the same way.

[Konradleijon]

Side note for W:tA: All the better that the Three Brothers are getting name changes. So long, inherent connection to racist conspiracy theory!

What about The New World order from Mage? The conspiracy theory of the “Globalist” conspiracy that’s putting stuff on the water to turn the frog gay. Is like based on very anti-Semitic theories

Edit I meant new world order.
And yes I’m not saying any of White Wolf Developer's where knowingly huge anti-Semites that secretly put Dog whistles in their work, but is that they uncritically put in tropes and urban legends like Ronakee colony ,Ancient Aliens, and secret conspiracies that secretly control the world, it is that the got it and thought it would be cool to add because it has morphed into not racism.

Also here’s something else on the “lost” colony https://www.salon.com/2018/06/17/why...e-lost-colony/

[CTPhipps]

What about The New World zorder from Mage? The conspiracy theory of the “Globalist” conspiracy that’s putting stuff on the water to turn the frog gay. Is like based on very anti-Semitic theories

Also here’s something else on the “lost” colony https://www.salon.com/2018/06/17/why...e-lost-colony/

Zorder is a slur and yes, I get the context.

Don't use it again.

Also, The Technocracy is based on the work of Steve Jackson's Illuminati (and that's based on the Illuminatus Trilogy) which existed to PARODY those racist conspiracy theories.

Please don't accuse developers of propagating racist theories again.

[CTPhipps]

Let’s get on to the Roanoke colony the most common theory amount historians is that they went to live with the Croatoan tribe. But 16th to 19th century WASPs couldn’t fathom why any Good God-fearing English folk. Could “downgrade” the,pmselves to living with “Savages”

Speaking as an academic, while there's no way you CAN overstate the racism of American society and theory, the chief appeal of Roanoke has always been the fact that it "vanished."

Yes, they probably went to live with the locals and good for them but it's not like anyone went to talk to Settler Mickey and asked what his reasons were. He dropped out of European society and the colony was abandoned.

As such, it became a popular ghost story.

[Konradleijon]

Speaking as an academic, while there's no way you CAN overstate the racism of American society and theory, the chief appeal of Roanoke has always been the fact that it "vanished."

Yes, they probably went to live with the locals and good for them but it's not like anyone went to talk to Settler Mickey and asked what his reasons were. He dropped out of European society and the colony was abandoned.

As such, it became a popular ghost story.

Yeah like people don’t know how absurdly racist America was, (not that racism isn’t a big problem but less so)

Like after WW2 in the forties where I heard that around 80% or higher % of American Military personal took Japanese “mistresses” and there’s this huge outcry of Asiaitic women polluting the American gene pool.

[Dwight]

Lol wut? Source required

[Reasor]

The basic answer seems easy enough:

US mainstream culture is built on a paradox of wanting to be independent from European culture, while also wanting to be seen as the next step if Western Civilization (aka... being part of European culture).

As such, mainstream American culture has a long history of sensationalizing anything that can somehow mix American specific cultural elements, while also promoting a sense of moral superiority on the European aspect of things... which is also why white nationalists love this stuff.

Obsession with events like the Roanoke colony allow the creation of a "unique" American cultural mythology/folk lore without having to cease being a European culture in character.

The need for a national mythology is a good explanation for a lot of the weird folklore the US has accumulated in its brief history (did Bigfoot ever get statted in a White Wolf game, or were sightings just chalked up to Delirium affects from werewolf sightings?)

I've heard it said of Tolkein that The Silmarillion was a similar attempt to create an English myth cycle, since Anglo-Saxon culture doesn't have the deep and ancient roots in the UK that the Scots, the Irish, and the Welsh have.

[Dwight]

I'm pretty sure Bigfoot is in the bygone bestiary

[Konradleijon]

The need for a national mythology is a good explanation for a lot of the weird folklore the US has accumulated in its brief history (did Bigfoot ever get statted in a White Wolf game, or were sightings just chalked up to Delirium affects from werewolf sightings?)

I've heard it said of Tolkein that The Silmarillion was a similar attempt to create an English myth cycle, since Anglo-Saxon culture doesn't have the deep and ancient roots in the UK that the Scots, the Irish, and the Welsh have.

Bigfoot is a Thallain actually. And yeah Americans are known as desperate for a history.

[Dwight]

Bigfoot is a Thallain actually. And yeah Americans are known as desperate for a history.

By who exactly?

[CTPhipps]

By who exactly?

Stephen King said that this is the basis for the Western in ON WRITING and why he wrote the Dark Tower series. It's also an academic theory that was discussed in my Literature class where Americans attempt to conflate the age of their nation and the Founding Fathers to mythical levels because they are such a young nation.

The Wild West, Founding Fathers, WW2 movies, Hollywood as a whole, and other ideas being ways the United States attempts to give itself a grandiose history that it frankly doesn't have. America basically overcompensating because it doesn't have a lengthy cultural legacy.