We know that the birth of the first English child in a New World English colony took place on 18 August 1587. And that’s about all we know. Her grandfather and governor of the colony returned to England for supplies; the Spanish Armada held things up for a while; and by the time he returned- on 18 August 1590 – the colony had vanished.
The colony was Roanoke, the governor was John White, and Virginia Dare was the child. In the way of things, she has become a symbol for hope and of mystery; she made it onto a US stamp; and she has been claimed by everyone from feminists to white supremacists. In the background beats the tales of integration into local tribes.
One suggestion that hasn’t arisen is that witches had anything to do with the vanishing. The Salem witch trials were still a century away. Not so the Old World; the trial of the Pendle witches at the Lancaster Assizes began on 18 August 1612.